The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1901-03-12

newspaper slang, yellow journalism
but simply that the good people Of
Anderson county might SOC that tho
iniquitous system would be
Thoroughly looked into and put an
end to; for the encouragement of the
law. abiding and q terror . evil doers;
that it might be seen and known of
all people of this country, white and
black, that the strong arm Of the law
would be stretched out to protect the
humblest negro against oppression
and wrong.
"Other newspapes throughout the
State acted in the same way, not as
sensation, mongers, but rs good citi.
zens and champions of righteous
cause. There were no flaming head
lines, no startling scareheads. But
the publication was accompanied
with strong words Of condemnation
of the inhuman treatment Of the
negro, and with equally strong words
of commentator Of the charge of the
court.
1t was to be expected that news
papers in other States would take no.
tice of a matter Of so much public in.
terest-nor had we any desire to
hide this ugly thing from the eyes of
our sister States Newspapers were
only doing their duty in giving it
the utmost publicity and in &C =
demning it in scathlng terms.
ut gives me pleasure to say that,
with few exceptions the great journals
in all parts Of the country did their
duty in this regard; but some news
papers, and notably one, went far be
yond the proper limits of journalistic
criticism. I refer especially to The
North American, Philadelphia
newspaper.
''It seems that that paper sent a
staff reporter to this county, and
while we have no desire to discourage
the sending of special correspondence
from Philadelphia to Anderson
county for the purpose of finding
out the exact truth; let them tell the
truth; let them treat serious sub.
ject like this with fairness and can
dor.
"FAcTs WHEN DISTORTED
are more mischievous than false
hoods. 1 do not say that the special
correspondents of The North Ameri-
can deliberately wrote what was not
true, but do say that his account was
greatly exaggerated, far too highly
colored, essentially misleading and
grossly unjust.
NOT RACE ISSUE.
''It is foolish to talk of the neces-
sity of interfering by congress and
the federal courts. They ignore
the fact that the court and the
grand jury have brought the matter
into public attention and were busy
investigating it. We are able to
deal with this matter without any
outside help. We do not wish to
wash our dirty linen in the federal
laundry. There is no politics in this
matter, no party issue, not even a
race issue, not even indirectly.
1t is purely and simply the
righting of grievous wrong.
We protest against the very idea of
outside Interference. 1t is untrue, as
this paper states, that he testimony
Of negroes is not believed in our
courts"
The Judge here cited several cases
before him recently, in which
THE EVIDENCE OF NEGROES
had been accepted by juries in pre-,
ference to that of white men. Judge
Benet also mentioned that this mat
ter had been called to the attention
OF the Governor, who had forwarded
to the solicitor q letter raceived by
him. The judge said that he had
not heard of the matter until the
trial of the Newell case, and was as
tonished beyond measure by the dis.
closures therein.
Turning to the audience, he said
that ho wanted to advise the negroes
not to believe rumors which we've
going about as to the invalidity of
all labor contracts, He said the