The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-09-18
[From Harper's Weekly.I
The Courier Journal on the Ku-Klux.

We are glad to hear one voice from the
Southern States denouncing the secret
labors of the Ku-Klux. The Louisville
Courier-JournaL has at last ventured, to
break the silence in which the Southern
editors have usually watched the course
of this barbarous association. For. eight
years the Southern press has been chain
ed by its prejudices or its terrors, and
has looked upon the destroyers Of its
people with complacency or with subnais-
sion. In Georgia, we believe, no news
paper is permitted to exist that is not
willing to hear of barbarous deeds which
it is afraid to mention, to hide the perse-
cutions of white and eolored Republicans,
and to aid policy of tyranny that is
driving labor and industry from the
State. The misfortunes of Louisiana
may be traced to the same source. 1t is
overspfead with journals and editors who
are the sure instruments of the Ku-Klux, .
who are duelists and bravoes, the friends
and allies of noted assassins, the COM
panions and defenders of the class of
men whom the Louisville Codnier paints
so distinctly, the enemies of education,
intelligence, and humanity, and from
whom have come the disasters that have
driven away the trade of New Orleans,
and left thousands of its buildings ten
antless, that reduced the planters to
bankruptcy, and made Louisiana that
ruined State over which Beauregard and
his companions now raise their ineffect-
ual cry of despair. 1-s5'a e
The Louisville Courie,-.Joau:aal has at last
spoken of the Ku-Klux in language such
as we have frequently used, but which
has never before been permitted or heard
in Kentucky. 1t is well known that this
infamous society is often composed of the
young men of the wealthier class at the
South, that it is highly popular with the
former secessionists, that when seized and
brought before the tribunals its guilty
members are sometimes rcaressed by pol
iticians of the fair sex, and supported by
all the discon tented of the sterner, and
that their crimes are never told. Their
crimes are committed in disguise and un-
der the shelter of night, and they are
such as the day might blush to see But
the C0wier-Jo,unol can no longer keep ST.
lence. 1t seems that the house of Mrs
Mason Brown, the step-mother of Cover
nor GratZ Brown, the Liberal candidate
for the Vice-Presidency, was visited at
night because Mrs. Brown had chosen to
employ negro labor. A colored man was
brutally murdered, his property destroy
ed, and various other acts of barbarism
were committed the same night that
scarcely can be tolerated evenSin Ken
lucky
Nothing that we or any Northern Jour
nal have ever said can exceed the force
with which our contemporary now de-
nounces the Ku-Klux. They are .sban-
dts, "lynchers;" they have never done
a days honest work, and give their lives
to whisky and gambling; they deserve
the detestation of all good citizens; their
''rufianism covers the cheek with. the
blush of shame" the Bender murderers
and the. Iowa railroad robbers are crimi-
nails of no deeper dye; they are pests of
the commonwealth; they blight its dear
est interests, drive off useful citizens,
lower the value of land, repel capital,
Danish education, and impoverish and
desolate Kentucky Such are some of
the epithets and objurgations which the
C0uierJournal applies TO the society, and
adds, with a new sensevof justice; that the
humblest and most ignorant negro who {
tolls for an honest living Isl in every res.
pect, the superior of men who terrify and :
defenseless women, and pretend
to decide what kind of lAborers the farm
ers of Kentucky shall employ to tend:9s
their crops. Their presence: it exstu
claims, "is insuferable;' they should be
treated with short shrift and long
rope" The "devilish fraternity" is dead
to every generous feeling, and "the State
must meet them with the halter in its
hand"
This certainly is instructive language,
and shows that Kentucky, which has suf-
fered as much as any other Southern
State from the terrors of the Ku-Klux, is
gathering up sufficient courage to treat
them as they deserve. Yet what caE..
now be said Of those Democratic or Lib
eral politicians, who on the last election
and through many Previous elections
were in close alliance with thesecret as
sociations, who carried Kentucky and
several other Southern States by their
aid, who rejoiced over their victory in
Georgia with extrayagant triumph,
though they knew well how it had been
won, and who have coldly defended the
of Louisiana in the midst of its
If the courage and good
sense of the Conyier-,Josunal find a general
support in its own and other depressed
Southern States, it seems likely that the
Northern allies of the Ku-Klux will not
win many more elections, even with the
aid of what the Courier calls ''the pests Of
society" -s.s qtEasf