The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1899-01-04


things: It has brought back for
ever that entire esteem, confidence
and affection, and the hearty good
nature that used to exist between
the North and South in the days
when Hamilton used to confer with
Adams, and Patrick Henry debated
with Jefferson on the interests COM
mon to both. It has cemented the
bond of fellowship that contact with
different troops fighting common
foe has created, and all the old root
of bitterness has been removed,
while Lee and Wheeler, side by side
with Kent and Shafter, are just as
jealous of the old flag as they each
were of the ones they carried in
those dark days of civil strife. The
new Grand Army must be made to
contain sons of Confederates as we'll
as of Federals, and the fellowship
that will make the tie most binding
will be the fact that side by side
they have marched to preserve the
honor of the same flag, glorying in
the conquest and sorrowing at it's
loss. It has done all this, but it
has done another thing little noted
at present, but whose after effects
are destined to derange the whole
South at some future day. 1t has
brought into contact with this people
a vast number of the best minds of
the North; they have reached across
the chasm and embraced, so that
their common interests are now one.
They have seen and met the negro,
whose -trodden lot they have
so long been led to condone, and
they have set him down as differ
ent creature from the samples seen
in our Northern cities. Few men
in the service who have observed
at all will give any other opinion
than that the negro is constant
menace to the South, and it's great
est drawback.
The government will have to meet
the problem. It is impossible to
place the volunteer negro with the
volunteer white; they won meet on
the same plane. Admission was a
fair sample of this. Negro officers
are a total failure. They are too
susceptible to flattery, and too
dominneering, and white men can
not be made to give the negro sol
der proper respect. The failure OF
that man in Chattanooga to salute a
colored officer recently drew out the
spirit that exists-it produced riot
and the colored troops lay in am
bush until they found opportunity,
and then had their revenge. There
is an indefinable something that will
not let the races exist together, as
one, and it is all right to say that
the Great Ruler in His infinite wis
dom will somehow solve the problem,
and that a remedy will speedily
come, and come peacefully; but the
negro will rise up some day and
demand the rights the government
is withholding from him, just as
surely as there is God in heaven,
for we all know that government
that cannot give protection to life
and property, and guarantee civil
rights to it's citizens, is in so far
failure. Too long denial Of these
guaranteed rights is sure to lead to
bloody revolution where suffering
must fall upon the innocent as we'll
as the guilty. 1t is a deep question
and serious one, and one that will
come up for settlement before the
present generation passes off the
stage of action. What it will be is
beyond man to determine, but the
South never can develop with the
negro each year more certainly
dragging it downward.
ASA p. BROOKS.