The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-24
FRIDAY, MARCH "a, 1871.
The KURLUX @ANs.

THE special message of the President, and the
elaborate reports and speeches in the
Senate will increase public interest in the
reported Kuklux outrages in the South but
in view of the fact that number of the Re-
publican members of the House favor imme-
Ciate adjournment, it remains doubtful
whether further legislation will be adopted
during the present session. An animated
discussion of all the questions involved has
already commenced, and the public will pro-
badly be fully enlightened in regard to the
arguments for and against an increase of the
powers of the President to maintain peace
and order. The Democrats unite in opposing
any further legislation before its necessity is
clearly demonstrated, and as they will proba-
bly, make very vigorous fight in the House,
it will require cordial union as well as extra
ordinary exertions on the part of all the Re-
publican members to secure such action as is
contemplated by the Presidents message.
If the temper of the Republican Congress
men is not speedily changed, such co-opera-
tion can scarcely be anticipated; and the
probabilities are that the House will adjourn
without passing any supplementary recon-
struction law. That many outrages have been
committed in the South cannot be dou bted,
but the necessity and utility of further ma
tional attempts to maintain order in that
region should be very clearly dem onstrated
before new attempts are made to ac-
complish what is nearly a moral impossibility.
The Rebel States teem with brutal,
bloody minded, half civilized semi mi-barbarisns,
who are fit compeers for the Fourth ward
crowd of Philadelphia and the Dead Rabbits
of New York. 1t was fair to presume, how
ever, that after the coored race was enfran-
chised and the local governments of nearly
every Southern State placed in the hands of
Southern Republicans, sustained apparently
by local working majorities, these
men would be enabled to maintain their
ground against foes of inferior numbers.
Their failure to do SO is largely
due to their foolish dissensions, their criminal
misconduct, their lack of courage, and their
repeated appeals to Congress to do for them
what in justice they should do for themselves.
The reconstructed States are.proving white
elephant to the national authorities, and it is
time to inquire whether this rapacious mon
ster had not better be left, for short season
at least, to browse for himself, instead of
tanned at the national expense. The
President complains that in some districts the
carrying of the mails and the collection of
the revenue are rendered dangerous. Such
evils are of immediate national concern, and
they should be suppressed at every hazard.
In Philadelphia, when the illicit distillers of
the Richmond district openly defy the laws
and the revenue collectors, it does not seem
to require any new act of Congress
to authorize raid against them;
and the President should be able
to employ force, in a similar manner,
in such Southern districts as notoriousy
obstruct the operations of mail-carriers or
revenue collectors. But Philadelphians would
not relish the idea of having the whole city
placed under martial law on account of the
existence of illicit distilleries in a single
ward; and it is not wise or just to condemn
entire States for the crimes of few of their
Inhabitants.
In any legislation that may be framed
by the Republican Senators and Con-
gressmen, as party measure, they
should be more careful now than
at any former period that right and justice
are clearly on their side, and that they are
authorizing barely what imperative necessity
requires, and no more. The general drift of
public sentiment is that the carpet-baggers,
scalawags, ex-slaves, ex-slaveholders, Rebels
reconstructed, Rebels unreconstructed, and
Southern loyalists should be left, for a brief
period at least, to fight out their own battles
in their own way and that if the nation
is ever again to become a party to their
quarrels, it shall be on no slight pretext and
for no trivial purpose.