Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1903-02-26

nation as whole is not ready to return
10 Southern domination or to relinquish
the results for humanity and freedom
secured at such cost of blood and treasure
in the Civil War; and it is greatly to be
hoped that sober sense on the part of
the calmer heads of the Southern people
will assert itself in effectual opposition to
the tide of prescription and sectional
prejudice in that quarter before 1t be-
comes too late. 1t is pre- eminently a case
in which the beginnings Of strife" should
be averted. There is food for thought
on both sides, in the following suggestions
made by the Washington correspondent
of the New York Evening Post:
All that has prevented the execution of
the threat repeatedly made during the last
few years, OF cutting down the representa-
ton IF Southern states in Congress to
correspond with the changed civic condi-
tions locally, has been a lack of the pres
sure of public sentiment in the dominant
party. That lack has in turn been due
to dread on tho part of the Northern
people of awakening the animosities Of
y generation ago. The North, whose bet
ter element has sYmpathized with the
feeling Of the South against the political
outrage3 OF the carpct-bag era. is slow
TO move. but its inertia must not be mis-
taken for sleep now, any more than in
the later Gftics. Let the aggressions of
the South pass a certain point. and there
will be a response that must bring trouble
in its train. 1t is the Northern friends
of the South who must dread to see this
come; for hand-in-hand with such meas
urcs as the Crumpackcr resolution, aimed
at those States of the South which have
i Al, A,,. trr1, -,
under the forms of law. will como meas
ureS for the federal control of elections,
aimed at those States in which personal
intimidation still romans the chief
weapon for the defence of white suprem-
aCN.
Forecasts like this are not moro traits
of tho imagination. The rumblings are
already heard under the surface in Con-
grcss. Tho strong desire of most of the
Northern members has for years been
that the South might have n chance to
recover by normal and rational means
from the eXcessos at that period when
the state governments there We're upheld
only by federal bayonots. Had the South
ern people graspcd warmly the hand
held ont TO them, and been as ready to
make concessions to Northern sentiment
as the North was to leave them undiS-
turbcd IN their endeavor to maintain white
supremacy by every righteous means
there would have been no occasion for
such words of caution. As negro domina-
ton in politics gave way to mere pdrtic-
ipation, and the trend of events was
steadily towards the restriction of such
participation to the few Colored men here
and there who could meet the toSts of
character and intelligence, tact, and ca
paCity imposed ON whites and blacks alike,
n golden opportunity was offered To the
Southern people TO assure themselves
against interference with their effort to
work out their own salvation. Will they
absolutely refuse to improve it?
The patience and dignity with which
the President has borne the sort of at
tacks made upon him in the southern
press have been a source of pleased sur
prise even to his most intimate friends.
In most communities pretending to the
higher civilization there is public senti-
ment which promptly drives into hiding
the coward partsans who attack women
because their husbands do unpopular
thin.;s in politics. Yet pictorial lampoons
Of Mrs. Roosevelt, and threats of indis-
nifty to Miss Roosevelt, have not been
absent from the campaign waged against
the chief magistrate OF the republic by
n peopo who pride themselves on their
"chiValry." This word evidently has a
different meaning in different places, for
Washington has been waiting in vain to
see some senator who feels strongly on
womanhood. rise in his place and hold
up to scorn. In the name of the South. all
such offenders against common decenoy.