Litchfield enquirer., 1871-04-13
THE TROUBLES IN SOUTH CAIRO. 5r7ap de.nzs LIMA. f.

this kusklux business untlf+the causes are better understood. a
 The Democrats say it comes of radical misrule; the Republicans continually say that it is part of the old rebellion. The New York Tribune of Monday even retells it's old story by declaring that "the Ku Klux conspiracy is designed to carry the South to the sham Democracy in 1872 by a terrorism so pervading and systematic as to drive half the blacks from the polls, or constrain them to vote the ticket they abhor a a@
 It comes from neither.
 We must now study those evils which are cited by these sympathizers of the Ku- Ktux, if We would have speedy and lasting peace. They gave a wrong name to this disease in the body polite; but no matter for that there is a disease, and we must eradicate it. In our diagnosis we shall find many things which they will not, dare not. bring to light:
 THE REAL EVILS IN SOUTH CAROLINA.
 l. A great majority of the whites are practically unrepresented in the govern. ment.@ The colored voters have majority of tens of thousands. The power of this majority was immeasurably increased by the apathy of the whites for two or three years. They called our government "no government and they would have noth ing to do with it. But the government went on, despite of them. Now they see their error, their folly.
 2. The colored people are not only in the majority, but they are. as general thing. uneducated. Only few thousands of these four hundred thousands and more-of colored people can even read and write.
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 3. Property is to an alarming extent, unrepresented. Nearly all the material wealth of South Carolina is in the hands of the whites. This property must bear taxes. These taxes are necessarily heavy, being added to by corrupt legislation, as we have many times testified in our fight to reduce this taxation. But property might have been more largely represented had it not been for the apathy of the property holders for two or three years succeeding the close of the war.
 IGNORANCE IN BOTH PARTIES
 f. It is quite common for tho press of South Carolina to talk of the Republican party, containing as it does these many thousands of colored citizens who are un- trained in the schools, as the party of igno- rance, &c., and this is done in such a way as to convey the impression that the great body of the Democrats, or the whites. if you choose, are uneducated. Never was there a, greater misrepresentation. There are thousands of the whites who are liber ally educated indeed, this State has pro- bably its share of graduates of high schools and of colleges but pitifully large number of the whites are totally un- educated, ,and rendered the more dangerous as citizens because their ignorance has given them such monstrous prejudices against the colored people as not only to preclude justice in the settlement of the political questions of the day, but which lead them to look at the maiming or mur. so grave crime. The white sand d-hillers" of South Carolina are probably as degraded as any class of whites in America, although possibly the ''clay eaters" of Georgia out rank them in ignorance. Then we have other classes of low-downers," unneces- sary to describe, the mere mention of which sufficiently shows what drag we have in this terrible hour.
 What intensifes the preiudlces of these low-downers" is the following bit of hu man nature namely, they, notwithstand- ing they are "low.downers.' quite natural ly wish to consider themselves the superb ors of somebody, and so they are at all times ready to enter into that which will put the struggling colored man under their feet. They, of course, are obsequious enough to the better educated and more socially elevated white men, and are too ready to do the bidding of some of the more interruptions of these last in the aw- full political games now being played in South Carolina. 5s g CORRUPT LEGISLATION. @"
 Following in the train of these are the evils incident to any State throughout the world, no matter how high its civilization or how deep it's peace. as ..- nj ...,.,.
 For example, we have many corrupt off cials. So, too, have Massachusetts, New York, England, Sc. We. however, have doubtless more than our full share, owing to the deep revolution in our affairs of which we have spoken.
 Then we have had much wicked legisla- ton. But so have other States. Doubt less Albany, Harrisburg, Trenton, Paris and other capitals, have little to boast in this over Columbia. But we have felt it the more for two or three reasons
 In the first place the State is poor. She cannot bear without pain what another State could sustain easily.
 ! In the second place, VIC have more cor. rupt legislation than formerly. because, to begin with. there is necessarily more law making. Formerly the patriarchal system entered largely into the government of South Carolina now these hundreds of slaves are citizens, and liberty demands more laws upon the statute-books than did bondage.
 Then, in former years. our lawmakers were further removed from the reach of temptation, as far as concerned money. for large part of the officials were men of wealth, the large slave holders, Sc. They formed, indeed, sort of aristocracy. Now these offices are open to all, there are necessarily more of them, and when there is corruption, it is blazoned abroad.
 Many of our journalists have given some of the crowning evils to South Carolina. We believe, to go back to the dayso seces- sion, that the mad tide which swept our State into the vortex of war could have been turned aside by few good, courage ous, common sense journals. To return to the present day, 8 large number of the opposition journals of the State are totally unfit for their offices. We charge large part of our evils directly upon them. Some of them are venal, while a large number of them are little gehennas of ignorance, pre- judice and hate. The stupidity, of some of W,t