n.t. (Randolph Responds)

False and faulty as the Alabama State Journal is it is undoubtedly the most ably edited sheet, on that side, in the State. When we admit it to be the leading Radical mouthpiece, we pay it about the same compliment that we would confer on a man who we should denounce as the evil leader of a band of thieves, assassins, &c. For these reasons we are disposed to notice the vehicle of Radical thought more frequently and lengthily than is usual with us when dealing with the negro-supporting press of the State generally. The dog returns to his vomit – the sow to her mire. Doctor Stokes, of the State Journal, again has opened the vials of his poisonous Radical wrath upon us, and upon our supporters. After the pulses of hit patients had begun to resume their wanted quiet beating, he again excites them with insidious bane, in his issue of June 1st, inst. Fortunately for us, this last dose is more on the homeopathic order than most of the preceding. Perhaps, though, he has discovered that his over-charged measures have saved us by acting as emetics, and he now hopes to administer just enough to “stick” and destroy us. This time the State Journal actually lets us off with a half column of mendacious abuse. This last shot is about as damaging to the truth-clad Monitor as the discharge from a squirt gun, loaded with bilge-water, would be to the adamautine sides of those Yankee monitors that assisted in “pegging away” at the “rebellion.” Why is Doctor Stokes, “the spectacled cuss,” so cager to have our paper squelched? Didn’t he declare, in one of his interminable editorials on the Tuskaloosa troubles, that the Monitor “has no pretensions to ability ?” How, then, are the effects of the feeble articles so greatly felt is he would now have them appear to be? Does the shoe pinch the galled jade, that it winces so often? Mr. Whitfield couldn’t fool him, when he wrote that we were only a fun loving fellow – a sort or pen-poking joker. Oh, no! Stokes has too much sense behind those specs on his nose for that! – Verily, if we were half the monster that he would have the world believe us to be, we would gratify him by quitting the not very profitable tripod, and hiring ourself out to some celebrated showman, to be exhibited at so much a sight. He says in his “last shot,” that “The effect of his vindictive and revolutionary articles on his readers is just what it would be were he perfectly serious.”- Strange that (whether serious or otherwise) one who “is, intellectually, certainly below mediocrity,” should have such influence as Doctor Stokes lays to our share! Alas, Doctor, don’t administer to your poor patients such a variety of medicines in so short a time. The effect of the one tends directly to counteract the influence of the other. Come, Stokes must do butter than that, or we will have to admit that he is no more competent as a quack-doctor than he is as an asinine editor, or than he formerly was as a stampeding dragoon in the rebel army. Perhaps we should feel obliged to the State Journal, after all. It has gratuitously served us in the capacity of an “advertising agency” for
the Monitor. Each article that comes out against us in the ” Governor’s” organ is equal to a new prospectus of the Monitor. Lately, our office has been deluged with Northern remittances for subscription, advertisements, &c., and our table has become literally loaded with first class daily exchanges. For all this prosperity we are bound to feel grateful to the nurturing attention to us on the part of our family physician in Montgomery-Stokes. The Radical organ reaches points in Yaukecdom where, hitherto, our ” one-horse concern” was unheard of. Thanks to Stokes, we will soon have to issue a daily Monitor, after the same style
as the present weekly. We truly hoped there would be no necessity for this till after the completion of our railroad, but Stokes has hurried up matters, and we will soon have to spread our wings more widely. Doctor Stokes, you wear the spacious mask of glorious hypocrisy well, but you have made a signal failure in your attempts to injure us by essaying to poison the public mind against us. Your editorials don’t hurt us one bit – in fact, they pamper us by increasing our amount of sustenance. Your poisonous scribblings won’t kill the Monitor – suppose you cram your State Journal in rat holes, and see if they will riot answer better for rat bane. And now we make our ” last shot” at Stokes, by presenting him with a life-like picture of himself, contained in this issue, as he appeared on the day of the battle of Shiloh. This does, in some sort, liquidate our indebtedness to Stokes for the great good that he has done us and our paper, and, above all, our cause, by his reckless scribbling.