Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1871-01-28
WHO OPPOSE EDUCATION AND IMMIGRA.
TON.


Gen. Harding has many friends i'll the
press of Tennessee who are his admirers,
and sympathize with him in the outrage |
Gus anti-education and immigration senti-
ments he has had the frankness and bold
ness to advance-but they have not the
moral courage to openly say so. We are
inclined to believe the editor of the
Wing and Register is one of them. He has
defended him as far as he dared, but has
!, never said one word dissenting from his
views. Under the cover of what some
people " think, he has made as good de-
Tense for him as he could. But the best
proof he does not dissent from those senti-
ments is that he refuses to answer the
questions we have repeatedly asked him.
On the contrary, he seeks to show that we
have done the gentleman injustice. Let
US see how the facts stand. Gen. Harding
said Just IN the proportion that the Idborer
Was educated up to the standard of educd-
ted men just in incorporation he would be
miserable while he was employed as labor
err This fairly commits thee against
education. He gives one reason for it, but
we submit that we are not treating him
unfairly when we attribute to him other
reasons that would be implied by any fair
man. Men of Gen. Harding's position
and sentiments hold peculiar views on So
cial intercourse. Their whole action fairly
makes them obnoxious to the charge that
they oppose elevating the working classes,
either by education or social recognition.
They have the utmost contempt for what
they call ''mixed society" in some parts of
the North-that is, for that society which
has for its standard of social recognition
an educated, cultivated man Of strict moral
habits, no matter whether he is rich or
poor, or whether his family is of influence
and high birth or not. In such society,
greasy mechanics" where they are true
men, have often high social position. Would
such men find welcome in General Har-
ding's circle? We think not. Is he and
his class not recognized as bitter opponents
of such innovations upon the social
circle? If not, we much mistake
public sentiment. With these views
credited to them, is it not fair,
in connection with the frank avowal above
made, to hold him opposed to the educa-
ton of laboring men because, as one rea-
son, it would elevate this class and in time
break down the aristocratic notions of his
supremacy egotistical class? 1t will be re-
membered that we do not attribute such
sentiments to 1.-THE Southern people T" as
whole, as our contemporary very unfairly
assumes, but only to this class vi. c.,
Gen. Hardings class. If we are unfair,
then public opinion, the world over, has
long been laboring under q delusion, for
such opinions have prevailed in regard to
this class ever since Senator Hammond's
notorious Mud-sills of Northern Socie-
ty" speech. We are honest in our belief
that such men as Gen. Harding oppose
immigration because its inevitable result
will be to break down the supremacy
which he and his class now enjoy. They
do not want to see q thickly populated
country. That would naturally do
away with large plantations of thou
sand acres, AID make the people, in
his estimation, "a peRriouS, niggdrdly,
skinfinted class Of Ydnkeesn 1t would
destroy, he says, "cU sociaIiy," l.. e., teach
the people to prefer men of industry, and
practical hard working habits, who
build up the wealth and industrial pur-
suits by their own hard labor and practical
common sense, rather than men of leisure
and aristocratic habits, who actually re-
tard the growth of the country by divert
ing its labor and products to training race
horses, building race tracks, and locking
up immense tracts of fertile lands in prac-
teal idleness.
If these are not theif, reasons for oppos-
ing the education of the laboring men and
immigration, will our contemporary, who
seems to have such a tender regard for
their feelings and so much respect for their
views, tell us ,Cl5at reasons they do give,
and whether or not il agrees with them ?
The effort of the Wing and Register to
array against us the contemplate preju-
dices INDUCED in by some brainless people,
will not deter Us from speaking our senti-
ments Oh these questions. We do not hate
the Southern people, but we have supreme
contempt for this narrow minded class re-
presented by Gen. Harding. Their own
outrageous sentiments, SANDER the South
worse than anything we can do or say.
-<
Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, says that of
all the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal
Church consecrated before himself, not one
lie lir-it1 4 Of til