The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-04-28
THE HARVEST OF WHIRLWIND.

whirlwind. 1t may seem little thing to toy
to-day with wrong, but wrong nurtured or
neglected gains strength, and when full grown
it makes no discrimination between friend
and foe, but, like the resuscitated viper, it is
even most likely to strike the friend that
warmed it. 1t seemed a pardonable bit of
political demagogy in the early days of the
war for the Herald and Governor Seymour in
New York, and for the Sentinel and Mr.. Voor
hees in Indiana, to denounce the govern
ment as usurpation and its policy as an i'm
position upon the rights of citizens; but when
the draft riots of New York destroyed mill
ions of property and hundreds of lives
and the organized knights Of the Golden Circle,
plotted the assassination of Governor Morton
and murdered Stevens and many other draft
officers, and burned the private property of
Union men, it was only whirlwind of desc
lation, the Legitimate harvest of the wind
| sowing Of a few months previous.
For more than eighty years there had been
bidding certain things. At first this
law was as well observed as any law,
but little by little the people consented to its
violation, to please a certain few, so that II
more than thirty years the Sunday law in Gin
cinnati was VIGOROUSLY dead letter, business
men and politicians consenting, if not approx
ing. Two years ago the Legislature of the
State so amended the law as to make its en-
forcement possible, even in Cincinnati, as
was supposed. But the lawless element had
already provided for this contingency, as the
South, foreseeing a probable war, had made
arrangements for it. By a cunning provision,
it had already been provided that juries to try
such offenses in Cincinnati were under the
control Of the city authorities, and, forthwith,
the city legislature so amended the jury ordi-
nance that it was purposely made impossible
to obtain a jury that would convict violators
of that law, thus interposing the municipal
power of the city between the offender and
the law. few weeks ago the courthouse was
| burned, its records destroyed and more
than two hundred citizens were killed or
wounded by a mob composed exclusively of
those elements for whose protection, in their
violation Of the law of the State, the city of
Cincinnati had by its city ordinance, made
special provision. 1t was only an advance
courier, small whirlwind which precedes the
terrible tornado, that must surely follow such
windsowng as Cincinnati has been doing
these thirty years No land on earth can en-
throne vice and protect iniquity by law and
escape the inevitable desolations which follow.
For decade or more before the late war,
the arrogant slave power, not content with
the political supremacyi it enjoyed, determined
to add commercial considerations to its ar
gument; hence it organized business hostility
against every man who would not bow down
and do the South reverence This, at first,
took the form of refusing to buy books, or papers
published in the North. But as
Southern people could not live with
out Northern products they proposed
to deal with no one who took the National Era
or advertised in the New York Tribune, or
otherwise gave any aid to the cause of anti
slaveryism. They found merchants who were
craven enough to cater to their Rad demands,
and who were fools enough to suppose that
they could afford to sell their manhood for
the sake Of selling goods to such customers.
Hence, when the war broke out there were
New York and Boston whose lines of goods
were wholly for the Southern market and
whose customers, wholly in the South, owed III
the aggregate many millions, all of which was
paid by the act of war, leaving their creditors
to settle their accounts in the bankruptcy
court. These men had sown wind, and a
whirlwind of ruin was the harvest
1t may seem a small thing that in Indian
apolis we are repeating the experiment which
worked 50 disastrously in Cincinnati The
law of the State is not only openly deied but
it is well known that the authorities whose
duty it is to protect society have given official
consent to this defiance, and that law break
ers have the control of the so-called guardians
of the law. All such laxity of administration
is wind-sowing whose harvest must, sooner or
later be a whirlwind. Even the folly of the
Southern lords of the lash has occasionally
been resorted to in business matters, and men
who assume to dictate have held over the
heads Of timid men the dreadful threat Of