Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1898-11-17
TINE TROUBLE IN NORTH CAROLINA.
baltimore Sun. Nov. Ilth.

conditions which have led to the out
break of violence at Wilmington. n.
c., but it is impossible for any self-re-
specting white man, who understands
those conditions, to condemn the course
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 combination of negroes and low
whites without intelligence or princi
pie, and while the victims of misgoy-
eminent and legal and administrative
wrong, have been forced also to drink
the bitter cup of constant humiliation
and continual personal indignities.
The malice of tho 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 inflane the minds of the
most peaceful and conciliatory of men.
All this the white people of Whining
ton have borne with extraordinary
patience and self-control, and they
might have continued to endure it but
for the fact that the negroes, or enc of
their avowed representatives, mistake
ing this patience for timidity, dared
to make monstrous attack upon the
character of Southern white women. 1t
was this and the increasingly offensive
conduct 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 white heat, the determine
| tion to throw off Political regime that
was as foul and unclean as it was in
| competent 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 negro
| editor who had so vilely 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
4 Boston, where the descendants of the
saints abide and nobody. ever does
| anything wrong, to criticise the people
| of Wilmington and denounce them as
| lawbreakers and criminals. But the
verdict 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 self
preservation. If those concerned in yes
terday's affair at Wilmington are law
breakers, these lawbreakers include
almost the whole white population of
that city, Republicans as we'll as
Democrats, even ministers of the gos-
pei, it is reported, standing on guard,
rifle in hand, to aid in protecting their
fellow citizens from anticipated negro
attack.
Yellow journalism has been RESPONSE
BILE for many evils in other sections of
the country and is vigorously de-
nounced by all decent people, but the
black journalism which has been illus
trated in Wilmington passed beyond
. all previous conceptions of baseness
and became deadly menace to the
peace of the community. The liberty
of the press is SO invaluable and i'm
portant 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 dead line"
beyond which neither black nor yellow
journalism can pass with safety. in
deed, it may be doubted whether a
negro editor who deliberately villified
the white women of Boston would be
safe in that community 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. Ii
lies on the surface. 1t consists in their
, abstaining from encouraging and
J. stimulating them. If they will stop
: giving aid and countenance to the low
i white scallawags 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 negro will have no occasion for fur
Their solicitude about him. Republi-
can fanatics, sentimentalists and UNI
scrupulous politicians are responsible
for every collision betwosn the races
in the South. The latter are especially
responsible for it, because in theii
greed for office and their fear that the
: Republican party, they are always
actively engaged in keeping alive Negro
antagonism to the whites. Nothing
could be more false than the assertion
\ Ethat the negro is badly treated in the
VI South. He is, on the contrary, better
!, treated there than in any other part o.
the country. There is no laborine
, class in any other section1of the Unior
. which, taken altogether, is so well off OF
so fortunately situated. They abso
lutely do not know what it is to want
They have constant and healthful en-
! ployment, they have unusual oppor
tunities to purchase lands and builo
up homes of their own, they are pro
> tected in all their rights of property
and their children are educated by thu
taxes paid by the white people, Il
which they contribute almost nothing
0 Add to this the personal kindness anc
3 aid which they receive almost every
day in the year from their white neigh
t bors and employers, and there is M
J laboring class in the country, we re-
peat, whose material condition and ad
/ vantages can be compared to theirs.
n 1t is not unnatural that under sucf
conditions and circumstances tn,
! Southern whites should resent the
! effort of the negro to put his heel OF
: their necks. Northern employers woult
have done the same thing no less EN-
\ phatically under similar circumstances
u but they would have resented it b,
discharging their employees and expos
9 ing them to death from starvation
Z The Southern people are disposed t,
have nothing but the kindest feeling
: for the negroes, but they are not goint