The record-union., 1894-09-04
THE IDA WELLS CRUSADE.

tellect and an eloquent tongue. She went
TO England some time ago and lectured
on the lynching of colored men in the
South and on lynching generally in this
country. She succeeded in organizing
there good many anti-lynching clubs.
In the abstract, that was we'll. We need
reform in the direction in which she is
working. 1t is to our discredit that this
Is true. But it is humiliating to have
English clubs resolve and petition con-
cerning it.
But Ida B. Wells has now returned
and has created good deal of trouble al
ready and set the press the land over into
ferment She has begun a lecturing
and organizing tour here, her whole at
tentien being directed southerly. Her
enthusiasm has carried her aud her clubs
into bitterness of speech against the
South, and as a result this apparent ran
cor has stirred up the Southern people
and press until the old-time sectional
talk is beginning to be resumed.
1t is charged that Miss Wells is not fair;
that she not only mistakes and misun-
derstands conditions, but that she exsg-
gerates to the very verge of falsehood.
Miss Wells contends that one of her aims
is to create q sentiment that will lend
aid to the effort to lead the colored
people of tho South to higher moral
plane.
On this line we quite agree with the
Columbus Dispatch, that it is in order to
ask our Southern brethren if indeed they
have done their duty ia this regard I?
Have they given the helping hand that
they might have extended? Have they
been sufficiently concerned about the
elevation of the colored people into a
better moral atmosphere?
But Miss Wells in her ardor has gone to
the extent of charging that in the South
the ravishing of women charged to ne
groes, would, were there no difference in
color, be in great majority of cases con-
sidered but adultery. In this she has
cruelty assailed Southern women, and
when she does that she touches the
Southern man upon the raw.
Ida Wells is handicapping herself, cut
ting off the possibility of good her mis-
sien might accomplish. She charges the
sluggish movement of civilizing infu-
ences among the negroes in the South
wholly to the acts and influence of the
whites, and, as we find her reported. has
not taken into consideration at all the
failure of the negro in so far as there has
been opportunity afforded him to become
self-helpful and to take steps forward and
upward.
But, passing that, as a matter of fact
there is q change of sentiment going on
in the South regarding the lynching of
negroes. A year ago the New Orleans
Times Democrat, several Florida journals,
and some of the papers of the Carolinas,
entered protests against the practice and
told the people that the thing must stop;
that the South could no longer invite the
deal of courage to say as much, bat to-
day we read of mass meeting of whites
recently held ct New Iberia, Louisiana,
protesting against the lynohing of negro
boy at that place. In Tennessee and Mis-
sissippi there is decided new opposition to
the lynching sentiment, and in Virginia
it would be very difhcultlnew to organize
slynching party.
The New Orleans ITmes-Democrat ad-
mits that in many sections the people be-
neve that the safest rule in the poorly
policed regions is the lynch rule. 1t adds
that campaign of education will be re-
Quired to convince the majority TO the
contrary. The Louisville Courier-Joatr-
nal declares that it is unnecessary to de-
nouncs lynching as wrong, "the wrong
ia admitted" But, exclaims this and
other Southern journals:
1t is not necessary to infame the races
against each other by a recital OF brutal
crimes. The remedy for lynching is not race
conflict, but strong public sentiment IN yor
OF the punishment of all crimes however
outrageous, by process Of law. The defenders
of mob law nave been losing ground. 1t is
impossible to measure the extent to which
IDA Wells has retarded this work by her out
rageous attacks on the Southern women She
is q mischievous agitator, who can do the
negroes of the South no good.
Governor Northen OF Georgia alleges
that Miss Wells has been sent over from
England charged with mission by
English financiers deeply interested in
Western bonds. to heap slander upon the
South. and thus divert tending immigra-
ton from the South to the West to aug
nent the bondholders' security. That is
simply absurd and. as the New York Sun
well says, ''there is not the slightest
ground of fact upon which to rest such an
assertion"
The whole difficulty is that Miss Wells
treats of iynching as exclusively South
ern, while in fact it is not confined to the
south. There are very few States IN