The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1880-08-27
What It Was and the Experiences
That Prompted Him to Write
the Book.
The Unconquerable Spirit of the
South as 1t Was Manifested
Toward His Wife.
John Walters Murder by the BULL
dOzers Not Romance, but a
Horrible Truth.
FROM the Cincinnati Commercial

book are here given.
The story has made the most profound
impression Of any political novel writ
ten in many years. Although it was
published last winter, it is still selling
at the rate of $500 copies week,
They even read it i'll the solid South.
A gentleman some time ago went into a
doctors Office In Greensboro, N. c., SO
unexpectedly that the medical gentle
man tried to hide book he was reading.
1t was the "Fool's Errand." Being
rather pushed into the corner by inuuis-
tive questions, the doctor confessed
that he was intensely interested in it,
and that he was really reading it for 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 fendish-
ness and other atrocities as compli-
ment to the unconquerable spirit of the
Sonth. This is view Of the case that
is worthy philosopher.
Judge Albion W. Tourgee, the Ohio
man who wrote the "Fool's Errand. y
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 q Union
soldier during the war, and at 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. GA Southern Democrat" had
not yet written in the Memphis Ava-
LGnche:
"The name of every Northern man
who, like Eaton and Bigelow, presume
IN this community to aspire to office
through Republican votes should be
saturated with stencil. We can spare
all such, and would caution such as
these who think of coming South to keep
away. fff
You, Mr.. Editor, must hang out
again your smallpox flag, and rid our
community of such yermin. 4
The whole lot must be rendered Infamous
and odious. &s
GAS for the negroes, let them amuse
themselves, if 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 were 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 understanding orange
groves in the South, just as they are
along the ountry roadsides in the North.
1t was graceful delusion, and one which
even solid South might pardon in a
generous mind that, as yet, knew nothing
about q solid South.
The Cool 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,
carpet-bagger. He went, as he says,
" forgetful of the fact that the social CON
dltions of 800 years are not to be over
thrown In a moment" His wife, a 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 as
if they We're afraid Of touching her. All
that impotent female spite could do to
poison her existence was done. She
lived In an isolation AS terrible as ii she
had been the old Indian woman on her
Santa Barbara island. Southern la
dies often come North, nowadays.
to visit here in Cincinnati and elsewhere.
They are made as welcome, and made
the recipients of as many graceful so.
cial attentions as if there had never been
a war between the North and South, and
MS if, indeed, the North had never beaten
the South in fair fight. But Mrs.
To6rgee, a lady as refined, as delicately
bred as any woman in the land, went
among Southern people, and only be-
cause she was from the North was put
upon level with the "niggers. Per
haps, however, this is aproper manifest
alton of the unconquerable spirit Caro-
hnians glory in.
The Tourgees found that to teach
negro to read was still regarded as
much of a crime as it was 'Fbefo' 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-
lleve that no redeeming and elevating
power can be brought to bear on 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, a neighborhood, State can only
lu ge 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 is probably more intelligent,
too, than some of the other Southern
States. This backwardness of popular
education in the States lately in rebel
hon was not unknown throughout the
North generally.
The people there honestly believe that
If 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
matter of that, Northern people hold ex-
actly the same belief, devoutly, to-day.
With these honest views, numbers of
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 bv
the same spirit that annually impels edu-
Gated American girls from Boston. from
Cincinnati and Chicago to dedicate their
lives as missionaries to Japan, to Egypt
and to the famine-S stricken raoionS of Tn