The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-05-03
BY CARL SNYDER.


won for him the additional soubriquet
of the Goal Oil Johnny" of journal
ism. 1t is difficult at this time to re-
| alize what wide swath Pomeroy cut
! in the politics Of twenty or twenty
! five years ago. He first began to be
heard of along about 1866 as the editor
of little weekly on the western edge
of Wisconsin. 1t was called the La
Crosse Democrat, and for the first four
or five years it struggled along with
total circulation of between one and
two hundred copies. This was Caring
the war, and although Pomeroy was
Union man he violently assailed the
administration and the chief generals
of the Union army-so violently, in
fact, that he was at one time put I'M
der arrest as southern sympathizer.
He was, however, promptly discharged
and returned to his attacks with more
virulence than ever. 1t was Pomeroy
who gave to the late Benjamin F. But
Ter the title of Beast Butler" and
many other prominent men of the time
came in for a share of his savage
and effective epithets.
A YOUNG EDITOR WITH A SHARP
PEN.
Pomeroy was at the time about 80
years old, audacious reckless and
good deal of a braggart, but with a
sharp pen and very considerable tall
ent for epigrams and quotable para
graphs. Although La Crosse at
the time was only a little country
town of two or three thousand in
habitants and several hundred miles
west of Chicago, when Chicago seemed
as far west as Denver or Salt Lake do
at the present time, Pomeroys bright
writings attracted wide attention and
gave him a name that it would be diff
cult for any country editor to gain
now.
But while the Democrat was quoted
over half the United States it was eX-
ceedingly unpopular at home and Pom
eroy records in his autobiography that
its circulation, at one time, sank as
low as twenty-seven paying subscrib-
ers. 1t was about this time that it's
career, as we'll as that of its editor,
came very near to an untlmely end.
Pomeroy had published particularly
violent attack on Lincoln, in which he
had declared in his f1amboyant style
that if the usurpations of the Union
president continued, it would be an act
of divine justice if some Brutus should
step forth from the ranks of the people
to STAY this modern Caesar. Or some
thing like that.
A few days later Lincoln was shot.
The opposition paper seized the oppor-
tunity and reprinted the editorial in
black type, with several clever ex-
cisions SO as to make the article out
very much worse than it really was.
A Minnesota regiment was camping
over the river at the time, and the
matter coming to their ears, they de-
termined to settle the case to suit
themselves.
THE DEMOCRAT OFFICE IN STATE
OF SIEGE.
In his book, Pomeroy gives a very
thrilling and entertaining tale of the
state Of siege which followed in the
Democrat office, and of how the paper
was set up by the employees with
composing stick in one hand, revolv-
er in the other and Winchester stand
ing by. 1t is to be noted that the Win
chester rifle was unknown in that day
and one of the employees of the Office
at the time tells me that the state OF
siege really existed only in Pomeroy's
Imagination. As a matter of fact the
Minnesota regiment across the way
never did anything more than make
very unfriendly call and retire rather
awkwardly when shown the full text
of the editorial. But it was not Pom
crows habit to let important events get
into history in such a pale-faced fasn-
ion as this-he wanted color, gay color,
in fact-and when it was lacking he
did not hesitate to supply It,
A RAG MONEY" CHAMPION.
At the close of the war Pomeroy's
fortunes were at so low an ebb that
he sold his gold watch-gold watches
in those days easily brought $3.50; in
order to keep the paper going. But in
another year the tide turned. The
country was in a feverish and almost
historical condition and one of the
chief questions of the day was what
TO do with the enormous quantity of
paper money which the government
had issued to meet the expenses OF the
war Pomeroy espoused the cause OF
the fiat dollar and indeed was one of
the first to break out with that mania
which a few years later came to be
known as ''greenbaclliSm.
The country was ripe for the green
back doctrine and Pomeroy's editor
ials being quoted widely he soon found
coming in from the most
distant parts of the country. The
Democrat promptly became the most
bitter and sensational rag money pa
per in the United States. And its cir
culation grew apace. From a few hun
dred it leaped into the thousands, and
by 1868 when the craze reached it's
height the circulation of the Democrat
was very close to a hundred thousand
copies. That figure was equivalent to
what three times that number would
now be. t'Pomeroy's Democrat" as
he had come to style it, was with prob
ably the single exception of Horace
Greeley's New York Weekly Tribune
the most widely read paper in the
country. Although La Crosse was at
the time about as far west in the eyes
of the east as some town like Rawlings
on the plains of Wyoming is now Pom
eroy boosted that the had sent 10000 /
copies of his paper into New York and
the New England States.
GAMBLING ON THE MORNING
MAIL.
The daily receipts from subscriptions |
at one time amounted to as much as |
$500 or $1,000 a day, and in fact it be- /
came a. favorite pastime with the /
speculative element of the Wisconsin |
town to gamble on the contents of |
The Democrats morning mail-that |
being about the only mail which La |
Crosse received at the time. 1t was I
the habit of crowd to gather in I
office where the mail lay
stacked up and unopened, and bid |
among themselves for the pile, judg-
ing as to the probable amount the /
letter contained from it's size Some t
times the bidder was the loser and /
sometimes the office. Iatterly the !
crowd came to gauge the amount of J
the pile with such accuracy that the I
loss either way was only the matter of /
a few dollars, save when big cam
paign subscription with several hum