The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1899-06-29

About the Negro's Condition In the
South-Our Best Men Have Talked
to the Boston People. Yet Their
Papers Continue to Abuse Us.
I've sworn off again. These Bos-
ton people make me SO tired. 1t
seems impossible to make lasting
impression upon them. From time
to time we have sent our best men
there. We sent General Gordon and
Colquitt and Henry Grady, and they
were well received, and we thought
our Georgia missionaries had con-
verted them, but in a little while
they had relapse. Governor
Northen thinks he has converted all
but the editors, but my observation
is that editors control the animus OF
the people, and if they are against us
their readers will be. l notice that
some of their editors are easy on our
Governor. but none of them have
apologized. They have got to re-
pent, and apologize before we will be
satisfied with their conversion. This
thing of going up to the altar and
shaking hands is played out. They
liked to have shook Henry Grady's
arm off, but in few months they
took it all back and went to abusing
us again about the negro. 1t it very
discouraging to missionary to have
to keep on converting the same
heather. | notice that one of their
papers let us down sorter easy on
Sam Hose, but want to know what
about the lynching of Lige Strick-
land. That's all right. Give us some
thing hard. Lige was preacher in
Meriwether county, and his-father-in
law, Aaron Watson, says he was the
meanest nigger in the county, that
he beat his wife up scandalously and
cut and gashed her with a butcher
knife and the members of his own
church took him out one night and
gave him hundred lashes, and told
him to leave the county. Then he
settled down in Coweta and turned
politician and made himself generally
a disturber of public peace and good
order, and finally capped the climax
by denouncing the white people and
defending Sam Hose. The general
opinion is that Lige got off pretty
we'll, for they dident burn him.
The Boston Transcript say we are
"a generation hehind the times, in
fact several New England generations
behind it," How is that? Why it
hasent been 200 years since New Eng
land was burning innocent harmless
women for being witches. 1t hasent
chants were shipping rum to Africa
to buy negroes to sell again to slave
countries. Long after Massachu-
setts set her slaves free her mer-
chants carried on the slave trade.
Joseph Story, the great jurist,
charged the grand jury in Boston
and said: 7"The slave trade is still
carried on among us with implacable
ferocity. Avarice has grown more
subtle in it's evasions of the law. Its
appetite is quickened rather than
suspended. Our citizens are stepped
up to their very mouths in this
inquity."
W. w. Story, his gifted son, says:
1.-The Boston newspapers denounced
my father, and said that a Judge who
would deliver such charge ought to
be hurled from the bench, and says
| further, that 1.-The fortunes Of many
men of prominence were invested i'll
| this infamous business. When sla-
| very disappeared in New England
| the African slave trade took on new
life, and was winked at. A man
might have position in society and be
considered gentleman and Chris
| tian, while his ships were frighted
j with human cargo and his com
| merce was in the blood and pain OF
his fellow creatures. Many Of the
| largest fortunes in Boston were the
blood money of the slave trade and
| came from the sale of the wretched
cargoes of negroes that survived the
horrows of their transportation
across the seas"
Yes, we are behind that sort of
business several generations.
But I've sworn off. This history
of Massachusetts fatigues my indig-
nation. Here are our negroes who
would be happy and contented if th'
Northern press would quit stirring
| up discomfort and telling them lies
Ii old Mother Julia Ward Howe, who
is now in her eighty-iirst year ano
ought to have an old woman's sense,
was to drop down here in Cartersville
she would see some young bucks
wrestling on the depot platform
while waiting for the freight, and woul,
hear the merry laugh of a score o
negro draymen who stood around
She would hear the sound of th'
colored school bell. She would pas
and repass negro women with f;
basket Of clothes on their heads and
smile on their faces She would sc,
negro girls, clad in clean garments
nursing white children and watching
them with tender care. If there wa
funeral on hand she would see
happy gathering Of women and girls
daughters of Zion, following th
hearse, and if there was railroa,
excursion on hand the depot woul'
be crowded with both sexes and al
sorts and sizes. Then we woult
escort her carefully To the baseball
ground and let her see the youn,
bucks play and hear them shout an
| give tne negro yen LOT victory. Du
she is too old to be cured. / remem
Der when she published an abolitio
| paper in lS47. But. pshaw, i
wouldent do any good. SO ! Wi
swear off. Somebody said that if
woman was fool at forty she woul
be fool until she died And some
. body else said convince woma
, against her will and she will be {
l the same opinion still And tn
: parable says, If they Will not be
lieve Moses and the prophets, neithe
would they believe tho one shoul
rise from the dead" And so | wi
swear off for good and let tho'
: Boston pharasees die in their ON
? conceit. The Massachusetts sta'
board of charities say in their al