The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-07-07
LET Iusr1uE PREVAIL.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch con- cludes an editorial on "Peonase. so-call- ed" as follows:
 To resume. the good people of Georgia and Alabama are much grieved at the discoveries made in some neighborhoods of some of their counties, and may be fully trusted to apply the remedy to the root of the evil. Meanwhile they should be exempt from the wholesale attacks and l unlimited abuse heaped upon them by l certain of the Northern press, who by the exercise at home of one-half of the vigil lance they have displayed in these cases would find plenty of outrages that ought | to be. exposed and punished
 The Advertiser. on behalf of the people of Alabama. has felt outraged at the generally exaggerated and often grossly false statements appearing in many of the newspapers of the North and East in connection with the peonage charges. Some of these false statements are in the form of editorials written by men who know little of the facts and care less. Others are from special corres- pondents who have made no effort to get at he truth and whose main object was to create a sensation. Worse than these, however. in the buslness of maligning our people, have been letters written by few Southern men, like Joe Manning, who have no standing at home. and who hope | to make political capital and advance their own interests by slandering their own people. In the words of Shakes peare:
 How sharper than a serpent's tooth 1t is To have a thankless child!
 | Alabama has a few thankless children. born and raised here, who are never 50 happy as when they are shedding their venom abroad. and furnishing to the enemies of the South a few grains of fact on which to build up a monument of slander and falsshood. Our people are to be congratulated that there are so few of these nest-foulers, and that they are be- ing found out and exposed for what they really are.
 The Times Dispatch is correct in its opinion that these Northern people could Ind plenty of texts at home on which to build sermons. if they care to do SO. They hide everything of this nature. so far as they are able to do so. but an oc- easional feet crops out to make It plain that in many communities of the North and East there is infinitely more peonage practised against white people than there is against the negroes of Alabama. The mills, the factories. the mines and the sweat-shops, if their inner workings could be exposed, as tho -Peonage busi- ness is being exposed in this State, would afford evidences of cruelty and oppres- sion which would be a revelation to the country, and which would penetrate the pachydermatous hides of the most blatant PhaTisees among them.
 But all this forms no excuse for the evil which exists in Alabama. It matters not what wrongs are committed in other States, when our own skirts are not clear. Neither does the fact that the reports sent out from Alabama are often grossly untrue change the other fact. that there have been wrongs committed by our owr | people. These wrongs are being fully and thoroughly investigated by Alaba mians, and they will be punished by
 Alabamians. We need no assistance from
 outside to get at the truth and We neet
 no assistance to convict and punish thu