The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1880-04-27
not the scantiest political advantage can
be gained. But these men have no reason
to be discouraged at their lack of harmony,


Rev, Dewitt TaIlmadge and the South
Rev, T. Dewitt Tallmadge has been
visiting at the south. and being keen OBJ
server made careful notings of the real
spirit of the people. The reverend gem
tleman, unlike most of the Republican
politicians, found an entire absence of the
reign of terror, and is fair enough to ad-
NIT it. IF we are to believe the highly
sensational accounts in Republican papers
the south is peopled with set of barbara
ans, while such thing as law and order
is unknown. That these statements are
lies out of whole cloth the mass OF the
people believe, and we are glad that
man like Rev. T. Dewitt Tallmadge has
the manhood and courage TO tell the truth,
We quote from his speech on his return
from the south, the following which is an
index to the situation as he found it. He
says
Il Invent resolved to see and make a re-
port of what | saw, while south. My adj
miration for the Democratic and Repubii-
can parties as parties is SO great that il
would take very powerful magnifying'
glass to catch glimpse at it. America 8
politics are rotten. That party steals the
most which has the best chance. found
while south the most perfect proof that
the bulk OF the stories We get here 10 the
north, distilled by special correspondents,
are sheer fabricatlons, and most persistent
attempts to misrepresent the real char
acter of large section of our people.
There is no more need of governmental
espionage at Charleston or Savannah and
the other Southern cities than there is in
New York or Boston. Some people have
an idea that the sentiment in the South
leans towards the re-establisment of
negro slavery. The people are all
heartily glad to get rid of it. land the planta
tons now are placed under better system
of cultivation because it is gone, Old
planters told me that the worry and anx-
iety and the care of looking after planta-
ton of negroes are all gone, and now all
they have to do is to pay the wages at the
end of the month. Put it to ballot in the
South whether or not you would have
again the system which pre-
vailed before the war. and you
would get laundering negative. There
is no maltreatment of the coloreo people,
and as for American slavery. look for it in
YOUR NOE(uoIu Cleiosy AmoiiS tuc army vi
employees. See your female clerks. They
need your fsympathy far more than the
workers of the rice swamp or of the sugar
plantation. Another impression is that
there is hostility to Northern men who &c
to the South TO settle. It is lie They
want all the help they can get from the
North. There are fortunes By the hun
dred to be made by the first men to go in
to take possession of the richest of the
South. l have travelled good deal. and
[ have yet to find man North who has a
fair ground of complaint against the South
If half dozen politicians North and South
would only consent to die, there would be
no sectional acrimony. 'Twould only be g
case then for the undertaken We would
gladly fit up the catafalque and play The
''Rogues' March
IF more of Tallmadge's kind could be
induced to visit the south, and then tC
give their honest views after they haC
had made the tour, much of the uuwar'
ranted prejudice now existing would b.
Nominated