Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1873-08-29
The "COurier-JOurnap" on the Ku
klux.

hluX,
WE are glad TO hear one voice from the
Southern States depounclng the secret Ia
bors of the Kh-Klux. The Louisville
CoVrtcrJ 0urndl 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 chained
by its prejudices or its terrors, and has
looked upon the destroyers ofits people
with complacency or with submission. In
Georgia, we believe, no newspaper is per.
mitted to exist that is not willing to hear
of barbarous deeds which il is afraid TO
mention, to hide the prosecutions of white
and colored Republicans, and to aid u
policy of tyranny that is driving labor
and industry from the State. The misfor-
tunes OF Louisiana may be traced to the
same source. 1t is overspread with jour
nails and editors who are the sure instru.
ments of the Ku.Klux, who are duelists
and bravoes, the friends and allies of
noted assassins, the companions and de.
Tenders of the class of men whom the
Louisville Courier paints so distinctly, the
enemies of education, intelligence and hu-
manity, and from whom have come the
disasters that have driven away the trade
OF New Orleans and left thousands of its
buildings tenantless, that reduced the
planters to bankruptcy, and made Loui-
siana that ruined State over which Beau
regard and his companions now raise their
Intellectual cry of despair.
The Louisville C0urter.J0u1nal 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 com
| posed of the young men of the Weather
class at the South, that it is highly popu-
lar with the former secessionists, that
| when seized and brought before the tri.
bunals its guilty members are sometimes
caressed by politicians of the fair sex,
| and supported by all the dscontented OF
the sterner, and that their crimes are
never told. Their crimes are committed
in disguise and under the shelter of night,
and they are such as the day might blush
to see. But the O0ufier-J0ur7,d can no
longer keep silence. 1t seems that the
house of Mrs. Mason Brown, the step.
mother of Governor 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 destroyed, and various other
acts of barbarism were committed the
same night that scarcely can be tolerated
even in Kentucky.
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 "ban.
dts" "lynchers;" they have never done a
days honest work, and give their lives to
| whisky and gambling; they deserve the
detestati0n Of all good citizens; their "ruf
tanism covers the cheek with the blush
of shame;" the Bender murderers and the
Iowa railroad robbers are criminals of nc
deeper dye; they are pests of the common
wealth; they blight its dearest 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 objur.
| cations which the C0uTierJoulnaL applies
to the society, and adds, with a new sense
OF justice, that the humblest and most
| ignorant negro who tolls for an honest
living is, in every respect, the superior OF
men who terrify and ill-treat defenseless
women, and pretend to decide what kind
of labOrers the farmers of Kentucky shall
employ to tend their crops. Their pres
ence," it eXclaims, "is insufferable." :" they
should be treated with "shOrt shrift and a
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
suffered as much as any other Southern
State from the terrors of the Ku-KluX, is
gathering up sufficient courage to trea
them as they deserve. Yet what can now
be said Of those Democratic or Liberia
politicians, who on the last election and
through many previous elections were in
close alliance with the secret associations
who carried Kentucky and several Other
Southern States by their aid, who reioic
ed over their victory in Georgia with ex
travagant triumph, though they knew
well how it had been won, and who have
coldly defended the Ku-Klux of Louisi
ana in the midst of its enormities If tho
courage and good sense of the Courier
Journal find general support in its owl
and other depressed Southern States, i
seems likely that the Northern allies o
the Ku-KluX will not win many more
elections, even with the aid of what tn,
Courier calls "the pests of society,"
H@per's Weekly.