Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-10-17
THE OUTRAGE REAcriON.


weeks ago by Attorney General Wd-
liams. has been grinding too freely;
the grist turned out has been entirely
too large, and a surfeit and reaction
at the North has been the result.
He miscalculated the demand. and
overstocked the market. About the
time the outrage business was fairly
commenced, Thomas j. Brady, chair
man of the Republican State Central
Committee of Indiana, addressed con-
fdential circular to Republican editors,
not only in Indiana, but throughout
the North and West, dated Sept. 8, in
which be said: 81 desire to call your
attention to the horrible scenes of vio-
lence and bloodshed transpiring
throughout the South, and suggest that
you give them as great prominence as
possible in your paper from this time
until after the election" The drill
sergeants in Indiana did as they were
commanded, but the result has demon
strated that they were handling a very
formidable boomerang. The people Of
the Hoosier State are surfeited with
this sort of stuff, and have rebuked in
a signal manner the traducers of their
Southern brethren. Even the Ne'c
York Times, steady going Republican
as it is, is forced to denounce this out
rage business in very emphatic terms.
1t declares that ''the business of manu-
featuring foutrages' on thenegro is one
which no Republican leader or newspa-
per ought to countenanee, and adds:
But TO sit Down and invent stories
of murders, or to eYaggerate the ru-
mors which come in all sorts OF Wild
shapes from Alabama or Louisiana
this is a work which we should have
thought no man of ordinary humanity
won d be willing to undertake. The
attempt to set North against South, or
white against black, is not only not
justified by the plea of political necss-
sity," but that plea only aggravates
the offense. The sooner the whole
country is at peace the better Will 1t be
for the people. As We pointed out the
other day, we cannot afford TO have a
large section of the Union lying IN a
state of prostration, not to say OF abb
solute beggary. When the South was
prosperous, we derived practical ad-
vantages from her prosperity. The
Southern people came here for many OF
the necessities and almost all the luxu-
ries of life. That source of trade is
gone, and can anybody suppose that
the mercantile community does not feel
the loss? The effort to excite fresh
ill-feeling between the North and South
is. therefore, short sighted, viewed mere
" in its relation to our own interests
even if we did not choose TO consider 1T
from higher ground.
yet this is the work which we see
going on in some quarters, and 1t Is
said to be justified by the news received
from the South. But We have noticed
one very curious fact, and AZ e this:
the reports of a reign of terror and
all the rest of it, never come from the
State in which the said reign is said to
have broken out. Almost all these
blood and thunder stories are, oddly
enough, dated from Washington. You
read IN the head line, 'Frightful Atroc-
tiles in klabama-More Negroes
Butchered.' But, when you come to
/ look little lower down, you End that
the dismal tale is dated from Washing
ton; and this, we must confess, strikes
us asverv suspicious. Some weeks ago
we dispatched several special CORE,
spondents TO Alabama and Louisiana
men on whom we knew that we could
depend. We have received and placed
before our readers three or four letters
from them, but, although they show
| Cyhat we all knew before that South
ern society is utterly disorganized, yet
we cannot see any evidence OF a reign
of terror"
If we are to be one people, the bad
men engaged in this business of STIR
ring up strife between the North and
the South must be froWned down by
the leading men and newspapers OF the
North. The business men Of that Sec
ton must take hold of the mater, and
put down the party that can only live
by perpetuating Rl-feeling toward the
people of the South. Indiana and Ohio
have done well in this matter, and il
their example be followed by a few
more of the larger and more influential
States that hold elections on the Sd OF
November, we shall soon be rid of this
disturbing element in our politics.