New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-07-04
From the Baltimore American.
The Degenerate Tribune.

1t seems to lis that the New York Tribune
has of late conscripted two or three K,l-Klux
refugees into its editorial corps. We cannot
account for paragraph like the following on
any other hypothesis:
"Caswell county, North Carolina, has not
enjoyed a fortunate reputation of late years
Whether justly or not. it has been reported
to maintain the irregular rullian band known
as Regulators" and to have been formerly
more or less troubled with Ku-Kluxism. The
story that Mr.. Settle, who presided over the
Philadelphia Convention, and is now can
vassing the Fifth District OF North Carolina
for Congress, has been shamefully insuted
and threatened by roughs in Caswell county
is plausible one, and will find credence
among those who know anything of the To-
cality. OF course, while the Grant men are
in considerable minority in the South, there
will be some attempts to obtain popular svni-
pathy elsewhere by eXaggerating the bolster
Gus demonstrations of dsiavor which are
inseparable from the political canvass every
where. But the outrage said to have been
perpetrated upon Mr. Settle is circrmstan-
TALLY reported, and seems to be one of those
shameful attacks on free speech which pro-
coed from that spirit of ignorant lawlessness
which inevitably grows up in country under
military rule and which il must be the first
duty of the restored civil government to re-
press and correct"
We do not suppose that Federal soldier
ever trod the soil of Caswcll county. The
rutlians who insultcd Mr.. Settle are poor,
miserable, illiterate scoundrels, "whOse ig-
norant lawlessness" is not the product of
military rule, but of those brutal preiudices
which the Tribune is at present doing its best
to foster. The men who threatened and in
tad No. 10, Al.
performing a patriotic duty in silencing an
orator who pleads for the '"equal rights of
all men," The very suggestion of "negro
equality" is something that the average North
Carolina Ku-Klux will resent with pistols,
hickory withes, rotten eggs, (such as were
thrown at Mr.. Settle,) or whatever other
weapon happens to be at hand.
We cannot understand the T'iJmes prom
Use that it shall abe the first duty of the re-
stored civil government to repress and COR
rect" this violence. There never has been
anything but pure, unauthorized civil rule,
as understood and administered by Demo-
cratic officials, in Caswell county. No Re-
publican has ever held an Office, or carried
into the local government the demoralizing
methods complained of by Mr.. Greeley's sup
pOrters. If ever there is a county in the
United States in which the complete and alb
solute supremacy of local self-government"
finds its perfect realization it is Caswell
county, North Carolina. Is this talk about
the corrective force of "restorcd civil gov
eminent" unmeaning twaddle, or does the
Tribune propose to make the murderous ruff
fans of Caswell county subject to the juris-
diction of the United States Courts? One
thing greatly surprises us !; the Associated
Press reporter who telegraphed this outrage
did not add "the best citizens deplore the
unfortunate occurrence