The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-05-30

odeS that 'anger is a brief fit of lunacy"
Then | am ready for the asylum right
now. for | am mad-mad with Mckinley,
and Buck. and Bullock, and the Grand
Army, and the Republican party, and
everybody else who is trying to impose
on our people. The Grand Army demands
the publishing of a school history that
will make Southern treason Odious to the
genera tiOns to come. This is not the
Grand Army for they are about all dead
except the pensioners, but it is the grand
army of political plunderers who don't
want any peace with the south. General
Grant said: Let lis have peace" and Lin
coin said so too, but these politicians are
afraid of peace. Peace would wet all
their ammunition. 1t is a very late date
to revive this cry of treason. The argu-
ment has been long since exhausted and
now nothing is left but disgust and con-
tempt for the political schemers who
seek to perpetuate discOrd. Treason is q
favOrite cry among pretended patriots.
Athaliah murdered the sons of the king
and usurped the throne, and when the
prophet ordered her to be Slain she rush
ed forth and cried treason, treason! When
Patrick Henry in his first great speech
denounced George the " the judges cried
treason, treason! Well, | reckon that Pa
trick Henry and Ben Franklin, and JEFF
fersOn, and Adams, and Payne were the
first traitors this country produced, and
we don't mind being in their company. In
fact, we are proud of it. | get awful mad
when | read the vile SANDERS of the
Northern papers. The scriptures tell us
to love our neighbOrs, but those fellows
up there are not our neighbOrs, and it is
not forbidden to hate an army, is it?
My contempt for that grand army is not
limited by time or distance or the statute
of limitations, but / had made up my
mind to let them alone if they would let
me alone. OF course there are some
clever men belonging to it just like there
are some clever men in the Republican
party, but that don't prevent me from
hating both of the concerns as OrganiZa-
tions, collectively and categOrically.
Schemers and plundererS, and scalawags
and slanderers run both. Nobody but an
unprinciped politician would seek to put
a negro in the postoffice at Augusta or in
any other Southern town. 1t is an insult
to our people and there is no excuse for
it-nO palliation. OF all the offices in the
gift of the government there are none a
bout which the people have such moral,
social and political rights as the postOf-
fees. Every man and woman in the
community should be consulted, if it were
possible. But as it is not, then the public
sentiment should be considered and the
business men be consulted and nobody
should be appointed who would not be ac-
ceptable to a large majority of the peO-
pie. In fact, there should be no partisan
ship about it. In a Democratic cOmmun-
ity a Republican who could not get a
majority vote should not ask for moi
receive the office, but inasmuch as the
rule now is that to the victors belong
the spOils of course we must submit. We
in the South must take the best Republi-
can we can find, but no President who is
a gentleman will seek to put negro in
this office and no politician who is a gen.
tleman will ask him to do it. 1t is an of
fee that emphatically belongs to the peo-
pie of the community. 1t concerns them
and them alone No doubt but that sc
per cent of all the letters and papers and
money orders that go and come from Au-
gusta are to the white people of that city
South. and Mckinley knows it, and SC
does Buck and Bullock and they cannot
wipe it out. When will our people quiz
running after these scalwags who would
stab us with the blade of Joab while
they embrace us and say: How art thou
my brotherW
What is there that politician will moi
do for office? When the sexton threw NJ
q skull Hamlet said: perhaps it is thu
pate of politician, one who would cir
cumvent God. And it does seem us if they
had become hardened to all sense of tn
proprieties of life. A hundred years age
Sheridan wrote: Conscience has nothing
to do with politics" Our people have been
doing their best to think well of McKin-
ley and esteemed him as a clever, upright
gentleman. but the fact that he enter
tains the idea of appointing Lyons to Au-
gusta has wiped out all respect for him
The mugwump Democrats who voted fol
him have all become crOss-eyed and can't
look you straight in the face. Why did he
single out that bright little town of Ho-
gansville to insult her people with a ne
gro postmaster? Why does he not APP
point negroes to the northern towns where
they claim there is no color line?'towns
whose white and black go to the same
school and sometimes intermarry.
And now there is another trouble here
in Gainesville A Michigan man moved
here not long ago with his family and
went into partnership with a negro black
smith and they all live together on terms
of social equality and eat at the same
table, and as the Michigan mans child
rem go to our public school he has been
notified that they cannot go there any
longer. SO he has taken his children a
way, and says he don't care a damn what