The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-08-20
FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 1897.
PLAIN SPEECH BY A GI ORGIA
LADY.

ed in the Federal House with credit to
himself and his state. Mrs. FELTON, is
thoughtful and observant. The Mes
senger within a fortnight discussing
the raping outrages and lynching vio-
Hence, said that the white women liv-
ing in the rural districts orin exposed
suburbs of towns and cities were all
the time uneasy. Between the peram-
bulating tramps and the prowling
black wolves they were in constant ter
-ror. Mrs. FELTON, evidently sees the
matter as we stated it to be, for she
Insists that the wives and daughters
I'm the country homes need protection
from bad men, whether white tramps
or Iustful black brutes. She thinks
It much more humane to consider the
conditions at home now han to send
spare millions into heather lands She
lis anxious to protect h unprotected
white girls Of character on the seclud-
ed farms and to put an end to the in
fernal lynohings. She says "if these
poor maidens are destroyed in a land
that their fathers died to " from the
1INdhC . LUZ, l. soy WAN
with the survivors who fail to be pro-
tectors for the children of their dead
comrades" nslf
She is not unfriendly to missions, but
she loves the white girls in their homes
who live at the mercy of predatory
scoundrels. She writes:
"T do not discount foreign missions.
mil tho haofhan ra Qf VOIlr
door, when our young maidens are de-
stroyed in sight Of your opulence and
magnificence and when your temples Of
Justice are put to shame by the lynch
ers' rope. If your court houses are
shams and fraud n the laws delay
is the villains bulwark, then I say let
Judgment begin at the house of God
and redeem this country from the
cloud of shame that rests upon it,"
This bright, pure Georgian woman of
the Anglo-Saxon race writes with
some kindling %eloquence as she con-
templates the cruel outrages and the
cry of the helpless for protection. The
law is powerless it looks like. Nearly
1000 criminals last year in the United
States, of whom thousands were muir
derers and rapists, and but some 14O
executed. 1t is no wonder then that
Iynchings occur, and that the potent
voice of woman pleads for mercy and
protection for her sex against violence
in it's most fearful and damning form.
Hear her as she unites her voice with
the cries and implorings of the un-
protected, fearing, defenceless ones !
the mothers and maidens:
''The crying need Of woman on the
farms is security in their lives, in their
homes. Strong, a~ble-bodied men have
told me they stopped farming and NOV
ed to town because their women folks
were scared to death if left alone.
ct say it is a disgrace in a free coun-
try when such things are a public re-
proach and the best part Of Gods crea-
ton are trembling and crying for pro-
lection in their own homes. And I say,
with due respect to all who listen to me
that so long as you politics takes the
cOlOred man into your embrace on cleo
ton day to control his vote; and so long
as the politicians use liquor to befuddle
his understanding and make him think
he is a mar and a brother; when they
p to defeat the opposition by
honey-snuggling him at the polls, and
so long as he is made familiar with
their dirty tricks in politics., so long
will lynchings prevail because the
causes of it grow and increase"
Surely, surely something is wrong,
something is very rotten politically
when these things exist. 1t is time
for an awakening, for a radical change,
from the roots upward. In North
Carolina a few thousands of wicked,
mean white fellows are working a
great wrong and are paving the way
to a war between the two races. AS
some one said the other day, in print
some exchange The Messenger copied
from-whenever the combine is in pow
er in North Carolina, the trouble with
negroes begin. The lynchings have
broken out like the measles since Rus
sci became governor and his set went
into law making and grub distribu-
ting. In this city trials of justice are
impossible. The city is in the hands
under the entire control of a few
whites and their myrmiddons. 1t is the
worst policed town or city, we doubt
not, on the Aemerican continent.
Whose fault is it? The taxes are
heavy. How are they distributed. The
sight of a policeman at night is in
deed a curiosity. What proportion Of
the police are negroes?
Mrs. FELTON, reads of crimes in
North Carolina-of recent rapes, and
after two years or more of no lynch
Ings until the one the other day at
Asheville, and she writes:
1"The time is at hand when the good
people Of North Carolina are ready
to say to the republican politicians
n others who affiliate with them:
You find to control the negro
vote to degrade the state and put your
selves tn once. You must ind means
80 stop TIE crime that Invites lynching