Brenham weekly banner. [volume] (Brenham, Tex.) 1877-1907, 1891-09-17
AN oREGoNIAN sLANDERER.

AN OhEOONAAN
Under the caption OF the ''white
Indians of the South" he Portland
Oregonian, whose ed.Gor is an az
rogant fool who has never been
south, as evidenced by the ignorance
in writing about people,
of whom we doubt if he is worthy
to blacken their shoes, berates the
southern people in column and a
half article for the manner in which
the Democratic party treats the
negro, which he says lis never weary
of making his life burden"
The white people of the South, or
the Democratic party, as the Ore
gonian designates them, are not
guilty of the charge, and are as far
from trying to make their 'tlife a
burden" as our northern neighbors.
We will not tolerate social equality,
neither will Northern Republicans
as evidenced at Cincinnati on Labor
day when a leading negro was fired
out of the Gibson House.
Passing from the negroes which
the Oregonian places high above
what it designates as the ''white In
dams of the South" i. e. ''the Geor-
gia crackers" and poor "white trash"
it says that IN all the cotton states
this class of ''wretched creatures
form a fourth of the population, :"
and are an impressive example of
race degeneration, caused partly by
climate and partly by caste preiudi-
ces due to the institution of slavery"
These CRACKERS" are not limited to
Georgia, but wherever they are
found in the South they stand for
laziness, ignorance and oddly. In
the wiregrass region of Georgia
they eat chalk and starch as dainties
and collect turpentine from the
pines as barter. In parts of North
Carolina and Virginia the natives
eat clay and dig ginseng. Along
the gulf and the tributaries of the
Mississippi they fish and collect live
oak moss Everywhere they use
snuff and tobacco and subsist on
scanty and unnutritious diet" The
writer has been in all the places
mentioned, and while there are some
indolent and worthless specimens of
humanity, the per cent is not one
fourth of the population, neither are
they more numerous than in the
northern states or republican dis
tricts, and as to their degeneration
more depravity can be seen in the
slums of any northern city in a day
and night than could be found
these so-called crackers" in
a twelve months travel across the
cotton growing states. True there
are among us uneducated people,
1nsophisticated simple country peo-
pie, who know little Of the world
and its dark ways, some few of
whom might, as the Oregonian
charges, 'Elet old men and women
10 the work of the cotton mills,
while the able bodied males loaf,
OUNCE, white sticks and absorb
whisky" but the Oregonian should
'emember that there are few
cotton mills across the territory
t describes, and its assertion
bears the ear marks of a w1llful
misrepresentation, eminating from
he pen of one whose ignorance of |
he South could be enlightened by
he poorest specimen of the "Geor- |
yia cracker"
Dipping snuff is universal among
he girls and with the women drunk
,nness is not uncommon, and at 80
are wrinkled bent and bag
,ard," says this vile SANDER. No
greater per cent of the South "dip
huff" than their northern neigh
,ors, and as to women drunken.
less," the writer has never seen
lalf dozen drunk women South of
he Mason and Dixon line, while he
las seen gardens full of semi-respec-
lie women beyond that line tipling,
While drunken orgies in the north
IN city slums are of nightly occur
ence, the revelries ending in the
ity prisons, and any morning in a
,olice court would show more
total depravity" than could be
ound among the Georgia, Missis-
ippi or Virginia crackers in a
months search.
All this talk about the depravity
nd ignorance of Southern whites is
4 the mind of penny-a-liners for
Northern Republican journals, who
publish it to SANDER the South and
etard the influx of the best class of
immigrants which the South is
rawing from there.
These alleged crackers" sprung
rom Scotch Irish stock, and are not
S ignorant and thriftless as PIC
ured by preiudiced ignoramuses
Tho never saw them and are too