BE CONSISTENT FOR ONCE

The Cortland Democrat, Friday, February 7, 1890.

PAGE FOUR/EDITORIALS.

• The motto of the republican party seems to be "A place for everybody and everybody in his place."

• The Standard is very much disturbed because the Democrats nominated a candidate for Commissioner of Excise at the caucus held last Thursday evening. The editor of the Standard believes in carrying politics into the church, schools, business, the World's Fair and in fact everything but the liquor question. His memory is not very good or his convictions, if he ever had any, [and] are not very tenacious. Five or six years ago, when Republican hotel and saloon men were few in this county, he was the head and front of the Anti-saloon party. Now that they are many and unusually active in politics, he has abandoned the party that he assisted in giving birth to, and has become the apologist and defender of the liquor sellers. If he hasn't already strangled the Anti-saloon babe, it would be a splendid opportunity to trot the infant out and give him a scoring on the great moral plane that was intended for the Prohibition party to walk over, in the hope that it would tumble into the pit-fall prepared for it by the republican party. If our neighbor was sincere or at all honest when he acted as midwife at the horning of the Anti-saloon party, he would take the opportunity presented to nominate a candidate for Commissioner of Excise, pledged to refuse license to the saloons. Be consistent for once.

• Barley is quoted in the markets at from 38 to 40 cents per bushel and farmers who have it to sell are taking advantage of the opportunity to dispose of the same. We venture to say that there is not a single person now living in this county, who can remember the time when the price of barley was so low. Long before the war good marketable barley was often sold for $1.25 per bushel and it seldom dropped as low as 62 1/2 cents. How can a farmer possibly raise barley and prepare the same for market for 40 cents per bushel? It is an impossibility even if the land cost nothing. The price does not pay for the labor required in growing it to say nothing of the value of the seed sown and the cost of harvesting. Somehow, the tariff doesn't help the man who raises barley. If protection is good for one it ought to be good for all but the tariff tinkers left the farmer entirely out of their calculations when they passed the tariff bills. They were sure of the farmer's vote and they were fishing for the votes and the money of the manufacturers, and they got what they were after. The farmer foots the bill.

Thomas Platt

THE REVOLT AGAINST PLATT.

    The Leading Republican Paper of Western New York Speaks Out.

   The Buffalo Express, the leading Republican newspaper of Western New York, says of Thomas C. Platt's attempt to defeat the World's fair bill:

   Mr. Thomas C. Platt, a private citizen of Owego, Tioga county, has had himself interviewed on the World's fair bill which was prepared by some of the most prominent and official residents of New York city, where the bill proposes that the fair shall be held, and which was satisfactory to men so antagonistic politically as Hugh J. Grant and Chauncey M. Depew. Mr. Platt, however, according to his own statements, appears to be the party most in interest. Hear him:

   Recent complications at Albany seem to demand that I make some statement of the reasons which have actuated Me in the course I may have pursued with reference to the bill pending for the World's fair.

   A list of names of the men who were criticized as not having been Republicans, was never published by any authority of Mine, and men were included in published lists whose names had never been considered by Me as belonging to that category.

   Unless My attention had been called to the commission by the action of the secretary of the committee on legislation, I doubt whether any issue would have been raised on this question.

   Is this an emperor who speaks? Are the American people called upon to celebrate the discovery of Christopher Columbus or the bossate of Tom Platt?

   Chauncey M. Depew has been quoted as saying that each day's delay by the New York legislature advances Chicago stock about twenty-five per cent. At this rate, how long will it take to wipe out New York's interest? Mr. Platt goes on to say that he has enjoined the delay on his legislature because he had discovered that the citizens' bill gave undue power to Tammany Hall in the selection of commissioners. This view is not shared by Mr. Depew and like broad-minded Republicans. But suppose it were true? Would it be sufficient excuse for practically defeating the wish of the people of the Empire State to have the World's fair held in the metropolis?

   Thomas C. Platt is rushing on to his own destruction. But we would rather he would not involve New York's hopes of the fair in his ruin, and we are sorry to see members of the legislature in his train who should not be there. Of the three Republican members from Erie county only Assemblyman Currier, of the Fifth district, seems to be taking the popular, non-partisan, business-like view of this question.

Look Out for the Syracuse Leeches.

   Now that there is a probability that the State Fair is to be permanently located at Syracuse, the managers of the enterprise, already aware that having ceased to be anything in which the whole State is interested, it must dwindle to local significance, and knowing also that the country about Syracuse cannot possibly sustain a fair of the magnitude which this has been in the past, are busy concocting schemes to obtain money from the State treasury.

   Already a bill has passed the Senate taking from the county societies the benefit of the Ives pool bill, and turning them over to the State society. Another bill is ready appropriating $150,000 for the erection of permanent buildings at Syracuse. Then there is another scheme appropriating $15,000 for a State poultry association, with headquarters at Syracuse. Other plans of a similar nature will no doubt come to light before the session of the legislature is much older.

   Some very wide-awake and persistent men are behind them, and unless the other parts of the State are alive to the situation, and instruct their representatives upon this subject, there is reason to fear that many of these bills will be rushed through before their import is dreamed of. It should be remembered that Albany, Utica, Rochester and Elmira furnished the grounds and buildings where the fairs have been held; let Syracuse now do the same. Surely it is unfair to tax the people of the State for this purely local institution.

   We are to have a fair here in Albany, as was first suggested by the Albany Times. There is no disposition to go to the State for money to help carry it on; but certainly there is just as much reason to ask it, as there is for the Syracuse project. With the possible exception of Owego, no other city ever favored locating the fair at Syracuse. Utica, Rochester, Buffalo, Elmira, Albany, and in fact all the rest of the State, have been against permanent location from the first; hence there is no reason why representatives other than those from Onondaga, and possibly Oswego, should favor these raids upon the treasury. Let the matter be ventilated.

—Albany Times.

FROM EVERYWHERE.

   Buffalo has 120 miles of stone paved streets and 63 miles of asphalt, or more than any other city in the world.

   Waterville, Phoenix. Hornellsville, Elmira, Syracuse, Binghamton, Auburn and Oswego are now the Central New York Trotting Circuit.

   Adam Forepaugh leaves his entire estate to his wife and son. Personal property, $100,000. Estate, $1,000,000. He allows his father $20 a week and house free.

   A portion of the town of Plains, Pa., dropped out Saturday, three single houses and a double block going with it. An extension of the cave in is feared. It was caused by robbing pillars in a coal mine.

   The coroner's jury, in the case of the two Chinamen and Mary Sweeney of

Binghamton, after hearing evidence of Drs. Richards, Hall and Carr, and others, returned a verdict to the effect that their deaths were caused by suffocation from charcoal gas.

   Merrick E. Jones, formerly of Lansing, town of Scriba, who, a week ago abandoned his wife and four children that he might pay his attention to Maud Harpst of Seneca Falls, is not having a very pleasant time of it in that village. The latter part of last week Jones put in an appearance in Seneca Falls, and went direct to the house of his young lady friend. Friday night between 9 and 10 o'clock a party of 10 or 15 young men visited the girl's house, and a roughly written note was sent which contained a threat that unless Jones left the house within five minutes he would be taken out by force. He was informed that he would have to leave town, and the crowd started to accompany him down town. On the way Jones made a break for the railroad on a dead run and escaped.

HERE AND THERE.

   A post office has been established at East Willett, in this county, and it is named Penelope. Miss Minnie Johnson is post-mistress.

   During the high wind of Wednesday one of the chimneys on the east side of the Cortland Opera House was blown over into the alley below. Fortunately no one was injured.

   The Hitchcock Hose company are giving exhibitions of hitching up to a fire at their house on Elm Street every evening at 8 o’clock. The fire bell will strike once at that hour for the next sixty days.

   The latest improvement inaugurated by railway companies is the erection of sign posts at each county line, naming the county, and a smaller post at township lines naming the township. This facilitates action in case of trouble along the line.

   Any one can make the hand grenade fire extinguishers, and at a small fraction of the prices charged in the market. Any light quart bottle will serve to hold the solution, which is composed of one pound of common salt, one-half pound of sal-ammoniac, dissolved in about two quarts of water.

   A bill has been introduced in the Assembly relating to the construction, maintenance and repair of the highways and roads of the State. It provides for the appointment of a civil engineer as a State Superintendent of Highways by the Governor for three years at a salary of $5,000 per annum and "expenses, with office at the capitol. He shall have advisory supervision of public roads. County supervisors are also empowered to appoint a county engineer and surveyor; also to levy special taxes for roads.

  

Protective Police Election.

   The annual election of the Cortland Protective Police [members of the village fire department--CC editor] was held last Wednesday evening and resulted as follows:

   Captain—H. M. Kellogg.

   Lieut. Capt.—B. R. Carpenter.

   Sergeant—R. J. Lucas.

   Pres.—C. W. Collins.

   Vice-Pres.—S. J . Sornberger.

   Sec.—J. A. Jayne.

   Fin. Sec.—Geo. N. Bryant.

   Treas.—C. P. Walrad.

   Property Clerk—J. F. Wheeler.

   Chaplain—Dr. H. A. Cordo.

   Trustees—S. M. Benjamin, R. A. Smith, C. W. Collins.

   Delegate to State Firemens’ Convention—H. M Kellogg.

   Representative on Board of Engineers—S. J. Sornberger.