The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1899-06-08
HENDERSON, n. c.. THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 1899
same consideration as other States
and other sections.

'ot
when the Government appoints q
minister to Austria and the cablegran
comes-persona non grata-the name
is recalled and another substituted al
once. Why Austria and not the
South? Why dominate the South
with an appointee who is persona nor
grata when Austria can get what she
wants? Why dominate a section
whose people, or a section, are more
thoroughly American than any other
section of the continent; a section
more devoted to American institu-
tions than any other section as such
because of its more American citizen
ship; section that defends the
American flag with as loyal hearts, as
heroic, daring and as patriotic de-
votion as ever characterized liberty
loving citizen of the nation? Let the
North answer me, why?
Now, then, if the slave trade, the
promoter of slavery in America was q
sin, whose sin was it? Not the sin
Of the South, but the sin of England,
the Dutch and New England.
''If the comforting of citizenship
and the battlot upon four millions OF
people, absolutely untaught in the
simplest elements of Government,
was a mistake, whose mistake, was
it? Not the mistake of the South,
but the mistake of the North.
"If the avenues to division and
hate and blood and carnage, outrages
and lynchings and violence and mobs
have been opened up at the South
through the ballot given to the negro
and the politics taught him to pursue
in the destruction of the white man
were a sin, whose sin was it? Not
the sin of the South, but the sin of
tke North.
''If the people in the South
sheltered the negro in his absolute
poverty, fed him when he was hungry,
furnished him means to accumulate
property and money, educated his
children to prepare them for useful
ness in life, to whose honor is it but
the honor of the men who have borne
for generation his burdens while he
gave marked ingratitude in return
through his votes?
1.-The negro problem at the South
will not be settled in day. Step by
step, as it marches into the future
of the nation, it must be met by the
conditions best suited to the detail Of
its solution. 1t will never be settled
by abuse of the South, and the North
had as well understand that fact now
as later. What is needed now is, at
least, liberation and non-interference,
if the South is to become responsible
for results.
ONE-SIDED VIEW.
And the good ladies Of Boston,
God knows | would not offend one OF
them for the world, refined, cultured,
pure as the driven snow, the en-
bodiment of all that is lovely and
true and inspiring.
Il read your speeches delivered
last Saturday. | agree fully with all
you say about the horrible barbarism
of lynching. Say more on that line
and l will say Amen But, oh, how
painful to me when reached the
end! All your sympathy for a human
devil. and not one word for the
woman, outraged, delicate, cultured
and pure, sitting to-day in the
shadow of your burning words in the
loathsomeness which l pray God you
may never know. You have not
given me one word of tenderness or
sympathy to take back to her.
'.God pity the day, the cruel day,
upon which we have fallen!
''At this point l hesitate. My
duty to injured innocence demands
that 1 speak.
MAKE THE CASE YOUR OWN.
make the case your own. (Will
you pardon me if in this presence l
tell part of this horrible tale OF woe
and misery and loathsome wretched
ness, that you may, somewhat, un-
derstand?) Let it be your daughter,
sitting at tea, with her husband and
little children, happily enjoying an
evening meal. A bloody murderer
stealthily approaches and with the
blow of tiend buries an axe to the
eye in the husbands head; he fells
him, beats his brains till they spread
in sickening borrow over the floor.
He raises his devilish hand and
strikes stunning blow upon the face
of little child-your grandchild.
Can you imagine? He drags it across
the bleeding, dying body Of its
father, your daughters husband, and
leaves it senseless, its fathers blood
dripping from its little skirts. See
him as he takes another child, your
grandchild, by the heels in one hand
and his axe in the other, while he de-
mands of the mother her consent OF
the cruel murder of her child. Be
present in your thought at that SUI
preme moment, and hear her saying,
Save nv child.' See him, then, as
he confronts, in all the appalling
horror Of tiendish glare, with uplifted
axe, the trembling form OF the wife.
your daughter (can you imagine?;)
curse as only a demon from hell can
swear; jerks her down-your
daughter (can you imagine? and roll:
her in the warm blood of the only
one she had hoped to defend hel
from such awful. awful, awful cruelty
and shame. Hear her piteous cries
as she writhes, in the embrace Of 9
villain, and then see her, as she falls
at her fathers gate-your gate
(can you imagineO half clad, and il
death swoon, to tell her horrible
sickening, loathsome story "a story
cannot tell here, and which has no
vet been told because of its loathsome
ness. Hear her tell it into her lovin:
mothers ear. and tell me, would yo,
feel that the punishment of tn
nethermost hell, whether admin
istered here or hereafter was to-
much for such human fiend? Wha
would YOU do? What would you
neig bors do? What would a mob i
Massachusetts doo l am not askin,
what ought to have been done. A
to that, you and | are fully agreed.
Ex-Governor Northern closed b