The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-04-28

IEN LEW QoTodIUeT-lU has ALREADY IT.
lapsed.
Accumulated Future Wrath.
Des Moines Leader.)
All honor to brave, old Major Thorn
as, who unavailingly sought to save
Elijah Strickland. the negro preacher
tortured and then lynched near Palm
etto, Ga, on Sunday night. To such
as he the south must look for deliver
ance from the savagery which is now
ominously increasing, and which
threatens the sections peace and pros
perity. Despite the threats of per-
sonal violence, despite the direct warn
lngs to leave the county because he had
dared to lift his voice for justice and
right, the stout old ex-confederate
stood his ground and defied the mob of
criminals which he confronted. His
appeal was SO strong that for time his
hearers yielded to his voice of reason,
but. when he was gone, cruelty and
race hatred, for the moment cowed,
broke forth again, and the mob did
that which but few minutes before it
admitted was horrid thing.
Whatever charge may be Justly made
against the negro race IN America,
that of turbulence cannot be preferred.
1t has been patient beyond the seeming
possibilities of human endurance. 1t
was patient during slavery; likewise it
has been patient during the dark of the
days that have followed. We hear often
OF threatened uprisings of negroes in
the south, but do they ever occur?
'chey did not occur during the two hum
bred years that the black man was held
in bondage. There never was negro
Spartacus nor servile war. They did
not occur during the civil conflict, when
the women and children of the south
were left to the protection of the plan.
tation slaves, while the masters were
away fighting to destroy the union.
DID not the negro race then show a
charity, kindness, a forbearance I'M
equalled in human annals? And since
the war, whenever there have been re-
ports of race collisions, even by the
garbled reports sent out by prejudiced
correspondents, can we not detect that
the white man is usually the aggressor?
Is not assault repeatedly made on the
black man, not as he is a. criminal or a
law breaker, but as he is negro? Is
not the mere fact that he has black
SKIN and is member of prescribed
race, things over which he has no con.
trol, constantly imputed as blame to
him? Is it strange, thus treated I'M
justly, that occasionally individuals
break through the Gordon drawn about
them and run amuck as do the Malays?
For such individual outbreaks is not
the white man, rather than the black
man. responsible? DO not all the facts
support the conclusion that if the white
man would deal justly with the black
race that the black race would deal
justly with the white? In a word. NAV
not the negro, righteously, bring a
thousand indictments against the white
man where the white man, righteously.
can bring one Indictment against him?
So it seems to those who examine the
negro problem with their reasons and
consciences, rather than with their
prejudices.
In such things as have happened in
Georgia the south is sowing the wind:
it will certainly reap the whirlwind.
For two hundred years the institution
OF slavery endured, and its protectors
said: behold an unjust thing strong
and secure" But there came day of
reckoning. and, as Lincoln suggested in
his second inaugural, for every drop Of
black blood shed by the lash, hundred
drops of white blood were, shed by the
words. Without falling into infidelity
we cannot believe that an unjust thing
will permanently endure. Retributive
justice waits without the portal and
sooner or later will knock for admis-
sion. In what manner retribution will
be asked no one can tell; it may be,
goaded beyond endurance, that the
negro race will at last do what it has
never done-rise and give back blow
for blow, insult for insult; it may be
that its members will refuse to remain
longer in communities where they are
denied rights as animals-to say moth
ing Of rights as men-and in this event
southern prosperity, being based on the
labor of the black man. would melt
away as if by the whitening touch of
war; it may be retribution will come in
some form not now imaginable, but
that it will come in some form, unless
present southern tendencies are check
ed by its Major Thomases and its Coy
ernor Atkinsons, cannot be doubted.
In saying this there is no intention to
reflect especially on the people OF the
south, for here in the north, in propo.
l finn 1s wa have pnur0 pOpulofjoY, ,re