Peninsula Enterprise, May 28, 1887

Untitled

Moral -- Alcohol

EDITOR ENTERPRISE. -- In replying to Resident's communication published in last week's ENTERPRISE regarding what he, Resident, erroneously terms the controversy between Jonidab and a Life long Democrat and Temperance man and taken up by Visitor and Resident &c., will say that Visitor has never taken up any quarrel of a Life long Democrat and Temperance man against Resident, Jonidab, or any other person, but has stood always as now, preferring to attend to his own business and let that of others alone. It seems the writer signing himself Jonidab and Resident is one and the same person, and that he has a deep seated grudge and malicious hatred against both Life long Democrat and Visitor, and that he is now determined to weary the many readers of the ENTERPRISE with his insolent and would be defamatory communications, in regard to a matter wherein he, himself, began the assault upon Visitor, by the uttering and publishing of slanderous and libelous charges, without the least semblance of truth in themselves. In regard to the charge preferred by him, of Visitor, taking up a Life long Democrat and Temperance man's quarrel, is so absurd that it needs no reply. The articles written by Visitor and published, speak for themselves, and an intelligent public will decide the matter justly. Besides Life long Democrat is quite able of himself, single handed and alone to cope with an adversary no more formidable than his late antagonist, consequently he needed not the assistance of any one. Visitor certainly has no quarrel with the church nor with any church or its members, neither has he any quarrel with the good people of Chincoteague Island, nor with the local option element or the law, but he does demur to the manner in which would-be leaders as local optionists are enforcing the very statute they so solemnly promised the people that they would see to it and have the law enforced. That is the objectionable feature Visitor has set forth on all occasions. It seems that Resident wanted to show off a little French in his effusions in the ENTERPRISE of last week, judging from a quotation made by him from Richelieu, the French cardinal, or it may have been a ruse only that he may play his old game over again, but Visitor is not easily intimated by threats of drawing the mystic circle of his, Resident's church around any body of people, neither does Visitor drive worth a cent. Threats of the anathemas of church nor State, when emanating from so weak and insignificant a source as from Resident, will not be likely to influence the course of Visitor in this matter. These inferential threats but tend to show the shallowness, the insignificance of Resident at his every step. And while it is not the quarrel of Life long Democrat with Jonidab, nor is it the church, nor State, nor the people of the Island, nor with local options that Visitor complains -- but with the writer who signs Resident, that he proposes to deal directly, and to set himself right before the public. In a publication in the ENTERPRISE of the 7th inst., Resident made the following slanderous, defamatory and libelous declarations against the character of Visitor, viz: 1st with being the representative of the closed saloons, 2nd with being their henchmen, 3rd with being actively engaged in vilifying all who dare raise their voice against the traffic, and a misrepresentation of the facts of any movement that has for its object the advancement of the temperance cause, &c. For which unsupported libel and intended defamatory declarations, the writer signing Resident will probably be called on to answer before a proper tribunal. In the meantime Visitor will say that he hopes Resident will be more successful in his efforts to draw the mystic veil of his church around his adopted home, than he has been in his efforts to prohibit the use of intoxicants on Chincoteague. -- While awaiting further developments in the matter in controversy, Visitor will simply negative the malicious libel, by pronouncing the declarations of Resident to be wholly without foundation, wilfully and premeditatedly made, knowing at the time, that the charges were false.

VISITOR.