Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1883-12-04
Truth Versus FalsehOod.
70 the Editor of The State:

servation in Virginia can entertain the
slightest doubt that for several years past
the Mahoneites have put forth every effort
in their power to unite in solid mass the
ignorant non tax-paying blacks Of the State
against an overwhelming majority of the
intelligent, substantial and property-hold-
ing, tax-paying white people-thatis is to say,
they have drawn the race issue to this ex-
tent. This has been patent to the observa-
tion of all men from the organization of
what was first known as the Readjuster par
ty at Mozart Hall.
1t has been charged and demonstrated
time and again by the Democratic press
that Malone had adopted this policy, preg-
nant as it was with immense danger to the
peace, prosperity and honor of the State,
not for the purpose, as he alleged, of set
tling the State debt upon fair basis, but
to enable him to organize personal control
of the State Government that he might put
money in his pocket; that he might exercise
tyrant's rule, and put those who had dar-
ed to oppose him for Governor under his
heel. Where is the man to be found who
is so verdant as to believe that he had re-
ceived the nomination of the Democratic
convention in 1877 instead of Col. Holiday,
that he would have attempted to create a
new party, and that he would be found to-
day in the ranks of the Radical Republicans
of the country? But as it was, instead of
standing by the Democratic guns and fight
ing side by side with his former political
associates whom he had importuned to
make him Governor, he meanly and sud
denly drew great gulf between himself
and them. Since this time he has continu-
ously and systematically appealed strongly
to the basest passions of the ignorant ne
groes; he has by foisting them into white
school-boards and placing them in other
public positions of trust and responsibility
for which they were not fitted by nature
and by moral and mental training; he has
by every means which his inventive brain
could suggest endeavored to impress the
negro with the belief that he is the equal,
socially and in other respects, with the
white race. And when he was doing all
this he knew that he was exerting danger
GUS influence; that he was inflaming the
races, and that he was putting into opera
tion moral forces that were liable at any
moment to cause an explosion that would
result in the most deplorable calamities to
both the black and the white race of the
State. say he knew all this; for, aside
from the dictates of his own brain and judg-
ment, he has been solemnly warned thou
sands of times by the Democratic press and
speakers of the State that the most dire and
unhappy results would almost inevitably
ensue from the execution of his selfish and
ambitious policy and teachings. Yet what
rocked he of such consequences? What
cared he for the peace and welfare of So
ciety? On the contrary, impelled by hatred
IF h nd foII
demoniac spirit of ambition and cupidity,
he pressed madly onward and onward, send
ing his servile and corrupt emissaries
throughout the State to denounce and villify
the best white people and to hold them up
before the negroes, whose employers and
benefactors they were, as their worst enc
mics, who only awaited fit opportunity to
remand them back into slavery.
By the practice of such methods and the
wholesale spreading Of such falsehood the
negroes, as class, were brought, as he well
knew they would be, to hate with the ut
most intensity and to distrust entirely that
class Of the white race who chiefly furnish
ed them with the means of earning a liveli-
hood, who maintained willingly out of their
own pockets public schools for their benefit,
and who, in truth, were their only true and
natural friends No wonder, then, is it that
the negro, having such ideas and influences
thrust upon him, should prove intractable,
truculent, insulting and intolerant of gov
ernmental or other proper control by the
large body of the white people. 1t was this
spirit, conjured up and burned into them by
incendiary speeches made to them at Dan
vile, and by other speakers and emissaries
Of Malone elsewhere, working upon their
ignorant and credulous minds, that melted
them to start riot in Danville, which, un-
fortunately, ended in the shedding of blood
and which, but for the cool, forbearing, con-
servative spirit of the white citizens, a
tragedy of such magnitude might have
been enacted and results ensued from the
bare contemplation of which the heart re-
coils with horror.
For this unfortunate affair no well-in-
formed person can doubt that Malone and
certain other leaders of his party are moral
ly and criminally responsible They have
sown the wind, now let them reap the
whirlwind. And, yet. these recreant sons
these enemies of their mother State, her
peace and prosperity, are constantly en-
deavoring, by gross, wilful misrepresenta-
tion and suppression of the truth, to shift
the responsibility for the crime for which
they are responsible upon the Democrats.
The truth is, that so far from the white
citizens of Danville having desired rup-
ture with the negroes, it is well known that
for months past they have borne from them
insolence, insult, and injury with the most
commendable patience, forbearance and
fortitude. No, it is not true that they were
either directly or remotely the instigators
of the riot that occurred in their city. Ma
hone and his corrupt minions, and they
alone, are really responsible, and for it they
will always be held accountable by an intel
igent, discriminating public. And not only
is this true, but not satisfied with the i'm
mense amount ofmischief they have already
done, and the commission of the most un-
pardonable sins, they are still engaged in a
systematic effort to keep alive feeling of
the direst hostility among the negroes a.
gainst the white people among whom they
live and to whom they are indebted for all
the temporal blessings they enjoy. No in
telligent mind can fail to apprehend that the
injury thus entailed does not fall alone on
the white people; but, on the contrary, it
affects more seriously the inferior and more
dependent race.
In addition to all this they in their malice
extensively publish to the world that Vir-
ginia is not safe abiding place for strang-
Oio, ohoiOUJ OIuSlly euu6dVOrluS UC prevent
immigration to her really hospitable and
inviting borders. And yet these falsifers
of the truth, these would-be assassins ofthe
State that gave them birth and nurtured
them upon the bosom upon which Lee and
jackson, and great host of men renowned
throughout the world for their intense and
heroic devotion to truth and liberty were
nurtured-I say these men boldly proclaim
that they are the true friends of the State
and its people! What transparent, gross
What mockery of virtue
and patriotism What unblushing fraud
and effrontery Surely the history of
civilization furnishes no such parallel.
But all these devilish devices and false
hoods are merely the outward symptoms of
a moral and political gangrene rapidly tend
ing to the decay and dissolution of party
which, strange to say, could even have had
its birth in the minds of Virginians, and
upon the sacred soil of the Old Dominion.
Yes, Mahoneism is now squirming and
writhing in the throes of its dissolution, and
the grand old State has again transferred
the keeping of her great destinies into the
hands of her tried and true sons, and by