Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

LANSING TOWNSHIP AND CITY, WITII HISTORY

523

It was constituted of four pages, well printed and typographically
neat. It was hand set.
The publisher was W. S. George & Company. The staff was
stated to be S. D. Bingham, political editor; J. W. King, local
editor, and D. F. Woodcock, local agent.
EDITOR A "VERSATILE Cuss."
As his contemporary, Artemus Ward, might have described
Editor Bingham, so it may now be said, "He was a versatile cuss."
That is to say, Bingham was promiscuously active. He was
postmaster and chairman of the Republican State Central Committee, in addition to his editorial position. What the Civil
Service Commission would do to Editor Bingham in the present
day on the score of "pernicious partisian activity" would be a
plenty.
"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" quoted one
from what is said to be Lincoln's favorite poem, looking over the
shoulder of the explorer of this old paper, as its leaves were turned.
Sure enough-the aspirations and the activities of those old-timers,
of nearly 50 years ago, do seem highly inconsequential as one sees
them now, in old-fashioned type and on pages that have too far
gone for the sustenance of mice. Really, whatever was consequential about those early Lansing folks, we of the present, and
not they, are reaping.
The first little mouse-eaten file of the Lansing State Republican
tells us that this city was then in the heat of the "Greeley campaign." How earnestly the old-timers did take their politics.
Not an issue of the "Republican" misses a whack at the Liberal
Republican and Democratic coalition, led by Horace Greeley,
against Grant and Wilson.
CALLED BLAIR POOR G. O. P. MAN.
We of the present generation, as we daily pass and repass the
bronze statue of Gov. Blair, think of him as altogether a stalwart
Republican, but the old Lansing daily tells us unmistakably that
Blair was "off the reservation" at that time, and how they were
abusing him. Well, he was in good company. Here we find Editor Bingham "taking the hide off" Senator Charles Sumner, the