Cracker Frank the Gouger

New York, 1895

Cracker Frank of the Standard is very much concerned about the welfare of the tax-payers, quite in the same way that a hypocrite is concerned about salvation. The tax-payers must not be bled, unless Cracker Frank does the bleeding. Cracker Frank has tried to do some bleeding. When detected, exposed and defeated in an attempt to cheat the county out of $255, he tries to cover his own offense from view by crying out against some honest person who has committed no offense. The Cracker's attempt to extort money from the county was detected by the board of Supervisors and defeated. At once he made a target of the Supervisors. When the Town Board of Jamaica concluded to economize by having public work, including printing, done by contract, Cracker Frank raised a howl against the town officers. If the Cracker were really sincere he would welcome these methods, take his chances along with the other printers, and be good natured. He is against doing public printing by contract, consequently he is against the true welfare of the tax-payers. The reason he is against open competition is that he cannot compete with well equipped printing offices, his own office, so called, being a miserable little affair and incompetently conducted. In the competition for election printing he imitated the barn yard fowl vulgarly called the Dunghill — he sneaked and did not bid at all. He was no more in it for the tax-payers this time than when he tried to gouge the county out of $255. He used every influence, good and bad that he could bring to bear to induce Town Clerk McCook and Justice Kissam, both Republicans, to get the printing without competition, going so far as to bring Boss Youngs of Oyster Bay and sub-Boss Wallace of Freeport here to bulldoze and threaten the Town Clerk into being a party to a job to fleece the tax-payers. A nice thing, this alcoholized Cracker, to be parading his hypocritical sympathy for tax-payers.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 22, 1895, p. 4.

Note: In one of the references to "Cracker Frank" they said "Cranker," an obvious typo. Frank is B. Frank Wood, "proprietor" of The Jamaica Standard, The Farmer's arch-rival. I put "proprietor" in quotes because of this curious article, "Woods' Name Is Down." There's also a little more about their relationship in this article, Malicious Attacks and Their Motive.