The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-09-03
BLOOD WILL TELL.
Is the south Reaping the Results of
Masculine Degradation:
Colfax Hndl Standard-

Colfax Qnd) Standard.
The air in the South has been polluted for
the past month with the sickening odor of
burning human flesh Negroes have been
roasted alive at a half dozen or more places
by bowling mobs frenzied by some real or
imaginary offense against society. We are
Informed, however, that in some instances
the mobs were cool. deliberate, methodical
and orderly. II the latter statement be true
the Nervousness of the offense is much more
apparent. When men will go about the re-
voting and inhuman details OF burning a
human being at the stake one cannot re-
frain from asking: What cruelty will they
not resort to, and how long will it be until
men Will be roasted alive for mere way
wardness or that perversity of tempera-
ment that yields easily to patiently applied
mild remedies?
To the observer it is plainly apparent that
the South is reaping a harvest the result OF
seed time of crime-paying a part OF the
debts that unchaste manhood has been
making for two centuries. For more than
200 years the chastity of the negro woman
has been considered the common property
of soulless whelps who boasted of the SUI
periority in all things of the white man.
The white moral leper has skulked 10 the
cabin under cover of night or dragged
ignorant wOmanhood to lower and more de-
basing levels in the cotton field. So long
has the negro woman's virtue been consid-
cred marketable commodity at the dis
pOsal of the white man that the ebony
black of the native African has been par
TALLY eliminated and in its stead the negro
has taken on the moral depravity or men
who led the dual lives of posing the salt
of the earth in public and cohabiting with
their slaves under cover Of darkness. This
practice has continued for so many genera
tons in the South that the blue-eyed negro
and those with no other African dlstln-
gushing characteristics but the fiat nose
and thick lips are quite common. What
but crime, revolving and shocking. could be
expected from q generation with long
ancestry of moral depravity back of 1t?
Again we say it is evident that the South
is reaping the results Of masculine degra-
dalton. While idolizing the white woman
and teaching her that toll was debasing and
ease and luxury her heritage, the so-called
kmghthOOd OF Dixie has laid the founda-
ton, by immoral practice, for menace to
the white woman that the most drastic
measures will fail to stop. When some
negro brute assaults a white woman he is
| doing only what thousands of white men
| have done with the negro woman for ten
generations. He is simply following the
dictates of the birthmark of inheritance.
| Another thing, too, that emphasizes how
| dearly the South is paying the price of
past disregard Of moral laws lies In the
| fact that the public conscience has become
| so corroded that men will participate i'm
| burning those at the stake who have the
| their veins.
Such voices as Brady. Graves and How
! ellis, with the new South a watch
word have revolutionzed commercial con
| ditions in Dixie and laid the foundation for
I a new industrial era, pregnant with man
making force; but this new gray matter i'm
| the commercial brain cannot divert condi-
| lions from that logical compensation which
| is a law of nature just and exacting. There
| is no way of escaping the whirlwind when
we nave once sown the wind: the little
foxes destroy the vines: and he. man OF
| nation. who weaves q thread of wrong In
| the moral fabric of existence cannot divert
| the rent that always appears first at the
| weakest point. The blackness of social de.
| pravity may be gilded for a time but just
so sure as murder will out i'm obedience Il
| an inhexinle law of justice that pervades
| all nature, just so sure will beastliness and
| usefulness come to the surface with shock
| ing awfulness
| The crimes of the negro Of the South are
| not the result of citizenship conferred upor
| the black man. The cause was woven fntC
| the social fabric back in the days of slavery
| and since, too. Men that are begotten il
| crime-no odds how much it may be winkeC
| at-cannOt after generations of such prac-
| tees. rise above their environments ana
| become mundane saints The white man OF
| the South sowed the wind and he NAV de.
| vote his best energy, between drinks. tc
| burning negroes and he will only add to the
| hideousness of the scar he has made Ma.
| ture does not adjust herself by any sucf
| means. The burning of n negro is a terrible
| arrangement and kissing criticism of thos,
| practices that have led down-not uD-tC
| such an excuse for justice.