The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1874-09-11
The White League.
From the q. VI Nation


We have received several communica-
tons from New Orleans in reference to
the objects of the White League; the
injustice of charging it with being body
OF llljudglng men and the probability
that it will be successful in reforming
the affairs of Louisiana. One cores
pendent informs us that writer's who
drew lap the Leaguers' address or plat
form are gentlemen filling in New Or
leans the position of Mr.. O'Conor and
Mr.. Evarts in this city; and that with
those ale associated business men who
represent the enterprise, wealth, and in
tegrity of the community, professional
men of the highest character-in short,
the best citizens, and all of them. He
defends the platform us not being the
work of impatient and headlOng men,
apparently ready for another 1866 riot,
and by Implication p]ronounces the
document iudicious. We are still of a
contrary opinion as regards some of its
language, having been recently confirm
ed in our w view by the comments of
the Southern press upon the Southern
elections. The civil rights bill is their
chief topic, and that this is so suggests
some reflections which we believe our
friends of the White League will do
well to keep still in mind. As generally
looked at from the exclusively Southern
side, and again as looked at by other
eyes from the exclusively Northern side,
civil rights legislation seems a simple
enough affair the SOutherner declares
it a willfully imposed sign Of subiuga-
ton and a determined attempt to make
the negro his equal and degrade him in
the eyes of his former servants. The
NOrthernerdenies this, thinks the South
erner unreasonable, and asserts that
civil rights bills are legitimate results
of the war, which it is only a duty to Sc
cure. He can not sympathize with the
SOutherner i'll his social difficulty, nor
"a the SOutherner believe for a moment
in his humanitarianism. "
1t has been because of the difficulty of
recognizing these two views of the facts
that so many thousands of good men at
the North have reluctantly, but without
real hesitation ranged themselves at all
necessary iunctures behind the MOrtOns
and Chambers. The Southern people
would not reassure them and there was
EVE even so much as a watering-place
cOngeries of Southern statesmen with
the wit OF the will to try. The Leaguers
may have better information than we of
a decay in the North of q feeling that, as
regards the negro, the South will bear
to be watched. Some decay there has
been; how much nobody knows; but
how much there was Of the feeling to be
removed the Leaguers can partly guess
by rejecting IN the equanimity with
which the North has now for years re-
garded the. condition of Louisiana her
self and South Carolina. Do the White
Leaguers think this apathy had no mean
ing and no deep root? We hope better
days are in store for them and are COM
ing soon; but we still suggest that, if
only out Of abundant Misrepresentation
caution, and to leave the foe no chance,
political leaders should stop
such utterances as this. 1t is from the
Leaguer's platform:
But it is worse than idle to reason
with those people 1.-THE Louisiana cOlored
v~Oters]. They have become maddened
by the hatred and conceit of race, and it
has become our duty to save them and to
to save ourselves from the fatal proba-
bilities of their stupid and
reckless Vanity.n
How? AS reasoning is given up and
the blacks are in a majority, what must
this threat mean?