A newspaper article in the Evening News published on September 24, 1898, called into question the town’s morality. An opinion piece, written under the name “The Wayfarer” talked about the spirited controversy about the town.
“There is no doubt Milford has the name of being a wide-awake place where “everything goes.” The Wayfarer believes that even the warmest defenders of the town’s morality will admit that such is the general reputation,” the article reads. “Not being a drummer, the Wayfarer cannot write with the pen of personal experience, but he believes that commercial travelers have had much to do with making the reputation of the town what it is today.”
The article continued that the Wayfarer did not want to become embroiled in the controversy and felt the “News and Advertiser” should deplore the Chronicle uphold the “social atmosphere of the place.”
“It is their fight and the foregoing remarks are merely made to introduce something bearing on the matter which is recalled to mind by the controversial spirit of the two papers,” the article read. “Ex-Governor William T. Watson resides at Milford. He is a straightforward man who loves the reputation of his hometown, and he is keenly sensitive to any such criticism as that in which the News and Advertiser is now indulging. Some years ago, the ex-governor was a state senator and Perry Rickards was representative form Milford.”
The Wayfarer then remarked that the stories were so unsavory that Representative Rickards decided that some legislation was necessary to break up the operations of commercial travelers and their accredited local agents.
“He introduced a bill entitled “An Act in Retaliation to Procurers and Procuresses in the Town of Milford.” The Wayfarer chanced to be in Senator Watson’s company when he heard of this colleague’s actions,” the report read. “Was he mad? Well, he simply threw his head up in the air and shouted. He declared that he did not propose to have such a statue on the books against the town in which he resided. Admitting the provisions of the bill were good, but he resented their local application. The outcome of the matter was that the bill was so amended as to apply to the entire state instead of to Milford and that is t the law which is in full force and effect today.”
The Wayfarer pointed out that both ex-Governor Watson and Representative Rickards would “remember the circumstances.”
