The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1890-03-27

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it will explain why 1 feel helpless:
WOODBURY., IowA.-Bill Arp: Fol
several years T have been reading and
enjoying your weekly letters, and your
moralizing upon the common affairs Of
life. But when it comes to the negro, OF
nigger, as you call him, you seem to be
entirely unable to see man under dark
skin. Do try for the sake of your inau-
ence with your people to rise above your
inherited prejudice. From the position
you seem to be taking, the negro has no
rights which a white man is bound to
respect. Do you want to fight it out on
that line? You don't seem to realize the
changes that thirty years have made, or
you would shudder at the consequence oil
conflict on such grounds. Did it never
occur to you how ridiculous it was for
your people to blame the negro for theft,
while you are stealing his vote. ] i'm.
plore you as friend, do not stand in the
way of destiny. Many of our union SOL
diers would be glad to see good homes
provided for your poor soldiers, but your
cut threats and your lawless classes
throttle down every generous impulse,
JOHN NEwsoME,
Old Army of the Potomac.
/ believe Mr.. Newsome is at heart q
good man. He is one among the thous-
ands who are juat as clever and just as
Ignorant, and that is what is the matter.
Northern politicians aud northern news
papers have so long deceived the masses
that we cannot undeceive them. They
still believe that secession was treason,
and that the negro is awfully oppressed,
and that our society is largely mixed with
cut tbroeta and assassins. Mr.. Newsome
begs me to rise above my inherited pref.
udices. Perhaps be would be surprised
to learn that my father was a native Of
Vermont and was reared in Massachu.
sets, and that his prejudices were all
against the south when be ventured here
as school teacher, and that he married a
southern girl and eventually became an
owner of slaves. If there ever lived q
better, purer, nobler man than my father,
in his humble sphere never knew him.
He outlived his prejudices, and was 30
thoroughly southerner that his money
and influence brought nearly all his kin
dred and many of his New England
friends to Georgia, and they, too, became
slave owners. They did what they could
to civilizo a barbarous race, and it is our
comfort to know that those who we're our
slaves we're not found in the chaingangs
or jails of the south.
Prejudice means Judgment before"-
that is, before investigating the matter.
I was born and raised with negroes and
have known and studied them as a race,
Individually and collectively, from my
youth until now and can have no preju-
dices. Mr.. Newsome has had no such
experience; perhaps he never saw a
hundred in his life; perhaps be never
hired one or worked with one, or be-
friended one. He lives thousand miles
away from them. He never had to send
his children to school where there were
negroes working in the 6el9s near by
where his daughters had to pass along.
He knows nothing of the apprehension
that parents feel who live in The country
and have to send their girls to school or
on erraDds to their nabors, or sometimes
have to leave wife and daughters unpro-
tected at home. Only two weeks ago q
"cut throat" was lynched near Madison.
The sweet and innocent child of only -
summers was found in a deep ditch
where he had outraged her and then cut
her throat from ear to ear, and afterwards
confessed that "she begged him mighty
hard not to kill her, but be was afraid
she'd tell on him." How did our hearts
beat wildly and grieve over the agony of
that.poor child. Hardly week passes
that our newspapers do not record sim.
liar case somewhere-not 60 heart repd.
ing, perhaps, but always brutal and
fendish, and always perpetrated by the
new set that have grown up since the war.
These things are eyer before US in mem
omy, and our vengeance, though smoth-
cred and unspoken, is burning in the
southern heart. If the conflict comes
that Mr.. Newsome seems to threaten, woe
be to the negroes and their northern
allies who take part in it. When only
700 brave men under Sam. Houston
defeated Santa Anna and all bis army,
the cry Chat nerred their arms and gave
them victory was, remember the Alamo,
and so when the conflict comes, if it shall
come, our people will have battle cry in
almost every community. If I was a
negro preacher, or teacher, and loved the
peace and the welfare of my race would
preach aud teach 10 them continually the
enormity of such crimes, but they do not
They bad rather preach and teach the
outrage of lynch law, and make pitiful
appeals to their northern friends, but
lynch law will go on nevertheless
and neither Governor Gordon nor biz
military companies can stop it.
DR.. Austin Phelps answers to all this
"Why don't you educate him UP to the
level of the Republican bs..lnt," and Mr.
Newsome echoes the same sentiment
when he says, "Let him vote, and do moi
stand in his way Of destiny" Well, we
have been educating him with all our
might and he has been voting the Re
publican ticket with all his might, and
yet our penitentiary records shows thai
eighty per cent. of the colored convicts
who have been sent up within the last 10
wears can read and write. and we're never