Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1908 — ANOTHER BILIOUS ATTACK. [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER BILIOUS ATTACK.

The military editor of the syndicate organ down the street had another colicy attack Thursday, and broke out in a new place. This time it was The Democrat’s mention of the vain attempts of several of the soldiers camped here last Friday night to get liquor that aroused his ire, and he spews wonderfully. Regarding that matter The Democrat has only this to say: No charge of any of the soldiers being drunk while here was made; simply that they tried to get booze and failed, and that charge is admitted even by this tin sword "veteran” of the Republican. As to what doctor issued prescriptions we do not know, but every drug store in town, .according to their story, turned down applications for whiskey on these prescriptions, one a half dozen or more, we are informed. As a druggist can only sell in quantities as small as a quart, the number of drunks that the gallons of whiskey these prescriptione in the aggregate would have created can better be imagined than described. And had the applicants been successful in getting all this booze, the peace officers might have had a different story to tell. All soldiers are not boozers, nor are all boozers soldiers, but the make-up of the regular army of today is not the army of ’6l-65 — men who left the farm, the workshop and the counter to go in defense of their flag—and there is no comparison between them. Many now join the army who are the riff-raff of the country, a fact which is well known to all.

Only two or three years ago, when a detachment of soldiers were camped here over night, Strickfaden’s saloon which was then in operation, was thronged with these soldiers and one soldier, whom it was alleged insulted while drunk a woman near Milroy Park, that night, was beaten almost to death, it was alleged by one of his officers, and was taken next morning under guard back to Ft. Sheridan, with a broken shoulder and other injuries resulting from said beating. These facts are still fresh in the minds of the people, and all the ranting of this military editor will not change them in the least. Several of these soldiers that were here Friday night did try to get liquor, gallons of It in the aggregate, according to what we are willing to believe is trustworthy evidence. Now, according to this military editor's logic about The Democrat’s

remarks, he himself is guiltly of treason in supporting Judge Taft for the presidency, a man who assailed the memory of Gen. U. S. Grant at the tomb of the latter in his last Decoration day address, and where the son of the dead general and president was a listener. If we remember correctly So distinguished a gentleman as W. H., Taft, the republican candidate for the presidency, in an address a Tew months ago in his Decoration speech at Grant’s tomb in New York City rudely tore aside the mantle of charity that is generally supposed to protect the memory of the dead and referred to the greatest general of the civil war, Gen. U. S. Grant, as a boozer, as plain 20th century slang would call it. During the war, so the story goes, when complaint was made to President Lincoln of Gen. Grant’s indulgence in liquors, he remarked that if he knew the brand of whiskey Gen. Grant used he would send a demijohn of it to every Union general. And yet Mr. Taft’s remarks brought forth no criticism from this patriotic syndicate sheeet, the Rensselaer Republican, nor did it call him a traitor. The people of this community are very familiar with the heroism of the military editor of this sheet. They have not forgotten how he declined to go down and whip the Spaniards unless he could go as a commissioned officer, and the enlisted men did not want him, and he staid at home. They remember how a few years ago he went into a restaurant here, where M. H. Tyler, a quiet, peaceable citizen who never had a word of trouble with anyone, was sitting at a counter partaking of a lunch, and the big, brave tin soldier brutally assaulted him —for no cause whatever so far as was ever disclosed —and later plead guilty to assault and was fined and costed in the Jasper circuit court. They have not forgotten his later assault on a young man passing the office of his—the military editor's —employer, or his bloody fight on a train returning from a football game one Sunday evening a year or two ago, etc., etc. Heroes are as heroes do, and we never knew of a common bruiser who ever gained the plaudits of any except those of his own class. The facts are the syudicate organ hoped to create a little prejudice against The Democrat by this attack—a feature of its opposition that it has very persistently resorted to with little or no provocation whatever—in the vain hope of adding a vote or two to the g. o. p. but as \ usual it does nothing but further’’ discloses the asslnity of its editors.