The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1883-12-14
TIE VIRGINIA PERFORMANCE.

not care to defend or even publish
the facts connected with the Virginia
outrage, to denounce Malone, and
some of them are comparing him to
Butler, of Massachusetts, as if they
considered that sufficient to cover up
all the sins of the Bourbons, and to
atone for the innocent blood shed by
the conspirators in their contest against
personal liberty, free ballot and an
honest count.
1t required brave man to attack
politically the Bourbons. Perhaps
Malone, who is unquestionably brave,
was also somewhat unscrupulous; but
the country is called upon to judge
the man and his followers, not by
what his opponents say, but by what
he did and the methods that were
used to overthrow him. Let Malone
be measured by this standard.
He replenished the Treasury, that
had been depleted by Bourbon extrav-
agance. He re-established schools,
that the Bourbons had destroyed.
He sought to place a schoolhouse on
every hill and in every valley, and at
the rate he was progressing in this
work, in the course of another decade
schoolhouses would have been as num-
erous in Virginia as they are in Ohio,
and the traveller could not get beyond
the sound of the bell that calls child
rem to study The co.ored people,
who were Disseminated against under
Bourbon rule, were treated equally
under Malone rule. 1t rs said by
many, and even Boston paper re-
ports it, that negroes are not fit to
vote, because they are ignorant. In
slavery they were prohibited from
learning, and in freedom the means
of education are withheld. They are
trodden down and then cursed be-
cause they are down, and by men too
who are responsible for their ignorance
and are determined they shall not rise
in the scale of civilization.
Malone undertook to give the
people fair chance; to see
that their freedom was not mere
sham, and that their rights under the
laws to free ballot were not denied.
The colored people had education
enough and sense enough to discover
that the party that sought to do them
justice was the party that deserved
their support, and they naturally
hocked to the standard of the leader
who gave them free schools, and broke
down the whipping-post and the poll
tax, and all other impediments erect
ed for the purpose of keeping men
who had a right to vote away from the
ballot-box. Are the colored people of
Virginia to be condemned for that2
Let those who. would condemn them
put themselves in their place. The
fact is, no class Of white men in the
North would bear the wrongs inflicted
upon the colored citizens of Virginia.
If the outrages practiced there were
in Massachusetts,, or Ohio,
Or any other Northern State, it would
not be necessary, for the purpose of
to get up sham riot, as
vas done at Danville. There would
oe real riots, and blood would be
freely shed, and the work would not
De confined to one side.
The Danville riot was the result of
a plot to intimidate the colored people
and drive them from the polls through
out the State. In the face of the tes-
imony before the public it is no
worth while to deny the plot. Pains
we're taken to have exaggerated re-
oorts of that occurrence spread
throughout the State, and without the
lid of mail or telegraph it was spread
n places far and near Immediately
lpon its occurrence. Then how alb
;urd to charge the disturbance upon
he colored people, when it is known
hat only colored people were killed.
Two white men were wounded, but
hat was the result of accident, and
he shots were fired by white men.
But the plot was successful. The
:olored people were frightened, and
white men who belonged to the Ma