Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1894-07-27
OUR WRONGS DISCUSSED
BY English Statesmen n, Newspapers
and Prominent People.
Southern yulgarity and Niluper ition Not
Success i'll Refut,ng the Statements
OF Miss Ida Il. Wells.
.x;ss Ia B. Wells IL caieago Inter oeeqa

has walked up the South Besides Gov
ernor Northen's letter of general denial
and request that English people get
their facts from reputable" source,
the Southern press has been very active
along the same line. The Memphis
Daily Commercial exceeds them all in
the vigor, vulgarity, and vileness of it's
attack, not upon lynching, but upon
me personally. In its issue of May 26,
it devoted nearly four columns to ira
duction Of my personal character, in
language more vulgar and obscene than
anything the Police Gazette ever con-
tanned, and wound up all by giving
space, for the first time in its history,
to an interview with colored man, j.
Thomas Turner, who claimed that ''ths
respectable colored population of Mem
phis utterly repudiate Ida Wells and
her statements" This is the only reply
the Commercial can make touching the
statements that three respectable
colored men were lynched in cold blood
in Memphis March Q, 1892; that as the
direct result of the Commercials leader
and the action of leading Memphis cit
liens, May 25, 1892. my newspaper
business was destroyed, my business
manager run out of town, and myself
threatened with death should ever re-
turn: that on July %, 1898, a second
lynching bee took place on the streets
of Memphis with the full knowledge
and conniyance of the authorities; that
the columns of the Commercial told
how Lee Walker was hanged. half
burned, and then half-grown boys and
men dragged his body up Main street
and again hanged it before the court
house, and that men, women and chill
dren stood by and saw the sight; that
a telegram was sent from the Office of
the Board of Trade, ten hours previous
to the lynching, apprising the Inter
Ocean Of the fact that the burning
| would take place and inviting that
| journal to send me down to write it up.
| STATEMENTS NOT DIsPRovED.
The Commercial has not disproved
single one of these statements: it can
not do SO. 1t vainly imagined that a
foul TRADE against me, and the
.srepudiation" of Negro sycophant
who bent ''the plant hinges of the
knee that thrift might follow fawning,"
would be sufficient refutation of my
narration of Memphis terrible lynching
record.
The editors OF the Commercial have
flooded England with copies of that
issue, with more detriment to them
selves than harm to me. The tone and
style of that paper have shocked the
English people far more than my own
recital could do. 1t has given them an
insight as to the low moral tone of a
community that supports journal
| which outrages all sense of decency
that no words of mine could have done.
It has brought to the cause warmer
friends and stronger supporters than
perhaps it might have had.
Since the appearance of that paper
in England the Parliamentary break
/ fast was given me at The Westminster
| Palace Hotel, and the London anti
! lynching committee has been formed.
| The object of this committee is to aid
| the ventilation and agitation of the
subject, and bring all moral means to
bear to assist America to put down
| lynch law. The Duke of Argyle, whose
son is married to one Of Queen Victoria's
| daughters. is a member of the COM
| mlttee. The editors of the Daily News,
| Echo. Chronicle, and Westminster
Gazette, Mr. Moncure d. Conway, Rev.
| C. 4. Aked, Mrs. Helen Bright Clark,
! Miss Kate Ryley. and Mr.. Percy Bant-
| ing, editor of the Contemporary Re-
view. are also on the committee. Miss
| Florence Balgarnie is secretary.
| FELL FLAT IN ENGLAND.
The London papers would not touch
| the Commercials articles with a pair of
| tonrs. So far as / have been able to
learn only one jourr al to which it was
sent, the Liverpool Daily Post. has
taken any notice of the Commercials
| foul attack IL it's issne of June 18th
| the Post says:
s'We have received copies of the
| Memphis Commercial of May 90, con-
| tanning references to Miss Ida B. Wells
| and her mission Both the articles are
very coarse in tone, and some of the
| language is such as could not possibly
be reproduced in an English journal
| Moreover, if we We're to convey an idea
| of the things said we should not only
! infringe the libel law. but have every
reason to believe that we would do a
gross and grotesque injustice. Happily
| it is not necessary forus to consider the
element in the Memphis Commercials
case to which we have just referred,
because whatever that journal might
| prove against the champion of the
colored race would fail altogether to
| Justify the existence Of flynch law"
| Mr.. Ryley was one of the faithful
| few who stood at Henry Ward Beecher's
side in 1868, when the mob in Liver
pool tried to prevent his being heard
on an anti-slavery lecture. In 1866,
when Mr.. Ryley knew that a testino-
NAL was being raised in the United
States for VIM. Lloyd Garrison, he
undertook the English contribution to
that testimonial and collected and
| forwarded to James Russell Lowell
nearly $1,000. Mrs. Ryley and her
daughters exhibit, among their most
precious relies, autograph letters from
| both Mr.. Lowell and Mr.. Garrison
acknowledging receipt of this money;
also u copy of the Liberator. Having
known and heard of these brave anti
slavery workers, it is so hard for the
English people to believe that for the
present emergency no Garrison, Lowell
| Phillips or Beecher responds to the call
of duty to arouse the Nation. The
Nation and the race needs somebody to
say now as Garrison said in August,
| 1881, in that first copy Of the Liberator:
Il will not equigocate, | will not ex-
cuse, ] will not retreat a single inch,
! AND | WILL BE HEARD.
1t is remarkable that those men,
who were so hated and prosecuted by
their own people for taking up an un-