The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-11-15

u I[E hEIENITEES anu dIU NTIFIW
they receive almost every day in the
year from their white neighbors and
employers. and there is no Iab0ring
class in the country. We repeat. whose
material condition and advantages can
be compared 10 theirs. +
1t Is not unnatural that under such
conditions and circumstances the
southern whites should resent the eff
fort OF the negro 10 put his heel on
their necks. Northern employers would
have done the same thing no less
emphatically under similar cirCum-
stances. but they woul have resented
il by d~ischarging their employees n
exposing them to death from starvation
The southern people are disposed 10
have nothing but the kindest feeling
for the negroes, but they are not going
ID submit 10 negro rule. Any and all
attempts 10 subject them to such '
reignty must fail, and they might as
we'll be abandoned now as later. The
persistent efforts to place-a higher and
more civilized race under the feet Of an
inferior one are a disgrace 70 the oun
try and can only retard the progress
and prosperity OF the colored popula-
tion Of the south. If the negro under
stands his own best interests. he Will
pray TO be delivered from meddling and
fanatical friends.
Columbia State)
There are these points Of resem-
blance between the race war in Green
wood county, South Carolina. ans that
in Wilmington, North Carolina. In each
case it was started by a negro, in each
a white man was the first victim and
in each the negroes suffered an ulti-
mate loss Of ten to one. He who runs
may read the moral.
The State has been we'll represented
at both scenes Of conflict, and h re-
ports of its correspondents make
graphic reading. We believe that in
Wilmington, as in Greenwood county,
the negroes AVE enough of Il, and
hope that in each locality the whites
will be merciful.
Wilmington saw a second revolution
yesterday, as peaceful as the other was
bloody. The means by. which the re-
publican city government was con-
verted into a white mans government,
quietly, lawfully and with the consent
Of both parties to the conversion were
uneXampled in American hiStory-sim-
pie, yet ingenious, spontaneous, vt
thorough. Whoever devised the plan
ought to have honorary membership in
the American Society of Civics. Moth
ing heater has ever come within our
observation. We believe that the
transfer Of the government f! 2m bands
too weak to administer it to those
which already held the powers of the
city and which alone had authority
recognized by the dominant element
will make for peace. A Quasi-military
rule is established, and unless the ne
groes prove reckless beyond belief it
will be effective in maintaining order.
An early subsistence of the disturbance
there may be confidently expected.
Yet a third sensation comes from
Wilmington, normally the most ur-
sensational of cities-the destruction Of
the office of the negro paper whose
assault upon the virtue of white wO-
men last August set the spark to the
magazine of white revolution. This act
is one which cannot be excused in law:
it is technically against our American
doctrine of free speech and a free
press. Yet it was inevitable under the
prOvOcatiOn, and it may be said IN be-
half of the white people Of Whining
ton that they bore for three months
an insult which almost anywhere else
in the south would have been avenged
within tWenty-fOur hours.
Wilmington, in fine, has had a revO-
luton, marked as ~revOlutio are by
unlawful acts, but OF the whole as
peaceful as could have been expected.
Another terrible warning is given to
the negro that law and good conduct
are his best safeguards, and that so
surely as he draws the sword against
the white man he shall perish by the
sword. This is not our dictum-it is
the teaching of history, the unchal-
~lengeable edict of human nature.