The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-06-05
Watterson on Crime.

The Southern Journalist Compares GOV
ernor Butler to Charles Dickens -Ex-
tracts from Recent Grafton.
The annual address before the literary So
cieties of Vanderbilt University at Nashville
was delivered by Henry Watterson,
editor of the Louisville Courier-J Journal,
who chose the singular subject of 9Th a
Homicidal Side of Southern Life.' After al
luding to the process of moral yisisection, to
which the South has been subjected, he says
that the ''Tu quoque'' may or may not be
knock down argument, but that it ones
proved very efficacious when put to practi-
cal test. A newspaper in Cincinnati was
making it the business of its life to descant
upon crime, chiefly murder of course. at the
South. A newspaper in Louisville did what
1t could TO parry these blows. 1t deprecated
the spirit of the attack, and in many cases
proved both malevolence and falsehood. All
to no purpose. The stream vas Bitter Greek,
and the lamb had muddied the water very
high up. At length there was nothing left
for it but reprisal. The Southern paper be-
gan at first BY publishing every day column
or two columns of "Obio crimes" reported
to and taken bodily out of the Ohio press.
These ran, however, so far ahead 90 the
crimes reported from the entire South tina
in little while it became necessary, in or
der to give the single Buckeye State full
and fair show, to issue an "Ohio Crime Sup
plement." venture to say that never yet
did such CHASTITY array of lawlessness, from
murder to arson, appear in a single sheet L.
covered the operations of one week and con
tanned forty columns. AS a guarantee Of
good will and an assurance of good humor,
il bore as its frontspiece picture of my am
liable and estimable friend, the editor of the
Cincinnati paper in question, standing upon
stack of Bibles. totally oblvious to the kill
iugs, wife-beatings and other dreadful and
inhuman acts going on right about him, but
gazing wistfully and ahsorbediy through a
spy glass levelled toward the South, There
was no further controversy-that ended it.
/ am not here to defend crime of
any sort or degree. But declare that The
whole case against the South as made out by
our Northern critics is false, and | assert
that nowhere in the world are the weak and
poor-in other words, the emigrant class--so
secure as they are with u.s. Life-taking is
not the only or the worst crime known to
men. If it were so there would be no wars
among civilized peoples. The law, which
does not recognize perjury or forgery or ar
son as justifiable offences, does in certain
cases justify homicide. II iustifies the tax
ing of life in self-defence; it justifes the
shooting down Of the burglar who enters
your premises, and there is an unwritten
law which extends this latter to that still
more heinous invasion of the home, which
has for its animating purpose not the plum
der of its goods and chattels, but the destruc-
ton of its peace and the dissertation of its
honor Crime, as crime, is the offspring of
condition. On the frontier the life of a
horse Is of greater value than the life of a
man, and hence the horse-stealer is summa-
rily punished with death. The crowded city
produces crimes which the law does not
reach, more brutal, far-reaching and heart
rending than any known to the most igno-
rant savagery. 1t was England, merry Eng
land, which gave Us Dotheboys Hall; and
it is the old Bay State which gives us
Tewksbury alnshouse. As the one raised
up Dickens. SO the other has raised
up Butler, and thus the course of justice
and reform goes on, as it should go on, from
within. 1t seems to be the iil-starred South
which is alone shut out from this good rue,
anu maui W carry HUI luSIclJ It's OHu IOdu
of imperfection, but an added load of exter-
nal reproach, born of the spirit Of interfer-
ence, and equally hurtful whether the intru.
sion of misguided friendship or the emana-
ton of prejudice and ignorance
The orator then, after referring to the sec
tional character of certain crimes, discussed
the causes of homicide at the South and de-
nounced the duelo in vigorous terms, and
concluded as follows: "We have not reached
u r.. 4 NJ
have the people of the North. But the fight
ers have had their day. just after our great
war there was a childish effort made In GER
tain quarters to revive the tourney. 1t was
dismal failure. The spirit Of chivalry was
met by the genius of labor, and the struggle
was for an instant only. Work won 1t, and
so the heroes of our time are fast becoming
the victors in mans and woman's fight for
human freedom aud intellectual, moral and
physical development. In the popular imag-
nation, Saladin is replaced by science; our
troubadour Is the trumpet-cal of religion
and the music Of the lutte is hushed forever
by the deeper music Of the loom. Even
among warriors it is not the bloody butchersof
old who are held up as model captains, but the
Hayelocks and the Lees, the StOnewall Jack
sons and the Garner Wolseleys, men who
have Joined to soldiership scholarship, and
to both gentle manhood and simple truth.
Everywhere the world is seeking to rescue
itself from feudal darkness. AT length the
man is saying to The woman, help me- and,
10, the woman-no longer a handmaiden-is
taking her place by the side of her comrade,
not her lord, and, heart to heart. the two are
hewing out of life larger and richer fields Of
happiness and usefulness. Tho spirit of the
age is movement, and nowhere In the world
is it more earnest or more active than II ia
at this moment at the South. You, too, my
young friends, are going presently out into
the world. Each Of you is to bear his part
in the movement. On the threshold you
will he met by the charge that you lnhabit
region where murder is loved for murders
sake. pray you heed the charge to this ex-
tent, that you throw your learning and your
valor upon the side Of peace and order and
law. Put behind you the false pretence that
honor REQUIRES that british words shall be
answered by brutal blows. Seek to construct
a society where he is outlawed who first for
gets that he is gentleman. Seek to estab-
lish and maintain code of manhood which
shall honor him who saves, not who takes,
life. Seek in moments of provocation and
hot blood self-forgetfulness, which is the
highest and purest self-composure, the very
heart and soul of real courage for hath 1t not
been written, and truly so, that
"The bravest are the tenjerest
The loving are the daring"
and what shall it profit him who has gained
the world, if, in one rash moment, he has
wrecked home2 Enough of you will fall In
labor's battle. Enough of you will fall In
learning's cause But no mans life Is lost
who has made single human being happier