The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1876-11-01

wind and he Is SIRE 10 be ambuscaded- But
more than this. The whites regard q Rspub,i-
can of their color with tensold the vindietiye-
ness with which they look upon the negro.
Scores Of white Republicans are h~urrying in
alarm to the newspaper Offices to insert cards in
which they repoance their party and profess
conversion to Democracy. II these men hang
back and refuse or neglect TO join the precinct
club or the nearest military company, their con-
duet is reported to the township meeting. A
committee Is appointed TO request an explana-
ton. They call on the suspected man a. their
earliest convenience. If he be sensible he viii
submit profuss apologies and regrets, and hur-
riedly take up his rife aud follow them 20 the
drill-room. Three or four white circuit judges
have been dragooped into conformity, and the
crowd of lesseTlights threatens TO absorb every
white Republican in the state except Governor
Chamberlain and the United States Senator's
ZONE MAN KILLED.
II g white man refuses to Join the precinct
club; If a white mans loyalty TO the party is
suspected If a white Republican persists in MS
opinions, he Is spotted. marked, doomed. He is
scowled az ii he walks abroad. If he passes a
crowd of lettering whites at q street corner an
ominoas silence falls on them tn he Is out Of
hearing. No warning is given him. No MIDI
night visits are now paid or kuklux missiTeS
despatched. The whites have found by bitter
experience that such things are boomerangs.
which return with teniold force TO iniure the
NllNNIAH ~ A1AA-t hAE - .t"-
They wait till an obnoxious man whom they
have doomed as a victim chances to stand or
pass near them, say on the public square, at the
post Office, 10 = bsr-room, or the street. y
crowd OF white despersdoes viii cluster near
him or follow him. They appear to be drunk,
and begin 70 quarrel over some silly matter
having nothing 10 do with politics. Several
bystanders come up and take sides. Finally
blows are exchanged, pistols drawn, and q
regular free fight occurs. Shots are Tired
BY all the party. Ye:, strange to say, when
order is restored, 1t is found that not cne Of the
ccmbatauts is injured, while the poor Republic
can has been struck by several random shots and
killed. An accoun; OF the ARRAY appears in the
press (the press is almost wholly DemocTstie)
under the heading, "Stree. Row-0ne Man
Killed" Not only are single men picked of in
this way, but sham fights ara arranged by white
rulians on some non-political ~preisnse, which
swell to the proportion Of riois. and IN which
several Republican bystardcrs are killed by
chance shots, while none OF the combatants are
hurt. OF course, the authors of these deeds go
unpuniahed. In the first place, it is impossible
to tell who fired the shot. Then it Is unsafe for
any one to iniet anybody about IL, or for the
officials to be too jealous Ia investigating o
prosecuting. But if an assassin does get into
trouble by imprudence, his comrades, who Of
course compose most ofthe b~ystanders. are called
as Witnesses, and swear him out safely By giving
In doctcred testimony.
THE MISSISSIPPI PLAN.
row find myself carried back to the time of
secession. Then no S0utherner dared avow
Union sentiments. Then there were thousands
Of them IN The South, but they were ruthiessIy
subjected TO a system Of terrorism, and had TO
choose between conformity and almost certain
death: and with hardly an exception they con-
formed. To-day there are thousands OF whites
forced into this Confederater revival against their
Judgment and inclination but they must con-
form or take the consequences. They conform,
and then, to avoid the imputation of lukewarn-
ness, they endcavOr 70 prove their sincerity by
outdoing their comrades in violence. The same
men head this movement who led the State
into secession. They have thoroughly revived
the policy of intimidation. Talk of the
blacks being intimidatedi II is through the in
limitation Of the whites that thc:ntimidation of
the black is rendered possible. The election is
to be carried on the Mississippi plan and a part
OF the plan, be it remembered, was the ntimida
ton Of The whites. Wade Hampton is as much
a Mississippian as a South Carolipian. 1t is true
that he Is descended from Carolinians famous
in the Revolution, that his ancestors have al
ways lived in this State, that he himself is a
citizen of this State, and that the family home
stead IS in the city OF Columbia. But besides
the immense estates he owned in South Carolina
before the war, he had vast demesnes in Missis-
sippi and other Southern States. This will not
seem surprising when | mention the fact he pos
scssed $4,000 acres of land in fee simple, and
owned Loco slaves. Now the war took from him
the bulk OF his properly. But so much remained
after all his losses that re is at this day the
wealtiiest man Ia the Southern States. Most of
his property now. however, is in Mississippi.
HI has abandoned by far the larger part OF his
ancestral estates In South Carolina. Though
his home IS IN Columbia. he spends half his time
on his plantations in Mississippi. He has one
plantation there on which so OF his former
slaves are employed. 50 wei has he been able TO
keep up this old-plantation plan while the small
farm system has been becoming well nigh uni
versal. The fact / desire 10 cell attention to is
this Hampton was in Mississippi prior 20 the
last election there, which the Democrats carried
by the shotgun policy. The similarity of the
methods employed by the Democrats in the can
yass going ON here now, with Hampton as their
leader, forces me TO the conclusion that the ex-
pertinent is TO be repeated here.