 Unterrified Democrat front page on December 12, 1929 | |
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Owner | Warden Publishing |
| Founder | Lebbeus Zevely |
| Founded | 1866 |
| Headquarters | Linn, Missouri |
| Country | United States |
| Circulation | 3100(as of 1976) |
| Website | unterrifieddemocrat |
The Unterrified Democrat(UD) is a weekly newspaper published in Linn, Missouri, that serves it and surrounding Osage County, Missouri. Founded in 1866, it has frequently gained attention due to its unique name. [1]
Lebbeus Zevely was a Democratic member of the Missouri General Assembly for Osage County during the American Civil War. [1] In the 1860 presidential election he had supported Northern Democratic nominee Stephen Douglas. [2] Although Zevely had been born in North Carolina and was friendly with many southerners, he opposed the Confederacy. [2] [1] In 1865, Radical Republicans led by Charles D. Drake were able to get Missouri to adopt a new constitution that abolished slavery and required all Missourians sign the Ironclad Oath in order to vote, stripping the franchise from supporters of the Confederacy. [2] Zevely opposed the new constitution, with one source reporting that Zevely declared he was "unterrified" in fighting the new constitution, [3] and the UD reporting that he said "You know, people in Osage County don’t lie, and my county was split [between supporters of the Union and supporters of the Confederacy], and at least half my people will be disenfranchised because they won’t lie and take the oath", with another member of the assembly then declaring that Zevely was an "unterrified Democrat". [1] In 1866, to better enable him to fight the new constitution, Zevely created the Unterrified Democrat. [3] In its August 18, 1866, issue, the paper declared: [4]
Distrust, dismay, and confusion have enveloped the land, to a greater or less extent, ever since the Democratic Party went out of power, and in our judgment, will continue to do so until it comes in again
The paper remained in the Zevely family for three generations. During this time, the paper was a very partisan pro-Democratic paper, with its editorials sometimes being minutes from the state party's meetings. [5] Osage County was strongly Republican, which led one of the paper's editors to quit and open up business in, friendlier, strongly Democratic Monroe County, Missouri. [6] For a time, the paper's motto was "A jealous care of the right to election by the people", a Thomas Jefferson quote, though it had been retired by 1955. [4] In 1969, the UD left the Zevely family and was sold to Norman Troesser, who had worked for the paper since 1956, and his wife Mary Troesser. [7] Troesser noted how he would always endorse Democrats who he knew and could say something nice about, staying silent otherwise. [8]
In late 1980, the paper was sold to Ralph and Jerrilynn Voss. In the 1980 presidential election, the paper gave a brief endorsement to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan, the first time in its history that it had endorsed a Republican for president. In the 1984 presidential election, the paper gave an enthusiastic endorsement to Reagan. Jerrilynn Voss said that she thought Zevely would have approved, praising Reagan for making people "proud to be American", and criticizing Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro as "tokenism run rampant" and the Democratic Party as "the party of the gays [and] the welfare types", saying that "Everybody's who's looking for a handout is looking to Walter Mondale". [3] [5] Voss would identify herself a Republican. [3]
In 2007, Ralph Voss wrote a column in the UD where he advocated for school vouchers and said that liberals had run the public school system so poorly that it would be indistinguishable from a system designed by the Ku Klux Klan to sabotage Black children. Voss' column gained widespread notice in 2012, when the multimillionaire Republican donor Rex Sinquefield referenced the column to say that the Klan had, in fact, created the public school system to sabotage Black children. Voss' column was criticized by Chris Kelly as "silly and easily refutable but not racist". [9] James D. Evans, President of Lindenwood University (where Sinquefield delivered the remarks), criticized Voss' column as derogatory and did not criticize Sinquefield. [10] Sinquefield's remarks were widely ridiculed and he apologized for "my reference to a quote from Ralph Voss of the Unterrified Democrat." [11]
In 2018, the Vosses sold the paper to Warden Publishing, which had owned the nearby Gasconade County Republican since 1963. [12]