New Orleans Republican., 1873-05-02
The Massacre at COifax.
From the Louisville Commercial, Apr!

From the Louisville Commercial, April %
The Courier Journal charges the C0b,5H el..
ciol with being unfair II rs tire atment Of
Louisiana affairs. Il gives a specimen o.
IFS own fairness by quoting agailst Us the
-NdtiOII, which it is pleased to call a i0ur1a.
OF strong radical prociIvlties. The -Frtjpu
last suml1:c- yeered over at first toward
the Liberals. but it was shrewd enough to
discover very soon that this was hopeless
movement and veered back again into a
halfhearted support of the Republican
party. Bat it is not and it has not been
tor some time, AN exponent OF Republican
sentiment. 1t is sImpl-' the Nation, as the
COurie7'-.JGuI3idL knows, arrogant IN its self
assertion, and so eXtrayagantlv ccnCeiteT
i'll IFS own opinions that 1t deems IL a hui
initiation to agree with any party. We
have constantly referred. i'll our remarks
on Louisiana affairs. 20 the congressional
investigation where it was shown bv sworn
testimony that if toe Kellogg election was
q fraud the McEnery election was no less
fraud.
AS another instance Of its fairness it
quotes from an 'inteI.lge1t correspondent
familiar with the details of the occurrence,
but fails to tel! US VINO that correspondent
is. We suppose We must take its word for
it that this CORES spondent IS as he ia de-
scribed. We give in another place a state
ment quite different from that Of the IN
known correspondent of the COaTier-.Jo,l}'-
Hul and from the Picayanes account it
gives on another page. We have as good a
light to accept the statement OF the New
Orleans REPUBLyCAS as it has the account
OF the Pita uEe or its mysterious CORE
pondent. But We have never been as IN
tair as the CoAFier-Jouy3tul is in accepting
purely partisan statements and in charging
all tue blame and tle origin Of the difficulty
| upon the coloreu people The horrible al
fair has not yet been Otfici tally investigated
and the real facts OF the case revealed.
We have said, and we repeat it, that tax
ing the statements of the Warmothites
themselves, c0Iored and distorted as they
evidently are. the Colfax tragedy was an
internal butchery. There stands the bald,
ugly fact, h;deCus as anything IN history,
that the colored people, eng in terror
from their burning refuge, were pursued
aud shot down ia cold blood, and even
when they surrendered were brutaily mur-
dered and thrown into the river and this
was dOIe not By recognized savages but by
men who profess to represent the chivalry
of the State. These colored people had
only been few years in the enjoyment OF
freedom, and it IL; ght have been reason
ably expected that brave and chivai-
rous white men would have treated
| them with patience, forbearance and mag.
| nauimIty, instead of slaughtering them
| when they were helpless and either fleeing
! IN terror Or begging for mercy. All the
| journals in the land can not wash out the
| stain from tie hands of these murderers
| The deed was brutal. riendisL, horrible. Il
| was wholesale bloody massacre. The real
| spirit of these white men is shown in the
accounts published in all the New Orleans
papers, in which is the statement o: a
white man stepping on the shore when the
| boat landed at the scene of the butchery.
| where d large number OF the slaughtered
victims were lying on the ground, and see
| ing one who he supposed was not yet dead.
| drew out his pistol to dispatch him, and
only desis.ed when he found the poor crea-
! ture was already dead. II would be hard
! to match that for pure diabolical savagerv
| in the centre of Africa
But the facts begin 80 leak out about the
| true nature of this affair The shallow pre-
tense that the ceIored people fred on fiag
of truce is exposed. The absurd stories
that the colored people had either threat
ened or perpetrated outrages upon .!!e in
| habltants of COltaX are disproyed. That
they meant no harm to the white people is
| shown by the stubborn fact thai only TWO
| white men were killed. and they by their
| own party in the miscellaneous slaughter.
| That it was the white men who alone had
murderOus intent is shown by the color of
those vino were murdered. The fact can
| not De C, red up tnat only TWO Wlite men
| were killed. while the coored men were
butchered by the scores We ventured the
assertion several days since that these
white savages did not represent the real
solid and intelligent people OF Louisiana
| The account we publish this morning fully
| confirms our belief
| They were men gathered from various
places ready for any lawless bloody WORK,
ii villalnous SET of rOwdles and low ruiiian5
| like those who gathered III the streets of
New Orleans not long since, and made such
good time in getting cut of the way after
the first fire. Immensely brave if slaugh-
ter;ng poor coiored men who are running
for life but sneaking towards in the pres,
ence of a few armed and resolute police.
| They are of the Ku-klux order " no sneak
| around the humble homes of the colored
| people under cover of night to murder the
| detcnseless inmates.
The facts of this massacre need no dis
tortion. They are distorted and horrible
enough just as they are, There they stand
| IN the midst of the light of the nineteenth
century and Of our boasted civilization,
hideous and horrible, burning reproacl
upon the land