New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-07-13
WAaYJyG no SOUTHERN MEN.

Now thai the PRESIDENTIAL campaign HAS Dc-
gun in earnest we shall hear from the South
ern States requent rumOrs OF disorders and
Ku-Klux O,trages. These rumOrs will not be
so frequent as they would have been, had
Congress adopted the Presidents pet scheme
of buying up the telegraph lines. and putting
them under he management of the Post
Office Department; but even In private hands
the telegraphis not infallible; operators and
reporters are subject to like passions with
other men aid the desire for startling item,
which is constant in the reporters bosom, will
help the manufacturers Of spurious news.
For months )ast the common testimony Of
all has declard the South as peaceful az
Massachusetts. The Ku-Klux organization ia
known to hae been absolutely abandoned
The South, we know, yearns for peace, and
Southern men Ire doing all in their power to-
secure it. On all accounts we welcome the
purpose and the practice. But do they
realize how important it is that they
should be n their guard, and con-
duct themselves during the canvass with
uncommon pndencef There will not be
wanting base persons, ready and eager to in
fame the old wounds, to bring on collisions
between white and blacks, or between Repub-
icans and Democrats, and they may be certain
that from nor till next November every affair
of fisticuffs any Southern State will be
magnifed by the Grant papers into new
Rebellion, ah every murder or vOunding
made to appar to the Northern public as an
other Ku-KlW outrage. II a negro laborer is
discharged, SINE one will be found to repre-
sent this as aproscription for principles sake;
and we do nt doubt that before three weeks
are ever, the Grant press will TEEN daily with
reports of muderous Ku-Klux assassinations
and desperae attempt will be made to alarm
the Northern voters, by pictures OF disorder
and lawlessnss in the South. The truth
is, good. sqare, atrociOus piece OF lawless-
ness and yOlence in the South would
Just now be god-send TO the Grant party. III
they could Prove, within the next two months,
that half adosen negroes had been burned
at the stake in Alabama and that number
of white women and children had attended
the incremtion, and waved Confederate
flags over the flames, Grants fuglemen would
at once "Thank God, and take courage
They are Just now little blue and disbeart-
ened and stand badly in need of something
of this kind, for they have no arguments to
offer.
We trust Southern Democrats will give no
occasion for evil reports. 1t is their duty, as
citizens of a free country, and as the more in
fuential citzms of their States, not merely to
keep the pea,e themselves, but TO see that it
is kept TIey have right freely to vote
themselves, and it is their duty to see that
their opponents freely exercise the same right.
They have a right peacefully to discuss the
political questions at issue in the campaign
and we cannot but believe that they can pre-
sent to their own people so forcible case as
to carry with hem the greater part of the in
dependent voters of their States. But their
opponents have the same right of peaceable
discussion aud wherever rOwdies or evil dis
posed persons may attempt to interfere with
this right, Southern Democrats ought to be
the first and the most conspicuous TO inter
pose their protecting arm.
There is but one thing, as we believe, and
as many of the Grant managers believe, that
can reflect Grant and that is new outbreak
of violence in The Southern States; or, what
would answer the same purpose, such plausible
false reports of violence i'll the South as would
thoroughly alarm the Northern mind. The
Grant leaders and managers are everywhere
talking about "the Rebellion That is
their principal stOck-in-trade. They ap-
peal to the "Union sentiment" They
curry favor With the Union Soldiers
as though these had not, seven years
ago, become citizens; they are doing theil
worst to preach up new crusade against the
South. 1t belongs to the Southern Democrats
to defeat this atrocious and unpatriotic plot
and the way to do it is to maintain-as they
can-even better order in the South than ii
observed in the North. And for the rest
when lie is reported, let it be at once fully
and autboritatiyely proved to be lie That
can and ought to be done.