The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1889-02-15

lHE uufuGT DI MI nay LON III .. Raj
sas recently because he presumed TO nhL
out whether or not he had been de-
frauded of his election to Congress, stir
red the country deeply, and some Of
the Democratic organs are more eXer'
c.sed than usual They appear to be
getting a glimmering idea las yet it ID
but a glimmer) that the Democratic par.
ty cannot go on forever shouldering the
responsibilities and benefits of the
Southern shot gun methods with impun'
ity. The ST. Louis Republican seems to
have been moved by the fact that the
Republicans carried its city last fall by q
sweeping majority, to abandon its usual
course of apology or justification of cleo
ton crimes in the South. 1t is loud in
its criticism OF the Arkansas sheriff
who did not bestir himselfto hunt down
the murderer of Clayton, and says:
IN. d. Shelby, the sheriff of Conway
county, is showing symptoms which, I'M
less soon changed, will soon bring him
into suspicion of being coward, unfit TO
hold the office with which the people of
Conway county lntrusted him. His
failure TO act promptly in this case not
only disgraces them, but endangers them
as far as it shows that the officer lntrust-
ed with the chief responsibility for the
protection of their lives, liberty and
property is unequal TO the responsible
ty. Sheriff Shelby has no right what
ever to delay action until larger rewards
have been offered Such conduct, if he
is capable of it. would be worse than the
lack of personal courage which would
cause q cowardly sheriff 10 delay arrest
ing the Plummervllle gang of outlaws"
The sheriff, however, may say that he
has to exercise a certain discretion in a
community where men are assassinated
for inquiries into election frauds. The
n. Y. Herald is quite excited and talk
alive, saying:
1--WE have not heard of Democratic
Congressman or candidate being shot in
the South. Mr.. Clayton was RepublI-
can. He was looking into charges, well
established, apparently, of Democratic
election frauds and violence, and he was
shot while on that lawful business. 1t
is, at least, awkward, aud we wish our
correspondent had asked Governor Lee
whether he considers this assassination
of a prominent white Republican to be
an outcome Of the race problem" which
seems to trouble him.
''The other day We printed, from
Louisiana, accounts of a long-continued
series of outrages on colored people In
the Iberia Parish. Men and women had
been hanged, stripped and whipped,
driven from their homes; and all this by
q gang Of ruflians without pretense of
lawful authority, and with so little eX-
cuse that the correspondent OF the New
Orleans Times Democrat wrote that no
peaceable citizen even knew why all this
was done.
"This, also, Governor Lee would per-
haps say was an incident Of the race
problem which troubles him. But we
should not agree with Governor Lee"
"If in the South the negroes were
found frequently assassinating Demo-
cratic members of Congress or Candi-
dates for office; if they mustered in gangs
and hanged, whipped or drove out white
men and women obnoxious TO them; if
they formed themselves into bands of
regulators, carried of by violence poll
boxes and books, drove white voters
away from voting places, committed
frauds on the ballot box, and, having
done all this, assassinated white man
who came TO inquire into their frauds
them"
This is aimed by the Herald at Govern
or Lee, of Virginia, who has been talk
ing, in connection with the Clayton mur-
der, of the race problem. 1t is not the
race problem that is up so much just now
as the question whether the Democratic
party shall be in receipt of the usufruct
of murder. The Heratd grows almost
historical in this paragraph:
"We regret TO see the race problem
turning up so quickly after the recent
Democratic defeat. 1t does not look
well. 1t makes Northern men who are
entirely friendly TO the South feel hope
less contempt for Southern whites. The
South has IN the negroes an admirable
laboring class, patient, docile, used to
hard labor and to narrow living. Ifthey
were not voters they would not be free.
men. Being voters, no doubt they make
mistakes-just a. white voters do. We
will tell Cover or Lee frankly one thing
the blacks could scarcely have sent a
more stupid of men to Congress from
the South, if they had sent the whole
delegation, than the whites have DONE"
There is a vast amount of truth with
but q small amount of poetry in the
Herald's last paragraph.