Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1871-01-28
VOTE FOR THE BRIDGE TO-DAY.

The CHRONICLES dwells with commendable
zeal upon the natural advantages of East Ten
neSsee and seeks TO win immigrants by Its pref
ty pictures of the fertility Of the SOIL the health
fulness Of the climate, &c, &C., but whenever
it comes to speak Of the Southern people its
tone changes. Among them it finds nothing
good. No opportunity is lost for casting impu-
tations upon them or openly reviling them.
We are willing to go before this commu-
nifty on the issue which the Wing and Reg
letter seeks to make. Our admiration for
the people of Eastern Tennessee is not of
recent date. We defy the Wing and Reg
ister to point TO a single sentence ever ut
tered by us which shows a want of respect
for the people of this country. Tothe credit
of our people, be it said, that no midnight
providers have ever made their appearance
cast of the mountains. Free as the pure
mountain air they breathe, East Tonnes
seeans have thought and acted for them
selves, and no tryanical domination on the
part of our neighbors west of the noun
tains, or other portions of the South, has
ever served to drive them into the support,
of what they believed to be wrong. When
the tide of secession swept over the South
ern country, bringing with it war and
bloodshed, our people stood as firm as
the mountains by which they were sur
rounded and never gave up their allegiance
TO the Government. While we in our
humble sphere were doing what we could
for the restoration of their rights, a so
called Southern Confederacy was doing all
that could be done, by armed force and
otherwise, to deprive them of the freedom
of. speech. Why should we shrink from
such an issue? Can the Wing and Regis
ter men say they raised their voices against
the cruel oppression of which our people
were made the subjects?
We can conscientiously invite the immi-
grant to our favored land. We can point
him not only to our healthful climate, our
fertile soil, &C., but We can say to him,
while other sections of the South are being
disgraced by outrages, we have nothing of
the kind here. Our people viii receive
you with open arms and warm hearts, and
you can entertain and express your real
sentiments, be they what they may, with
out the fear of cowardly Kuklux mobs in
terruptiDg you. We have had none of
them, and never will have them. If mask
ed men should commit these outrages here,
we would detect and punish them, and
they know it. Besides, public sentiment
is against such things.
But the above extract from the Wig
and Register is only an appeal to preju
dice, which we were unprepared for, COM
ing from a journal which we have hith-
erto given credit for fair dealing. The
bitterest revilers East Tennessee has ever
had, belong to the class which meets with
the endorsement of our neighbors across
the way. We give our neighbors credit
for being better men than the spirit of their
editorial would indicate. They are really
clever men, We think; and after sober
meditation, we doubt not that they were
ashamed of this contemplate appeal to
prejudice We will exercise charity, and
attribute the paragraph given, to the au-
thor's infirmities, rather than to vicious
disposition. The article referred to is the
result of morbid Imagination, superin-
duced by dyspepsia, or some other dread
disease which preys upon a mans mind as
well as his body. In this view of the case,
we pity our neighbors, and trust, for the
sake of their journal and its eventful his
tory, they will not often be subject to in
frmities which place them in such an un-
enviable condition before the public.