River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1880-10-21
RIVER FALLS, WISCONSIN, THURSDAY. OCTOBER 81 1880

The freedom VI aSh was guaranteed
to the black man IS a screaming farce.
and his rights under the Constitution
in more than one-half of the Southern
States are asserted only at the risk,
and often at the sacrifice, or his life.
The talk of ''free speech and free men
and free ballot" at the South is shame
full falsehood. They do not exist
there.
The Inter Ocean has correspondents
in various localities of the South
men who have been proved, and we
know they are true and truthful.
They are instructed not to exaggerate,
or to set aught i'll malice. Their sad
stories our readers know full well;
but the deeds they have chronicled
seek darkness rather than light, and
very few of them dare let it be known
that they correspond for the Inter
Ocean. Almost every letter makes the
same sad pleas: Don't divulge my
name. . Il could not live here one
week If it were known had written
this" my life would not be worth
straw if should be known as writ
ing this, and yet every word of it is
true.
That is the kind of ''fTee men and
free speech they have in this boast
ed land of the solid Democracy
South. Men are ostracised, persecu-
ted, and driven from their homes for
daring to express an opinion, or for
defending any one of the poor, down
trodden, and prosecuted black men of
the South. Courts of justice for their
%n IA, hn 10
Africa as Mississippi, and the Stars
Snd Stripes as Well float over South
America as South Carolina, for all the
protection they give these poor people.
White Democrats, the same who sent
the fatal bullets to the hearts of a
million loyal soldiers of the North,
are banded together to-day as closely
as then, determined to rule, and car
ing as little for the Constitution and
the laws as then. This defiance of law
is not on the color line exclusively;
every white man who dares to ex-
press a sympathy or condemn the per-
secutors is marked, and must flee or
die. The red handed murderers of
Mississippi shoot down their most
honored citizens, and did not hesitate
AS for example, in the murder of
Judge Chisholm--of sending their bull
let's crashing through the bodies of
the innocent son and daughter that
clung about the fathers neck plead
ing for his life.
This intolerant spirit of the Demo
cratic South. which boasts of its "free
speech and free men, : is no respecter
of age, sex, or condition. 1t stands
forth to-day with deeper, broader,
and more damning record of crimes
than ever accumulated about any par
ty in civilized land. The evidence of
the crimes is not hearsay or circum-
stantial, but is in the mouths Of a
multitude of living witnesses, and
cries from the ground in the blood of
murdered men and women. The free
men of the North, who now step to
the front and aid to place in power
party, whose main strength lies in
these States and in these despollers of
all justice and right, will, to all in
tents and purposes, become accessor-
les to the crime, and pave the way to
greater sorrows than have yet been
known. For, as sure as there is a
righteous Judge that rules above, and
us sure as there is love of honesty and
fair dealing abiding in the hearts of
men, just so sure will there be reck-
oning and judgment.
AS the campaign goes on, let finance
and commerce and good crops and
boosted comforts be not kept on duty
all the time, but let us have a little
mole of these vital questions which
concern human liberty and the perpe
tuity of a nation. Truth IS whole
some at any time; it is especially de-
manded now.