The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1903-02-11
LEGISLATURES IN ARMS.
South Cardinals Struggle in 1875
Recalled by the Conditions
in Colorado.

we 90 not Qeny GIlaG IQ6TS Is q Q0-
plorable lack of law and order and the
requirements of civilization in some
parts of the South; but there are
others. We read in the newspapers
of members of the Colorado Legisla-
ture sitting at their places with huge
revolvers decorating their desks and
surrounded by guards prepared to
resist by violence and bloodsbed the
attempts of certain faction of Rpub-
licansai ming to be members of the
same bog to enter the halls. The sit
uation,is curiously like that in South
Carolina in 1876. Democrats and Re-
publicans each claimed to have ma
jority of the House, and each organ
lied under it's own Speaker. On a GER
tain day the Democratic members
marched to the State House, headed
by Col. J. E. Orr, now the respected
and staid president of one of the
largest cotton mills in the State, who
knocked aside the door keeper and led
his cohorts in. The rival bodies oc-
cupied the same hall, the Speakers
sitting side by side, two nights and
three days, as we recollect. The
United States troops were at the front
door, and while they would not eject
the Democratic claimants they refused
to give permission for any of them to
90 out and return. Consequently, these
legislators were kept locked in the
chamber for the time indicated, along
with their Republican opponents, ev-
erybody armed to the teeth, and ex-
pecting trouble to break loose each
minute. A member from each House
addressing and recognized by his own
Speaker and speaking at the top Of his
voice was common incident of this
-racking period. Reporters and
others who had the right to go in and
out of the chamber freely, smuggled
the Winchester rifles, the barrels
thrust down their trousers legs and
the butts under their waistcoats, for
the Democrats, each of whom had an
average of three revolvers, besides the
gun wrapped in his blanket or overcoat,
and probably the Republicans were
equally we'll provided.
What dramatic moment it was for
the seventy odd weary and red-eyed
white men who had been expecting
during all the hours Of long night
to engage at any moment in fight in
locked hall with their Republican
and negro opponents reinforced by hun
dreds of deputy sergeants at arms,
| when the murky and chilly dawn of the
December morning was suddenly cut
by the sharp, familiar rebel yell. Both
factions adjourned to the windows and
looked out on line of red shirts, many
of them Confederate veterans, double
quicking in swift cadence up the steep
hill from the special train that had
brought them in. These were the ad-
vance guard of 5000 of the same kind
who arrived before noon-clattering in
on horseback at full speed, singly and
by squads, tumbling hurriedly from
regular and special trains, eager to
fight anything or anybody for Wade
Hampton and white rule.
But that was twenty-six years ago,
and the fight was for principle, and
involved the very life Of the State.
This affair in Colorado is mere
squabble over q United States Sena-
torship, probably with good deal OF
Doodle involved in it. So far as the
morality and respectability and civil
ization of the transactions are concern
ed, South Carolina appears to have
very much the better of it.-A. B.
/ Williams in Richmond Times.