Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-01-23

1T is singular with what rapidity every
act undertaken by the Administration is
coming to be supported and indicated
by its enemies. We believe it can be
safely said that never in the history of
the Government have we had a wiser or
better administration, or one whose every
movement was SO soon and heartily in
dorsed. It was said of Mr.. Lincoln that
he followed public sentiment; and al
though this may be also said of General
Grant in many of his measures, vet he
has frequently taken positions in advance
of public opinion, and has put forth
ideas that have been subsequently in.
dorsed and supported by the country.
His Indian policy was secuted as ridicu-
lous by many, when it was first made
known; but it has come to be generally
approved, and will doubtless be adhered
to by administrations that are to follow
So the peaceful settlement of our English
complications was derided and sneered
at; but it would be hard to find public
man of the present day who would be
willing to avow that he opposed their
settlement by the Treaty of Washington.
The spectacle is now presented, also, of
the bitterest opponents of the San Do
mingo annexation coming forward to it's
T..
toned where the Presidents policy in re-
gard to public affairs, opposed at first.
has been ultimately commended.
Throughout the Presidential campaign
we heard of denunciations of Ku-Klux
law, and of the unwarrantable exercise
of power by the President and Congress
in its enforcement But what do we now
behold? BY the wise legislation of Con-
ho nf or Of hr
dent these bodies of disguised outlaws
have been suppressed and well-nigh ex-
terminated. All the fearful stories of
their atrocities, which were charged by
Republican orators and newspapers to
have been committed in the South, and
which were denied by the opposition, are
admitted on all hands to have been true,
and there is unanimous expression of
satisfaction at the result accomplished by
the workings of the act so bitterly de-
nounced. In the Washington dispatch to
the Chicago Times of yesterday we read
the following in regard to the Ku-klux
trials now occurring in Columbia, S. c.:
"The testimony showed that none Of the
published accounts of the brutal and
horrible practices of the Ku-Klux
have been exaggerated" One of
the prisoners confessed that he
"was present on the Union raid
when the negroes were taken
out and killed; didn't help kill them;
three or four were taken out on the first
raid, and seven, eight or nine on the sec
ond; they were all killed." The dispatch
also states that the Operations of the
Ku Klux have not been frequent of late"
Neither have they; but we should like to
ask why they have not been frequent? Is
it because these outrages were denied,
screened, palliated by Northern papers of
the Liberal and Democratic persuasion,
or because fearless Congress and pa
triotic President put them down by the
wholesome force OF the national arm?
With what face can these journals ask
the confidence of the people after thus
confessing that they have boldly excused,
for political effect, grave crimes like
these, and in the interest of party cover
ed up the tracks Of murderers over whose
arrest and punishment they now rejoice?
We are not in political times, but j
well that the people should remember
these things, and lay them up against a
day when they may prove valuable.
ter Ocen71