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

Baltimore SUM
Every good citizen must most heart
lily deplore h existence Of the condi-
tons which hav led to the outbreak
of violence at Wilmington, n. c., but
it is impossible for any se~lf-respecting
white man, who understands those con-
ditions, to condemn the curse which
the white people of that city have
found themselves compelled to adopt.
For the last two years they have been
subjected to the domination of a COM
bination of negroes and low whites
without intelligence or principle, and
while the victims Of misgovernment
and legal and administrator wrong.
have been forced also to drink the bit
ter cup Of constant humiliation and
continual personal ~indignities. The
malace of the freedman, who has not
yet learned what it means to be a
freeman, has delighted in expressing
the barbaric sense Of triumph in in
suits, prosecutions and aggressions,
sufficient to inflame the minds of the
most peaceful and conciliatory of men.
All this the white people of Whining
ton have borne with extraordinary pa
thence and self-control, and they might
have continued to endure it but for
the fact that the negroes, or one of
their avOWed representatives., mistak-
Ing lulS patience lOr Clnl1OlCy, OdroQ 10
make a mOnStrOus attack upon the
character of southern white women. 1t
was this and the increasingly offensive
Of the negroes toward the
white women of Wilmington and other
negrO-ridden sections Of the state that
fired the North Carolina heart and
brought to a white e the determina-
ton to throw off a political regime
that was as foul and unclean as it was
incompetent and corrupt.
This they did on Tuesday at the
polls, and the Liberty Bell never knew
an occasion on which it could have
been rung with greater propriety or
justice. But they recognized the fact
that their task would be incomplete
as long as the newspaper and the ne
gro editor who had so vile1y %slandered
southern white women should remain
in Wilmington to continue the abomi-
nable work of setting the black race
against the white and catering to the
lowest passions of an ignorant and ir-
responsible population. They ordered
this negro editor to leave the town. and
yesterday they showed him and others
like him that they meant business.
1t is easy in the frozen latitude of
Boston, where the descendants of the
saints bid and nobody ever does any
thing wrong. to criticise the people of
Wilmington and d%enounce them as law
breakers and criminals. But the YER
dict Of history will not agree with such
an estimate any more than it would
place in that category the good citizens
of California, who in the early days of
that state found it necessary TO appeal
to the higher law of se1f-preservation.
If those concerned in yesterdays af-
fair at Wilmington are lawbreakers,
these laWbreakers include almost the
whole white population of that city.
republicans as we'll as democrats, even
ministers of the gospel, 1T is reported,
standing on guard, rife in hand. to aid
in protecting their felIow-citizens from
anticipated negro attack.
Yellow journalism has been RESPONSE
BILE for many evils in other sections of
the country and is vigorously %denounc-
ed by all decent people, but the black
journalism which has been illustrated
in Wilmington passed beyond all pre-
vious conceptions of baseness and be-
came a deadly menace to the peace of
the community. The liberty of the
press is SO invaluable and important
that even its license may be permitted
to go beyond all limits but one. But
it appears that in the south, at least,
there is a dead line beyond which
neither black nor yellow journalism
can pass with safety. Indeed, it may
be doubted whether a negro editor who
deliberately villifed the white women
Of Boston would be safe in that COM
munity very long after his libel was
made public.
If northern politicians and northern
republicans desire to know the true
remedy for the race troubles in the
south, they can easily discover it It
lies on the surface. 1t consists in their
abstaining from encouraging and slim
ulating them. IF they will stop giving
aid and countenance to the low white
s~callawags and carpet-baggers in the
south, who make it their business to
poison the minds of the negroes against
the whites. northern friends of the ne
gro VIII have no occasion for further
sollcltude about him. Republican ia
natics. sentimentalists and unscrunu-
lOuS politicians are responsible for eV-
cry collision between the races Of the
south The latter are especially re-
spOnsfble for it. because in their
greed for office and their fear that the
colored vote may drift away from the
republican party. they are always &C
lively engaged in keeping alive negro
antagonism TO the whites. Nothing
could be more false than the assertion
that h negro Is badly treated in the
south. He is. on the contrary. better
treated there than in any other part
Of the country. There is no laboring
class in any other section Of the union
which. k altogether. IS 50 well off
or 50 fortunately situated. They abso-
fntelT do rot know What il is II want.
They have constant and healthful en-
pioEmen. they have unusual opportun-
tiles tn purchase lands and build up
homes. IF their own. they are protected
in aN their rights of pronerty. and their
chbiren are educated by the taxes
raid BY the white people. TO which they
contribute almost nothing. Add - hi.