Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1908 — AND WHO OWNS THE REPUBLICAN? [ARTICLE]

AND WHO OWNS THE REPUBLICAN?

The combined editors of the syndicate organ down the street have had a great deal to say about The Democrat’s financial affairs for several months past, beginning with the former’s exposure (?) of how The Democrat was falsifying jts assessment lists—of which it will hear more later. In that flatter The Democrat dearly proved by the tax records themselves that the Republican gang and not The Democrat were the tax dodgers. In every Instance this paper has downed the combined force behind the Republican, and now, (hat it refuses to be decent and attend to its own business, we propose to down it again.

It has had a great deal to say about The Democrat giving a mortgage to the First National Bank last spring, and of our owing for the new Linotype we put in then, as if other people do not sometimes borrow money and give mortgages when putting in new machinery or making improvements. This is none of the public’s business nor the Republican’s, but it has had the littleness to refer to it repeatedly. Last March we did borrow SSOO and gave a chattel mortgage on this office; $250 of this is due Jan. 1, 1909, and $250 Jan. 1, 1910. It will be paid when due, and that is all the interest the mortgagees have in The Democrat plant. They don’t “own” it any more than George Marshall’s wife owns the house in which the financial head of the Republican sleeps at night, although she was given a mortgage on the same for several thousand dollars. If the mortgagee is anyways uneasy for fear it will to take The Democrat plant, it has not manifested It to us. We might have borrowed thia money on personal security ? very easily—something that might bother the military editor to do—-but ho man is on our note for a dollar and we preferred giving the mortgage to asking any of our friends to go onr security.

This |SOO, together with some 1400 more was put into the first payment, or rental, of the $3,500 linotype added to* The Democrat's equipment last March, and(,the expense of installing the same. The Republican well knows that these linotypes are put out on what is called the rental plan—for Clarkey bought a Junior ($1,500) machine and at one time owed $1,250 on same. (That was the time he gave it in for assessment at SIOO and The Democrat man inadvertently informed the assessor that it had cost $1,500; and the assessor went back and made Clarkey change it to S3OO for assessment purposes.) In fact the Republican was figuring on buying one in precisely the same way and said that contract was already entered into at the time it and the Journal consolidated. Had it done so, according to its line of reasoning now, the Mergenthaler people would have "owned" the Republican office. The purchaser rents the machine for one year with the privilege of buying or continuing the rental at the end of that year. The Mergenthaler people own the machine in our office now—that is right—the same as any piece of property is owned that Is bought on the rental or payment plan, but if we should decide at the end of the first year that we don’t want the machine. it and it alone goes back to them, for they have no claim

on any other property whatever in this ofilce. But we expect to keep it and did so expect when we contracted for It, and as we have never had a line of correspondence with them since it was installed, nor no one has been sent out here to see if we were “still in town,” it would -seem that they are not nearly so much concerned about our intention or ability to pay for this machine as the Republican. Now, just a word regarding the Republican’s financial standing, or • backing—not because it is any of the public’s or our own business, but merely in self-defence. The military editor has always been a business failure, and when he had petered out at Brookston and Crumpacker got him a job down at Washington, pulling at the public teat, he was considerably worse off than nothing, t (We say this on authority of no less a personage than George E. Marshall, former owner of the Republican, who personaaly told us this, and said Healey was owing him also.) Then, after the failure of the U. S. government to recognize the "unsurpassed” ability (?) of this military genious, whose bump of self-esteem is most abnormally developed, and make him the “whole works” in the government print shop, he wanders back to Rensselaer and goes to work for his old employer Marshall.

After Marshall’s failure to drive The Democrat out of business, his turn-down for the postoffice, and the fact that he did not find things quite so roseate as they used to be when he was the Whole thing in the printing and publishing business in Rensselaer, the latter wanted to go hence. Healey’s assessment sheet for 1906—the first year after he returned from the nation’s capital —was but $45. The next year, after 365 days of unparallelled Roosevelt prosperity, his wealth had increased to $75, as shown by his assessment sheet on file in the auditor’s office. Marshall couldn't hardly sell all his holdings on such a payment as this—in fact the whole $75 was already invested in a piano and household goods according to his sworn statement—and a victim had to be found. This, it appears, was secured in the person of Dr. Washburn, who “wanted to enter politics.” Washburn was the Moses whe was to lead Healey out of the slough of financial despond and 3uip him with editorial honors, d he bought the entire Marshall holdings of newspaper plant and residence. Just what Healey had to put into it, unless it was a commission from Marshall for finding the victim and engineering the deal, is not apparent. But judging from his assessment sheet for that year, when all the property v ssessed on earth by either hi’ e'..< or family was valued at only $75, it is to be inferred that he nut nothing in. Washburn, also, it would appear put in little except wind—and right here we desire to state that w.e do not mention this through any unfriendly feeling toward Dr. Washburn, but that he has allowed and permitted a paper of which he is the financial head to wilfully and persistently, and with little or no excuse, attack The Democrat and employes of this office, makes him a party to our defense —for the mortgage -records show that he gave George E. Marshall and Lillie E. Marshall, his wife, three mortgages aggregating $7,500! They also show that he gave a $2,509 mortgage to the Jasper Savings and Trust Company on his >wn and the old Washburn property, in which he has an Interest—slo,ooo in all! Dr. Washburn has stated several times lately, we are told, that the d— rag-chewing of the Republican had to be stopped; that HE wouldn't have it. He has also stated that what he said bad to go down there, so we think The Democrat is fully justified in connecting him with that sheet. We guess The Democrat is about as well fortified financially as the syndicate organ down the street and when that organ's editors collectively or individually, turn their batteries on The Democrat they should hunt a soft spot ♦ - -all, for their guns usually hit the :'.rdest from the back end.