New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-10-24
That Dreadful Negro.

ciilNaSS closely, anu especially tne ACCOUNT
of it in tho ''Liberal Democratic papers, h
must have been amazed at the rapid ethno
logical changes going on, and the sudder
metamorphosis Of characteristics. If he hat
been reader of the Tribune during the pas
twenty years, he has ordinarily heard of The
Southern negro as an amiable, somewhat en-
ergetic, but unfortunate beng, exposed tc
the rapacity or cunning of a superior race
and utterly unable, both from inferior brain
and from inferior vindictiveness, to cope witt
his powerful and shrewd masters. Even
within two years he has read in Democratic
journals of disturbances in Southern cities,
where the murder of numbers of these eman-
cipated slaves was charged on their own vio-
lence, and he has seen the scathing denuncia-
tons of this oppression and over-reachng OF
an inferior race i'll the columns of the Tribune.
Now, however, he finds sudden and as
tonishing chronological change come over the
negro. The meek sufferer under slavery, the
Uncle Tom of the plantation, the mild and
accomplishing victim of oppression, has sud-
denly become ferocious and blood-thirsty
ruffian. In Georgia, he stands at the polls
with knife and club to keep away innocent
Southerners, and often drives these feeble
spirited planters in herds from the places of
election. Not contented with this, he even
maiiciously arOuscs an outbreak, 80 that
scores of his fellowblacks may be murdered
by the long-enduring masters. SO heroic has
his nature suddenly become, that he is will
ing numbers of his friends and relatives
should be shot, provided only he can create
the prejudice at the North that the white
Democratic party of the South is as blood
thirsty as ever! Such magnificent and far
seeing sacrifice has seldom been known in
history. Everywhere, according to the Til
bune, in the Southern elections, he is the
wolf provoking the meek Southern lamb 1t
is most edifying to hear how long the patient
planter endures the jibes and taunts, and
even blows of these ruffianly blacks, until at
last his bursting into passionate resistance
would be approved by religion itself. The
conversion of the Southerner is almost as re-
markable as that of the negro.
We have always heard, too, of the infe-
rior brain of the black, and that in politics
especially, he had no chance against the most
skillful and able political class the world has
seen. But this is all changed. Wherever
there are ballot-box stuffings or repeating, or
fraudulent voting or redistrcting at the South,
it is the negroes who are at the bottom of it,
The poor whites merely look on and bear
it all.
The spectacle is truly touching. But this
racial change is not confined to the South.
In the free States, whatever virtues the ne
gro may have had, we have not generally
counted among them unremitting energy and
bold opposition to the leading race. Now,
however, he shows all the restless activity
of the whites. Wherever there is "repeat-
ing" in Pennsylvania, there is the indcfati-
gable NEGRO" having travelled, perhaps,
hundreds of miles, and now in distant
State, exposing himself to detection and inn
prisonment for the sake of his party and his
leaders. The change is marvellous.
But in Indiana it is more wonderful still.
Whoever will remember what the negro or
the HoOsier" respectively were in Southern
Indiana-how black could hardly show his
face in some of the counties without exposing
himself to a revolver bullet, and how the
favorite chief relaxation Of the tall Hoosier
was in walloping' or manning runaway
blacks, and now will read the 1ribune's re-
ports of Tuesdays election, will be struck
with wonder at the changes which have come
over a race in few months or years. There
we learn that in Greencastle and New AL
bany, "the blacks gathered in crowds with
bludgeons and guns at the polls" to keep of
the honest and tlmid Hoosiers, and that in
some places it was not safe for these much
enduring Indiana whites to attempt to vote.
Moreover gangs Of these "black repeaters''
came pouring in, led by Senator Morton, and
though the offense is punished severely by
Indiana law, they deposit their fraudulent
votes and no Southern Indiana Democrat
dares breathe word of opposition.
Mast ought to sketch these scenes with his
unequaled pencil. We should see the burly
Hoosiers each with hymn-book or the tract
on "Peace" in his hand, locking meeklv on
while crowds Of poor negroes held the polling
booths, and brandished bludgeons and guns
and deposited fraudulent votes" Now and
then black of puny stature might be repre-
sented as splitting on some siX-footer among
the Hoosiers, all bristling with revolvers and
bowie-knives, merely that he might provoke
slaughter of his countrymen, and thus
bring stain on the pure escutcheon of the
Liberal Democratic" party.
Till this year, we had supposed from the
information furnished in the Tribune. that the
repeating" was always done by Irish Dem
ocrats. Now, however, it seems to have
become profession with Republican negroes
Though entirely new to it, and easily detected
from their race-characteristics, and with un
firing and lynx-eyed opponents watching
them in every State, they have proved 50
skillful and cunning in their new calling, tina
thus far no one has been caught or punished
Verify, if these chances are made by the he
gro, under one or two years Of suffrage, wha
will he become after a generation ~ Y
Times.
A Little Newspaper Quarrel.