Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1903-02-21
An InsidiOus Attack Upon Editor John
Mitchell, Jr.
[Lynchburg, Va. Christian Organizer.

| mltCHell, JT.
| tLynchburg, Va. Christian Organizer. !
Many of the readers of the Organizer
have doubtless often seen those little
picture puzzles, variously | b | g d.
| Where is the cat, mad bull or burglar,
or policeman, or snake III the grass?"
etc., In which the thing named and to
be discovered is formed by branches
and foliage, and by running water and
| drapery and lights and shadows in the
sketch. AT first, one finds it extreme
ly difficult to detect this picture within
| picture; and at last with the sudden
ness which one invariably detects a
| dull-colored snake, seenepreviously, but
| not distinguished the object sought
for appears, and is thereafter so plain to
/ the eye that one cannot look at the
sketch even held at distance without
! seeing the cat or policeman, or what
ever 1t happens TO be, and after patient
\ ly studying some scores or hundreds of
| these puzzles, one gets to know how
to find the thing concealed, and finds
1T quickly, almost at a glance" So it is
in the drama that has been played for
some time in our State on the part of
Negroes who have decided TO play this
hlde-and- seek game with the interest of
the people. They had been in the pic
! ture-puzzle, playing on both sides of
the question, while their real identity
has been hidden.
! Some of these Negroes have been op-
Grating or have been assistants in the
development of great Negro enterprises
and interests. They have received
praise and encominms for a seeming
confidence in racial possibility. They
have filed their pocket books, and have
htApn fot nd ir,,r nj -,
/ the communities in which they have
lived. Their relationship to these or
ganizations has given them certai-
amount of power and influence in the
community. They have become dicta-
tors of the people, because the people
have permitted them to use their
money, and thus they have sought di-
rectly and indirectly, and have attempt
ed to pnll down such institutions as did
not meet their favor, operated by their
own race. They have maligned and mis-
repsented others, and have attempted CO.
operations to the extent as far as their
power would go, 20 the destruction or
other institutions.
They have occupied places in the puz-
zle-picture, and they haIe g been a puzzle
20 many an honest soul who was unable
TO distinguished them from the foliage,
the branches, the running water and the
drapery. They could not be differens
tiatedEin the picture, for they seeming-
ly formed in the picture, part of the
whole. But lights and shadows do not
always throw off those who have been
steadi y gazing; and at last with a sud
I denness, the images of these skulkers
are breaking upon the vision of the
masses, and they are beginning to see
them as they are.
L "a otf Al.
Hon. John Mitchell, Jr., by a set of
would-be leaders, the main object of
which was revealed to have been a
subtle and well defined purpose in the
| hearts of these men to use what they
regarded prejudice in the hearts of the
white people against John Mitchell be-
cause Of his defense of the race, to over
throw him, and sell out the organ
which has fought for them and all of us
when we had nothing to fight for us.
No man who read the pleading of
Harry Smith in that courtroom would
need TO be further convinced of a deep
and dirty scheme to disrupt, tear down,
and completely shatter a business which
1t has taken this young man lifetime
to get on the way. And TO give char
acter to their pretensions, they have
inaugurated this fight upon him under
the shadow of the church. They had
hoped to elude and delude the masses
of the people Of our State by this cum
ningly devised puzzle-picture which
was lnaugurated with the hope of de-
tracing the attention of the people
from their infamous scheme to the
church bell and the steeple, and the fair
proportions of the house of God.
But it did not work, and the white
men who were high In authority assur-
4 Ind IAI I'll III - Il.
crawling and cunning, this seeking to
gain the favor of the court by untoward
measures, would fn6 no place in the
category of proceedings. These gentle
men were too d;gn-tied TO stoop.
But 1T is our purpose to spell out these
individuals IN a puzzle picture Who
are these men who have been leaders in
the effort to destroy this young man
and his business and his home and his
prospects? Who are these men who are
unwilling that John Mitchell shall have
a printing house and somewhere to live
to call his own, a shelter for his aged
mother-the one he has so tenderly car
ed for from his very boyhood? Who are
these men in this picture?
Are they not those who have gotten
about them some of the comforts of life?
One of them especially has built for
L
roomy, spacious. commanding He has
left the quarters which have hedged his
family in for a number of years. Some
of us knew him when he did not live In
a mansion. Some of us knew him when
he was as poor as we are. when he
could not buy ten or twelve thousand
dollar house Who has made it possible
for him to live in such exquisite fash
ion? Who has thrown these comforts
at his feet? Who has made him the
/ cynosure of all eyes? Why is he such
an enemy to the humble efforts of his
race?
/ Why would he lend an influence to
take from John Mitchell his humble
|: .lome while he revelled in luxury in his
/ mansion of brick, trimmed with granite?
this is a sad picture. Are we to pull
down the ladder by which we climbed?
Are we to cut the rope of possibility out
1 of tho hands Of an hmm h1a clsro naro W.