The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-11-12
THE NEW SIR GALAHAD

stood in a large measure for the best
thought and sentiment of the great Bap-
list church of North Carolina edited tho
public with dissertation in which it
conveyed by innuendo what it lacked the
courage to say in plain words-it de-
clared that n fight was being made by
partisan newspapers upon Mr.. Lewis
Summerel for political purposes. This
week, grown somewhat more bold, it
declares that the evidence in the case
was not printed in full' and that the
evidence before jury "will not be the
evidence printed in the newspapers
If by partisan" the Recorder means
a newspaper that consistently advocates
the principles of one political party then
this newspaper is partisan. This paper
also printed the evidence in the case
of Lewis Summerell and the rest The
Recorder says the evidence was not
printed in full in the newspapers" If
by this charge the Recorder means, as it
vorable to Summerel, and the others
against whom charges have been made,
was suppressed, then the Recorder has
either ignorantly or maliciously misrep-
resented this newspaper, and we chal-
lenge it to plain statement of its
meaning.
With the motives of the editor of the
Recorder we are in nowise concerned.
They may be Of the best With his
wide wisdom and deep piety we are all
WELL almost too well, conversant. TO
him we leave the congenial task of Inn
pugning motives of which he knows
nothing and of stating facts that have
partisan" newspaper, with no bland as
sumption of infalhhility or saintliness,
accustomed to dealing with facts, and
ready and willing to be called to ac-
count for the statements it makes. I'm
accustomed to parade its professional
ethics or to call in question the ethics
of others in the same calling, it, along
with other newspapers of this State, is
somewhat weary of the gratuitous lee
and might retort, an it would, that it
has not prostituted its columns to praise
the outlaws of commerce, that it has not
trimmed its course to the political
breezes and crawled where it could not
walk boldly-and above all that it has
never descended to hound, abuse and
worry personally man grown gray and
honored in newspaper work because or
a difference of opinion with him on a
question of public morality.
This controversy has not been of op
seeking. 1t began at the Recorders in
stance; it viii end at ours. We have
taken our position as regards the brutal
treatment of conyicts on the State farms
and at the Central Prison. Every
charge that we have made against Lewis
Summerell or others has been substan-
tiated and more than substantiated by
the evidence, evidence printed in these
columns largely from the stenographer's
(of the investigating committee) copy
and printed in every material detail,
without color and without suppression.
We retract no whit or what we have
said. We have no fear that there is
not with rs the approval of the intelli-
gent and the humane, not of any poll
teal party alone, but of the people of
North Carolina.
This is a partisan newspaper-yes.
But it will not tolerate inhumanity in a
State institution by whomsoever per-
petrated, and it willingly and cheerfulIy
picks up the gauntlet thrown at its feet
by the open or the secret defenders, Sc
cular or sanity, of such inhumanity and
of those who are responsible for 1T, ac-
lively or passively; of those who have
done the unspeakable things it has ex-
posed and of those whose duty it was to
rebuke them but did not OF its mo-
tives in the premises the whole public
will judge. 1t has done Lewis Sum
merell no wrong; it has not nor seeks
to work him any injustice. His own
evidence convicted him of worse than
we have said of him. That evidence
was never considered by the board that
'vindicated" himand apparently has
not been considered by the esteemed
Recorder.
This is partisan newspaper. 1t
has not set itself up as an exemplar TO
its brethren Of the craft nor sought no
toriety by malicious and understandable
attacks upon them, nor mistaken the
of mugwumpery for the di-
vine afflatus of transcendent genius.
Nor in politics nor in religion has ii
Suffered a sea change
Into something rich and strange"
While .you wait. 1t has only demanded
that man who admitted under oath
that he had sent convicts out into
weather where their hands and feet
were frozen and had to be partially am