Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1877-05-07
From the Boston Traveller.
What the Solid South Means.


Now that opposition to the new South
ern policy has become useless. from the
Tact that it has been applied to all The
Southern States, no factious obstacles
will be placed by republicans In the way
of its having a fair trial. Bat this facl
does not stand in the way of printing the
facts as they are and recording history a
1t transpires. We do not recognize the
necessity of concealing the offences com
mitted by the Southern buldozers, or oil
suppressing the voice of the republican
party in behalf of the victims OF the
Mississippi plan" We do not believe
that the President. or the most ardent ad-
mirer of "the policy" expects the degree
OF servility TO Massa Confederate that is
displayed by the facle ex-republican or
gans of the solid South. We do not be-
lieve that it is necessary to apologize for
or extenuate the crimes of the Mississippi
assassins, as the journal does in this lau-
guage:
"In this case there is no evidence that a large
number of people are responsible for the violence
and murder, or look upon il otherwise than with
disfsvor. II would therefore be unjust TO mold the
people of The South fespous ible for these occas-
,onal scene OF vi blence rs it would to hold the
people Of Pennsylvania responsible for the muir
ders committed by the Molly Mtgures, or the
people of several of the most inielli GENT of the
We tsrn States accountable for the acts of the
bands Of masked men who broke open Ills few
years since, took prisoners therefron aud hanged
them"
We need not remind anybody that thi.
/, an example of the Journals turning it,
self wrong side out to tickle Massa Con-
federate, since no newspaper heretofore,
when it was popular, has more industri-
ously spread the news of these outrageous
political murders. The reference to the
Molly Magures is a sycophan,c repeti-
ton of the old Ku-klux argument, made
during the last campaign by Wade Hamp-
toms stump speakers. Its weakness is too
apparent. There is no parallel between
the Southern and the Pennsy lvana cases
of murder. since the Molly Maguires have
been punished promptly, while the courts
and the officers OF the law in the Ku-K lux
districts are subject to the terrorism of the
political mob. And the journal is obedient
enough to the solid South TO assert further
THAT the men who are charged with
committing this outrage were masked is a
sure indication that the people generally
do not applaud such acts of lawIessness
and violence" NJ journalist is verdaut
enough to deceive himself, il he does his
reader, with the assertion that this is any
indication" at all, for it is notorious that
nearly all the midnight assassinaIions and
ou:rages have been committed under
mask. This fact, we repeat. is no "indi-
cation" that the people of those districts
do not sympathize with the assassins; it
simply indicates the respect which the
deepest rascals have for the better opinion
of the country at large and the United
States law.
But the most bumiliating part OF This
exhibition of servilily by the press is the
effort to be.iitle the wrongs suffered by
the prosecuted republicans. Evidently
the Journal writer had not read the des-
patches in his own paper. Or he wonld
have been less sycophantic in his efforts to
serve Massa Confederate. Its Washing
ton correspondent lelegraphs:
aSome Mississippi republicans here insist that
Gilman aud Judge Chisolm, who were recently
mas.scred 10 Mississippi, WIRE killed because
they were republican. WI Their this Is true or
moi. the testimony given by these gentlemen be-
fore the Boutwell, Invesiig itiDg committee shosed
,hst they we're compelled to suffer great deal