Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1890 — Back Talk from Bro. Shields. [ARTICLE]

Back Talk from Bro. Shields.

Editor Republican.— An editorial of Aug. 12th, charges me with favoring the proposition to nominate a county ticket by the Farmer’s Alliance of Jasper county, and that said position was taken in the interest of certain Democratic candidates. To the charge I plead “not guilty.” I opposed the ticket scheme in the subordmante alliance and cast my vote, against it in the county alliance. To further substantiate ray plea of “not guilty,” I submit the following communication from the county oilicets of tb.e F. A. I. U. of Jasper county, the original of which accompanies this communication. Rensselaer, Ind., Aug. 12, ’9O. The editorial in the Republican of Aug. 12th, attacking Bro. I). W. Shield, is entirely misleading and untrue. On the contrary Bro. Shields used his influence and voted against the nomination of a count}' ticket by the Alliance.

Jas. Wklcii, Dist. Organizer. D. 11. Yeoman, President. W. H. Hoover, Vice Pres. To further substantiate the truth of my statements, I refer any one reading this communication to J. E. Alter, Dan E. Fairchild, A. E. Pierson, Edgar Bruce, or any member of Jasper Alliance, Center Alliance, or Fair Oaks Alliance. Respectfully, David W. Shields.

The first point in the above communication Ave wish to call attention to, is the error” made in speaking of our issue of Aug. 12, aud it will be noticed that this mistake occuis in both Mi. Shields’ article and in the statement signed by the Alliance officials. Now we

naa WTssue or Aug. 12, that day being Tuesday. What is intended js to speak of Aug. 21st, and the fact that the error occurs in both the statement and Mr. Shields’ article is pretty good evide nee that the eame person is the author of both. In other words Mr. Shields wrote the statement

and the three gentlemen signed it, and in so signing these gentlemen furnish an illustration of how prone even good and true men are to carelessly make or endorse statements which will not bear the test of close examination.

They make the broad statement that the editorial in question was ‘ ‘entirely misleading and untrue” and this sweeping assertion is not modified by anything that precedes or follows it The editorial they refer to, or meant to refer to, covers quite a number of diverse points, and taking the assertion of these gentlemen for all that they say, all our assertions in the said editorial are “entirely misleading and untrue,” our surmise, for instanee, that Mr. Shields wrote the article signed “Alliance” which we copied with the editorial; but we think it safe to assume that they do not mean to deny that Mr. Shields did write the paragraph, nor do we suppose that Mr. Shields himself would make such a denial. Our article also refers to Mr. Shields’ letter regardin'! Messrs. J. W. Powell and E. J 1

Rhoades in the Indianapolis Sentinel. Again we presume that Messrs. Welch, Yeoman and Hoover did not mean to say that our reference in that particular was “entirely misleading and untrue.” No more will they wish to be understood as denying the truth of our reference to the fact that there was a movement in the Alliance in favor of a county ticket, because they, themselves, admit there wrs such a movement, in telliDg Mr. Shields voted in regard to it. Furthermore, we are sure the gentlemen did not really mean to pronounce as “entirely misleading and untrue” our statement that a well managed Alliance, kept on the lines laid down by. Ben Terrell, will be a great benefit to the farmers; and lastly, we are also sure the gentlemen have too clear a sense of right and justice to bh willing to be understood as-declaring untrue our assertion that The Republican has always been friendly to the Alliance. What then did these gentlemen mean w hen they pronounced our entire article “entirely misleading and untrue.” It is charitable to suppose that when they affixed their names to Mr. Shields’ little statement that they had in their minds only the line in our editorial which seemed to infer that Mr. Shields had supported the movement for a county ticket. Now the fact is we did not accuse Mr. Shields of favoring that movement, although we did assert that lie introduced the motion to reconsider, after many opponents of the ticket scheme had left, the meeting. We admit to have been, in part at least, mistaken in that assertion; but we do not think we would make a mistake if we asserted that Mr ; Shields tried to introduce a motion looking towards a so-called “compromise.” And right here we will add, with the intentiop._af—B«yiirg“ nothing that is aT all “misleading or untrue” that we think this little

“compromise” proposition, was meant to play the Republican members of the Alliance for a lot of suckers, by inducing them to give to the Democrats the member of the House of Representatives from this district, in exchange for the election of the Republican candidate for State Senator—Avhose election was known to befas certain as fate, anyhow. It was a shrewd scheme to get seething for nothing, but it did npt Avork, What a couclusive evidence of Mr. Shield’s political adroitness it Avould have beeD, could he have a Democrat sent to the legislature from this, one of the very strongest Republican districts in the state—to have taken by cunning one of ,ihe few liepie-

eentstives'' the Democratic Gerrymander could not steal.