Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1874-09-09
A FEARFUL RECORD.

The nation rises up and goes to rest
on tales of butchery and crime in the
South! We give elsewhere but a
1.-THE of the sickening details that fill
every exchange upon our table. TO
suppress such facts for the sake of saw
ing the good name of our State, would
be folly, for the story has gone abroad
in horrifying details. 1t will not do
for our people, in the midst of polit-
ical canvass, to shut their eyes and
mulishly say it is all " Radical cam
paign stuff and then turn a deaf ear
to the lesson that comes laundering
from every quarter of the land. There
is no difference in the severity of the
| denunciation of this lawless-
ness. The Democratic and Re
publican press are alike bold and
emphatic in their deductions from the
/ long record of crimes. 1t will not do
| for the South to repeat the folly of the
KukluX days of 1869 and 1870. 1t will
not do to deny these crimes, or excuse
them or palliate them. That folly cost
the South twenty years of q drawback
in the improvement of its material in
terests. To repeat it now will cost
twenty more.
A correspondent of the Cincinnati
/ Commercial, whose political. sympa-
thies are decidedly Conservative, writes
his widely circulated journal the re,
cord of hirty-nine murders in Ht
/. counties Of Rutherford, Sumner, and
Gibson, IN Tennessee, in the past oigd
!. mOutHs.v The horror of this record the
= correspondent presents by this com
) parison: " What a record" says be
p is this for eight months in three cOun
5 ties, the aggregate population of which
e all combined, is less shan oue-seveutl
c that Of Hamilton county, Ohio. l
S murder should he proportionately q
J frequent with you, you would hay
3 had in your county, since January
- two hundred aud seveuty.five muir
. dersw
What IS the remedy? The peopl
have it in their hands! If these muir
o derers are not arrested and punished
+ the people should hurl from power tn
= men who prove themselves incompe
c tent or unwilling to protect them from
j such anarchy and barbarism. But lii
d tie has yet been done. The AIemphi
u AUdlaache, a Democratic paper, pub
. lished near the scene of these out
,, breaks, says:
" Again, the Agulancle can not c0ncel
d another expression Of opinion, namely
> that no arrests will be made, and certainl
10 not solitary conviction.
Why is it that such a prediction j
made? Is it forced upon this editor
: mind by the public sentiment of tina
; section? If so we have not yet reach
: ed the end Of these trouble.
)" All this can have but one result
The correspondent referred to says
r. On the other hand, if such wholesal
n murder can be committed and no one pur
- ished, the law is "a failure, the weak ca
n not be protected, and all the emigratiO
q that Tennessee will get can be put into a
omnibus. So far from people moving ]
j. here, many who can get away will leaVt
d Particularly will West Tennessee be ayoiC
3 ed. That there is a single county in thu
- section which can send out seYenty-hy
i murderers in night, and savage, coward
d ~ murderers at that, and their acts
d, justified by any portion OF their fellow
3 citizens, is a strong inducement for law
& abiding peace,loying people 10 go in O
re- opposite direction.
~ We have recently reported the pui
st chase Of large and valuable miners
a. properties in East Tennessee by FL