The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1893-05-03
Adopted In mass meeting.
Moral righteousness.
From the coluanbiG State.

II To the editor of the State as q man this
day Is the proudest of his life; as citizen
is the most humiliating.
4 The resolutions adopted by mass
meeting at Denmark are printed else
where. They relate to the editorial
conrseiof this paper In regard to the
brutal murder, Of an innocent, manacled
and confding negro near that town sew
eral days ago. Insofar as they .villify
and denounce N. G. Gonzales, editor Of
the State, for what he has said in con-
-demnaticn Of that shameful act and the
shameful course of the law officer who
contributed to it by his surrender of q
helpless prisoner to mob past discrimi-
nation between the innocent and the
guilty, we are proud of 1t. It is, and will
ever be, while this paper is under its
present editorial management, the pur-
pose Of the State to be obnoxious to the
criminal classes. to the coward and the
murderer, whether be sit high in the seat
of the brave and just who have gone
before or whether he slink in the dark to
butcher in ribald triumph poor, COVER
ing fellow-mo betrayed into his bru-
tai hands. Insofar as they show in the
front Of brazen day Sheir contempt of the
commandment Of the God they profess to
adore, insofar as they spurn every senti-
ment of that chivslrous manhood once
the pride of South Carclinians, insofar as
they add to crime which has aroused
the indignation of che entire South the
yilest of vile ISLANDERS against the Jour-
nalist who has dared tell the truth about
it, we are pitiful, very pitiful, for South
Whether B. r. Tillman directly lnsti-
gated the meeting which was held In a
store at Denmark yesterday, in which
five hundred men are reported to have
participated, or whether il was arranged
by his friends for political effect, we, do
not know and we do not care. 1t is suffi-
cient that a meeting Of men was held,
whether small or large, end wrote added
infamy against their own names and
across the map of their section.
The effort 10 prove John Peterson to
have been the guilty man after his COM
plete exoneration by the young lady who
was assaulted and by her little brother,
would be farcical If 1t did not prove that
remain nerves which tingle under the
lash of public scorn.
The statement that the State or its edi-
tor has by word or suggestion sought to
:sexcite negro men to attack and rape
white women when unprotected" and
that this paper has sought to 'array the
negro race against the white race'' is so
UNANIMOUSLY false, so utterly -"ithout
shadow of excuse, that it furnishes the
most complete justification possible for
every word which we have printed as to
the brutality and cowardice Of the deed
for which these Denmark murderers
stand abhorred of men. Those who
make such charges show their eagerness
to murder not only life but character,
and prove themselves to be in intent
moral as we'll as material assassins.
Governor Tillman, Of course, Is COM
mended for delivering the poor wretch
who went to him for protection into the
hands of these men, and the editor of the
State Is declared to be as deserving Of
murder as John Peterson. These resolu-
tions quite befit their source.
We would be ashamed were we to seek
to justify before braYe and humane men
the course of the State in this matter
While it has been endorsed by the utter
ances OF nearly every representative
paper in the South, in terms reproduced
day by day in these columns, it is never
theless true that the State was the first Of
all to speak In condemnation, as 1t was
the only one to warn Governor Tillman
in advance of the consequence of the
delivery of Peterson to the blood-thirsty
mob. The odium OF these acts ofhuman-
ity we gladly accept.
II it cost us every subscriber in the
Counties about Denmark-yes, if it were
to kill this paper, into which we breathed
the breath OF life and to whose fate we
are bound-we would not for hundred
meetings such as that at Denmark yester-
day change one word of that which we
have written against this infamous deed.
Several days ago we published an edi-
torial dealing with the degradation of the
moral tone Of South Carolina resulting
from the success of men like B. r. Till
man, with methods like his. It needs no
assurance of ours to satisfy every reader
of these Denmark resolutions that what
wa wrote Was only too true!