The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1880-09-03
John Walters' Murder by the HULL
dOzers Not Romance, bat q
Horrible Truth.
II rom the Cincinnati Commercial

anu tiat he was really reading 1t Tor the
third time. The strangest part of all is
that the North Carolinians do not fly
into rage over the book, but on the
whole are said rather to enjoy it. They
take the stories Of the Kuklux fentlish-
ness and other atrocities ~ II compli-
ment to the unconquerable spirit of the
South. This il view of tho case that
is worthy philosopher.
judge Albion w. Tourgee, the Ohio
man who wrote the FOOLS Errand,"
did not get his material from the testi-
mony given before Congressional Com
mittees. He lived in the South many
years, and wrote what his own eyes saw
and his own ears heard.
He was brave, highly educated man,
OF the best Ohio blood. He WAS Union
soldier during the war, and ut its close
determined to go South and make his
home there, doing what one intelligent,
honest man might to help develop and
build up that beautiful region. He was
young, strong, and chivalrOus and full
Of hope. "A Southern Democrat" had
not yet written in the Memphis Ava.
ialche:
"The name of every Northern man
who, like Eaton and Bigelow, presume
III this community to aspire TO Office
through Republican votes should be
saturated with stencil. We can spare
all such, and would caution such ~
these who think of coming South to keep
away.
"You, Mr.. Editor, must hang ont
again your smallpox flag, and rid our
community of such verlnin. =
The whole lot must be rendered infamous
and odious.
GAS Tor the negroes, let them amuse
themselves, il they will, by voting the
Radical ticket. We have the count"
1t seemed to the "Fool," in his folly,
that capital and the experience of prac-
teal workingmen We're just what was
needed. and would be welcomed in the
South. In time he really thought to
see free schools there, and pretty white
school.houses dotted among the glorious
magnolias and sweet-smelling orange
groves III the South, just as they are
along thecountry roadsides in the North.
1t was a graceful delusion, and one which
even solid South might pardon in ~
generous mind that, ~ yet, knew nothing
about solid South.
The "Fool." Albion w. Tourgee,
"Comfort Servosse of the story, went
South himself. Verdentown OF the
book is Greensboro, N. @. He went to
stay. He was, in no sense of the word,
q carpet-bagger. He went, Us he says,
fOrgetful of the fact that the social con-
ditions Of 800 years are not to be over
thrown i'll moment" His wife, II re-
fined, accomplished woman, accom-
panied him, like himself, full of hope
and courage.
This is how they lived after they got
there. When Mrs. Tourgee went along
the streets of Greensboro, the women of
that town made wide circuit around
her, and gathered back their clothes ~
if they were afraid of touching her. All
that impotent female spite could do to
poison her existence was done. She
lived in IN isolation AZ terrible ~ ii she
had been the old Indian woman on her
Santa Barbara island. Southern la
dies often come North, nowadays,
to visit hero i'll Cincinnati and elsewhere.
They are made us welcome. and made
the recipients OF us many graceful So
cial attentions us ii there had never been
war between the North and South, and
rs If, indeed, the North had never beaten
the South in fair fight. But Mrs.
Tourgee, a lady as refined, as delicately
bred ~ any woman in the land, went
among Southern people, and only be-
cause she was from the North was put
upon n level with the "niggers. Per-
haps, however, this is aproper manifest
alton of the unconquerable spirit Caro-
linians glory in.
The Tourgees found that to teach
negro to read was still regarded rs
much of crime as it was "befo' the
wah." 1t could not, indeed, any longer
be punished by the statutes, but it could
be visited by social penalties more ter
rible than stripes and imprisonment.
A majority Of the people in the North
and West of this country honestly be-
lieve that no redeeming and elevating
power can be brought to bear Oh the
human race equal to education through
good free schools and free newspapers,
and through them alone comes the clear
light in which the average mind is en-
abled to see itself as it is. An individ-
ual, q neighborhood, State can only
Judge of itself correctly by comparison
with those elsewhere.
The ex-Superintendent OF Public In
struction of Kentucky says in his report
that one-third of the voters in that State
are unable to read the tickets they vote.
Kentucky il probably more intelligent,
too, than some of the other Southern
States. This backwartlness Of popular
education in the States lately in rebel
lion was not unknown throughout the
North generally.
The people there honestly believe that
il once the knowledge of the "three RS"
could penetrate the dense ignorance Of
the Southern masses, white and black,
nothing earthly would do SO much to
bring about that earnestly hoped for era
of good feeling md prosperity. For the
actly tho same belief, devoutly, to-day.
educated young ladies, from New En-
gland and elsewhere, went South to
teach ut the close of the war. They be.
gan their work where it was needed most
among the negroes. Some of these
teachers were of the best families in the
country. They really and truly had been
reared to every luxury and refinement
civilization affords. They went out from
homes of wealth and happiness to teach
ignorant negroes. They were moved by
tho same spirit that annually impels edu-
Gated American girls from Boston, from
Cincinnati and Chicago to dedicate their
lives M missionaries to Japan, to Egypt,
and to the famine-stricken regions of In
dia. It is spirit Southerners seem as
little able to comprehend as Llcifer
would be to comprehend the Christian
atonement. The fool and his wife
found some of these Northern women
teaching the colored schools at Green's
boro, N. O. They minded their own
business, meddling in no way with white
peoples customs or opinions. Yet, for
the crime or coming from the North and
teaching negroes, these good, self-sacri-
ticing girls were shut out from all pleas
ant intercourse with human kind. Worse
than that, every nameless indignity that
not Over-refined white men and women
could devise was put upon them. Light
wasn't wanted in those parts. Like the
eyeless beetles Of the Mammoth cave,
they didn't know what light was.
The domestic happiness the Fool"
and his wife enjoyed may be inferred
from the fact that whenever Judge Tour
gee started out to attend court, Mrs.
Tourgee never dared feel any confidence
that he would come back alive. He was
q Northern man, and Republican, who
Il 10. s.. .l,,k 10 tn