The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-03-08
a SOUTHERN VIEW OF A SOUTH.
ERIN CRIME.

The Houston (Tex) Post places the
blame for the wanton and cruel muir
der of Postmaster Baker, of Lake City.
| S. c., upon President Mckinley. 1t
says that those who are criticising the
white mob for their deed are not suf-
| ficiently fixing the crime uDon the Re-
| publican administration for the part it
/ played in the preliminaries to the ter
| rible tragedy. 1t condemns the crime,
rather perfunctoriiy, but asks why the
administration should go out of its
way to inhame race prejudices in the
south. 1t says the president knows, as
we'll as he knows anything, that the
whites in the southern states have been
protesting, ''in ominous terms" against
the appointment of negroes to offices,
the discharge of the duties of which
throw the incumbent in close business,
or even social, contact with citizens of
the community. The Post then pro-
ceeds il this wise:
The appointee at Lake City was said
TO have been an impudent, lazy and
ignorant fellow, and his selection as
postmaster was not only an insult to
the community, but made the appoint
ing power an instigator and fomenter
of the trouble and u particeps criminis,
through reckless defiance of local sem
timent, in the crime that followed. The
victim was not so much to blame for
accepting the office as Mckinley was
for appointing him. While the mob can
not be excused FOR reSOrting TO extreme
measures. neither can the president, or
the appointing power, for its disregard
of local wishes and conditions If the
conduct OF the one was criminal, the
policy of the other was outrageous and
contemplate. To deliberately pursue
course that Will egg on, so to speak,
mob violence, is but a degree behind
that violence in criminality, and Nc
kinley is largely and directly RESPONSE
Bile for the murder of this. postmaster.
Had the appointment been made in a
city, where there is less contact with
the heads of the offices and where
more metropolitan spirit prevails, it
would have been bad enough and poor
enough policy. but to go into a little
backwoOds community and pick out an
ignorant and socially ostracized and
otherwise offensive man and place him
in the only federal office in the town,
an Office, too, in which he is thrown in
direct touch with everybody-was an
objectionable insult and outrage. and
would have been such had no race
prejudices been involved.
In short, and under the circum-
stances, the blood of this negro and of
his family is as much on the president
of the United States as it is upon the
men whose passions Mr.. Mckinley so
recklessly and contemptuously aroused.
We look in vain for the indication of
any good judgment, or ordinary intel
ligence, on the part of the administra-
ton in this whole affair. The time has
not come for negro officials DIT least in
rural districts, in the south, and Nc
Kinley knows it.
That. in effect, is a defense of the
rnob's action and a condemnation of
the president. Only a few days after
Baker was killed, a white postmaster
was killed. Was that the result of race
prejudice and was the blame primarily
on President Mckinley? Have there
been any ''ominous warnings" regard
ing white Dostmasters?
The murder Of Baker was a cold
blooded. cruel affair, one of the most
cowardly and dastardly crimes ever
committed and there can be no pallia- !
ton or justification of it. Such arti- /
cles as this by the Post only lend en-
TO the repetition of such /
for it half justifes this one. |