The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-12-12
Washington First President
to Meet With Bolshepiism

g " IIII DWEOtlCVlCu
airy doctrines became the fashion. "A
great revolution Is preparing here"
Genet reported back to his home gov
eminent. America is lost to France
IL the purging fire of our revolution
does not reach its midst
/ He went from one public folly to
another, until finally both republicans
and federalists turned against him. He
tried to have Washington called be-
fore the supreme court to answer for
the wrongs which he imagined the
president had done him. In the end
he was recalled by France, but Robes
pierre being then in full power, and at
the height of his head chopping in
dustry, Genet feared to return and
Washington, with characteristic mag
nanimity. refused to allow him to be
extradited, and thus probably saved
his life. He remained in America
and married a daughter Of Governor
Clinton, of New York, where he lived
to old age. The wave of political
| revolution aroused by Genet subsidized,
but his doctrines found Judgement in a
soil that brought forth reign of ter
ror that threatened to have far reach
ing consequences. In 1871 congress
rad enacted laws laying excise duties
upon spirits distilled within the Unit
ed States. For two years the dis
tillers of Pennsylvania openly defied
the authority of the government, but
for awhile rested content with evad-
ing the law and boycotting those who
paid the tax. But with the spread Of
the new revolutionary doctrine, the
spirit of opposition was inflamed into
acts Of open rebellion against the au-
thority Of the government. Public
meetings were held at which the fed
eral government was scoffed at: its
coersive authority disavowed and ban
ners displayed bearing the motto,
Liberty and No Excise" Then the
nightriders began their work. Bands
of disguised persons, known as the
| "whiskey boys" visited those who
were inclined to obey the law. smash
ing their stills and inflicting bodily
=, injury on the owners. The tax COL
lectors were seized in the pursuance
| of their duties, and ridden on rails and
often tarred and feathered. Witness
es against the law-breakers were selz-
| ed at the doors of the courtrooms on
their way to give testimony and car
ried away by armed mobs, tied to
trees and whipped. The barns and
other property Of the taxpayers were
burned and destroyed. and the spirit
Of lawlessness and anarchy spread
rapidly through the country.
David Bradford was the chief agita.
tor among the Free Whiskyites" and
often led in person the desperate bands
in their career of violence. He was
al IN pannavjvQnfQ- had
accumulated a large fortune in the
whisky trade, and, being a bold and
INSCRIPTIONS politician, welded pow
erful influence over a certain class
among which the whisky consumers
figured prominently. Under Brad.
ford's leadership the region around
Pittsburgh drifted swiftly into con-
dition of open rebellion against the
government. July Is, 1894. one OF
Bradford's bands surrounded the
house of an inspector named Neville,
who opened fire on them and they re-
piled in like manner. Six OF the mob
were wounded and one killed.
This was the whisky mems Con-
cord. Thousands of them now flew to
arms and roamed the country dis.
tributing free whisky, burning the
houses and barns and destroying the
fields Of the government sympathizers.
Bradford then issued call for volun-
teers to capture the military stores at
Pittsburgh and a mob of seven thous-
and answered his call. Bradford, as
Stunning the title of major general.
reviewed his troops" and the march
on Pittsburgh was attended by a
wholesale intimidation of the disaf-
fected, the robbing Of houses and the
burning OF buildings. At Parkinson's
Ferry, where Bradford called meet
ing to organize his insurrectionary
government, sixteen thousand men, 1t
was said, rallied to his red banner
and pledged themselves to fight to
the death for his "cause."
President Washington called upon
the governor of Pennsylvania to take
some action against the insurgents,
but the governor, Mifflin, was a timid
man and a politician and was averse
to taking any steps that might lead to
bloodshed. He temporized and ex-
pressed the fear that it would be i'm
possible to get the militia to serve
against their insurgent fellow citizens.
Washington then determined to take
the matter in his own hands. August
II, 1894, he issued a proclamation
against the rioters and called for 49,
900 militia from Virginia, Maryland,
I Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to be
ready to march by Sept. 1. The militia
responded to the call with alaority and