The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-07-21
FALSE REPRESENTATIONS

the endorsement thereof by the people o
this state. The New Orleans Picayune also
rebuked the Times for its recklessness of as
sertion, and the Times now Is trying &c
hedge. II assumes the philanthropic note Of
a self'constituted guardian declaring that il
is only laboring in the cause of immigration
to the south and the development of the
country that 1t has not meant to denouncC
the entire people of Texas, but only the
criminals and those who view too lightly the
sacredness OF human life. This special plead.
ing comes little too late and is too palpable
in its nature to be Of any effect with
people it has so basely slandered. So much
that is untrue has been said Of crime in Texas
that there ia no doubt but that the state has
been injured by it and immigration to our
midst retarded to some extent. There is in
reality no greater number of people killed in
this state than there are in any other state in
the union. And further than this, if COM
parisoh Of the statistics be made it will be
seen that the degree of the murders commit.
ted in Texas ore of less grade, of q nature
less despicable than those which are commit
ted in the older states. We don't hear OF
one infanticide in this state to ten in
some,'o of the older states-states too, that
are held up as models Of morality and oiyili-
cation and enlightenment. 1t is the same too
of uxorci1e, of fratricide and of the other
murders most foul, most unnatural. Here
in Texas when killings take place, they are
done in the heat of passion, under the frenzy
OF drink or in fair combat. That they are
too frequent, Is lamentable fact but that the
people Of Texas countenance and endorse
them, as charged by the New Orleans Times,
and the St. Louis Globe-Delnocrat, and Chi
cage Inter. Ocean, is as false as false can be-
1t is Il fact that the criminal
laws have not been executed in
some portions OF the state with that vigor
they should have been, and the governor
has not evinced the proper alacrity in giving
his assistance toward lessening crime by the
dread Of punishment. When he refused to
send for two captured murderers in one of
the northwestern states, stating that as long
as they were out Of the state it was all right,
he injured Texas untold thousands in money
and embroidered other murderers in the state.
Its no wonder people will hesitate to come
to state when the press of other states tells
them that crime holds high carnival there,
that the people are reckless Of human life,
and when the governor Of that
state officially announces that he does
not want criminals returned to be
punished for their murders. Nor does tho
press OF our own state help the matter. Let
man charged with murder be acquitted
lr any portion of Texas by the skill of his
counsel, by any technicality of the law, and
the press of the state raises howl of denun-
citation charging courts with dereliction of
duty, jurics with being bribed or needless of
the laws behesls and declaring that the cpl
demic of crime prevailing is running the
country. 1t is the duty OF our own press to
defend the state, to uphold the courts and
the juries, not to deride and
abuse them. The citizenry OF
Texas comes from every state in
the union as well as from the various nation
alities of Europe They have come from the
midst of refinement, of civilization where the
laws are respected, and why should they as
soon as they land in Texas become barbara
Gus and ruflians, defying the laws Of God and
man, glorying in outrage and strife and
violence? Why should they be transformed
from respectable, law-abding human beings
into demons of crime and wrong doing?
There is neither reason nor common sense in
such proposition, yet the
Globe-Democrat and the New Orleans
Times says the people of Texas are reckless
of human life and uphold outlavry and
crime There is one consolatory aspect to
this business, 50 far as the New Orleans
Times is concerned, and that is that the peo.
pie of New Orleans reprobate the course of
that sheet, not only in the matter of
denouncing Texas and undertaking to lecture
our citizens upon criminal delnquencies,
but tor the reason that the citizens of that
elegant and refined city object to the prosti-
tuition of the paper to an order in the nature
of Police Gazette. Families in this dav
will not countenanoe the perusal of such
kind of literature in their homes. They wish
the news that is daily transpiring but refined
society will not tolerate q daily parading at
the hearthstone or all the vices, criminalities,
scandals and sensationalisms that degrade
and disgrace humanity. But if the New
Orleans Times wishes to turn moral lecturer,
and to deal in tho furnishing of false i'm.
it will doubtless find it far more
profitable to misrepresent some other people
than those the city Of New Orleans hope to
deal SO largely with at so early day.
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