The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-03-28
The CommOtion Created by Rumor that
He Intends Placing a Colored Man
in a Professors Chair.
Tabor as a Newspaper-Destroy and
Political Grave-Digger.
The Treasury Department Explains the APP
parent Discrepancy in the Accounts
of the Soldiers Home.
HoRRIFIGD vIRGINIANs.

The Dismay Created by Senator MahOne's
Efforts to Advance the Black Man.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal
WASHINGTON, March Ex-senator Mahone's
| astonishing genius for horrifying the Vir-
ginia Bourbons has involved him in another
difficulty with them which threatens to pre-
cipitate another civil war, unless measures
are speedily taken to mollify them. They
have learned to submit to the ignominy of
Readjuster defeat on thelState debt and other
issues of that sort, but when the little Scna-
tor begins mixing in educational questions
their souls are in arms, and they prepare
| themselves for a prolonged howl, if not open
insurrection. He has been interesting him.
self in various schemes for the education of
the illiterate population of the South regard
less of color. Forty per cent of Vir-
ginia's population cannot read and write,
and out of the 430 900 "illiterate" 114,000 are
native-born whites. Virginia Bourbons
object to an agitation of the
educational question, principally because it
calls attention to the illiteracy of its people;
but if there must be agitation, and if money
is to be appropriated by the general govern
ment for the enlightenment of the benighted,
| they want it expended exclusively for the
benefit of the whites. They are getting over
their hatred of theV"nigger," but they still
look upon him as an inferior being, who is
not entitled to the slightest consideration,
and they resent the idea of education or Do
litical equality as a personal injury. The
Senator has made himself exceedingly unpop-
ular with his foes by his efforts for the eleva-
Of t1a e
the one objectionable sin he has committed,
or is about to commit, is an alleged attempt
to have colored man appointed to one of
| the chairs of the University of Virginia The
natives of every degree of Caucasian blood
| regard this institution as sacred to the
first families, and such an innovation as
| the introduction of dark blood into its fac
| ulty is considered in the nature of a high
crime. If Senator Malone should succeed
| in having colored man and brother put into
one of the university chairs-and there is no
| certain evidence that he harbors any sIth
purpose, although the Bourbons insist on
| having it that way-the other learned edu-
| Gators will undoubtedly stampede. They
will withdraw i'll body. They have sworn
it. There is no likelihood that they will
take the university with them, or that the
| wheels of the universe will stop going
around; but nature will be very seriously
| torn up. The town of Charlottesville is in a
state of terrible excitement over the possible
perpetration of this atrocious outrage, and
| its horse-racing, pool-playing, pigeon-shoot-
| ing, cock-fghting inhabitants threaten to do
violence to somebody if the iniquity is put
upon them. They will kick a hole through
the armament.
Senator Malone, by the way is not such
very formidable and awe-inspiring person as
many people might suppose by reading of
him. He shins around much like anybody
else and is as little like the clustering,
staggering, bullying slave-driver man he is
| represented to be as it is possible to imagine.
He is not at all detestable and is very ap-
proachable and anxious to please those with
whom he comes in contact. This is one of
the cases where the devil is not so black as
he is painted.