The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-09-28
LACY IN MINNEAPOLIS.
What the Northwesterners had TO Say
of our Commissioner of Labor

l
upon the Staticians' Association there
Below will be found an extract from the
Minneapolis journal showing what the
people of those parts thought of Mr..
Lacy, and incidentlly containing fore
cast of his political possibilities by Pres
ident Carroll D. Wright. What is said
will be highly gratifying to Mr.. Lacy's
| friends all through the State:
eff President Carroll Wright, of the
Statisticians' Association, has particu-
lar favorite among the young men who
have followed in the path beaten by him,
it is B. r. Lacy, of North Carolina. Col.
| Wright is man of nerve and independ-
ence himself, and he instinctlvely likes
any other man that possesses a suf-
ficient quality of backbone. Mr. Lacy
seems to have quite enough Of it to sat
isfy any one.
''Why." said Mr. Wright, she is one
of the brightest young men l ever
knew. He can go to Congress from
North Carolina at any moment.
Last winter, when the Republicans
and Populists had control of the Legls
lature, they came to him and told
him that unless he did so and so they
would refuse to confirm his appointment
by Gov. Carr to the Office of Labor Com
missioner, which he aleady held. Go
on he said, throw me out; don't care
No less than FIVE times were bills intro
duced to that end, and no less than three
caucuses were held with Mr.. Lacy as the
bone of contention, but they admired his
nerve so much that they didn't remove
him.
"Mr. Lacy is locomotive engineer by
trade and cosmopolitan by experience,
having knocked around good portion Of
the world and been a cowboy in Texas
and Mexico for three years. At last
years convention of the association he
stirred up a hornets nest by his attack
upon the people of his own State for the
opposition they made to his inquiries,
but it didn't seem to prevent him from
being reappointed At that time he de-
clared that North Carolina protected its
terrapin carefully and made it a serious
offense to kill robin, but did not care
to protect its children, since it allowed
them to go to work in the factories as
soon as they could talk.
Gin his remarks before the convention
yesterday he made practically the same
statements.
s.Severe as | have BEEN" said Mr..
Lacy, in the course of pleasant chat
with Journal representative, every
word that | have said is true. You
mustn't think, though, that | am dis
| loyal to my own State. | think that
North Carolina is the best part of the
| Union. Il is said of us 'tar-heels' that
we have more pride and less to be proud
of than other section of the country,
but you mustn't believe that. We have
every kind of climate down there the
mountains give US that-and we can
raise most everything. Our pure Scotch
Irish descent has made us very conserva-
tive, but believe that the whites of our
State are the best people in the country.
"We are modest down there; too
modest to get our just dues. North Car
DINA was the first colony to secede from
England, and the last of the Southern
States to secede from the Union, but
when we did we fought and bled as no
| other State did. We put into the field
| 10, 900 more soldiers than there were
physically qualified men in the State.
! What's more, we are reconstructed from
the ground up. In my opinion the South
| gained more from the war than the
| North did The cancer of slavery could
| have been cut out by no other means
| than the sword 1t took the cannon to
teach us new methods of agriculture and
business We have learned them, and
the South is moving forward to grand
era Of development.
II want to tell you toe" he continued,
"that the negro question is settling it
self. The negroes are getting a fine
moral stamina; they are becoming edu
Gated and they are acquiring property.
| can truthfully say that in most of
I North Carolina the negro votes as freely
and his vote counts for just as much as
mine does. The Populists are doing a
great good in teaching the negro his po-
| litical rights and he is learning. But
| after that he knows that while the whites
are willing to allow the negro to vote,
they will not stand negro office holders.
The State is gerrymandered to prevent
them from getting control, and If yoa
lived there you would he forced to ad
nit that it Is the proper thing to do.
Again, 10 some OF our eastern counties,
fear that the negroes are not allowed
to vote. Another thing, the negro gets
the same treatment in court of justice
that white man does. There
is only one crime for which we maria
bly, and always lynch the black man or
the white man When our homes are
entered and our wives and daughters
ravished, we shall always resort to lynch
law. 1t makes no difference whether
the offender is black or white. That more
negroes are lynched in the South, is
simply due to the fact that the blacks
are more given to those offenses for
which there is no mercy.
There is another thing that | ought
to tell.you. When any one tells you that
Northerners are not welcome in the
South, you may be sure that he is not
telling the truth. The only Northern
ers that we do not want are those who
come down South and affiliate and asso-