Knoxville Daily Chronicle

Upon reading the Tribune of yesterday, we are reminded of the lines, more expressive than elegant,

"He who fights and runs away,

Will live to fight another day."

But when the Tribune man does this, he ought to tell the truth about why he does it. He pretends that he doesn't wish to discuss the "new issue" question, because it is "an issue long dead" but in the same column in which this appears, he alludes to the election of President Hayes as "the theft of the Presidency."

There has been scarcely a week in twelve months, that he did not attack the President's title in similar language. And yet, he knows, and every intelligent man knows, that the President's title has been passed upon by the highest tribunal that ever did pass upon the result of a disputed election, and that the matter is irrevocably settled. We believe in the utmost freedom of speech and of the press, and accord to him the right to speak of the President's title in that way if he chooses, but after doing so, it comes with a bad grace to plead "dead issues," in order to get out of a controversy which he himself provoked. Truth and candor are desirable accomplishments, even in a Democratic newspaper editor. He started out with the declaration that we made statements in relation to the new issues, without being acquainted with the facts. We furnished the facts, and then he tried to sneer us "out of court," as the lawyers would say. We showed him this couldn't be done, and now he bunglingly and ungracefully "crawfishes" out of the whole matter and gives a weak and wholly untenable excuse for his performance.