Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1895-10-11
A CONSCIENTIOUS LIAR.

A EUNSClENSIUUS LIAN.
The Cresce Plain Dealer, last week,
"writing up" itself, on it's entrance
upon the thirty-eighth year of its eX-
istence, gives what it purports to be a
history of the newspapers of CrescO.
After giving a half-truth review of the
papers which have operated there,
it says:
And finally we have had Cap Harris, a
guerrilla in newspaper business, who after
six months or more induced Bcadle 4 Akers
to start a sort OF hybrid sheet under the pleas
ing title Of PUBLIC OPINION. they soon learn
ing that public opinion was against their en-
terprisc, and they, too, have folded their tents
and gone.
All these sh ysteriEg sheets that have goiM,
came braZeningly before the public ASKING
nd vertising patronage upon circulation from
four to ten times what they had, ami many
were the men who were imposed apon By
their fllse claims. Haislet. Powers. Jones.
Stillman and Akers never, eittcr or all Of
them. had Mt anv time four ndred actual
subscribers, and yet they II he'd us high as
two thousand circulation Ind apparently
stood ready to swear to 1alsehood.
Whatever may hS(e been the condi-
tion and shortcomings of those other
papers which ere started at Cresco,
and whatever fault may be laid at their
doors, the Plain Dealer should be the
last paper to speak of them. For every
body knows that there is no more of a
Hhylyid" or "shystering" sheet pub
Hshed in Iowa than it is. It is a
Jiongrel that will cater to almost any
faction or thing in order to get it's
claws on few coppers.
And as for truth, it is virtue of
which the Plain Dealer is as ignorant
as toad is of the Hawaiian question.
1t never had it in stock-never dealt in
that style of goods. We know nothing
of what the circulation of other papers
which have existed in Cresco Were, but
this we do know, and denonnce the
Plain Dealer as q liar if it says any,
thing different, that PUBLIC OPINION
had 700 bona fide subscribers Mt the
time it left Cresco, and that within a
few weeks Of its departure sent ont
1000 copies over the counties as sam
Piles. Those are the facts, and the
Plain Dealer, like the sneaking coward
that it Is, and always has been, lies
when it says that we had not more
than 4ooAEtpal subscribers.
en- fhs Poor "a illlng finds fSuil
vi the other papers. Now the
Pls Dealer is the poorest paper pub
lis1 in Cresco, and very likely the
pYoleSt paper ever published there. 1t
begged its way through for years and
years by securing few names to take
its four-page medicine advertising sheet.
Then Harris came along and sought
vsnrk for 6 his board with the p. d.
household. Harris put 1t OH its feet.
The publishers are toO lazy to do any
work, and Harris did for a time get
some n ews matter into it's dilapidated
columns. Then, upon the strength of
free help, it enlarged itself into seven.
column quarto, but thought it would
succeed better in bleeding the people
by cutting the sheet in two and send
onc-halIf out on Tuesdays and the other
on fridays. Actually there are not
more than about three columns of
reading matter In one issue, all the rest
being plates. And yet it will run
other Papers down.. 1t will also tell
about the dishonesty of Harris, but
HARRIS II no more dishonest than the
editor Of the Plain Dealer. He is just
the Same kind of a scalawag that Mead
is. These il no difference materially
between the two-only in methods OF
being dishonest, that is all.
Then the Plain Dealer has no prin.
cipie. II Is paper which is run on
wind and brass-will do anything and
say anything to make money enough
to live. During the war 1t abused and
villified the soldiers who went to bat.
tie In defense of the nation. 1t called
the loyal patriots LincOln's hirelings.
Old settlers remember well the course
which IL pursued, and because of the
abuse which appeared in Its columns
OF the soldieS, It's press and type was
'thMwn Into the river one night at
New Oregon, SD we are reliably in
formed. OF course 1t had to let up on
abusing the boys who were riskine
their lives ON the battlefield, until IL
got some hlOre type. But recently II
has been Rrctending to be the especial
chanpionl at the soldiers in the Van
Lueven Pension fraud cases, and dc.
nounces Waite and L0chren. How Its
love for the soldiers has changed! But
the p. %. takes ON this new air because
there are few dollars in it.
Then itscolumns has been filled with
slander andl abuse Of the best people o
Howard cd,untyy and 1t was only Q
couple or three years ago that the old
gentleman WAS roften-ccved an IN.