The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-02-19

writers, VINO nave hltnort0 deem heaVhy
weighted in the race wit their European rivals.
If there were no other inducements than this
one it ought to be sufficient to decide US to put
an end to the present unsatisfactory state Of
the international copyright question; but
beyond there is the not less important one OF
the dignity and good name Of the American
people. And until some modification Of our
present laws has been adopted which shall
place the foreign author on the same footing
as our own writer's the reputation Of our
people for honorable feeling and fair dealing
must continue to be compromised.
Tho Ku KIux Northumberland
Documents from the Congressional Com
mittecs.
A synopsis of the reports Of the majority
and minority of the Congressional Joint Com
mittee appointed to investigate the alleged Ku
Klux outrages in the Southern States is pub
lished in the HERALD to-day, and will be found
interesting reading, no doubt by the politicians.
The reports are neither more nor less than
campaign documents intended for use in the
approaching Presidential contest--the one
republican Paixhan, and the other the Krupp
gun of the democracy. In the former we are
afforded glimpses of the highly dramatic
pictures, occasionally seen in the trashy
illustrated papers, of Accommodating
forms in black cloaks and hideous
masks shooting down domesticated negro
women and colored families numbering from
ten to a dozen, and ranging in ages from a
month to fourteen years, and are solemnly as
sured that the sketches are from life. In the
other we are told that the Ku Klux
is of piece with the Black Doug
las with whom the old Scottish nurses
used to frighten their charges in
bygone days, but that President Grant Is the
tyrant in disguise from whom all sorts of ter
rible deeds are to be feared. Both succeed in
making out fearful tale of suffering for the
unfortunate South, the majority find
ing all the evils to spring from
these mysterious midnight ghouls and
from the cantankerous, revengeful spirit yet
prevalent among the chivalry, while the
minority discover the source of all the ills in
the greedy carpetbag Adventures and in
triguing politicians who work upon the fears
and prejudices of the black race in order to
hold their votes for the republicans. The
majority, through subcommittee, set forth an
array of figures to show that In the eleven
States, in 1865, the total State debts and liza
bilities existing and prospective, with the
Confederate debt and commercial debt and
interest, amounted to two thousand nine hun
dred and seventy-six Millions or two hun
dred and eighteen millions more than
the national debt at its maximum,
aud they enlarge upon the magnanimity of the
general government in saving the bankrupt
Confederates from utter ruin and starvation
through the agency of the Freedman's
Bureau. The minority, on the other hand, de-
clare that the South would be prosperous
enough If let alone by the politicians,
and trace all its pecuniary embarrassments to
the corruptions and rascality. Of the carpet-bag
governments forced upon the States at the
point of the bayonet. Both, of course, ad-
duce evidence In support of the views they
advance, but the minority insist that
the majority shave come to their
conclusions upon partial, imperfect and
prejudiced statements furnished by witnesses
examined at Washington, who were refuted
and in many instances shown to be utterly
unworthy of belief by the testimony of their
neighbors, who subsequently testified be-
fore the subcommittee. The majority
paint In vivid colors the midnight
outrages of the Ku Klux conspirators,
and declare that the poor, inoffensive, intelli-
gent and well-meaning negroes are slaugh-
tered by them, their wives and children out
ragged, their schoolhouses burned and their
teachers banished to Liberia; while the
minority are warmed into eloquent indigna-
ton because ''the atrocious measures by
which millions of white people have been
put at the mercy Of the semi barbarous
| negroes of the South and the vilest of the
white people, both from the North and the
| South, who have been constituted the leaders
of this black horde, are now sought to
be justified and defended by defaming
the people upon whom this unspeak-
able outrage had been committed.
It will thus be seen that there is wide differ
ence between these political doctors. The
people of the United States, who will, M
doubt, be literally supplied with both docu
ments under Congressional franks during th'
next six months, in deciding between the two
statements may safely be left in the position
of the patrons of the Snowman who ''pay
their money and takes their choice"
1t is an unfortunate thing that large ant
important section of the country should thu
be harsssed and torn by the intrigues ant
struggles Of rival political parties. Between
the old slaveholding democracy, with thei
hatred of negro freedom and political rights, Of
the one hand, and the cunning, avariciou