THE STANDARD'S DON

William H. Clark

The Cortland Democrat, Friday, July 18, 1890.

THE STANDARD’S DON.

Reinforced But Prudently Retreats Giving Advice for the Burial of His Dead.

   Not since the days when Don Quixote clad in antiquated, rusty armor, armed and equipped with ancient lance and shield, and mounted on his gaunt, raw-boned, rheumatic and superannuated steed charged at full gallop against a windmill in motion, when horse and rider were whirled high in the air, tossed and dashed to earth, bruised, lacerated and bleeding by the gyrations of his suppositious enemy, but with all not disenchanted, has any one beheld so grotesque and ridiculous a spectacle as the editor of the Standard has presented in his attack upon a respectable remonstrance and him who circulated it. No mouldy and puerile epithet which he could recall from the tutelage of his urchinship has been spared from his discourse. The vernacular of Borodino and the peppermint district could be distinctly recognized among these choice bits of phraseology.

   To those who have seen him, on bicycle mounted, kicking his heels in imitation of the motions of the windmill, the arch enemy of his great prototype, sweating at every pore as he went about to remonstrate, expostulate and intercede with those who had signed this remonstrance, to atone for the act by self abasement in signing a paper characterizing the remonstrance as a "free trade petition" and indorsing all he had said about it, at wholesale and indiscriminately, he has been an object of half suppressed merriment not unmingled with contempt.

   The gentlemen who have entered the plea of non compos mentis as an excuse for signing this remonstrance, if possible, cut a still more ridiculous figure than the editor. Sancho Panza tossed in a blanket until he was black and blue by the merry guests of the wayside inn, which his dull intellect, depending upon the disordered imagination of his self-assumed master, (boss) had been misled into characterizing as an enchanted castle, was never more absurdly ridiculous and self-sacrificing, without cause at the instance of another, than they. Appealing to them for reinforcements, he marches them into the fray which is too hot for him, and at once deserts them to their fate.

   One would suppose they were liable to fall victims to the first bunco steerer who accosts them. Had these gentlemen been denizens of Dog Hollow or Rocky Bottom instead of the brightest business men of the metropolis of the county, they would now be the butt of uncouth jokes for all the country yokels in their neighborhood.

   The Standard having reduced itself to a state of moral and mental bankruptcy in its extremity, applies to them for an accommodation indorsement [sic] which they give including all the Standard's liabilities indiscriminately.

   The opinions of men who profess, recant and profess again with no better reason or excuse than that they did not know what they did, can have but little weight. "If the blind lead the blind they shall both fall into the ditch." Figuratively speaking, this is the fate of the Standard and its indorsers. In the language of the hour they are all "in the soup."

   This remonstrance was plainly printed on a type writer by a republican and can be read and understood by a child of ordinary intelligence who has attended school two terms, whereas the indorsement and retraction is a vague and wholesale jumble which says nothing definite except to characterize the remonstrance as a ' 'free trade petition."

   It nowhere contradicts a single assertion made by me as to what took place between these gentlemen and myself. Nor does it intimate that they were tricked or deceived into signing it; but by its silence all I have asserted respecting the transaction is admitted.

   For aught that appears in it, these gentlemen would sign a wholesale indorsement of all my assertions, but fortunately no such corroboration is needed.

   The Standard's indorsement and the remonstrance are here submitted to the candid readers of the DEMOCRAT as proof of the truth of the foregoing observations.

To the Editor of the Cortland Standard:

   SIR: You may say for me and over my name that the statement which appeared in the STANDARD concerning the circumstances attending my signing of the free trade petition circulated by Mr. Irving H. Palmer and my present position in reference to that petition is true, that its publication was authorized by me, and that I have never said to any one that it was not true.

   Dated Cortland, July 7, 1890.

   C. F. WICKWIRE,

   L. I. HATFIELD,

   H. MALMBERG,

   E. M. HULBERT,

   E. O. RICHARD,

   E. H. BREWER,

   THEO. STEVENSON.

To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled:

   The undersigned, manufacturers of Cortland, N. Y., hereby respectfully protest against the enactment of the proposed bill known as the McKinley Tariff Bill, or any other tariff bill, administrative or otherwise, by which the import duties on cotton and woolen fabrics, or the unwrought materials of which the same are made, the duty on iron and steel in pigs, blooms, ingots, scrap or other crude forms of metal or the ores from which the same are made, shall be advanced.

   We demand no protection for our products, and respectfully ask that the duties on the materials from which they are made shall be fixed at the lowest rate consistent with the needs of the national Treasury.

   [Note: The original signatures on this remonstrance/petition were omitted by the Cortland Democrat—CC editor.]

   Observe, 1st, that the remonstrance contains a protest against an advance in the duty on cotton and woolen fabrics, the materials of which they are made, on iron ores, pigs, blooms, ingots, scrap or other crude forms of metal. 2d, Congress is informed that with the duties on the materials used by the remonstrants, in their business, fixed at the lowest rate consistent with the needs of the national treasury they seek no protection for their finished products, and 3rd, Congress is asked to fix the duties on these materials at the lowest rate consistent with the needs of the national treasury. These are simple propositions and easily understood. But it is the interpretation and characterization which the Standard has put upon them which has created all the alleged misunderstanding and induced these gentlemen to indorse the Standard's characterization of the remonstrance as a "free trade petition."

   Now this remonstrance takes for granted and implies the necessity for a tariff on these articles. Hence it is not a free trade petition and no one but a donkey in leather goggles could see any free trade principles in that remonstrance.

   It is not manly lo abandon and deny ones principles because they are reviled or falsely characterized. Though St. Peter did that, it is not commendable. It is a poor apology for these gentlemen to say that they have been misled and intimidated by the Standard but it is not improved by turning it about and saying that a well known radical democrat whom they knew to be such, and were therefore on their guard against, did this. On expressing my disbelief in the Standard's assertion that these gentlemen had stultified themselves by disavowing the principles they had subscribed to, it now seems a more complimentary opinion was expressed than their conduct merited.

   I regret that they have placed themselves in a position calculated to excite derision because I have ever regarded them without exception as personal friends. But if they insist on sacrificing their reputations for intelligence and consistency to save that of the Standard's braying quadruped they must take the consequences. That animal shall not for that reason be suffered to get out of range by seeking the cover of respectable company.

   A due sense of propriety will always restrain a gentleman from bringing others into a purely personal affair, but when they are once brought in, they become members of the equation and must abide the final solution. The Standard alone has violated this rule and it is to be regretted. Delicacy if nothing else, has caused me to refrain from questioning any gentleman with reference to his interview as reported in the Standard. That was no more my business than what occurred between them and myself was Clark's. He alone meddles with that which is none of his business in this affair.

   It is made necessary to mention the fact that Mr. Stevenson came to my office with Mr. S. B. Elwell and, unsolicited, told me in his presence that the interview published in the Standard misrepresented what he had said and he then denied the published account of it in detail and corroborated his denial by Mr. Elwell.

   This taken together with the strong improbability that these gentlemen would so stultify themselves and the Standard's well known reputation for using the truth parsimoniously, led me to discredit its report of these interviews. Consequently the Standard's question "who lies" is one to be settled between it and those it has dragged into the mire with it. And as this is a purely family affair all others may be excused from participation. The subject is one of great delicacy and the writer would prefer to be absent, and if unavoidably present would prefer a back seat while this issue is being determined.

   To make and violate pledges, to advocate principles and measures at one time and repudiate them at another, to vote and act contrary to professed convictions; to practice hypocracy [sic], duplicity and mendacity, to profess purity and participate in corruption are among the rudiments and elementary branches taught and practiced in the modern school of republican party politics, which must account for the speeches of republican members of Congress upon the floor of the House against, and their subsequent votes for the McKinley bill. Also the letters of Mr. Belden favoring the remonstrance and his vote for the bill. Their education in this school may serve to explain how this indorsement of the Standard's billingsgate came to be signed by these gentlemen, as it will explain many other inconsistent, corrupt and infidel transactions in public affairs whenever and wherever the republican party is in power.

   Writing hastily and from memory the charge was made that the Standard had falsely pretended to quote from the McKinley bill instead of a committees report. This was a mistake, and though of no importance is freely acknowledged.

   It is the trick of a beaten adversary to conceal his retreat by a display of Quaker guns and reinforcements, and the device of a worsted debater to attack a man of straw as his antagonist or to impute language or sentiments to his opponent never uttered, or to garble and distort what he cannot refute. The Standard is an adept in the use of such expedients to which it constantly resorts. One specimen of this kind will suffice as an illustration. It says "the rankest and boldest falsity in Mr. Palmer's entire article, however, is his statement that the McKinley bill increases the cost of pig iron."

   No such assertion was made. Aside from the manifest inaccuracy that a bill can increase the cost of anything before it takes effect; the substance of the argument used was that a protective tariff (such as the McKinley bill) on pig iron was detrimental to the stove trade, because it increases the cost of raw materials. It was not stated or meant that the McKinley bill advanced the duty on pig iron beyond the present rate and no comparison was made to ascertain whether it did or not. The argument was directed against a protective duty on raw materials, and not to the comparison of the rate under the present law with that provided by that bill. The principle is the same and equally objectionable in either case.

   The numerous other attempts of the Standard to raise false issues are passed unheeded as unworthy of notice.

   This controversy was begun by the Standard publishing over two and a half columns of abuse of the writer, replete with opprobrious epithets, for circulating a respectful remonstrance addressed to Congress and forwarded with a letter to the representative of this district which the Standard dare not publish nor deny having had in its possession, but dishonestly characterizes it as a "hodge-podge of socialism, political and financial lunacy."

   Had it been true that this remonstrance was signed without due consideration of its contents or knowledge of its object, and it became important to counteract its effect, any decent person would, in that case, have prepared a paper setting forth and explaining wherein it did not correctly represent the opinion of the subscribers and forward the same to the representative to whom the remonstrance had been sent. Clark's conduct compares less favorably with what any decent man would have done under such circumstances than does the behavior of the ordinary cur with the antics of a mad dog in the throes of hydrophobia.

   As for the remonstrance the principles therein expressed speak for themselves and will continue so to do long after the remains of its assailant and advocate of protection to American monopoly have ceased to contaminate with and air.

   Of those who signed the remonstrance, less than one-fourth have succumbed to the personal appeals and intimidation of the Standard.

   Want of time and opportunity alone prevented the circulation of a similar remonstrance setting forth the grievances of the farmers, many of whom have discovered the sophistry in the argument that protection at once increases the receipts of the producer of manufactured articles and the wages of his employes, while it reduces the cost of the same to the consumer, and that the mock protection of a tariff on "bulbous roots" [potatoes—CC editor] and other agricultural products adds nothing to their incomes. Wage earners have learned that employers who are beneficiaries of protection pay their help no more for that reason and as a rule become less and less liberal toward them as their incomes are increased by operation of the tariff, which adds the amount of the duties thereon to the cost of their food, shelter and raiment which it extorts from them, while a majority of manufacturers realize that the amount of protective duties added to the intrinsic cost of the materials converted by them into finished products makes necessary the use of a large capital, involves greater expenditure for materials which they may not be able to get back, and has a tendency to glut the home market and exclude them from the foreign market and thus diminish their business and profits.

   So general have these opinions become that Mr. Blaine, once the apostle of protection, has caught the contagion and is advocating a limited free trade in the guise of reciprocity between the rations of the western hemisphere.

   While this is illogical in that it discriminates against the nations of the eastern hemisphere, many of whose inhabitants belong to our race, speak our language and have customs and institutions similar to our own, rendering commerce with them more easy and agreeable than with nations speaking a different language and having little in common with ourselves, like the South American countries, nevertheless this is greatly to be preferred to the present tariff or the McKinley bill.

IRVING H. PALMER.

[Mr. Palmer was a local attorney and represented the Erie and Central N. Y. Railroad. He was secretary of the Cortland Top & Rail Company, and he was twice elected Village of Cortland president. He was elected Cortland County District Attorney in 1882. His resided at 5 James Street in the year 1889. We searched without success for a photo or obituary of Mr. Palmer.—CC editor]

Irving H. Palmer: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=PALMER&GSiman=1&GSst=36&GSob=c&GRid=146545203&df=90&

1914 Cortland Standard Letter to the Editor signed by Irving H. Palmer: http://fultonhistory.com/Newspapers%2021/Cortland%20NY%20Standard/Cortland%20NY%20Standard%201914/Cortland%20NY%20Standard%201914%20-%200424.pdf