Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-01-13

| I'D "~ ~ Is tne principle
D. G winter month in
the South, and this,
too, in view of the signs of spring every
where apparent-with flowers blooming in
the open gardens, and the thermometer up
in the air. But as winter here is mainly
distinguished by rain, we have had two
days of what seemed to be second edition
of the deluge. The heavens opened up the
clouds and wept upon the sad and dolorous
world with such torrents and water falls
as suggested the looking out for an ark and
a modern Noah. But if we had to have an
ark, with our new-fashioned ideas, we
should want the animals to have boat of
their own, while that in which we embarked
should be run by electricity with all the at
tachments for comfort as comprehended In
the nineteenth century. But two DAYS rain
in a week shows that South Carolina is
behind Pennsylvania in the way of rainy
season, when in our Northern idyllic Octo-
Der, we had q days rain in the lovely
month, when yellow and red should have
famed in gold and sunshine.
But supposing now that the floods should
be let loose, the skies should drip as to-day,
until Niagara should seem a gentle water
fall-that the world should be treated to
another deluge-when should we look for q
| Noah? Would we turn our eyes to Ben
| Harrison, the commander of Republican
hosts, the chief representative of over
60, ,000, 900 of people-the great god of hope
to the oficeseekers?
| AN UNPLEASANT INSINUATIoN.
| Not here in the South certainly. Brother
Ben has put his foot into it with his bugle-
| call speech. His address to the Grand
Army to- stand shoulder to shoulder, as
| they did during the war to preserve free
and honest ballot, is rather reflection on
Southern methods, or at least is so con-
strued; and they do not hesitate here among
the chivalry to tell him to look at
home-to consider his own back yard-to
mediate upon Dudley's "blocks of fve''-to
native sons to be "the most contemptibly
corrupt the most diabolically vile, the most
notoriously dirty piece of territory, politi-
cally speaking, on the face of the earth
| to look at New York, where bribery and
corruption find a native home, and so on.
As everybody knows, it does not do for peo-
pie who live in glass houses to throw stones.
| If Brother Harrison's words were aimed at
the repression of the Republican vote of
the South, they will only serve to incense
people against him who were ready and
anxious for conciliation and smity.
The South, as we are told by an intelli-
gent man, is anxious to let war issues die
out-wishful for fraternal feeling-desirous
Of cultivating amicable relations with their
brethren at the North, but when that means
subordination to negro rule and domination,
the bugle call of Harrison will wake up not
amicable, but rather belligerent emotions
it will not pour oil upon troubled waters,
but rather wake them to storm and tempest
it will not subserve to amity and love- but
will rather keep ablaze the fires of hate and
sectional feeling.
If Harrison made the speech as recorded
he did foolish thing for one who should
aim not to be a sectional patriot, but q
representative of the whole country. The
South should be allowed to manage its own
affairs-to exercise home rule and to hold
local option-just as we do in the North.
Even if-as asserted-the negro vote is re-
pressed to the advantage Of the Democratic
party, what Northern man is justified in
calling attention to the mote in his brothers
eve while he considers not the beam in his
own eye. If the South represses the vote of
ignorance, the North represses the vote of
intelligence.
BESSIE IS REPREssED.
We can speak strongly on this matter
because we are one of the repressed. We
claim to be able to vote with as much re-
gard for the good of the country, with as
much interest in the welfare of virtue and
the promotion of morality, with as much in
telligence as regards politics and the rights
of humanity as apv man we know, and yet
our rights are trampled upon, our vote is
suppressed, our voice is silenced by force,
so we cannot see that our brethren in the
North have good cause to put on airs of
superior virtue. or are justified in showing
any pious rage over the enormity of the
South suppressing the ignorant vote of the
colored population.
One of the most striking things about this
sunny Southern town is the great number of
young and ng-looking negroes who stand
about the groceries and upon the corners of
the streets. How this was before the war
we of course do not know, but it is certain
they would be much better off if indus
triously employed; Satan. we presume, is
Just as busy down here finding mischief for
idle hands to do as on Fifth avenue at
home. When We asked how it came that
these big strapping fellows could sit around
in the sun and indulge themselves in loaf
ing, we were told their wives and mothers
took in washing-worked out as cooks and
chambermaids and nurses-and their hus-
bands spent the money. This is their de-
lightful privilege under the laws of South
Carolina.
In the last 40 years most of the Northern
States have so amended their laws as grant
to married women the right to hold prop
erty and to have some control of their own
earnings; but South Carolina, it appears,
has stood by the old common law in all its
enormity of tyranny and slavery from the
day of its first settlement at Charleston in
1910 until now.
A FORM OF SLAVERY.
Although the Huguenots, the Quakers,
the Scotch and Irish Presbyterians and
Methodists came to this sunny South to en-
joy civil and religious liberty, it never
seems to have occurred to them that the old
common law of marriage was for wives an
even worse form of oppression than that
from which they had fed. By this old
English law, under which no wife in South
Carolina can hold property or claim her
own earnings, possess her own clothes or
devise by will cent to anyone, wives are
held legally in a state OF servitude not
less abject than that from which negro
suffrage emancipated the male slaves. 1t
speaks loudly for the chivalry of the South
that women in the main are so kindly
treated and warmly appreciated that they
have not found cause or courage to clamor
for q change. Still chains are chains,
though made of gold, or wreathed with
flowers. There is no good reason why the
sisters of South Carolina should not be in
possession of the same privileges which we
Of Pennsylvania enjoy, and the more which
we propose to hold in the hereafter. As an
added cruelty to the marriage law as it
exists here, is the fact that they have no
law of divoree-no such thing as divorce be-
ing allowed. So when woman here marries
and makes havoc of her dreams of happi-
ness, she has no hope of freedom or release
save by death.
Of course this is the door mat theory in