WAUPACA COUNTY POST

February 10, 1921

 

THE FAREWELL SHOT FROM THE OLD CANNON

MAYOR NELSON IN ANSWER TO CONGRESSMAN BROWNE CONCLUDES THE HISTORY OF “THE OLD CANNON”

 

                                                                                                Waupaca, Wis., Feb. 9, ‘20

Editor of Waupaca County Post:

            Dear Sir: - I note in the last issue of the POST that Mr. Browne fired a blast from his cannon.  The article is so unfair that I am asking space in your paper to state the facts.

            1^st.  Mr. Browne started the matter by offering to get a cannon for Waupaca, and he should be allowed all the credit; although he never offered to pay the freight.  He lay in ambush until it was paid.

            2^nd.  A ready-made petition for the cannon, with an agreement therein to pay the freight, was signed by the officers of the G.A.R., and that organization was thereby soley liable for the payment of the freight on the cannon.

            3^rd.  I never forgot that I signed the ready-made endorsement of said petition, along with the endorsements of the officers of the Sons of Veterans, American Legion and Civic and Commerce Association.  The World War was finished, and I presume that said officers, like myself, believed that we were to get a service cannon and relic of the late war.

            I never was notified of the arrival of the cannon, and had nothing to do with unloading it, and had no responsibility connected with it.  In my endorsement of the petition of the G.A.R., I could not bind the city to pay any freight.  If the city had been responsible for the freight, I should have been notified, and on inspection would have refused to accept the cannon.

            When I endorsed the petition I did not understand that the cannon was to be shipped to Waupaca for political purposes.  I can see now that if I had declared a holiday on its arrival in Waupaca, and if the city schools, and all the organizations that endorsed the petition had proceeded to celebrate its arrival, with patriotic band, it would have been a cheap way of opening the campaign for our Congressman last fall.

Politics

            In conclusions I will say that I am not again a candidate for mayor.  I have tried to be fair and economical in the administration of the affairs of the city.  The charge of Mr. Browne that I was playing politics comes with poor grace from an expert politician, who has been on the pay roll of his County, State and Nation for more than twenty years, and not being satisfied with that, now adds a member of his family to the government’s pay roll.

                                                                                                            E.W. NELSON