The leader., 1903-07-01
THE CALLED JADE wINCEs.

burg Herald and Evening Post
(which for years have been strenu-
Gus opponents of mob violence),
in supporting man for Governor
who has long advocated and de-
Tended the mob in his paper, we
knew we were firinga centre shot,
and as was to have been supposed,
there has been some lively squirm-
ing by the venerable scribe of the
Herald in an endeavor to break
the force of what we stated.
In the first paragraph of long
editorial, captioned with ungram-
matical Latin, the rancorous and
pitifully prejudiced editor of the
Herald says:
"Brer B. I. Hobbs, of the
Brookhaven Leader, has recently
(or the Herald has only just no
ticed it) had added to his cogno-
ment the prefix of Reverend" !"
Then proceeding on the false
premise that the editor of this
paper is a minister of the gospel,
the Herald, with an air of learn
ing mixed with vinegar and
spleen, weaves a tissue of person
al aspersion and misstatements
about The Leader editor, Lincoln
county and Gov. Longino with
not enough of truth and fact as a
frame work to hold it decently
together. Of course everybody
who knows the editor of The
Leader knows he never made any
claim or pretense of being a
preacher. A talented and elo-
quent young preacher named j.
R. Hobbs, who lately graduated
at Mississippi College, is pastor
of two churches in Lincoln coun-
ty, and this probably furnished
the Herald editor all the founda-
ton he needed for this part of his
|screed. We mention this, be-
cause Editor McNeily, who was
once reckoned rational and we'll
balanced man, is so afflicted
with anti-Longino phobia, Varda-
man phobia or something else, it
illustrates how incapable he now
lis of grasping and stating facts
thoroughly well-known to the man
of average intelligence.
But false and slanderous as the
Herald's article is about the edi-
tor of The Leader, it is no less so
in reference to Lincoln county
and Gov. Longino, whose name is
coupled with ours. There has
been but one lynching in Lincoln
county in over 20 years, and when
the Herald says it is "a county
that has been, probably, more
cursed by mob violence and white
cap outrages than any in the
State,'' - its editor again advertises
his ignorance or wilful perversion
of facts. Lincoln county is far from
being all that could be desired,
we freely admit, but it is noto-
rious that both Amite and Franklin
counties have been far worse
afflicted with whitecapism than
Lincoln. In fact, the organiza-
tion got but little foothold in
this county, before the good citi-
zenship of the county rose up
against it, and, as is well-known,
Lincoln was the first county in the
State which secured the indict-
ment and conviction of members
of the order. And, by the way,
it seems like the very irony of
fate that the principal support
the Herald's candidate for Gov
ernor has in this portion of the
State, is among this very whitecap
element.
The Herald, with character
istic unfairness, attempts to
draw an invidious comparison
between Cows. Lowry, Stone
and McLaurin, in their efforts to
suppress mob outbreaks and
whitecapping, and Gov. Longino.
In this connection it wholly ig-
nores the fact that Gov. Longino
personally visited this portion of
the State during the whitecap
troubles last December, acquaint-
ed himself with the situation and
issued proclamation calling up
on all such lawless organizations
to disband and offered rewards
fort he arrest and conviction of all
who had violated the law. At the
same time the Herald belittles the
Governors efforts to prevent
|lynchings in Carroll and other
counties, and in the next breath
it raises a long, hypocritical wall
against him for not interfering
and preventing the recent race
troubles in Smith, an interior
piney woods county, of which
the Governor knew nothing until
the main part of the mischief was
done.
BY the accounts published this
negro batting, based on a wildly
improbable story of provocation,
/ had no other object IN view than