ANOTHER VISITER.
George Brott was proprietor of lower St. Cloud and had started a paper,
_The Advertiser_, to invite immigration. There were two practical
printers in town, both property-owners, both interested in its growth,
and when the resources of _The Advertiser_ had been consumed and they
had had union rates for work done on it, they fell back on their dignity
and did nothing. They had enlisted in the wrong army, did not belong
with this band of pioneers, making its way against savage beasts and
men. They were soldiers of a union whose interests were all opposed to
those of St. Cloud, so they were looking on, waiting to see if the great
need of a paper would not compel their neighbors to pay tribute to their
union.
Mr. Brott asked me if I would take charge of a paper and take town lots
for a salary. I told him I was an abolitionist. He laughed, and said:
"A lady has a right to be of whatever politics she pleases," and went on
to say, that if I could recommend Minnesota to emigrants, and St. Cloud
as a town site, he cared nothing for my opinions on other points. He
thought we might unite all the town proprietors, and so raise money to
pay the printers, so I wrote to each one, asking his support to the St.
Cloud _Visiter_, as an advertising medium. All, save Gen. Lowrie, were
prompt in making favorable response; but from him I had not heard, when
there had been three issues of the paper. Mr. Brott was in the office,
and I said:
"There is one thing more. I feel that some day I will attack Gen.
Lowrie, who is your friend. He will set Shepley on me; I will make short
work of him. Then we will have a general melee, and I will clear out
that clique. Shepley is your lawyer, and I do not want to use your press
in that way without your consent."
While I spoke, his jaw dropped and he sat staring at me in literal
open-mouthed wonder, then threw back his head, laughed heartily and
said:
"Oh, go ahead! I bake no bread in any of their ovens!"
Very soon I had a letter from Gen. Lowrie, saying:
"I myself will give the St. Cloud _Visiter_ a support second to that of
no paper in the territory, if it will support Buchanan's administration.
Otherwise I can do nothing."
I had not finished reading, when the thought came: "Now I have you." Yet
still I knew it looked like, ah, very like a man catching a whale with a
fish hook secured to his own person, when there were a hundred chances
to one that the whale had caught him. I replied that the St. Cloud
_Visiter_ would support Mr. Buchanan's administration, since it could
not live without Gen. Lowrie's assistance, and such was his ultimatum.
On the second day after that contract was made, brother Harry came, all
trembling with rage, and said:
"Lowrie is telling all over town that he has bought you, and that the
_Visiter_ is to support Buchanan!"
"It is true," was the astounding answer, when he said bad words, rushed
from the room and slammed the door. Then followed ten days, the only
ones since he became my brother when he would not call me "Sis."
Elizabeth said:
"I would have seen Lowrie and his money in the bottom of the sea, first!
What would mother say?"
The next issue of the _Visiter_ made no allusion to its change of base,
and there was plenty of time to discuss the question. Those who knew my
record refused to believe I had sold out, and took bets on it. However,
the next number contained an editorial which relieved the minds of
friends, but which created the gravest apprehension. It stated that the
_Visiter_ would, in future, support Buchanan's administration, and went
on to state the objects of that administration as being the entire
subversion of Freedom and the planting of Slavery in every State and
Territory, so that Toombs could realize his boast, and call the roll of
his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill. It reminded its readers that John
Randolph had said in the United States Senate when speaking to Northern
men:
"We have driven you to the wall, and will drive you there again, and
next time we will keep you there and nail you to the counter like base
money."
Mr. Buchanan, a Northern man, had fulfilled the prediction. Henry Clay
had said that Northern workingmen were "mudsills, greasy mechanics and
small-fisted farmers." These mudsills had been talking of voting
themselves farms; but it would be much more appropriate if they would
vote themselves masters. Southern laborers were blessed with kind
masters, and Mr. Buchanan and the St. Cloud _Visiter_ were most anxious
that Northern laborers should be equally well provided for.
When the paper was read, there was a cry of "Sold! Sold! Lowrie had sold
himself instead of buying the _Visiter_." At first there was a laugh,
then a dead stillness of dread, and men looked at me as one doomed.