Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-10-05
Playing With Fire.

Other people besides thieves are some.
times impenitent, even on the gibbet
John Allen is not the only ''flthy per.
son who will be filthy STILL" as the Scrip
lures harshly put it. Here is the Iri.
bune caught and convicted out of its own
columns of manufacturing Southern
| outrages for Northern market, and in.
stead of contrition and expiation it tries
to evade into new performances of the
| like kind.
This we shall not permit it to do.
The Tribune deliberately asserted, on
the strength of dispatch which we to ok
the pains in these columns to dissect,
that certain "rebels in Camilla, Georgia, F"
had assailed couple ofunarmed Repub.
lican speakers for the purpose of pre-
venting them from speaking in that town,
had shot at and wounded these inoffen-
sive persons, and with them few other
friends" of theirs, " colored Republi-
cans" also unarmed."
At the time when the Tribune made
these assertions, making them with the
distinct and unmstakable intention Of
firing the Northern heart, it had before
it the most irrepressible evidence that
these unarmed and "pes ceable per
sons were part and parcel of great,
noisy, riotous, we'll armed procession"
composed chiefly of negroes, marching to
the sound of drums and to the squeaking
of the wry-necked fife, and in this way
approaching small town, the adult
white male inhabitants of which were not
one-half so numerous as this Radical Ku-
Klux Klan which thus came upon them.
What the Tribune then knew, all the
world had known.
What does the Tribune now? 1t au-
daciously advocates the arming of me-
groes at the South for political purposes.
1t justifies the formation of ignorant
field hands into wide-awake clubs, with
guns and pistols in their hands, and the
sending Of these halfsavage multitudes
on stumping tours through the little
towns and villages of the South, under
the lead Of the fauatical and unprinci-
pied Northern white men who alone OF
Northern white men are likely TO accept
such positions aud to do such work
And this is leading organ Of the party
which asks us to make General Grant
President that I've may have peace
How long should we have "peace here
at the North il political professions were
to 20 about the country during an ex.
citing canvass armed TO the teeth2 And
yet in what part Of the North csuld a po-
liticsl procession Of any kind carry in its
very organization such threat to'the
population, such an appeal to their pas
sions, their fears, their prejudices, ifyou
please, as was ade in this case by the
Radical negroes and their leaders at Ca
milla2
Itis no exaggeration. Itis the solemn
and startling truth that incidents like
this at Camilla, treated at the North 10
the temper in which the Tribune treats
them, are preparing for this country
scenes Of horror such as those which
made negro emancipation in Hayti odious
to all humane ans .stional men. The
Tribune and the 7TibuRes party are
working upon the worser nature Of the
negro throughout the Southern States 70
preoipitaie him, with the torch aud with
the sword, upon the white race IN the
midst Of which he lives. And while they
are doing this with the one hand, with
'the other they are goadiug the southern
whites TO desperation. BY the denial OF
rights which have cone down 10 them
aud TO ne through long generations Of .
common ancestry. OF such things What
end can there be but one, which Il sickens
the heart 10 contemplate f-Ner 1ork
World.