Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1909 — DR. WASHBURN SHOULD PUT ON CURB BITS. [ARTICLE]

DR. WASHBURN SHOULD PUT ON CURB BITS.

The Republican makes a fierce personal attack on the editor of The Democrat foi; the latter’s truthful report of the Nichols county treasury shortage, adding to the many libelous statements that paper bus made about us in the past few months, and creating a few more actionable libels. The remarks made by The Democrat about the Nichols shortage are matters of public record or easily substantiated facts that are wbll known to many people in Rensselaer and other parts of the county, and all the pent up vials of Wrath and billingsgate of the Republican trio will not change these facts one iota.

The Democrat has never made a statement regarding a public officer or private citizen that could not be substantiated by indisputable evidence. * It is true, as the Republican states, that we have been sued many times since we came to Rensselaer. But by whom? Discredited politicians who wanted to further feed at the public crib and hoped to drive The Democrat—the only paper they had to fear—out of business by piling up suit after suit, not one of which had any real merit, and which were generally dismissed before even coming to trial. Most of these cases were either egged on or propagated by the Republican, until a suit was filed by The Democrat man against G. E. Marshall, the former editor of that sheet, and it cost him enough in the compromise so that he was mighty quiet about The Democrat man ever after. One of the assets of The Democrat is the enemies it has made, and the people of Jasper county have apparently placed more confidence in its statements than they have in those made by the Republican—even hundreds of republicans repudiating some of the more notorious candidates their party machine and the official organ has foißted upon them. In proof of this statement we need only to refer to the election returns during the past ten years—Nichols’ vote with that of some others, his own township included. The Republican says The Democrat man has been repeatedly whipped, also. We do not recall it if we were, but we do not know that it is any disgrace to be whipped—■ even if we had been—while working in a righteous cause—for the general welfare of the people of Jasper county and against the grafters and shysters who have been bleeding the taxpayers. We at least have never jumped onto inoffensive citi-

izens and ponnded them up and then went into qourt and entered a plea of guilty—without even attempting to justify the assault—and had a | line assessed against us for such an : offense, which we believe the court l records show against one of this trio jof traducers of private character. It says that where best known we are recognized as a malicious liar—a libelous statement, If not true—and we would urge the financial end of the Republican to put a curb bit on the editors of that sheet or he may be one of the defendants in a few libel suits that might prove annoying to say the least. The Democrat man has resided for nearly a quarter of a century within a radius of 20 miles of Rensselaer, nearly eleven years here, and if he enjoys any such reputation here or elsewhere, except among the gang of political leeches who may talk this for effect —well knowing that the words are as false as their own uearts—he does not know it.

The we do know, however: We have never been driven out of any town we ever lived because of having lied about, someone; we have never been compelled to sign & libel or publish a statement in our own paper that we were a liar; we were never charged with having Turned our office into an assignation house, nor dismissed by our employers because of such alleged action; we have never been classed as a gambler nor a roue. No man can honestly say we ever wronged him out of a dollar, and no one, was ever criticised by any paper of our’s who did not deserve it, and deserve it mighty badly, too. w Calling „a» man a liar is usually the last resort of people who have nothing else to say, but it is not good taste, doesn’t prove anything, and sometimes is quite expensive.