The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-05-30
Ghe W,(rs5ewr.
GOV. NORTHERN "TALKING OUT IN
MEETING.o

InG AIGSSEh6CA bAA~AS
Governor Northen's speech at the
Club" It was long but mighty inter-
esting to the descendants Of the witch
burners and the underground railroad
runners ''befo de wah." Never before
since Bunker Hill monument was
erected have the "anointed" ever lis
tened to such plain speech from a
southern voice. Our own Vance once
gave them the truth in a fat-footed
way. but the Georgian kicked up more
dust and made the lint fly in a more
lively style. Vance was on his very
best behavior, but Northen was lnvlt-
ed to talk out in meeting about the
negro question in the south. 1t was
wholesome and true. They must ever
hereafter understand the south and the
problem better or they are pima anu
will not see, they are deaf ana VIII
not hear. The ex-governor was not
thin-skinned and so he pegged away
at some of the apostles "up there" n
even that idol in the temple Of negro
philism, the late Harriet Beecher
Stowe. was handled without kid gloves.
He gave a vivid picture of the aWfuI
devilishness of that black villain, sam
Hose, but like the newspapers, he could
not tell the whole story because OF us
diabolism and it's unfitness for either
eve or ear. In all the crimes Of modern
times, there is no beastly crime that
EQUALS it in horror and unmltlgated
diabolism. No man knowing it all will
ever marvel at what followed when the
devil was caught.
After picturing in such colors as
were true and permissible, Governor
Northen brought the question directly
nome to his hearers and let in light
as the doings in many northern states.
Finishing the black, sickening, satanic
story of lust and crime. he said:
Hear her piteous cries as she
writhes. for two long, long hours in
the embrace of a villain, and then see
her as she falls at her ather's gate
your gate (can you imagineD, half
clad and in a death sWoon, to tell her
horrible tale, sickening, disgusting,
loatheSOme story Ga story L cannot tell
here, and which has not yet been told
because Of it's loathsomeness.) Hear
her tell it into her loving mothers ears,
dllu Icll IIC "Oulu yod hoI LCSl liza LAX
punishment of the nethermost hell,
whether administered here or hereafter,
was not too much for such a human
fiend? What would you do? What
would your neighbors do? What would
a. mob in Massachusetts do? l am not
asking what ought to be done. AS to
that, you and I are fully agreed. l am
asking what was done, under similar
conditions, in Ohio, Oregon, New Jer-
sey, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Mime
sofa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, New
York and other states that " had
similar or even less offences. No state
claims greater or more advanced civ
ilization than New York, and yet, it is
only a few years since a wild and fren-
Zied mob cruelty murdered eleven in
nocent negroes, whose only offence was
that they were negroes, then burned
th negro orphan asylum over the
heads of three hundred little helpless
negro children, simply because they
were negroes, and the little ones bare
ly escaped by the back door, while the
maddened mob beat down an entrance
at the front. Why did not the great
state Of New York control the mob bet
ter than Georgia did,"
Look on this picture and then on
that. He hit the boosted, baseless civ
ilization of which New England is
proud in a very incisive way that
could not we'll fail to penetrate the
skins of the toughest negro worship
pers of Boston, and the most windy
rhetoricans who SWIVEL over Sambo's
wrongs and the barbarism and cruelty
of the best white people in southland.
The bold and well-poised governor said
to them with a touch of sarcasm as
we'll as irony-that whenever the
south find an ideal government with
out sin; a people perfect in law and per-
feet in it's enforcement, the south will
do it's respectful obeisance and ask to
be led into it's broader civilization n
it's better power. Till then, and not
till then, we shall stand abreast of all
other sections, claiming as broad a civ
ilizatiOn as any,, and challenging those
without sin to cast the first stone at
us"
Leading Boston papers are said to be
conservative in their comments or the
Georgian's speech and show some SYM
pathy for the south in dealing with the
race question. The cantankerous Tran
cript, bitterest of the bitter, thinks the
governor several generations behind
the times. He is yet far ahead of that
negrophilist sheet that is worthy of the
Dark Ages. One paper says Northern is
"a missionary on lynching.' The Globe
is Ignorant. 1t say ~lynching has not
stopped crime among the negroes. OF
course not; but it has stopped some
hundreds of black rapists from continu-
ing their Internal OutrageS, and where
there were 800 rapes on white women
in three months there might have been
5000 without the fear of lynching. The
spenitentiary and hangings in the
north have not stopped crimes "up
there" There are more crimes, by
"a very great many, in the north among
the whites THAI among the whites in
the south. But why stop to reply to
what The Journal, Traveller, Record
Telegraph n other papers that live
and die in ignorance and are worthy
49, .L1 4