CONCERNING THE PETITION

James J. Belden

William H. Clark, publisher and editor of the Cortland Standard.

The Cortland Democrat, Friday, June 20, 1890.

Concerning the Petition.

   Some weeks since, Irving H. Palmer, Esq., of this village, after having discussed the McKinley bill with several members of the manufacturing interests in Cortland, with reference to the effect it would have on their interests should it become a law, drew up a petition and presented the same to some one or more of the officials of each factory, whose signatures were readily obtained, and forwarded the same to Hon. J. J. Belden, at Washington, requesting him to lay the same before the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives.

   The petition proper stated in a very few words that the signers were opposed to the passage of the McKinley bill. The DEMOCRAT referred to the matter in an item of five or six lines and the editor of the Cortland Standard at once went wild over the matter. For the past four or five weeks he has been pumping his bicycle all over town calling upon every shop and factory within the corporation and cracking the party lash over the back of every republican manufacturer who had the temerity to sign the petition.

   Among others who signed the petition was Mr. F. W. Collins, secretary and treasurer of the Howe Ventilating Stove Company of which company our neighbor rather grandiloquently says "the editor of the Standard is President." Our neighbor seems to think that the petition should have been presented to him instead of to Mr. Collins, who is in fact the head of the concern and furnishes the brains to conduct the same. Our neighbor should not forget that he was simply selected for the office of President of the company for the reason that such positions are usually filled by the stockholder who knows the least but thinks he knows the most about the business. The directors of the Howe Company evidently did not care to depart from this well known rule when they held their last election. No one would be foolish enough to attempt to convince our neighbor that "the McKinley bill will have the slightest injurious effect on the stove trade" but we suggest that the secretary and treasurer of the company could give him some valuable points on the subject.

   The inaccuracies which the Standard's article contains in reference to the signing of the document are many and it would hardly pay to point them out, but the idea that a republican must ask his permission to sign a document before exercising his right to do so, is supremely ridiculous. A man who possessed proper self-respect would have accelerated his departure through the office door by a free ride on the toe of his boot.

   In his attempt to explain the reasons given by some of the signers for attaching their names to the document, he makes them appear in as ridiculous a light as he has volunteered to place himself in.

The Standard's Boomerang.

   MR. EDITOR:—Although personally preferring other and more summary means of redress than replying through the columns of a newspaper to the scurrilous and malicious charge of the Cortland Standard, in which I am accused of "trickery, political sneak-thieving" and other offences, for circulating a remonstrance against the infamous McKinley bill and forwarding the same inclosed with a letter to Hon. J. J. Belden without first asking permission of the political boss of this county, renders the accusation at once so ridiculous and the accuser so contemptible, that one hardly need to mention the well known and widely appreciated character for untruthfulness and dishonorable conduct of the accuser, to cause the offense to recoil at once on his head.

   Notwithstanding he possesses the advantage of controlling a newspaper in which to renew and repeat his offense, I have the temerity to meet him with his chosen weapons on his own ground instead of compelling him to meet me on mine, as I might easily do, confident that "thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just." [Mr. Palmer was an attorney and was twice elected Mayor of Cortland. He was a Democrat. Mr. Clark, publisher of the Cortland Standard, was a non-practicing attorney—CC editor],

   One would suppose that the organ of a party that stole the mailing and subscription lists of a rival newspaper, would be reticent upon the subject of "sneak thieving" but it appears to be otherwise.

   Things have reached a pretty pass when a citizen cannot circulate a remonstrance against a piece of bad and iniquitous legislation without being charged with trickery, sneak-thieving and other offenses by the organ of the Republican party.

   The idea of this remonstrance was suggested to the writer by hearing from a personal friend who is a tanner and a republican, what means were resorted to, to restore hides to the free list after the committee of Ways and Means had resolved to subject them to duty, and also by reading the newspapers that like remonstrances were being forwarded from numerous other localities.

   Being aware from experience and observation that the manufacturers of Cortland, as well as the farmers and laborers, were being plundered by the existing tariff for the benefit of the owners of sheep ranches, deposits of ore and coal and the trusts and combinations protected and fostered by the tariff, and having a public as well as private and personal interest in industries which suffered from these exactions, and having discussed the effect of the McKinley bill upon their interests with many of the manufacturers of Cortland, and ascertained thereby that they were opposed to that measure, regardless of party affiliations, I proceeded to embody in a remonstrance the consensus of their opinions thus ascertained and circulated it for their signatures.

   It was necessarily done with some haste to reach Congress before the bill was acted upon in the House, as the bill was then being pushed before the committee of the whole almost without opportunity for amendment or debate, under the most outrageous system of tyranny and infamy which ever disgraced legislation. This policy seems to have been purposely devised to avoid encountering the effect of the storm of indignant remonstrances and protests which poured in upon Congress about the time this remonstrance was forwarded, and were faintly mirrored by the speeches of Butterworth and others.

   This fully explains what the Standard criticises as "the hurried manner in which this petition was circulated and the secrecy with which it was smuggled off to Washington" without permission from the boss. The Standard inconsistently complains of the secrecy practiced and also of the publication of the remonstrance. Both are without foundation and are characteristically dishonest.

   Representatives from the Standard and several other newspapers called on the writer at his office without connivance or procurement on his part, about the same time in quest of news, and inquired about this remonstrance and the same information was imparted to each, fully, freely and impartially.  The Standard deferred mentioning the matter for weeks, whether this was because the news was distasteful to the editor, or because he is so inveterately addicted to falsehood and misrepresentation that he discredited the information, I leave those who know him to decide. That mendacity is usually the parent of incredulity has been observed in all periods of the world's history.

   The Standard says "the statement (that such a remonstrance had been signed by nearly all the manufacturers in Cortland) had a very fishy look." It may be that truth usually looks fishy to an habitual liar, if it does, this accounts for the Standard's comment.

   Nothing could be further from the truth than that any trick or deception was practiced upon those who signed this remonstrance. It is equally untrue that they signed it without knowing and understanding its contents. The writer's views and political affiliations were known to every one who signed it. In addition to which the writer in most instances discussed the provisions of the McKinley bill with those who signed the remonstrance in the light of its effect upon the business in which they were severally engaged, before they signed. The imputation sought to be cast by the Standard upon their intelligence is without the slightest foundation.

   It is notorious that nothing published in the Standard gains anything in truthfulness or candor, or loses anything in virulence, partisan bias or deception by the medium through which it reaches its readers.

   If the statements for which the Standard seeks to make the gentlemen who signed this remonstrance responsible, were ever in any way authorized by them (which is incredible), it was because they yielded a servile and cowardly obedience to the party boss, whose frown they feared and pleaded ignorance as an excuse, as Adam is reputed to have done before them.

   Having discovered that many of those who paraded the streets in 1888 redolent of combustion and nauseous with the fumes of petroleum, idiotically shouting in cadences "no free trade," in opposition to a measure, the effect of which was to have given them cheaper and better shelter, clothing and food, and provide them with raw materials for their industries subject to a diminished tax or duty free and therefore, at greatly reduced cost, had participated with benefit to their understandings in a campaign of education, and had begun to realize that protection from legitimate competition for the grasping monopolists who have hitherto controlled the markets for the staple materials indispensable to their living and business, was not a safe or profitable condition of things for them, and that some of these had actually relaxed the bonds which bound them "to the body of this death" sufficiently to sign a remonstrance against increasing these evils, which they had so long and so patiently endured for the sake of the "fat frying" partisans and the beneficiaries of this system of plunder, the boss's rage knew no bounds and he shouted "trickery, political sneak-thieving" and poured out his choicest epithets much as a skunk does in peril.

   Neither the subscribers of this remonstrance nor the writer thought of politics in connection with it. They viewed it solely in its disastrous effects upon their interests. They knew that if the cost of their raw materials were increased that no corresponding advance could be made in the prices of their finished products, and that any advance would have the effect to diminish the value of their sales and lessen their profits at a time when their business was already suffering from a stifling depression. As Satan introduced sin into Eden, so the boss brought politics into the discussion of this purely business question. No one but a meddler, an eavesdropper or a snoop, wearing a No. 6 hat and a No. 12 shoe, would ever have thought of interfering with what was none of his business under such circumstances. Such an one could render efficient and congenial service in the "Step-ladder Brigade" for which his qualifications fit him.

   None of the gentlemen who signed this remonstrance have ever signified their desire to retract anything contained therein, or ever intimated that they had been duped or that any deception had been practiced to induce them to sign it. No one can consistently believe they have authorized the Standard to assert the contrary. If under the coercion of a political boss and the fear of political ostracism they have sought to excuse or explain their conduct in signing a remonstrance clearly right and moderate in principle, and manifestly favorable to their material interests and those of the mass of their countrymen, they may have acted naturally but not heroically. They would have done well had they each and all resented the intrusion of this meddlesome mischief maker in a manner to discourage a recurrence of his disagreeable attentions.

   The Standard asks, "Who authorized Mr. Palmer to send Hon. J. J. Belden a letter embodying the views of the republican manufacturers of Cortland?" The obvious answer is the signers of this remonstrance, who signed it for the express purpose of influencing legislation pending before Congress, and not "for home consumption" as the Standard asserts. That is to be interpreted as an antidote for the falsehoods the editor was contemplating to palm off on his gullible readers as he did the "bulbous root" fib, which has so excited his wrath. Whoever limits his field for falsehood incurs his hatred.

   I am not at liberty to drag Mr. Belden into this controversy, but it must be said injustice to all that it is perfectly evident from his letters that he sympathized with the spirit and object of the remonstrance and the gentlemen who signed it may console themselves for the loss of the boss's approval by the assurance that they have Mr. Belden's, which is quite as valuable.

   The unkindest cut of all was the signature of the Howe Ventilating Stove Co., of which the editor is president, affixed to the remonstrance by Mr. Collins, secretary and Treasurer of the Company, preceded and fortified by the signatures of Mr. E. O. Rickard, one of the directors of C. B. Hitchcock, who preceded Mr. Clark as president, and Mr. Stevenson the vice-president. These constitute a quorum to do business and sustain Mr. Collins' action in signing the remonstrance without calling to his support the other democratic members of the board, any one of whom can demonstrate in response to the challenge of the Standard, how the McKinley bill will injure the stove trade by increasing the cost of pig iron, but may not undertake the task as it would be like casting pearls before swine, which common sense and the gospel forbids.

   Long as this letter is, not half the misstatements contained in the Standard's editorial have yet been mentioned. Contrary to the Standard's assertion, this remonstrance was never shown to T. H. Wickwire but was signed by his brother, the head of the firm, at his residence.

   Not a word has passed between Mr. Rickard and the writer on the subject of this remonstrance since the day he signed it, which is the last time they met at the office of the Omnibus & Cab Co. Mr. Rickard read the remonstrance aloud in the presence of Mr. W. T. Smith before signing, and signed with Mr. Smith's express approval.

   Mr. E. M. Hulbert had the remonstrance in his possession from five to ten minutes and apparently read it. He manifested no preoccupation or haste in his appearance.

   Mr. Brewer read the paper and remarked, "that is right" and affixed the signature of the Cortland Box Loop Co. He certainly understands that the McKinley bill increases the duty on iron and steel and that this has the effect to increase the cost of these metals and is detrimental to his business.

   Mr. Hatfield and Mr. Malmberg both read the remonstrance and approved it before Mr. Malmberg signed it.

   Mr. Stevenson signed the remonstrance more than one day before it bore the names of Wickwire Bros, or the Howe Ventilating Stove Co., and could not have been influenced in putting his signature to it by seeing those names upon it, as is asserted by the Standard.

   No one has been mistaken in assuming that Mr. W. H. Newton, of the Excelsior Top Co., understands his business interests too well not to be aware that an increase in the tariff upon the materials which he uses in the manufacture of his goods would diminish his profits, or that the obstreperous interference of this self-constituted censor of his conduct does not meet with his approval.

   The writer does not sympathize with those democrats who desire the enactment of the McKinley bill to hasten the discomfiture of the republican party, as they believe it will, but on the contrary prefers the business prosperity of his countrymen and his own beyond any partisan success and therefore personally sought in his humble way, without seeking the countenance or approval of any political party or organization and without consultation with any politician, to inform Congress that the wishes of the people were being disregarded and their interests sacrificed by the enactment of the McKinley bill, not dreaming that no heed would be paid to such a remonstrance or as the Standard puts it, "that it would have no more effect on the Ways and Means Committee than a breeze from Solon pond on the Virgil hills."

   If this be indeed true, that the interests and wishes of the people are to be wholly disregarded by the republican majority in Congress, if Quay, Platt and Dudley are to have full sway and dictate that the compact made with those who supplied the money that purchased Harrison's election to the office of President is to be fulfilled by Congress, regardless of protests and remonstrances by the people and the well known wishes or the great majority of the business men of the country expressed in unmistakable terms; if the Standard in this language truthfully portrays the policy by which the republican party and its members of Congress are governed,—and it seems to be confirmed by much that has transpired in Congress during this session, it is high time the people knew the worst and prepared for it. There is no longer time to indulge in the illusions of hope, but party affiliations must be disregarded and all must unite to suppress this conspiracy against their rights and liberties or lose all that makes life either honorable or desirable. And because the money of a few millionaires is constantly made to win against the dearest rights of mankind whenever or wherever the republican party is in power, it must be deprived of that which it so flagrantly abuses.

   IRVING H. PALMER.