Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1900-03-27
TODAY AND YESTERDAY.

Vituperation has long been the re-
sort Of a class of editors who are op-
posed to the national administration,
Il and who lack charges or arguments
3 to bring to bear against it. just ut
present such campaign of 9itupera-
sstion is being conducted by some pa
lpers upon the president of the United
4 States, andathe democratic editors who
write the grades point back to lincoln
as the example for Mr.. Mckinley to
follow. They very properly hold up
(, 4 dincoln as a great and good man, and
very presumptuously claim his prin-
sciples and views as their own.
In this state of things it is highly
Interesting to look back to the days Of
sLincoln and discover what these edi-
tors and their predecessors We're say
ing about the president Of the United
States then. The Clinton Herald has
been looking up the matter, and has
found that democratic editorials upon
Lincoln sound very much like those
now being written upon President Nc
Kinleys The Herald says:
Today the democratic papers are par
Rding the names of Abraham Lincoln
Y and Others in the suppression of the re-
y bellion, yet when .Lincoln was passing
Ssleepless nights and bending every Ell.
sergy to save the union, the leading edi-
tors of the party opposed to Lincoln
were calling him blackguard, thief,
william, murderer and other equally
harsh names.
But you may say this is guess work.
Not at all, FOR here are some extracts
from the press of Iowa One or two pa
pers located in eastern Iowa were es-
4 pecially vindictive. They were edited
& by young men, not SO very young, eth
er, but under forty years, for instance.
These editors were in the prime of
young manhood, with good education,
and with bright and some Of them even
brilliant intellects. But what record
they made. One OF the most venomous;
of these editors, in an editorial printed
less than two months before Lincoln s
assassination wrote and published the
following words, which are the closing
ones Of a long and bitter attack upon
Lincoln, Grant and the Union
cause, made over the heads of the
loyal preachers who did SO much for
the union:
The whole of this sickly abolition
Sentiment, as taught by the clergy, is
u gigantic lie. y y and yet these men,
these vilifers OF Gods word, stand up
nm their pulpits and with a persistency
worthy Of a better cause and with an
s Smpudence that the devil might envy,
continue to agitate.''
9sI But that is mild compared with other
q things that dripped from that pen
Here is brief specimen of his vituper.
a alton. A prisoner had died at Fort
Delaware, and this editor, after detail.
ing an account of the death, said in his
- t.Hcre is another murder by the
SGOUNDRELLY chief magistrate o,
this afflicted nation. Another innocen,
old man murdered by this negro-lovine
God defying, plotting, scheming public
thief and murderously ambitious vii
lain. Palsied be the tongue that echoe.
q from the heart praise for his deeds o.
blood.''
Then here is another editorial Of thu
same kind:
.ss 1--WE think the time has come wher
81 the people should pay no more atten
4ion to those unconstitutional whims
of a poor, miserable, smutty, joking
tyrant at Washington than to the in
sane rawlings of a mailman. The natio,
can submit to being ruled by an imbe
cile so long as that imbecile confines
his caprices to the limits of the consti
tuition, but as soon as he steps beyond
the restrictions of that instrument, he
not only needs watching, but suct
of his acts as are unwarranted by thu
constitution, should be trodden under
FOOT
5l The above may be enough TO bring
Indignation to every loyal man and