The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-24

Editorial Opinions of the Leading Journals
Upon Current Topics-Ooinpiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
SENATOR BROWNS LETTER.

SENATOR BROWNS LETTER
From the NJ y World
The Dent imbroglio grows in interest. It's
latest development is a very remarkable
letter addressed to Judge Dent 10y A. u.
Brown formerly United States Senator from
Mississippi, and colleague in 1861 with Mr..
Davis and afterwards Senator from his State
in the Confederacy Next to certain develop
ments as to the operation of the radical pro
gramme in Mississippi, the most remarkable
thing in this letter is the exactness with whlc&
it supplements and corroborates that view OF
the Southern situation taken some months
since in the WOrldS special correspondence
from that country. According to Mr.. Brown,
nineteen-twentieths of the white population of
Mississippi which may be taken to comprise
all the genuine citizens of the State, are of
one way of thinking and ''the negroes will
take sides as they are led either way, with
the chance in favor of the citizens of Missis-
sippi that 'brains and education will tell
after awhile on the most stolid of minds,
even on the obtuse intellect of the negro"
With nineteen-twentieths of the white people
a solid unit and with a powerful leading in
fuence exerted by them over the blacks, MIR.
b. declares that, while the lateness of the
day ordered by Mr.. Grant for the election
3Oth November-is q source of regret in Mis-
sissippi, it is not to be regretted upon
political grounds; that the citizens will carry
held The lateness of the date is regretted
because as the cotton picking begins about
the first of September and ends about the
last of November, just that very period when
labor is most sharply in demand will be the
period of a high political excitement that,
with the negro's known impressibility, will
greatly lessen the value of his services in the
field. The reason of selecting these two
months of September and October for the
in, ont Il Of tba
economic wants of Mississippi, is stated to be
that Grant feared the election, if ordered be-
fore October, would, in case of it's going ad-
versely to the radical ticket, have bad effect
on the party in the October elections of Penn
sylvania and Ohio.
With this erp0Se, first, of the strength and
unity of the citizens of Mississippi, and,
second, of the shameful manner in which the
two most important industrial months of the
year are, for the benefit of radicalism, as
signed over to all the distracting hurry y-burly
of a heated canvass, Mr.. Brown proceeds to
touch upon third matter, which, as it rises
in Importance above any mere issue of this
pending election, is worthy of special note.
He says:-
''To me and many old like myself it makes
very little difference, politically or personally, what
course things may take There is hardly anything in
the chapter Of accidents that give again any
active participation in the affairs OF governments but
we want peace--permanent, lasting peace. We
would not, therefore, leave TO the Inherit
ance of ayenging any wrongs that may be inflicted
on us. The old must soon die Off and the young
ones @ take their place places 1 want to Leave my SON. and
of mine to be set right after am gone. At most, it
cannot be long before these boys now growing up
will get possession of the State Government. 1t be-
longs to the men OF this generation to decide how
they shall manage it; That they may avenge gra-
tuitous insults heaped on their fathers Is not without
the range of human probabilities. Such things have
happened"
There is something in this that ought not
to be passed by as the mere raving of an en-
bittered and broken-down old man. 1t is too
consonant to the known course of human
nature and too amply verified in that CORES
pondence, generally of such approved accu-
racy, that the World has at each phase of the
Southern question presented its readers.
Coupling this intonation of a deep-seated
sentiment of injury with the prior declara-
ton in this letter of an extreme degree of
unity and strength among the citizens of
Mississippi, it is easy to see how true it is
that some day ere long the State must come
into the hands of its young men, and
easy, too, to perceive that, if those young
men participate in the sentiment of their
fathers, there is trouble ahead. This general
reflection is one that again and again the
World has sought to impress upon the coun-
try-that the evil of Congressional recon-
struction was less in its present tangible re-
suits than in that obdurate and implacable
animosity which it was bringing into life. If
negroes as Lieutenant Governors, and Secre-
taries of State, and legislators and sheriffs,
and State functionaries generally; if high
taxes, and carpet-bag dominance, and harsh
laws, and black militias, were alone the re-
suits. those, in an election or two, would dis
appear before the superiority of the white
race; but, when it comes to the training up
of whole generation much more nume-
rous than the generation of Manassas and
Gettysburg in the fixed belief of revenge
being a sacred filial duty, there is something
terrible in this far-reaching result of ras-
cality that, bad as it is, was only meant to
subserve certain party ends by sharp and
cruel means.
Senator Brown gives some glimpse into this
possibility; and to those who are anxiously
peering out into the general future, this will,
doubt be the most interesting portion of
his letter AS to immediate political matters
we may recapitulate by saying, first, that as
1t appears from this letter, the partisan
timing of the Mississippi election by Grant
must cost the State very heavily in the article
OF unpicked cotton-unpicked because the
negro will be torn almost bodily asunder il
the fierce canvass throughout the picking sea
son for his casting vote; second, that tn
citizens of Mississippi are united and deter
mined, and mean to carry the election unles
the actual bayonet blocks the game; third
that Ames, the military commandant, is des
perately intriguing for one of the Unite
States Senatorships; and, fourth, that the rad
cal party in Mississippi is contemplate an
in death throes.
THE TAROR CONGRESS-