New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1871-11-23
Chicago and the South.

No clear sighted observer can have read the
record of the weeks first following the great
Western calamity without feeling that the effect
OF the great outburst of sympathy for the out
casts OF Chicago has been most wholesome and
eevating upon the national temper. We had
all begun to look at human nature too much
through the medium of Tammany thefts, Ku
Klux Klans. aud trials for adultery and murder.
They had almost put out of our sight the actual
framework of social and domestic life, its silent
modesties aud pure affections. and the myriad
unselfsh ties which in real life bind men to-
gether. Only such disaster as that of Chicago
could call this hidden ground of humanity to
hight 10 its most generous work. The country
has had her moments Of justifable pride before
now in the display of her strength or wealth or
success in arms but she was never so great as
when in the spirit of her Master she went into
the highways and byways and compelled the
homeless and destitute to come into her royal
feast, be warmed and clothed and fed. 1t will
need many years of squabbles and thefts and
international jealouses to blot out this glimpse
of the substratum Of manliness and kindliness
in ordinary human nature, or to make us for
get how from every nation came the quick
response when the great city sat in ashes and
cried aloud like job, my bone cleaveth to my
skin and my flesh. Have pity upon me, o We
my friends, for the hand of God hath touched
me-"
+ There is plain word in connection with this
subject, however, which it seems but just
should be spoken, and that promptly. But
little notice, if any, We believe, was excited by
the fact that the sympathy or help profered
by the South was but feeble. 1t was regarded
if thought of at all, as not only natural, but
probable, that this should be. One or two
cities gave munifcently. AS for the rest, the
world knows that the country is impoverished
by the war, and that the feeling of resentment
toward the North still rankles deep and bitter
among the common people. 1t would have
been, perhaps too much to expect from the
uneducated Southerner that, in view of this
great disaster, he would forget this resentment
in sympathy for the suffering of his late enemy.
But 1t certainly is not expecting too much
from his sense of good taste and decency to
suppose that he would shrink from using this
opportunity to drag to light and parade any
viruience and anger. Our surprise has been
great to lind Southern papers of the baser sort
picturin2 the burned homesteads and ruined
fortunes which the rebellion left them, with
scarcely hidden savage exultation that the
Chcagoans have the same bitter cup to drink
Now no journal in the North has labored with
more energy and sincerity than the Tribune
since the war closed, to promote the growth of
kindly feeling between the two sections, and
TO cement the Union with stronger ties than
those Of interest or force we hope our South
ern brethren, therefore, will allow US now
few plain words of warning We do not pro-
prose now or at any other time to discuss the
alleged atrocities OF Sherman's raid, the cruel
ties of Andsrsonvile or the propriety of Buffers
orders, any more than we shall the whip or
scars of slavery. The war is over. 1t was the
method chosen by the South to solve certain
problems involving the life Of the nation. We
believe that the wisdom Of God or common
sense OF man will soon suggest some other
mode of settling national differences. Brute
force is necessarily brutal the worst men in
war time find opportunity and scope to work
out their greed and cruelty. But whatever
war is, the South resorted to it of her own
free choice. We believe that her best men now
acknowledge that the issue was favorable to
them that slavery was hinderance to them
as much as to the black man that they stand
higher, have wider chances now, crippled as
they are, as part of free, live republic, than
as slave-breeding, slavemporting empire
handcuffed with Mexico Weaker men and
women may not be able to look outside of their
own empty slave pens or lost crops to see this.
But the weakest man ought to see the common
sense of accepting an NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
ought to know that the South can no more
separate her business relations from the North
than the legs can leave the body without decay.
For the sake of expediency, if for no higher
motive, we urge them not to tamper with their
own well being. The temper of the Northern
States is now most kindly and generous toward
them, but an insult in the time of misfortune
stabs deep. If no Christian or human feeling,
therefore, can restrain these unreasonable re.
ordinations, we beg for the sake of policy to
be silent. Wise men agree to let the unhand-
some corpses of slavery and the war lie, and
to raise above them the profitable front of new
issues.-N. Y. Tribune.