The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1869-09-02
WISCONSIN PTNERY B0Ys-TEHE FIRST
OF THE FUTURE.

y
lumbermen from the pineries north of
La Crosse, had been down the river
with RATS. They took passage on the
steamer Dubuque, to return after dis
posing of the lumber they had been
running to market. They were COM
ing up the river as regular passengers.
The steamer was crowded. After
punching tickets for those in the cab
ins, The clerks of the boat went below
to mark tickets of those on the lower
decks. That this work might be we'll
done, as it should be, guards were sta
toned on the stairs to prevent those
below going up till the tickets were
punched.
In this the officers of the boat were
right-they were doing their duty.
But they made great mistake in
appointing two black men as guards.
Here was the origin of the trouble.
The white men on the boat were no
boys.
wear coarse clothes and look rough.
They have families to love and pro-
vide for.
They were democrats and republi-
cans.
Some of them were our friends
some our enemies, that is politically.
But they were men-with men
workingmen the men who are help
ing build ap this country, and as time
unvails itself, they realize that the
government is not in sympathy with
them--dOeS not protect thena-does not
care so much for them as for the black
man and the relatives of the bondhol-
ders' President.
One of these men proposed to go up
stairs.
The negro guard stood on the steps
and said:
"Keep down dar! Kase you can't
come up here"
"Why not ?"
"Kase yer can't.
The man thus spoken to was perhaps
under the influence of liquor to some
eXtent-as Grant and others high in
authority often are. He felt startled
at thus being talked to by nigger-he
felt just as any white man would feel.
Words followed
The negro knocked him down.
The friends of the white man rushed
in.
The friends of the black man did the
same.
The negro deck hands drew knives
and other weapons. The white men
did the same. Hot blood soon boiled.
The whites were the strongest. Some
ofthem were intoxicated. The negroes
were driven from the boat; were driv-
en- into the river. shot with revolvers,
pelted with coal drowned.
The law stepped in at the first OPP
portunity and took the rioters or the
white men in its grasp, and there holds
them for the present.
This was not a Ku-Klux outrage,
1t is a greater row than has happen
ed in the outh Ssinec the war.
But we hear no efforts of the admin
istration to make capital of it, or to
project the black man !
The men who killed the negroes
were nearly all republicans.
They were men from the strongest
republican districts in Wisconsin.
Some of them, as a0e knou, were
men who have paid for rope to hang
Us with--Who have denounced us as a
traitor-who voted to carry on a war
for the benefit of the negro and bond
holder.
But times have changed.
They don't mix we'll with negroes.
They are not New England Puritants,
spoon thieves or hypocrites.
They want the negro to stay south,
and they hare sWOr2a, and are organizing
all 0Uer the district TO drive the negroes
from the riUer.
They don't like the negro as a rival
in labor. The majority rules. The
raftsmen of the northwest will stand
by each other.
They are hard pets to play with.
They are not afraid of d little blood
or little danger.
Tney don'tgo back on friends worth
a cent.
They don't like the idea of having
white men turned loose to beg, and
black men employed at half wages by
sharpers who have discharged white
men, driven them into the pineries
and other places for labor, and the re-
suit will be, if their comrades now in
Jail are hardly dealt with, they will
"warm" it not only to the black men
employed as struggling laborers in that
section, but will clear out all who en-
ploy negroes.
Bear in mind that this is in a repub-
lican district. That negroes are not
wanted there. That is has been sworn
that they shall not remain there.
Let the majority rule
We regret the occurrence named
greatly for the victims and for those
whose hot blood, over-excited by pas
sion, led to such fearful results. Had
we been on board the boat, it would
have been our endeavor to preserve or
der and save life. The most we can
do now is to ask that allowance be
made for those greatly excited.
During the war it Was common for
mobs of excited men to beat the brains