Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-01-26
WHAT'S aTHE BLOODY sHIRTn

New York Tribune.
Because Senators Sherman and Hoar
and perhaps Others opposed Mr.. Lamar's
confirmation ON the ground that he was
to a certain extent responsible for the
suppression of the negro vote in his state,
they are charged by Democratic news
papers with waving the bloody shirt"
This is vague phrase, which has come
to be term of reproach, and seems to
be regarded by those who are fond of it
as a final and crushing argument against
any one at whom they choose to fling it.
We ask for information, then, what is
meant by waving the bloody shirt '?-
The origin of the phrase is well known,
and the early application of it, it is well
understood, was to persons who were said
to be trying wrongfully to keep alive the
passions of the war To that extent its
use was legitimate. But it has come now
to be loosely applied to many other things
that have no connection with the war.
For example, if man condemn the pO-
litical murders by which the Republican
party has been cowed out of existence in
several Southern States, he is waving
the bloody shirt" For him there is a
term of reproach; for the criminals there
is none So, too, if a man condemn the
midnight whippings, threats and intimi-
dations and frauds in the South, he is
"waving the bloody shirt" There is no
condemnation for the men who commit
these crimes, but the man who ventures
to protest against them is instantly de-
nounced in the Democratic and dough-
face newspapers as without patriotism,
as waving the bloody shirt"
We should really like to be enlighten-
ed as to the logic of this. If a Massa-
chusetts manufacturer should attempt to
coerce the political action of his en-
ployes, even if ever so slightly, there
would be storm of protests all along
the line from these same newspapers
If murder is committed anywhere in
the North, they want to see justice done
promptly. If baIlot-boxes are stuffed in
Cincinnati or Indianapolis, there is a loud
call for speedy trials. But these things
have been done in thousands of instan-
ces in the South in years past, and are
still done, if occasion arises, and these
newspapers have not word to say. Is
fraud something other than fraud South |
of Mason and Dixon's line? Are assault |
and cruel outrage criminal in the North
and innocent in the South? Is not a |
murder in Justice Lamar's State ON the
same moral plane as murder in Senator |
Sherman's? The only visible difference
is that these crimes in the South are COM
mitted for political reasons, without pro-
vocation, and by the men who fought to
destroy the Union. This last circum-
stance certainly cannot be said to alter |
their moral character, or to commend |
them to the Northern people. The fact
that they are committed by ex-Rebels |
and their sympathiZers is the only link |
of the war. This fact, it would naturally |
be supposed, was discredit to those con-
cerned, so far as it was matter of any
at all; but, on the contrary, it |
gives them sacred character. The
Northern bulldOZer and ballOt-box stuff
fer must go to jail; the Southern bull
dozer and ballot-box stuffer must not |
even be talked about. 1t is unpatriotic
even to mention his crimes. 1t is not
sectional" to weld together by fraud
and outrage a number of States into a
solid political mass; but it is sectional
to protest against it. 1t is waving the
bloody shirt"
The very small number of Republican
Senators Mr. Lamar was able to secure
showed that the masses of the party, re-
moved from the influence of the Federal
Administration, are faithful to principle,
and are not ready for such cowardly ac-
luiescence in grave wrongs and persist
ent notification of the law, simply be-
cause they are the work of men to whom
much has been forgiven.