Sacramento daily record-union., 1889-09-25
CHANGING FRONT.

There is, in the position of the Governor
of Georgia, gratifying hope for better
future for the rights of the negro in the
South. That official has issued procla-
nation offering large reward for the
arrest and conviction of the scoundrels
who set upon and beat certain negroes for
no better reason than that they attempted
to assert their rights as citizens at the
polls. The Atlanta Constitution warmly
approves the action of the Governor. In
this connection it is notable that the Leg
7slature of Georgia, from which there has
been no reason to expect any sympathy
with the blacks in their character as citi-
zens, has passed resolutions denouncing
the outrages against the negroes and de-
claring that they must cease, and that the
law that secures to them their rights as
electors must be respected and enforced.
Not long since certain church delegates
from the South, who were travelling
through Southern States to reach church
conference TO be held in Indiana, were as
saulted and beaten by gangs of white men,
simply and only because the delegates
were colored men, and assumed to accept
representative positions in religious body.
This offense was so glaring that one of the
most pronounced negro-haters, the St.
Louis Republic, could not stomach it, and
lifted its voice in a protest that is really
surprising for its vigor and evidences of a
quickened conscience. There is not a
Democratic newspaper to day in the city
OF New Orleans, says the Inter Ocean, that
is not hotiy protesting that this thing of
bulldozing negroes must cease, the papers
being moved thereto by the horrible cru
elites practiced upon the blacks in
the parishes of Lafayette, New Ibra
and ST. Martins. The Times Democrat of
New Orlerns, which has not heretofore
been credited with courage to face the
white sentiment of the South and denounce
the wrongs of the negro, now says of the
Lafayette assaults:
Things have been going from bad to worse
there for some time. First came the interfer-
ence with the municipal election-a d litical
crime, but fortunately without bloodshed
Then, as the regulators become bolder and be-
neVed they held all the power in their own
hands came the attack on the Lafayette Jail
and the lynchipg of a prisoner finally comes
this last tragedy. which Claims three victims al
ready and may demand more The
State is fortunate in having in Judge Edwards
Judge who has shown the greatest irmuess
and determination in dealing with criminals
aud who has refused to recognize the regula.
tors as authorized to suspend the law, enforce
private vengeance, and whip, shoot or kill as
they see it. II would have been better for La
fayede and Louisiana had this conspiracy
against the laws been crushed at its very birth
1t can and must be crushed now.
From these and other evidences of like
character there is reason to believe that
the thinking people of the South have ar
rived at the conclusion that the shortest
and best road to solution of the "negro
question" is to respect the rights of that
class of voters, punish offenders against
them precisely as those are punished who
offend against whites, and generally to en-
force and uphold all laws of the nation
that secure to the colored citizen his rights.
If this assumption is sound, then the peo-
pie Of the South have reached wise con-
clusion, and will, precisely in proportion
as they adhere to the new policy, find the
people of the republic at large in SYM
pathy with them in any wise efforts to
settle the vexed issue of the political rela.
tions Of the whites and the blacks in the
southern section of our common country.