New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-04-21
LOUISIANA.

Red River. and the anarchy in Grant Parish Is
nrohoblv ut an end. The additional dispatches
so far throw very little light upon the exact
purpose of tho blacks in Selling upon the
Court house and driving the white people out
of the town; but there is no doubt that the
origin of the conflict was the usurpaton Oh
the Kellogg party at the time of the last cleo
tiop. That disorganized the administration OF
tho entire State and brought all inc iocai
Offices into contest. 1t filled the negroes WIN
false ideas of their power under the new oiuer
of things, and it infamed the worst passions
of those riotous and vindictive whites VINO SUN
cherished the antipathies OF the OLD DAYS Oh
chivalry. 1t prepared both sides so thoroughly
for war of races that an accident ike that
in Colfax, where two sets OF officers held GER
tifcates of election, could hardly fail to cause
an outbreak.
TO our minds the most serious feature or the
affair is the terrible luminosity which IL SHOWN
to prevail between the two classes OF the pop
ulation. Whatever may have been the provo
cation of the massacre, there can be no ques-
ton about its attendant horrors. Two or three
white men wounded; sixty or a hundred ne
groes killed; there is contrast which tells
Court house stood upon the defensive whole
afternoon, without inficting any serious INJURY
upon their assailants. Then they wels burned
out and shot down as they ran. 1t was not
battle after that; it was wholesale murder
| eff Won want to see dead niggcrs, here's
" chance.n cried an armed young ruffan, as he
Jumped aboard the steamboat on Sunday night /;
and one of the passengers, who traversed the
scene of action, tells how his guide kicked the
bodies which he supposed retained life, and
wanted to finish the black dogs" who were
believed to lie wounded on the field. If this
WAS n reflection of the general temper of that
part of the country, there is disorder IN
Central Louisiana which Gen. Emorys troops
will never suppress.
1t must be evident that the one result from
Southern misgovernment which thoughtful men
have most dreaded is rapidly coming to pass
The unprincipled politicians who have sought
TO make their fortunes by aid of the colOred
vote have spared no pains to create dis
tinctivey negro party wherever as IN many
parts of Louisiana, the negroes are strong
enough to make it worth while. They have
infamed these ignorant and credulous people
against their former masters. They have
assured them that they must take the govern
ment into their own hands if they would not
be sent back into slavery. They have famed
their ambition. They have excited their
cupidity. Of course at the same time they
have irritated and embittcred the whites
Still smarting under their defeat and losses in
the war, the whites find themselves plundered
and imposed upon by the worst set of adven-
turers that ever cursed State, and are taught
that these adventures cannot be dislodged by
the ballot, for they override any election that
goes against them. Now to make it appear
that this misgovernment is sustained by dis
tinctively negro party, is like going with
lighted candle into powder magazine.
The State authorities of course must pursue
the authors of this massacre relentlessly. But
when the guilty have been fifty punished there
viii remain task to be performed which
might tax the abilities of statesmen of much
higher kind than Louisiana is likely to see for
many years. If we cannot teach the two
races to live peacefully side by side, the dis
asters of the South have but just begun; and
we certainly shall not teach that lesson by
clevating the one merely in order that we
may rlunder and Cypress the other.