New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-05-02
lection to head Cleveland delegation is quite
the sweetest new thing in straddles.
"yO ROOM FOR NTGGERS."

Intolerance always seems most intolerant IN
religious affairs. The clergy and laity Of the
Protestant Episcopal diocese OF South Carolina
who have been rancorously opposing the adj
mission of coored men as delegates to their con-
yentions, are simply carrying out in church
polity the principles prevailing in white league
politics throughout the South but their con-
duct Is condemned by many who find it either
convenient or proper to condone the systematic
suppression of civil rights in that and other
States. There is no difference in principle be-
tween an exclusive white mems party in poll
tics. which does not allow an inferior race to
participate in elections and to exercise its con-
stitutional right of free suffrage, and an ex-
elusive white mems church that will not suffer
negro congregations and ministers to enjoy the
privilege Of representation in diocesan con-
yeution. In either case race intolerance APP
pears in malignant form; but whereas journals
and men of all parties at the North unite in de-
nouncing the faction warfare waged against
Bishop Howe as hostile to the spirit Of the
Christian religion, there Is disposition in many
quarters to deprecate discussion of the political
outraees and crimes by which the Democratic
leaders acquired and have maintained their as
cendancy in the South. The Bishops oppo-
nents are merely transferring from State to
Church that monstrous spirit of intolerance. in
Justice and hatred which leagues the whites
against the blacks in every Southern election,
municipal or national.
One of the incidents Of this church contro-
yersy illustrates the instructive impulse Of
native-born South Carolinian to revolt against
the time honored principle Of majority rule. AT
an election of delegates to the approaching Do
cesar Convention from one Of the prominent
Charleston churches the opponents OF negro
representation made stand against the rector,
who was one of the warmest supporters OF the
Bishops policy of liberation and justice. They
were defeated and at once determined to secede
from the parish. On Sunday they went out
with FIXING colors-a warden, three vestrymcn
and many followers-and entrenched themselves
in the pews of another church. The church
manship of their new parish was not congenlal
to their taste in the aesthetics of religion" and
the breaking up of old associations was painful,
but high above everything else they placed the
principle of " keeping the niggers OUT OF a re-
spectacle white mems convention. They Sc
coded; and probably if the Diocesan conveh-
ton when it meets to-day sustalns the Bishop
in giving Christian fellowship to colored min
listers and laymen, they will consider 1t to be
their bounden duty to secede from the Pro-
testant Episcopal Church and to join some re-
ligious communion where white men can wor-
ship their God with dignity and self-respect.
In the commonwealth of South Carolina seces-
sion will always open way for their retirement
from promiscuous gatherings of blacks and
whites who have souls to be saved from wrath
to come What they will do in another world,
if any of the despised negroes happen to get in
with them does not concern them now 1t
may not be as easy then to hire pews in the
church around the corner as it is now.