The Portland daily press., 1867-05-17

POR1LAND.
Friday Morning, May II, 1857.
Free speee. n, Mobile and E,.,v.

Free Speech nj Mobile and Eisswhe,e.
The circumstances of the riot at Mobile are
tolerably clear. The first dispatch was evident
ly written by one predsposed TO believe the
worst of Judge Kelley and bisfriends, and i'm
perfectly and incorrectly informed at that 1t
was stated, for instance that most Of the shots
were fired by negroes, as few OF the whites
present were armed, but that only three men
We're known to have been killed, t,co negroes
aud one white man. The later dispatches
show that the disturbance originated in the
outskirts of the meeting, beginning with cries
OF Put him down." and that when Judge
Kelley replied TO the insult, rush was made
towards the stand and an indscriminate fusil-
ade opened upon the speaker and all around
him, The reporter of the New York Herald
says 1T was evidently preconcerted plan
and was probably, stimulated by incenaiary
articles" which had appeared in the Mobile pa
pers. The Mobile Times was mentioned bv
Judge Kelley himself as endeavoring to pre-
vent him from gaining hearing ..-
This is all plain enough, and those who re-
member with what deliberate and ingeni Gus
malice the New York World labored for
week last winter to get General Butler mob
bed at public meeting in Brooklyn will be
the last to regard thscourse of the Mobile pa
per as an evidence of peculiarly Southern de-
pravity. In Brooklyn however, the police as
well as the mob had read and noted the insti-
cations to violence, and made their DISPOSE
tons accordingly. The appointed evening
came; the address was made; not symptom
of disorder appeared. At Mobile, the Herald
@
ON the part of the police to arrest violence"
All the municipal offices in Mobile are filled
with Secessionists, and it is impossible to re-
sist the conviction that the subordinates at
least were 80 far in sympathy with the rioters
as to forget their primary duty of preserving
the peace 1t is not to be supposed that the
Democratic policemen of New York and
Brooklyn have any splcial admiration or love
for General Butler, but it is to the credit of
Northern civilization that our civic author-
ties do not allow their prejudices to interfere
with their duties. .....ft....... ....
The claim of stranger to hospitable protec-
ton, the right of an American citizen to speak
freely on public questions, are not yet recog-
nized in the States ea-
Where tn ANITA bar-room that would pay for OPEN
in ont night, ~.
Without 1t Civ the priverlege O. .bein' shot at sight
Some traces of a state of society which has
been called organized violence" we must ex-
| pect to meet for years to come. The habits of
thought and action which have been growing
! for years in this hOt-bed of slavery will not
witherv and die in an hour. They must be
rooted up, weeded out, and the process will
| take time. Meanwhile it is ON the whole rath-
erencouraging that Judge Kelley and Senator
Wilson have been able to make so extensive a
tour through the Southern States, with SO little
| opposition. 1T is true, as Judge Kelley said at
| Mobile, that before the war no Northern man
| could speak his whole mind at the South with
safety. 1t is IN encouraging sign that the best
men at the South are beginning to see that the
extinction of slavery leaves no excuse ,or re-
straning any mans freedom OF speech; that
the proper course for any dissatisfied hearer
| is to go away and cease to listen to doctrines
| he does not like A meeting was called at
| Mobile, it appears, to express the unqualified
condemnation with which the conduct of the
rioters was regarded by the better part of the
community They are beginning to under
| stand that man may ride upon a rail and ride
| his hobby at the same time, that he may
| change his coat for suit of tar and feathers
| without changing his mind much, and that a
| pistol shot somehow always fails to hit an ar
| gument. So far, SO good.