The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-11-18

near Oh 5ucn an outrage upon a Tree
and long suffering people? Just try to
think what Boston or New York would
do under such a calamity forced upon
them by ignorant, incapable, needless
negroes? They would rise up in a
day and strike for their rights. Will
mington has borne the OUTRAGE, the
humiliation, the robbery for nearly
two years. Wonderful ~forbearance
truly. Any people robbed by any leg
i~slative body or by any process of law
OF the right of selecting their w
public %ervants should have a revolu-
ton %instanter and teach their oppres-
sors a lesson.
The abuses that have been perpetu-
| ated in Wilmington under this usurped
government have been many and
grievous. 1t would take a column to
record them giving but a line to each.
Not only have the abuses and wrongs
Of the city been most u~nbearable, but
the same may be said of the vicious
venal state government, the facts of
which are so patent to all, and by rea.
son of the long campaign were made
familiar to the popular mind. 1t
would take a column to even present
a naked outline of the wicl edness and
d~ebauchery Of officials. faxes have
been increased, the counties are suffer-
ing from accumulating burdens, and
the unfaithfulness of negroes and
others in office. The bad effects of ne
gro domination is felt in counties in
the central part and in the western part
of the state where there are not numer
ically supreme, as they suffer from
evil consequences of legislation made
possible by negro support of the white
gang of officials. But in the east the
rule is full of danger and doubt and
disaster. There have been in many
counties repetitions of the black re-
construction era. In this city the ne
groes have waxed ~insolent and agrees
sive, and robberies have abounded
without any possible protection to the
; robbed and with no danger to the
robbers. The ag~gressiveness of the
negroes has been most marked. They
have insulted ladies and aged men
The little children have been threaten
ed and some white girls and boys have
been maltreated. I%ncendiary threats
have been made, white men have been
shot and other manifestations of law
lessness and defiance have been given.
The small tax-paying negro element
here have combined with office-seeking
whites, many of them wholly unworthy,
and together they have bossed the
whites, increasing taxes and burdens
and offering no protection. The whites
have been Inundated in mind and in
jured in pocket. Business has almost
come to a standstill. It is indeed a most
anomalous condition for a city to be
in-terrorized and threatened and des-
poiled by the ignorant blacks led On by
deprayed, constituencies white men
hungry and ravinous. There is not a
northern community; there is not a
borne as Wilmington has borne, such &C
cumulating wrongs, for so long a time.
The fOrbearance has been really most
marvellous. Living under an usurpa-
ton; deprived of fundamental, consti-
tutional rights; taxed and robbed and
oppressed and insulted; with hardly a
| poor semblance of a city government
affOrding no protection to white wO-
men and children on the streets, and
| with trade paralyzed and the negroes
buying arms and making ugly, veno-
nous threats, and some of them shoot
ing whites and entering stores cursing
out white men standing around, they
being armed and the whites unarmed
all this and very much more not so
much as limited at, 1t is truly one or the
marvels of the age and country that
all this was borne and yet no armed
men struck back.
At last the last ounce was laid upon
the patient burden bearing camel and
it broke it's back. The patience of the
white men was at last exhausted. They
resolved to be free. They determined
at whatever cost to stop this condition
50 insufferable, so oppressive, so excit-
ing. 1t was resolved that this rule of
ignorance and incompetency and in
gratitude should cease here forever
that the poor shadow of JUS
tice should end-that law should
once more reign and that the white
H.