Republican Herald

The opposition have asserted and repeated it over and often, that Governor Fenner is unfriendly to this town. Let us examine this assertion. It seems Mr. Lemuel H. Arnold was one of the petitioners for a junction of the turnpike roads to Pawtucket, and it further appears, that he was a large stockholder, and consequently deeply interested in the granting of the petition, Had the petition been granted,- the Old Road, which by its charter had reverted to the State, would, by merging with the new road, have been forever lost to the State. The Old Road will now produce to the State an income of Five Thousand Dollars a year. The present annual allowance for Free Schools is Ten Thousand Dollars and the proportion to the Town of Providence is $1200; the revenue from the Old Road to Pawtucket, if applied to Free Schools, would be Six Hundred Dollars additional. The opposition made by Governor Fenner to the junction of the two roads, will furnish the State with an annual revenue of 5000, and this town with its proportion 600, while Mr. Arnold, legislating upon his own petition, would have put this Five Thousand Dollars into the pockets of the Stockholders, of whom he was one.

Freemen, we ask you, who was friendly to the Town and to the State in this matter, Governor Fenner or Mr. Arnold? Mr. James F. Simmons, who is stockholder in one of the roads to Pawtucket, was also a petitioner and copartner with Mr. Arnold in the speculation, and the town of Johnston would have lost the proportion to which she is entitled, had the petition been granted. It will be recollected Mr. Arnold was a representative from this Town, and was sent to the General Assembly to protect the interests of the Town-instead of which, he was signer of a petition for himself, which, had it been granted, would have taken money out of the pockets of his constituents and placed in his own. And after all this, Mr. Arnold requests you will make him Governor, and Mr. Simmons wishes to be a representative-- modest men to say the least of them.