The Puppet Editor's Expensive Betrayal

It is a popular theory that thieves are actuated by a sense of honor, but that virtue cannot be accorded to politicians, as is illustrated in a recent case. A man not remarkable for acuteness, but with a negative character for harmlessness, was some time since inveigled into permitting the use of his name as the figurehead of a newspaper, ostensibly Democratic, under the representation of his designing advisers that it would give him influence and prominence. From the beginning, he has been the instrument of his advisers. Politics and party principles have been entirely ignored in the paper; party names have only been used to give point to personal diatribes. The nominal editor is finally called to account for malicious libel in an action at law for personal damages. He first applied to his old Republican partner, a leading member of the clique in whose behalf the alleged libel was committed, to defend the suit, who coolly demanded a fee of $1,000 as the condition of service. Another politician, who had secretly used the paper to defeat his opponent, was applied to and positively refused to have anything to do with the case. Not one of the men who used him for the most degrading service offers any assistance to relieve him from the penalties they have brought upon him. The only redemption for him now is to give up his principals and make a clean breast of it, so they may bear the public odium of their own acts.