The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-09-14
Henry Watterson Writes About Race
Riots in the North.

PnlladeLpnla North Am6rlcan.)
Henry Watterson, editor Of the
Louisville Courier-Journal, writes the
following as his view of the recent
race riots in northern cities.
Hard pon the negro riot in the
borough of Manhattan the negro riot
in the village of Akron. Ohio beats re-
sponsive to New York. The heart of
the western reserve warns to the
culture of the Tenderloin. Spirit Of
the fruitage Of they a~bolitionism?
Was it for this that thou didst labor
and give thy life?
by all the saint from Harriet Bee
cher Stowe to James A. Garfield, but
the niger has fallen on evil times in
Gods country! He could scarcely have
Jared any worse had he stayed at home
and nursed little Eva.
The of New Orleans are
having lots of fun with the newspapers
of New York. 1t will be observed that
although the cases were alike to a
IT" the New Orleans niger distanced
the New York Niger in the list of his
killed and wounded. In the south,
when a niger goes a-niggering, he
generally does the thing at first hand,
in an original, niggerly way, while
the northern niger tries to emulate
the northern tough and is merely an
imitator.
Lei We oS uOfo IL was a. 1oIO oISAt
to see the Astorbilts and the Van
WaldOrfs and others of the old aris-
tOcracy of New York chasing the bad
niggers of the TenderlOin down Fifth
avenue n driving them into the
dark waters of the bay, to the ringing
of the fire bells and the booming Of
cannon from Governors Island.
THE tall towers of the World and
Tribune must nave shaken their sides
with glee as the surging, shrieking
mass of blacks, pursued by the shoot
ing four hundred in dress suits, swept
through Printing House quare Mr..
BarthOldi'S statue of liberty looking
on the while with grim surprise.
what a pity that Mr. Hearst was
in Chicago! Happily. however, the
Sun vas there to shine m the Times
to shed it's sad moonbeams upon the
scene. The Herald, however, had
much the best of it, being situated up
it was able to get map shots at the
leaders of eastern mortality and fash
ion as they dashed out of adjacent
clubs and hotels, each holding a gun
in one hand and a niger in the other,
and before the bloom and beauty had
quite worn off the tableaux vivants
by the long, hot chase down Broadway
to the city hall.
"One of h most fashionable of New
Yorks cfergymen writes us that 1t
was SO light he could read his Greek
Testament by the flashes OF the pistol
shots, n a great author from Har-
lem says confidentially that his only
regret is that William Asdorf Wald-
erbit was out of town.
I a gentleman up a tree-this is.
high enough up a tree ITO survey man
kind from Kennebunkport to the
BrazoS, from Montauk Point to Cor
onado beach-these outbreaks seem
49, IL III "ho-A - - lo@1 ~,
man nature abroad in the land. The
race question is in good truth a seri-
our question. 1t involves a problem
the solution of which the wisest nave
not been able to compass the n Of
which the most sagaciouS cannot See.
Those who know most about it dis
card all theorizing and throw them
selves back upon a simple, childlike
faith in God, who can raise up as he
"a cast down, and who doeth all
things we'll. Meanwhile a white man
is a white man and a niger is a mig
ger equally in Swampscot and Hellfor-
Sartin, in New Orleans, New York and
Akron
Mr.. Whitelaw Reid and Mr.. James
Gordon Bennett spent a great deal Of
mone every req upon the noble jour
mails of which they are he onore
chiefs. Has it ever occurred to them,
while organizing fresh air funds and
Tree ice movements, 10 set apart an
nually a few desultory dollars to be
laid out upon the better instruction
Of their editorial corps in the gentle
art of learning something about their
own country and oountrymen, and of
ascertaining by personal inquiry and
research that there actually are a
people and a land-much like their
own west of h A1leghanies and
south of the Blue Ridge?
"But yesterday We mourned for New
Orleans. Then we mourned for New
York. Now we MOURN for Akron.
Whose turn next? And, harkee, you
little boys up in the trees of Kalama-
o and Conk'ud, don't you adj speak
at once!"
Rockingham Anglo-Saxon: Miss