The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1894-11-05

sires to ask you few plain questions
You have been a resident of this city
and county for many years Youi
reputation as citizen is good. Do you
sanction the campaign of libel and
wanton personal abuse which is being
made ostensibly in your behalf? Are
you party to the deal which has au'
thorized the attempted character
blackening of the opposition candi'
dates that has formed the whole
groundwork of Democracy's present
campaign? Do you personally take
any stock in sewer journalism and ir
blackguard misstatement? If not il
would pay you to set yourself right be.
fore the people.
Judge p. p. Smith, it has been claimed
for you that you are man of lofty
principle and personal dignity. The re-
lationship which you bear to the public
whose suffrage you will tomorrow So
licit is one ostensibly much superior tc
the filth and slime of venomous per-
sonality, and far above the malodorous
mouthings Of paid slanderers or the
scurrility Of imported character-as-
sassins. We wish to ask you, sir, il
you are in any degree responsible for
the reiterated lies and persistent sland-
ers which have been uttered against
the opposing Republican candidates by
the brace of smut-slingers who have
been imported and encouraged in this
campaign by the leaders of the Lacka-
wanna Democracy? If you are a deal
er in this grade of argument the people
should know it before elevating you to
the bench: If you are not, you owe it
to yourself to make an explicit repudia-
tion of the foulness which these men
are stirring up in your behalf.
Mr. Bailey, a word from you, also
would be exceedingly timely. You en-
tered this campaign enjoying the per-
sonal respect of hundreds of Republi-
cans who, while they had not intended
to vote for you, would not have done a
single dishonorable act to the detri-
ment of your candidacy. These men
have viewed with surprise the success
sive chapters of printed filth and pic
torial nastiness that have succeeded
each other in the so-called newspaper
which is officially supporting your
candidacy for sheriff. They have Won
dered if you have paid your money for
and given your consent to the villain
Gus lies and unqualified slanders of
that sewer-sheet about your opponent,
Mr.. Clemons. They have waited pa
tiently for you to interpose some hint
of personal disapproval of these des-
perate tactics of unrestrained rowdy-
ism. Are you going to disappoint
them? Are you willing, sir, to go be-
fore the intelligent voters of Lacka-
wanna county as an accomplice and an
abbetor of unconscionable Justification ?
Is it your purpose to sit still while your
Oakford alley 'organ" grinds out, day
after day, libels on the good fame of
your opponent to which no Republican
newspaper would stoop, in speaking Of
your own candidacy? Do you sanction
the pirate policy which would lie you
into Office over the remains of your an
tagonist's reputation? If you are SUI
perior to this kind of mendacity; If you
still have a sense of justice and fair
play in your bosom, ought you not to
come out with an emphatic disclaimer? ?
Can you afford, out of mere eagerness
lOI ouCCGoS, W lGilldlu COllleClcu
in the public mind with the calumnies
and the brazen falsehoods upon which
your canvass now rests?
Mr. Schadt, we believe that you are
heartily sick of mud-throwing and
wanton lying. If report be true, you
have already, in private conversation,
asserted your dissatisfaction with the
blackguard campaign inaugurated in
this county by the paper which your
county committee is circulating graf
uitously and thus indorsing. But sir,
do you not think it would place you in
a better light before the public were
you to proclaim this honorable repudia-
tion more conspicuously than in casual
conversations with individual voters ?
Against your own character not one
word has been said by the Republican