Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1903-01-08
THURSDAY EVENING. JAN. $, 1908.
THE New YORK TRIBUNE, which


THE New YORK TRIBUNE, which
paper has been eager to defend everything
a republican President has done since the
wear 1861, attempts to upholdthe present
occupant of the White House in his
dissemination to humiliate the peacea-
BILE people living south of Mason's and
Dixon's line by appointing negroes to
high federal positions where white people
are necessarily compelled to have inter
course with them. The Tribune since
the early days of the late Horace Gree
lev has been the organ of large per-
centage of the inhabitants of the northern
part of the country who have labored
early and late to bring about condition
of affairs in the southern States which
they have worked equally as earnestly
though surreptitiously to prevent in the
north. We believe it would be safe to
say that Notwithstanding there is hero
ic statue of the founder of the Tribune
in front of the Office of that paper and
life-sized portrait of the famous aboli-
zionist in the counting room, that not a
single colored man can be found among
the several hundred persons employed
on the paper. A republican from the
interior of New York State who lived in
Alexandra a number of years ago, said
on one occasion, about the time the civil
war was breaking out, Fred Douglass
delivered lecture in one of the interior
cities of the Empire State. The hall
was crowded with republicans and aboli-
tionists of the most radical stripe.
Douglass was vociferously applauded and
many of the audience shook hands with
him at the close of his lecture. Strange
to say, however they never offered him
the hospitality of their homes and Doug
lass was forced to apply for lodging at
the hotels He went from one to another
but was told that each was full. While
specializing on the prospect of walking
the streets all night he was sought out
by a democrat who took him home
and had room prepared Tor
his accommodation. The above but
illustrates the hollowness and hypocrisy
of the sounding brass and tinkling
cymbals of many people in that part OF
the country over two score years ago.
The fact that few, if any, colored people
are employed in any capacity in New
York hotels, depots, newspaper offices
and other public places shows the IN
sincerity of their professed friends OF
today. In the South, long before the
DAYS of the civil war, members of the
race were fremen and brakemen on rail-
way trains and worked at other Occupa-
tons. There are now three classes OF
colored railway employees, as porters
have been added in recent years. South
ern white people have never shut out the
negro from an opportunity to make bis
living in channels for which he is fitted,
but they have ever protested against
placing him in representative positions
for many reasons, the principal one be-
ing that common observation has taught
them that the white race is the superior
and was manifested to be such by the
Creator. The republicans made several
experiments with the negro as repre-
sentative in the post bellum period and
placed some in Congress from the South
during reconstruction days. As is well
known, they were ciphers and failures
from start to finish. The need of weed
ing them out of State legislatures in the
South was soon apparent, and the New
South of today is directly the result of
white supremacy. At present the south
ern country pays most of the internal
revenue taxes of the United States, and
the peopleof the South therefore should
have something to say as to who
are to fill federal positions among
them, and the action of the present
occupant OF the White House
in,sending negro representatives of the
federal government to prominent south
ern cities is resented as an insult both
wanton and cruel.