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| David Ross Locke, Virgil native and former employee of the Cortland Democrat. |
The
Cortland Democrat, Friday,
February 17, 1888.
PAGE
TWO.
David R. Locke,
better known as "Petroleum V. Nasby," died at his residence in
Toledo, Ohio, Wednesday morning, of consumption and a complication of diseases.
Mr. Locke was editor and owner of the Toledo Blade, and is said to have
left over $1,000,000, besides the Blade office.
He was born in Vestal, Broome
county, N.Y., on Sept. 20th, 1833, and learned the printer's trade in the
office of the Cortland DEMOCRAT. Some of our older citizens remember him as a
harum scarem sort of a lad, and they commonly predicted that his future would
prove to be anything but good.
[Note reference to earlier posts on David R. Locke at bottom of this post—CC editor.]
In Memoriam.
The papers last week announced the death of David R. Locke, alias
Petroleum V. Nasby, editor of the Toledo Blade and post master at the
Confederate X Roads. Now we knew David R. in our school boy days when both of us was learning
how to shoot paper wads in the old yellow school house under the hill at
Marathon. We could no more keep from offering our condolence with his numerous
friends, than could Brutus at the funeral of Julius Caesar. "Not that we
admire David R.'s success less, but that we love democracy more."
We even then admired the pluck
with which he would take the end of the line when we were playing snap the
whip, and it was seldom that he would get snapped off his pins. He had a happy
faculty of bending pins, and placing them where they would do the most good,
and this trait has clung to him all through life and made him much feared if
not loved.
Another trait to which the Hon.
Chairman of the Republican Co. Committee will bear witness, was the slight-of- hand
way that he would pull the hair of the youngster on the seat in front of him, be
he friend or foe. He has performed some similar feats in his later years on the
temperance issue, in sliding down the hill by the front of the school house,
his sled was always getting into trouble with some ether boys—but never a fight
came of it.
We remember him as a boy seven
years our junior, with always some small trouble on hand, but coming out all right,
and respected by all. Otis Preston taught one winter term and he was a forcible
teacher. Had you enquired of David R., more than any other boy, he would have
exclaimed, O! tis Prest-on the seat of my pants, never to be forgotten.
Marathon has been the
educational point of several successful newspaper men. They were not born there
but got the bending of the twig in its surroundings. Thurlow Weed, David R.
Locke, Ed. Adams, and— modesty forbids my writing it here,—are all men who have
made many marks for journalism. Of Ed's birthplace we are not quite so sure,
but from many co-relative points, we believe that Killawog has that honor.
The first two have joined the
silent majority, not without honors and remembrance in the home of their youth.
The last two—well time deals gently with us all—democracy has come to stay, and
there are post offices to be filled at Small town and Brimstone, as well as at
the X roads. Let us act well our part, shirking no duty, always being on hand
to vote the democratic ticket, and when called to lay down the pencil, and pass
to the other side, may some kind friend write us.
In Memoriam.
ULI SLICK— Cortland Democrat, Feb. 24, 1888.
We Know What That Means.
(New York Sun.)
The New York Times continues
to develop its political plans for the future. Yesterday it described the Hon.
David Bennett Hill, governor of the state of New York, as:
"A
petty, mousing, tricky politician, who would be invisible if it were not for
the high station which he holds but cannot fill."
We all know what that means.
"Mousing" is a novelty from the Time's lexicon of campaign puffery,
but the rest is familiar enough.
Just four years ago our subtle
contemporary prepared the public for its support of
Gov. Cleveland by describing that gentleman as "a parochial
statesman," and by characterizing one of his public acts as "one of the
cheapest and scurviest tricks, even of this very low-priced statesman."
The chief difficulty of the
Times seems to be to find for Gov. Hill's benefit abusive epithets which it has
not already applied to his predecessor, Mr. Cleveland.
LITTLE YORK.
MR. EDITOR: We have made an advance upon our enemy and rooted out that
tare [weed] of sleeplessness. In the midst of our insomnia we consulted Prof.
Raymond [Mr. Raymond was proprietor of a resort on Little York Lake—CC editor]
who diagnosed our case thus—Our democratic digestive organs had become disorganized
by taking such a heavy diet of the Toledo Blade,
and the sudden closing out of our wool growing operations had a tendency to produce
something like night sweats—(but it was not at all that way)—That the hair of
the same dog would cure the bite—a change of surroundings— and an increase of
vegetable succulents—and thus he kept going for an hour.
We
said: Prof. give us our medicine straight and in plain English."
He
said. "Eat good suppers of solid pork and cabbage, wash it down with
plenty of cider, read nothing but the Cortland Standard, and sleep in
the log cabin, alone, and a cure will be affected."
We
have tried it and found the cure. Those column and a half editorials without a point
on high license [a substitute for prohibition—CC editor] done the thing. Those
sweet thoughts to prove that prohibition did not prohibit were quieting. The
argument that party lines should be drawn in the election of town and
corporation officers, even down to school trustee or pathmaster, was sleepy
enough. There was not a harrowing thought in the whole page of recorded neighborhood
visitings. Everything tended to produce sleepiness. We doubt not that Rip Tan
Winkle had his dinner wrapped up in a copy of the Standard.
We
too are sleeping sound and with pleasant dreams. We know that while we sleepeth
no enemy will sow tares to choke out the Republican high license majority in the
board of Supervisors to be elected next Tuesday. No Homer Republican will
get any of the County printing next year nor need any other outside paper
apply.
But just
here our enemy pinched us and we awoke and remembered that there were some
democrats yet left in this county. That they were not all troubled with sleepiness,
that perhaps we had taken an overdose of the medicine ordered.
This
is a seven to eight county and next Tuesday is town meeting. Let every democrat
wake up and put the eight on the right side. This is the year of eights and it
won't do for democrats to be put to sleep by republican papers. A victory in
the town meeting is a good planting for the fall harvest. We can't get rid of
killing potato bugs by voting to increase our own taxes. Economy is just the
thing we want and no surplus taxation anywhere. Pay as you go, remembering the
printer, and
Ever Yours,
ULI SLICK. [pen name]
From Everywhere.
The hop growers in Schoharie are greatly exercised over the coming
season, which experts declare will be a total loss. They predict the return of
the hop louse in great numbers and that they will destroy the entire crop of
1888. They say that last fall the louse could be found in great numbers on the
foliage of the apple trees, and that they will return in the spring in
multiplied numbers.
Several of the clerks of the
New York city post office claim that Postmaster Pearson is an autocrat, that they are
overworked and underpaid, and that the postmaster pays no attention to their
petitions.
Recommended:
Who
am I? (Number 13): http://jeffpaine.blogspot.com/2012/11/who-am-i-number-13.html
Request: If any reader knows the true name of ULI SLICK, please leave a comment on this post. There are several possibilities, including Benton B. Jones, editor of the Cortland Democrat.
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