The Colfax chronicle., 1897-07-10
Infamous and Unmanly.


ple's Demands printed the following sen
tence, which he put in quotation marks
and asserted was the utterance of the
editor Of this paper, viz:
"Great questions" he says, "can't b.
trusted to the people,"
We denounced this statement as utter
ly untrue, and proposed to forfeit $40 il
he would show any such sentiment ut
tered by us in any issue of the CHRoNroLT
for the last twenty years; that to the con
trary, we have always contended and in
sisted that the people should settle all
questions. In his issue of last week Edi-
tor Dunn seeks to establish his untruth-
ful charge and publishes an extract,
from the CHaoNIcLE of Sept. %. 1896, in
which we were discussing the wrong of
permitting the masses (Populists, Inde-
pendents, etc., having voice in the con-
troll of the affairs of the Democratic party
in primary elections. The extract is as
follows:
"We know that the flanel-mouthed
demagogues will howl for these things
to be submitted directly to the "dear
people" They are to be submitted to
the people for final settlement, but we
are distinctly opposed to allowing the
people as mass to dictate the policy Of
the Democratic party. If party means
anything, 1t means a set of men bound
together by partisan ties, bent on carry
ing out principles that they believe are
best for the people and the country. y =
Let the Democrats of Louisiana return
to the time-honored sssages of the party !;
let the party 90 before the people
scih cledr-citt acell-defned Issues; and
let us put stop to this Populiatic, com.
munistic foolishness of the demagogues
who would disrupt and disorganize the
party in their wild aud selfish desire of
catering to popular prejudice and igno-
rance"
The words in italic occur in our article
as printed in September, 1895, but our
high minded and honorable contemporary
left them out last week because they
fatty contradicted the utterance he was
trying to establish.
How any man of ordinary sense could
be SO iaiotic as to attempt to construe
this language, which we applied and linn
tied to party government, as referring to
all the people of the country, we are TO-
tally unable to comprehend. That it
was so intended the words quoted shov
within themselves, while those which we
italicise abundantly prove the falsity of
his application. The words italicised it
appears were purposely and cunningly
left off by Dunn in an underhanded, cor
rupt and unchristian endeavor to sustain
his first base forgery and lying publica-
ton of language we have never used.
1t is not necessary for us to point ont
the absurdity of Dunn's position to oar
readers, as they are capable of under
plain English, thing that can
not be said for Dunn and the great bulk
of the readers of his paper. We therefore
simply print his statements and rest up
on their sense of justice and ability to
fairly judge as to the points Of contro-
versy.
He talks of inuendo, when we have used
plain language, and said what we meant
and meant what we said. There is no
need and no room for inference. He says
our utterances are lies from start to ffn-
ish. We say he lied for us, and that we
can prove it before any tribunal of jus-
tice or committee of arbiters, and we
challenge him to test the matter in any
form.
Dunn is pretty specimen to talk
about "elevating the STYLE of newspaper
controversy. when he descends to the
lowest depths of blackguardism and in
fanny known to journalism, and seeks by
abuse, threats and vilification to silence
Just protest and deserved criticism. He
vainly imagines that he can intimidate
and bulldoze US into allowing him to
palm off any kind of vile forgery as our
sentiment and utterance-that we will
not expose his rascality and knavery-
but in this he will certainly find himself
woefully mistaken. He possibly made
mistake through sheer ignorance or lack
If comprehension in the first instance of
and should have been man.
y enough to acknowledge his error, in
stead of going about and making an ass
If himself by hunting for material to
bolster up his incautious il not willful
md malicious lie.
We stand by our editorial of 1895, as
we'll as all similar utterances before and
'ince then, and particularly pride ourself |
IN our acumen and foresight in deciding
hat "fanel-mouthed demagogues" and
like Dunn and others of his
TX. should not be allowed to dictate the |