The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-13
AN ENNoHEous IMPRESSION

Some days ago that staunch Republican paper. The Chicago Tribune. had an edi- toriai under the head. Revival of Sec tionalism,' beginning thus:
 The South is rapidly working itself up into fury of resentment against what It wS ans aee to Se States in regard to the negro. The South. ern press states that the former result or the North's meddlesomeness and forcible reconstruction reign of terror, and that the Southern people do not want. and Ttll not have, a recurrsnSs .tnd of that era era. oneI Mcclure, Dr Abbott and Dr.. Park hurst are particularly commended to Northern readers and may % be summed ed black South-should be let alone to set tie their problems in their own way"
 The Tribune declares that "the hatred of the South against the North is fast being revivified," and winds up the article with this language:
 It is a serious thing to contemplate that this country Is liable, unless care is talk each other. And the saddest thing about instead of forward. Eight. six. four and far more friendly than they are today.
 We do The Tribune out simple justice when we declare that 1t Is generally fair In its discussion of Southern affairs, much more so than Is usual with Republican papers North. In the editorial from which the above extracts were taken there is an entire absence of bitterness and irvective, the paper contenting itself tro ok, papers to sustain Its position that the South hates the North.
 With all due respect to The Tribune we must insist that its premises are not well founded. and that its quotations from Southern newspapers do not bear out its assumption of "hatred of the South for the North" These extracts are but re. iterations or expressions of a sentiment that Is now practically unanimous throughout the Southern States, and that l is that we, the white men of the South, propose to settle racial questions In our own way and in our own time, and we will do 1t in the way best for both races. As The Tribune well knows this oues- tion came up to our people almost be- fore the last gun of the war had ceased to reverberate over a despoiled country. several millions of ex-slaves, suddenly exalted to citizenship. was the heritage we received from the Federal govern
 nent. As If the mere fact of their pres- ence in changed conditions was not seri- ous enough they were endowed with all the political rights that eny citizen of the Union possessed, and for which they were neither prepared nor fitted. And then, to add to the bitterness of our deg radiation, and the hopelessness of tn problem. our country was overrun with adventurers from the North, some of them good and well meaning men but others as unprincipled scoundrels as ever scuttled a ship or robbed a safe. It was these and their kind who made the con- dition of the Southern people unbearable and revolt inevitable.
 The Tribune may have forgotten these things but Southern people have better memories. Forgiveness Is a Christian virtue and forgetfulness Is often a relief but some of us will neither forgive nor forget the damnable and brutal excesses tha& were committed all over the South by negroes and their white allies, many of whom were Federal officials, against whose acts our people were practically powerless. And one of the worst fea- lures of this saturralia was that the bal lot in the hands of ex-siaves was in al most every instance, both from their own ignorance and at the instigation of thei.. carpet-bag allies. used to despoil, de. grade and humiliate the real citizens of the almost helpless South.
 It required no prophetic ken. no reve- lation from a higher source and no ex- cess of wisdom to show that this could not go on indefinitely. The people of the South must regain control of their polit- ical and social fortunes, resort to arms or go down to irretrievable ruin and deg radiation. They chose the former. The means resorted to may not always have been such as a strict code of ethics would approve. but nothing better offered itself. and the inborn instincts of self preservation dictated the only course that our people saw open.
 It was because the best men of the South were tired of/these conditions. and because they were determined to be rid of them that Southern States have one after another remodelled their constitu- tions and have in what they believe to be constitutional way rid themselves of all danger of negro domination. Then what do we see? All over the North We find public speakers and newspapers as- sailing our methods and our people and in every way, as far as words can do, in citing the colored people to resist, for menting disccrd between the races and in many cases maligning and vilifying the Southern people for their course
 These things, as The Tribune could see are all the ground for charging that the South hates the North There is no hat red about 1t, but cur people do resent the interference of Northern people in mat ter with which they have no real con- cern. and We intend to continue resent ing it. What is more, We intend to set tie this race question in our own way, and if the result is to have the country rent again into factions hating each other" as The Tribune seems to fear, we shall not feel that we of the South are the offending party. We do not hate the North but we will settle the race ques- tiou