Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1903-01-29
IS 1T SECTIONAL PREJUDICE


We observe in the proceedings in the
Campbell case that much emphasis is laid
from time to time on the fact that the
victim of Judge Campbell's assault came
here from the North, The Common
wealth's Attorney of Amherst County has
been living there since he was child, but,
according to bis own evidence, he was
born in Wisconsin. Ingenious attempts
we're made in cross.examination to en-
phasize this fact and to bring it out fully
before the committee and the public. This
Is very unfortunate. If there is sentiment
and prejudice of that kind among our
people, public policy suggests that we
should conceal 1t as far as possible as
thing to be ashamed of and likely to be to
our detriment rather than blazOn 1t and
attempt to use it 10 sway decisions in legal
or political controversies. 1t is poor
advertisement for Virginia to give the i'm
preston that anywhere in the State there
is a feeling against Northern birth go
strong tina; it can be reused and used
against man even after he has spent his
whole lifetime as good citizen here.
When we come to analyze conditions
have we really any right to sneer at any
body or to hold ourselves as IN any way a
superior people? Would it not become us
better, and better beft our position and
accord with our efforts, if we buckled down
to the conviction that we have here no
monopoly of brains or courage or any
other quality, and that the State or county
of mans birth or rearing is none OF our
business and a matter not worth while
discussing or considering? In view OF the
revelations of some of the conditions In
Amherst County, brought out by the pen
ding trial-of jurors knowing no more
than to accept gifts of whisky through an
open window of the jury room and OF
others deciding to cut and shoot their way
out of the courtroom in tile event of GER
tain judicial proceedings-there is some
thing painfully and grimly ludicrous in
the idea of us Virginians undertaking to
hold ourselves superior to the Common
wealth's Attorney and to a cultured, and ,
so far as we know, consistent clergyman
because they were not born in Virginia or
came here at some age from the other side
of the Potomac. Richmond News.
If a Republican newspaper in Virginia
had published such suggestive sentiments
US are contained in the above, it would
lave been declared false, or treated with
silence, intended for contempt. Uttered
by Democratic newspaper, it has been
received by its Democratic contemporaries
with a silence that must give consent.
Therefore, we may be pardoned for YEN
turing to enlarge little upon the sugges'
live remarks of the News, for answering
some of its lnterrogatories, and treating a.
facts some of its coDjectural propositions.
The News asks" How long does man
have to live in some parts of this State be-
fore he ceases to be foreigner or id
Yankee?" We venture to answer, that in
every section of the State man of North,
ern birth appears forever in the eyes Of
the Bourbon Democrat as a i'd
Yankee"
Then the News asks: "Have we really
the prejudice among US to which lawyers
and other 'pleaders occasionally show a
disposition to appeal?"
The instance which the News cites, the
proceedings in the Campbell Gaze, answers
this last question. The man who repre-.
sents Campbell is representative Virginia
Democrat, seemingly of the most pro-
nounced Bourbon type. He knows he
has difficult case to handle, and has,
therefore, been forced to the desperate
game of appealing to the sectional pre-.
JUDGE of those who will sit in judgment.
This would not haye been done if the Hon.
Holmes Conrad had not known what an
efectual appeal it had heretofore proved
In numerous legal and political controver-
sizes. 1t is an appeal that rarely fails to
reach the heart and judgment of the Vir.
giDia Bourbon. If it fails in this instance,
it will be happy exception to the lule.
How long has the editor of the News
been living in Virginia? Can it be posi-
BILE that he has been here for years and
not yet found out that there is large
element Of the people who earnestly be
lieve, or assume to think, that they have
a right to sneer at others and vaunt their
superiority over other people. They think
they have monopoly of brains, courage
and character, and that they possess the
God'given right to rule others less highly
born than they think themselves to be.
Not only do they hold themselves superior
TO men who come here from other States
and countries, but they claim the right as
privileged class, to dominate tie political
Ind social conditions of the State.
TRUE ELECTION BILLS.
State Senator Barksdale's pure elections
'ill has passed the senate and it is pre-
licfpd that IL will olso Docc in tho ho,1eo