New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-08-20


But it is equally true that the South cannot
expect to prosper and will not prosper, pS
the help of capitalists or workmen from free
and law-abiding communities, so long as iyhcn-
law and the duelling code are the only laws
feared or respected at the South, or so long
as the greater part of the voting In that sec
ton is done with shOtguns.
II is a pity that any journalist, who has
kindly feeling toward the unhappy South,
should be moved by the exigencies OF par
tisanship to encourage its fatal fault an IN
slant longer No doubt, the South IS pecu-
liarly sensitive in regard to the insecurity OF
life in that section, the lack OF real freedom
and the frequency of resort to lawless vio-
lence for the accomplishment of political ends
and it well may be. " The tongue touches
"where the tooth aches y; precisely the
criticism which hurts most keenly Is
that which the Southern people need to
hear. 1t is far from the truth to
saw that none but politicians care for
that protection in the exercise of civil,
social and political rights which exists
at the North, but does not exist at the South.
In q self-goyerning country every man VINO Is
fit to be a citizen at all does care whether ne
is free to think, speak and vote as he pleases'
If he is Ostracized in business for the utter
ance of an honest opinion, as the president
of the New-Orleans Chamber OF Commerce
was a few years ago if he is driven from his
occupation or employment as men by the
thousand have been all over the South
if he is denied every social pleas
ure, save such as he can find In the
company of those whose political cOnvlc-
tions agree with his own; If he can express
those convictions only at the peril oil his HE;
if he must run the gauntlet OF an armed, bru-
tai and drunken mob whenever he tries 10
vote, and knows that the so-called" chlvalrY,"
the property-Owners and the business men OF
his neighborhOod will take care that an asSas-
sin shall not be punished for killing him ANY
man who is lit to be a citizen at all ought to
care.
The South has for years repealed both immi-
grafton and capital by its preference for mob
despotism What good can it do to mince
words about these facts Every intelligent
man at the South i'll his own heart knows
what is the matter. Immigrants who are
worth having will not 60 in large numbers
to any region where a drunken mob is at
once the Executive. the Legislature, the Court
of Last Resort and the Inspector OF Elections.
No man who has sense enough to accumulate
capital or to keep it, by any honest means,
will prefer to put it at stake in community
so uncivilized. Shrewd men know that growth,
thrift and solid enterprise are not to
be expected in such state OF society.
For many years the South nursed slavery,
and found in that institution the poor
excuse and beggarly compensation for con-
ditIOn of spmi-barbarism. Now slavery Is
gone, and the former slaves are gong. Even
to them, ignorant as they are, uncultivated.
unframed to the enjoyment of freedom, the
state OF society which the Southern white man
makes for himself is intolerablc. And with
every pair of sturdy legs that bear a work
ing man away to freedom, there walks off
from the South more of its capital. Free black
labor, even without decent protection in the
common rights of manhood, has proved that
it can raise larger crops than slave labor.
The capital that is now walking away from
the South is worth more than al the capital
ever invested i'll slaves
Still incapable of rising above the shotgun
as a mode of argument, the Southern whites
i'm many localities are trying to prevent the
exodus Of the negroes by force and terror.
Armed bands gather at the landingsj steam
boats are seized upon himsy pretexts. But
force will fail. Cannot men see that the
more they try to hold back the colored work.
man, the more he will want to go7 First of
all, to get out of a place which he cannot
leave with freedom and safety, he will fly at
the earliest opportunity. 1t will seem certain
to him that the employer who appeals to the
shotgun to prevent his discharging himself,
must be getting too much out of him. Slavery
was much less stupid than this attempt to re-
tain free workmen by fear or force.
The South has one way of getting capital
and retaining labor, and only one. 1t can
hang its bulldozers and lynchers and assassins
1t can make the laws absolutely impartial in
their operations, rigid in their enforcement,
and the terror of every law-breaker. That is
to say, the South can cease to be what it is,
and ever has been. There is not the slightest
reason to hope that the Southern people,
within one generation at least, will become so
reconstructed. They still prefer license and
poverty to liberty, law, and prosperity. Still
the crack of the revolver will settle disputed
questions between employer and employed,
and the tramp Of armed horsemen will an
nounce that an election is about to be held.
Very well if the South chooses barbarism, it
must take the consequences.
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