The weekly Oskaloosa herald. [volume] (Oskaloosa, Iowa) 1855-1885, 1876-12-07
THE REASON 1T is THUS.

4
Often we hear men say, if the "Repub-
licans are in the majority in those South
ern States where bull-dozing is carried on,
Why DO they not defend themselves"
There are many good reasons. The
whites of the South are living generally,
as they did during the days of slavery,
without work. Through the short-sight-
ed policy of mawkish reconstruction
Congress, these lazy devils are also the
land-holders. The young white men as a
rule, like to be cal'ed "dare- devils" and
being of that lazy, drinking, riding,
shooting kind who do nothing but fire.
quent the dram-shops, it is an easy mat
ter for them to organize in bands-their
horses are at hand, their time is their
own, they naturally hate the negro, and
nothing suits them better than to ride
the country over. soaring, whipping, hang
ing and outragiss the poor negroes, who
being hard workers, are generally at
home in bed at night, and being attacked,
it is an easy matter for twenty devils to
commit any outrage they may decide up
on, and escape OF course, such band
could thus carry on for one night, even
in Iowa, but the people would arouse and
ferret them out soon; but remember
that in the South the case is very differ
ent The negroes are poor, dependent,
meek and submissive from long suffering,
unorganized, unarmed, and the night
riders see that they are kept so. They
cannot organize, they have no justice in
the courts where the parents Of these
young men probably preside, and they
live and suffer, hoping for the bright day
ahead. Will it ever come?
The government of the United States,
as military necessity, made them free
and gave them the right to vote, and it
should protect them in all these rights
should protect them if the army must be
multiplied by ten to do it. Just think of
these men, by law, voters, deprived of
every right at the ballot-box, right they
cherish more deeply than any white man
can, for Meywish to vote for the party that
set them free. How many white men are
there in Mahaska county that would have
attended the election this fall, if they
kne Y they would risk their life, their
place of employment, their all, in voting
the ticket of their choice. If band of
night-riderS had dashed sour back, hang
ed you to tree until nearly dead, put
rope around your neck, fastened it to a
saddle and dragged you nearly to death,
because you wouldn't vote their ticket,
and you knew those men would have con-
troll at the polls and probably kill you if
you voted against them, would you have
attended the election and voted your
choice? Hardly. And yet thousands of
those legal blacks did that thing, voted
the Republican ticket when the Demo
cratic revolver was under their noses.
These poor, ignorant sons of Africa
deserve great credit for their devotion
to the party that made them free, under
such trying circumstances, and it is a
crying shame, that in this land of ours,
this land of boasted freedom, this land
of pretended liberty, there is an area of
nearly one half its surface, where men
whose skins are black have hardly more
rights than they had in the terrible days
Of human slavery. That in that great
extent OF country minority rules with
the shotgun and the whip. How long will
the American people stand such things?
When the inhuman atrocities of the
Spaniards in Cuba were published, what
thrill of indignation ran throughout
the country, and what cry went up from
our humanitarians for government inter
ference; yet here, right in our own midst,
in the very States that by such atrocities
help carry their ticket and elect their
President, we have butcheries and hor-
rors, tenfold worse than the worst that
Spaniard ever perpetr ated on Cuban !;
worse than the terrible Sioux with his
prisoner at the stake, or the wild Canaan
che in his merciless raids; and these
fends; these Thugs; these human devils,
shout themselves hoarse with their cries
for "Tilden and Reform" Great God,
can this be a Republic? If so, let us
never again sheer at Mexico, or say the
French people cannot govern themselves.