The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-06-19
FIRES OF FANATICISM
FLICKER TO EXTINCTION
Reflections Suggested by Admissions of Northern
Journals OF Colossal Mistakes in Dealing
With the South

cuted and Slandered by New England
particularly, and the Middle States
closely following, because of negro
slavery. and supposed great abuses as
Il result. The West also took a hand
in this business of traduction and COM
plant. Ignorance, prejudice, a sickly
sentimentality and eagerness to perpe-
trate wrongs, are at the bottom of
all this. Since the war the misappre-
hension, the blind prejudice, the ex-
HggeratiOn and miSapplied sympathy
have f1ourished in great luxuriance.
After some thirty-eight years Of al
legged peace the knowing, stalwart,
dominating, boaStful, cock-Sure North
has condescended to open one corner
OF its eyes, and to take a bird s-eye
view of the actual situation in the
South. 1t is only small section, how
ever, that even now has a glimpse OF
the true condition as to the South and
the blacks. 1t is dawning upon some
6arkened understandings at last, that
there is something wrong as to the
conduct of the North in dealing with
the blatant negro problem, and that
the Republican Congress was grossly
criminal and ineXcuSable in its meas
ures aimed at the South soon after
peace had been declared. in part pun
ishment and part revenge for It's
course in resisting the aggressions ana
invasions and outrages of the North
With it's vast resources and monster
armies. 1t is, late to be learning this
lesson which was so apparent to all
but the wilfully blind more than thirty
years since. 1t is to be rejoiced in
that reason has begun to assert its
power once more among some people
in the great North, and that fanaticlsm
burns low in the hearts of some and
threatens to expire in the midst OF its
worshippers.
This line of reflection is suggested by
several recent Northern articles admit
ting mistakes and failure in the Re-
construction outfit. One of the most
noticeable, intelligent and candid OF
all the opinions expressed by North
ern people is the article in a recent
issue of the New York "Harper's
Weekly" That able. scholarly organ
has been sone of the most rampant,
savage, cruel of papers. and thirty
years ago it's vindictive cartoons by
Mast, aimed in ridicule of the Southern
whites, gave so much offense that no
man or woman of proper pride, intel
ligence and devotion to the South
would allow it to come into the homes
Of virtue and refinement. 1t was not
even handled with longs but was out
IaWed. But as time has passed, and
gagged upon that paper. change
seems to "have come over the spirit OF
its Dreams" and it now talks with
more fairness and truth, and is not so
blinded by fanaticism and hatred, and
has ceased ito look through glass
darkly" at the South. 1t had some
while ago a very striking article head
ed 1.-THE Negro Crime Again Consid-
ered.''l It is an article of some inn
poTance 1t should be read as whole
to be appreciated. 1t is writing OF the
cruel brutalities of the negroes in this
country, and especially in the South.
1t calls rape "the new negro crime.
1t says it does not exist in the British
West Indies, in the Spanish or Por-
tuguese countries OF Central or South
America. 1t asks: Does the crime
there fail to exist because in those
countries intermarriage between
whites and blacks, or in a word,
amalgamation, is allowed by law
1t points to a probable cause of
the brutal crime that RACES in the
South:
1--WE have been able to discover only
a single cause for the phenomenon.
That cause may be thus stated The
whole system of reconstruction devised
by Thaddeus Stevens (who carried out
his principles in private life) and by
other leaders of the Radicals, who
dominated Congress under the john
son administration-the system en-
bodied in the Fourteenth and Fiji
teenth Amendments of the Federal
Constitution, and in the Congressional
and State legislation growing out OF
them-was based on the Fundamental
idea of absolute equality, social as well
as political, between the white and
the black races. Following the lines
of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments of the Federal Constitu-
ton, and, in some cases, perhaps, pre-
ooding the definite adoption of the
last-named amendment, a number of
so-called civil rights acts were pass
ed by Congress. The reconstruction,
OF carpet bag laws, the validity of
which was disputed dominated and
abrogated a State law forbidding the
intermarriage of whites and blacks.
These reconstruction judges assumed,
and they were undoubtedly correct in
the assumption, that the theory on
which their Radical masters at Wash
ington had proceeded was favorable to
amalgamation. Upon no other theory
can some of the civil rights acts be
explained, for their tendency to bring
about absolute social equality between
the black and the white races is obvi-
Gus and indisputable."
1t says the amalgamation idea per
yaded the atmosphere of Washington
during the reconstruction period"
This was very bad indeed. and most
criminal were the acts of the Radical
Congress that caused it. But Harp
er's Weekly continues, and it is even
more plain spoken as to conditions. 1t
saws that this social equality idea-this
practical amalgamation of the two
races. ramified and pervaded the en-
tire South, during the reconstruction
period, and that of all the Southern
States under the carpet-bag regime, so
far as the blacks and the white emil
grants from the North were concern
ed. That idea was inhaled with the
air when the present generation of
negro was growing up to puberty and
entering on adult life. They became
infected with the belief. and the be-
lief. was justified, that if the Four
tcenth and Fifteenth Constitutional
Amendments and the civil rights acts
founded thereon" SO this hellish,
yengeful degrading doctrine, ORR
rafting with the North, got complete
possession of the negroes by being in
stilled into them by the Radical poll
ticians, legislators and emissaries from
the North 1t says that doctrine so
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