NP, NCS 7/6/1864

From the North Carolina Standard  {Raleigh, N. C.}
 
July 6, 1864
 
Prescription for Opinion Sake
   In noticing the appointment of Railroad Directors, yesterday, we overlooked the fact that Gov. Vance had dropped Albert Johnson, Esq., one of the Directors on the N. C. Railroad. We have not a word to say against the worthy gentleman that has been put in Mr. Johnson's place, but as the present incumbent is known as a true Conservative and a friend of Mr. Holden, Gov. Vance was urged by the Destructives and secessionists that surround and control him, to bring his head to the block. And as Mr. Johnson is a mechanic and working man, he was no doubt considered a little "greasy," or "nasty," and hardly qualified to hold such appointments as are given to Council Wooten and W. W. Avery. Mr. Johnson is one of our most worthy citizens, is one of the most efficient practical railroad men in the South, and was the only mechanic in the Board of Directors; and as he is turned out without any reason or other cause than that he is a true Conservative, and a friend of Mr. Holden, it is an insult to every mechanic and working-man in the State, and one which most of them will resent in August.
   Mr. Johnson has been Superintendent of the Raleigh & Gaston Machine Shops for a number of years, and it is well known he is one of the most efficient men that has ever been connected with the road, but that he may be punished for opinion's sake, we learn that one of the staff officers of Gov. Vance, a man who draws provisions from the State store house for his whole family, including his negroes, and charges the State rent for his own house and draws forage for the horses that haul his wood, is trying to have him dismissed from the place he has so acceptably filled.
   We call upon every mechanic and workingman in the State to remember these proscriptive oligarchs and stall-federates, and vote for a man who, having been raised to work and a mechanic himself, can sympathies with them and appreciate merit, wherever found. Gov. Vance is surrounded, here, by a set of broken-down aristocrats and oligarchs -- men who despise honest industry -- and it is these who have influenced him to turn out of the Board of Directors of the North-Carolina Railroad one of the best men we have in the community.
Progress

Home