The progress., 1891-03-07

there no limit to the slander :Nlu tue
malignant utterances OF thase sell
constituted friends Of a toilIlg, de-
serving, plodding portion of american
people? Stand up and indict race OF
males as the invaders of the sanctity
OF Caucasian home ties, as the brutal
destroyer of that in woman which Is
her very existence. This charge Is
groundless, mean, slanderous, ana
most damnably false, as false, MIR.
Chairman, rs the elements that COM
pose the Internal regions.
live in the blacklist section OF the
south, where in numbers the whites
are few. Ny district covers a country
of hundreds Of miles. The large plan
tations, with dense population of
black illiterates, are there, and nestled
among them are isolated white homes,
miles apart. Many of these homes
are peopled by widowed mothers, half
grown and grown-up girls, without the
protecting hand OF a male of their
race The girls often 60 alone from
neighbor to neighhor or to the store
or to the church or to school, and |
challenge the pleader at the bar or the
custodialf of the. criminal records to
point to II single case where these
walking emblems of American purity
have been assaulted or raped by a
negro in that district or any portion
of it since emancipation.
The records OF the courts OF the
south prove that the crime is not in
dulged in; the charge is never laid at
the door of the negro where he is pow
erfully strong in numbers and the.
morals Of the white women are GER
tain. Wherever it is hurled at him
thee is laid in allocality where
the numbers of the whites and blacks
are nearly equal, where the whites and
blacks are equal in morals;4 and, even
after the poor unfortunate victim has
been lynched and his spirit gone to
the eternal world, letters orIverbal ad
missions coming from the supposed
victim OF licentious brutality inyari-
ably absolye the innocent dead man
from the crime charged
There is not Christian mother in
the south biit knows the utter falsity
OF this charge. | call upon white
women who are lefhalone from day to
! day and from night to night in their
struggling homes in the south to deny
/ it. | call upon the ministers of the
! gospel who are not political dema.
| gogues to deny it. | call upon the
white struggling son Of toll, whose
hand has never been stained with the
innocent blood of an ex-slave, to deny
4 it,. call upon the young white girls
budding into womanhood, with their
voluptuous charms, who travel the
lonely country roads Of the south,
without, the nearing hand of q male
friend, to deny it. / call upon the
statistician OF crime to investigate
the charge and stamp it false. call
upon all lovers of truth, in the south
apd north, all protectors in this
Christian land OF the purity Of women,
! to be witness for us that it is false,
absolutely false
Sir, how long, oh, how long, will this
country accept these outrageous
| charges and publish them without in
vestigation?
| Well, gentlemen, / have learned a
great deal during the vicissitudes of a
stormy life, but the lesson taught me
by this religious friend of my people is
ilnexampled in the history of lessons
taught. A religious, Christian Cau-
casian, self-constituted friend of the
negro thus falsely records him in his
tory, and justifies lynch law in the
south, and uses it as cause OF the
denial of the boon of citizenship to a
deserving, competent citizen. Yes,
say competent citizen, for in the south
the negro is the equal of the poor illit-
terate white citizen in every element
that constitutes an American Chris.
tian citizen And in devotion to the
national government, in love for the
stars and stripes, in regard eor the
laws as expressed by majorlties and as
q protector of constitutional liberty,
history records him as the superior of
his white master, never a nullifier,
never carping hypocrite with vile
treason in his heart.
This friend from Georgia (Mr. Col
quitt) says
That a vote should be given from conviction,
and not from price, Is difficult thing for an un-
trained moral intelligence to learn 4
If this friend from Georgia (Mr. Col
quitt) means that the negro sells his
vote, then what is the use in saying
in other places of his speech that his
devotion to the party that freed him
and his gratitude are proven at all
times?
New, what does he mean by an "un-
trained moral intelligence" Let us
see how this question fits the master
class of the south. The poor white
men of my state who were property
holders, and thereby couldvote before
the war, were treated by the master
class quite differently from the way in
which republican managers of election
dealt with their voters. We know
that the negro is instinctively q law
abiding citizen and he votes for con-
stitutional liberty at all times. And
the same is true of the struggling por-
ton of the white citizens of the south.
They were unlearned, many of them
unframed morals, but they instinct
lively knew that the whig party
was their protector. They strug-
gledM at all times to vote the
ticket, and 60 prevent them from
voting against the master class the
old southern barons, in intelligence
and morals trained, would coax these
illiterate white men, weeks before cleo
ton, and cage them in places called
bull pens, drug them with bad whisky,
and keep them there to vote against
their convictions on election day,
drunk and brutalized by the master
class. What else, Mr.. Chairman? His
tory records it that at elections around
Columbia, S. c., when the men became
ilnrnana0nahlp lewd women were rrc