Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/26

 18 W. C. WOODWARD demand "too impudent for concession." The result had been that the loyal Democrats had formed Union Democratic tickets wherever Republicans had made party nominations and had elected them so generally as to strike the country with complete surprise. Bush thus gave evidence of growing restiveness under his close associations with Republicanism. As a striking sequel to Dr. McBride's prediction made in February,* is the following extract from a letter of Deady to Nesmith, dated November 22 : "Bush is breaking ground against his Republi- can brethren and the time is not far distant when he and they will quit the entente cordial it only exists in name now." The Argus strongly supported the policy of the Emancipa- tion Proclamation and on December 6, 1862, for opposing it made a venomous attack on Bush in an editorial under the sug- gestive caption: "The Lion's Skin Torn From a Donkey." 6 This editorial, while intemperate in language and radical in its presentation, presents so good a view, both of the attitude of the Republican radicals toward the Statesman at this time and of the position which Bush had assumed toward the Adminis- tration, that it is freely quoted in the following excerpts : "Now that it has made all the money out of the Union party it expects to, this sheet has thrown off its 'Union' cloak far enough to show its teeth which are now gnash- ing in real Corvallis Union style, at the President for proclaiming freedom to the slaves, at Congress for abolish- ing slavery in the District of Columbia, and at the Govern- ment generally for adopting what it terms the policy of 'freedom-loving Austria' for suspending the writ of habeas corpus. . . . This sheet lets no opportunity slip to charge the Government with peculation and fraud, to cry down and depreciate its currency, 7 to rail at anti-slavery men as abolitionists. . . . and in short to play Into the hands of rebellion by such sly jeers and villainous false- 5 Supra, p. 342. 6 "Bush and Little Preach (Billy Adams) are throwing mud at each other in fine style. The Statesman begins to read as of yore." Deady to Nesmith, Dec. 18. (Adams still wrote for the Argus though Craig was now in direct management of the paper.) 7 The Argus vigorously urged the acceptance and use of the legal tender notes at par.