The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-13
sP1Rrr OF xzn rRnss.
EditortaI Opinions Of the Leading Journals
Upon Current TODics-ComDilod Kvory
Day for the Evening Telegraph.


A BLAST FROM AN OLD TRUMPET.
From ire N. r Times.
The privileged growler-we mean, of
course, Wendell Phillips-draws, in the A1ti-
.Sydgery Standard of this week, what IL
pleases him to regard as the moral of the late
eleotions-namely, that 'we are floating
away from the keen and angry devotion to
the one great question of the negro"
This awful sign of the times moves Mr..
Phillips to great mental distress, and he calls
on "our friends" for ''more activity" He
bewails that ''our day is fast slipping away"
and that "unless some remedy is devised, the
negro will stand in peril, and use his rights
only at great personal hazard" Must we,
then, go on building forever our political
platforms exclusively from that traditional
.'wood pile" in which ''the negro" has been
concealed, and whence for years he has been
heard to halloo. Slavery is as dead as Julius
Cesar, and no efforts at resurrection are ever
dreamed of. Red men, yellow men, white
men are now quite as much to be looked
after as black-or rather we are to look
hereafter to the interests of all, without dis
tinction of color" In that sense, it is true
that Wendell's day is passing away"
But when Mr.. Phillips thereupon gets into
the old rut, and proceeds to vilify the ad-
ministration, the want of connection between
his premises and his conclusion is ludicrous.
The premises are that a certain negro who
voted the Republican ticket in Texas was shot
dead; that two more negroes were lately shot
in Louisiana; that in South Carolina "the
Ku-klux lately shot all the leading hands on
the plantations in five counties, and so fright
ened all the rest from voting" Now, it is
possible that there may be grain of truth
in all this, except that the South Carolina
story is rather ''fishy;" for that negroes are
shot recklessly at the South by that disgrace
to the American name, the ''Ku-klux Klan, -
it needs no ''reliable gentleman to assure
us. But what is Mr.. Phillips conclusion ?
That ''the administration is verify guilty for
its cruel neglect;" that ''it has broken a ma
tions pledges to the loyal men of the South;
and lest some hard-headed man of business
should point quietly to the 1868, 900, 600 re-
duction of national debt, Mr.. Phillips de-
clares that ''no mere financial success will
give such idlers and fops the credit of states
men. Treacherous, selfish betrayers of those
who trusted them, guilty of blood, and as
having slatterned away the noblest opportu-
nities-this will be their record in history"
Such is the style in which the gentle Phil.
lips ''unpacks his heart in words" cursine
|like very drab, scullion." But what an
impotent conclusion he reaches, and what
plentiful lack of logic he exhibits in the pro
cess! The administration is no more respon
sible for the occasional slaughters of unof
Tending negroes in Louisiana and South
Carolina, than it is for the rufianism in New
York, or for the repeating" style in which
the Democracy of the same city vote at the
polls. And, besides, such South Carolina
stories as these bear absurdity on their face.
Hardly twenty lines further or in his invec-
tive, Mr.. Phillips himself, forgetting his own
story apparently, says that lin some States
the Rebels have learned lesson. Their course
will be to pay faithfully, protect the negro,
and see that he enjoys his rights. Thus they
hope to win his confidence and control his
vote. South Carolina, always the most far
seeing of the Southern States, is foremost in
this manoeuvre. In the end, loyalty will find
room and protection" All this is true
enough; and it is only by an amusing non
Sequ5tur that Mr.. Phillips can thereupon
start off into the diatribe OH the administra-
tion which we have just quoted. The truth
is, however, that the croakers against the
administration in both wings of the opposi
tion have pretty hard work to get on, witt
peace at the South, peace on the Plains
peace with Spain and England, and a con
slant pushing of the financial argument q
Washington.