The record-union., 1896-03-20
A CASE OF .sPUT UP OR SHUT UP.

Recently the Examiner" and the
Chronicle engaged in a controversy
relating to the extent of their circula-
ton. The Examiner" offered a sum of
money to charity if the Chronicle"
would show down its books. The
Chronicle" in reply contended that the
Examiner" had cooked it's books for
the occasion before it made the offer,
and therefore declined to enter a con-
test; whereupon the Examiner posted
the city of San Francisco with bills
containing the words Put up or shut
up"
The Daily Evening POST and the
Examiner are engaged in contro-
versy over the question as to whether
the Examiner had at one time been
on the payroll of the Southern Pacific
Company for $1,000 per month, and
whether the withdrawal of that subsidy
by Mr.. Huntington fully accounts for
the abusive course Of the Examiner
toward him. The Post has asked the
al any time on the payroll of the
Southern Pacific Company for $1,000
per month? The Examiner has taken
one part of the advice it has been so
liberal in Offering to the Chronicle; it
has ''shut up
We have no disposition to engage in
any controversy between our contempo-
raries, but the Examiner has been
very liberal in its abuse of what it has
been pleased to call railroad organs. -
By its denunciation of every paper
which, unlike itself, is willing to treat
the railroad interests Of the State with
fairness, it has pretended to a virtue
which it appears not to have possessed.
1t has denounced all its journalistic an
tagonists as railroad hirelings'' as a
method of inducing the public to believe
that its opposition to the railroads pro-
ceeded from the highest and best mo-
tives which can animate a public jour-
nal It has charged upon the railroad
companies the vice of purchasing the
venal elements of journalism, and it has
made this charge evidently for the pur-
pose of assuming that it did not belong
to that class.
It is a matter of unusual interest,
therefore, to the Journalistic fraternity
and the people of the State to know how
the current controversy is to terminate.
II the EXAMINER in fact has never
been on the payroll of the Southern Pa
cific Company for 1000 per month, it
would be easy for it to deny that allega-
ton. That it does not deny it in the face
of its constant repetition by a response
bic journal is conclusive evidence that
it is guilty.
When hereafter the Examiner" an
swers an antagonist with whom it may
have a controversy by declaring that
its opponent is a railroad organ, it will
be relevant. competent and material to
reply that the Examiners opposition
to the railroad company is because the
railroad company refuses to continue it
in the category of railroad organs.
There is no escaping the logical de-
duction from the situation The "Ex-
aminer' stands convicted before the
community of having been in the cate
CORY of railroad organs" railroad
hirelings" and railroad special plead
ers.'' 1t does not lie in ITS mouth here
after to handy these epithets in any
controversy it may have with any news
paper published in the State of Califor-
MIA. It can no longer masquerade in the
garments of virtue since by its silence it
confesses that it is itself a discarded
hireling.
When it espoused the cause of the
Gould-Vanderbilt syndicate who de-
sired to possess the Pacific railroads by
discounting the Governments claim
against these roads, a suspicion at once
arose that it was in the pay Of that
syndicate. It's virtuous indignation at
the slightest mention of this suspicion
is fresh in the memory of every
body. To bring to its conscious
ness the villainous journalistic prac-
tice of charging upon its contem-
poraries base and dishonorabIe motives.
the Record Union" intimated that the
Roentgen, commonly called the cathode.
ray might disclose a venal motive in
the Examiners" advocacy. With SEN
tentious indignation it replied that the
statement was "a Nplain Ie.' For four
days it has lain under the imputation
of having been in the paid service of
the Southern Pacific Company, and it
has maintained that silence which is
of itself an indication that denial is