The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-01-30
EXPERIENCE Is WORTH A GREAT
DEAL.

The people of North Carolina have
had a large experience. In forty years
they have passed through the trials
and experiences of the old world ma
tions that were compressed in two CEN
turtles. They had four years of a ter
rible war fighting from three to four
times their numbers. In fact it was
600, 900 men against over 100000 army
and some $50, 900 navy. They had the
negroes freed and turned loose upon
them. Then came the foolish, crazy,
criminal legislation of the victorious
north aimed at them, including giving
the ballot to recent slaves ignorant,
credulous,s ~revengeful. incapable to rule
and ravin. Then followed the adven
of the northern birds of prey-the car
pet-bag fellows with a box of linen col
lars and two billed Shirts" ready for
plumber, for deviltry, for prosecutions
of the defeated whites. This gang of
interlopers and predatory scoundrels
were helped by the desertion in the
greatest straights and emergencies of
some thousands of natives-eterna
scallawags be their names-hungry for
office, self-seeking, debased, reckless,
with no real honest manhood, every
way shameless in their deSertion of
their people, making swift terms with
the cOnquerors, and connivlng at
wrongs against their state, and many
of them helping to pile up the great
mountain debt of over $50, 000, 000-near-
ly all stolen-that was forced upon the
genuine and true whites who had been
stripped and ruined by raiding soldiery,
-Sherman's corps of bummers and
other ingrates-and were left poor in
deed in their homes, with wasted fields
and hardly, in many instances, with a
horse or mule or COW or hog. North
Carolina saw sights" in those dark
doleful, troublous times. The negroes
were yoked at The start n made to
follow the plundering hordes as they
careered through h south. The south
was trodden down and the black helots
were made the practical masters by the
stupid, vengeful. %recreant north.
This is a mere glimpse at. what 1T
was for ten years succeeding the war.
The white men know precisely the ca
liabilities of negro voters-that it means
ruin and debts and degradation when
they are in the saddle. Is it strange
that after thirty-five years of expert
ence that the real white men with white
souls are very weary of black rule and
black pillage and black !awlessness?
Is it really to be wondered at by men
in the north that the south should be
anxious and ~resolute to rid themselves
of negro domination henceforth Int
forever? No white man worthy of that
designation, with the soul and princl-
piles and manliness and virtues Of the
white race, can possibly be satisfied
with the old conditions in North ar
olina.
The desperate, hungry, office-Seeking
demagogues are ready for any appeal
even a bloody race war-and swift for
any iniQuity. And so the trouble
wakes, and the plots thicken, and the
traitorous gang are willing TO see the
state robbed of it's statehood, and made
a territory again, with federal officials
appointed by the plant i~ndia-rubber
humbug who sits in the chair of George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson and
James Madison and disgraces it. They
are willing 10 incite the ignorant negro
masses into an insurrection that will
inevitably lead to much blood-shed and
the extirpation o fthe negro race. But
in North Carolina there are $4,000 ne
groes who can vote under he proposed
amendment. SoPritchard himself admits
You cannot bamboozle half of these
to become a party to a race war. They
know the rascals too we'll who have led
them and befooled them and used them
as tongs to draw from the fire the roast
ing, toothsome chestnuts meant for the
special delectation of the white trick
sters. the very worst element that ever
afflicted and cursed a people. 1t is the
most reasonable, the most natural thing
possible for the 973 per cent of the tax
payers Gall white) should desire to be
no longer abused and ruled by the pow
er of the q per cent of taxpayers Gall
negroes) just to keep lei men in office
as Pritchard, Russell, Ohio Wilson,
Butler n the other eternal office seek
ing gang. The whites must unite, and
there ought to be many of h more in
telligent of the $4,000 negro voters who
can read, who will join them in helping
the state. preserving civilian ion. con-
tinuing the educational fund enthron-
ieS h law, and keeping the peace.
There q be no assured tranquility and
satisfaction If the Ia. 900 negroes con-
with the rowdy, reckless, dema- |