The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-13
JUSTICE TO THE SOUTH
BY JOHN B. KNOX
AIahansa.

- aeAN~3s v v snal Convention of AIabanaa. X e~A~~~~~~A~~~~~~~6 reason. While we may differ from him politically, there is not an enhnsnten,v,u ]. and ,patritoic southern man wh9 s,s to see that much of this result IS que to the honorable and statesman-hke hke ,Rolicy of the chief executive or snese Uhited States. who. by the consioera- ton he has shown our section, Tn many ways. notably in the Spanish American war, and by refusing to lend his ap' nroyal to any movement looking to the reduction of our representation in Con gross or in the electoral college, has shown himself capable of being Presi. dent of the whole country. and no' merely one section of 1t, and has beer enabled to present the spectacle of a re- united country, and contributed much to place our government in the very front rank with the nations of the world"
 The policy of MT. Roosevelt, and the present administration has been to re- open sectional issues and to so im- bitter the sections as to place us back to conditions which existed in 1868. This reversal of the policy of MT. Mo- Kinley has come as a great shock and surprise to the people of the South. We are not unmindful of the fact that this organized movement against our section isshurtful to 1t. Its tendency Is to undermine the spirit and patriot ism of our people, and to make us feel as the Irish do. that we are a minority tied on to a strong government. domi- mated and controlled by a majority which administers the government without reference to our needs and con- ditions. The testimony of Southern man is not regarded as of any weight in the consideration of these questions. As Mir. Thomas Nelson Page remarks in his recent article in the April number of McClure's magazine, We have pre- scented the singular spectacle of evil dence being weighted rather by a mans geographical position than by his char acter or opportunity for knowledge"
 The right of private judgment is the right upon which all professionalism is based. The right of free and un- trammeled discussion of public ques- tions is the safeguard of liberty. Those Southern men who have assumed an apologetic attitude and who have come after the manner of the Eastern people prostrating themselves, have generally received a hearing in tho North, but have yet to find where a Southern man, speaking courageously from the standpoint of the interest of his own people, has received any con alteration from the dominant faction in that section.
 In the South a new generation has been born and has grown to manhood since the issues which divided the country in 1860. As an humble rep resentative of this class, I am not in- ha vurlxt tak, naturally results from that great con- fiict, but will say that the people of the North have no idea how intensely our people, old and young. feel con cerning acts of aggression the tendency of which is to disorganize their sys- tenn of labor and disturb the peace and harmony of our section.
 With our opponents 1t seems of no weight that those of their own num- ter who come among us have, without regard to former political affiliations, when they come face to face with the problems which confront us uniformly agreed with us as to the proper mode of handling these questions.
 There are, in every section, rash, im- prudent, lawless individuals who com init excesses violative of all law and shocking to all conscience, but the Southern people, as a whole, are no more to be held responsible for such lawlessness than are the people of the North for similar acts committed from time to time in that section.
 If space allowed, might refer to the different treatment accorded the people of the South after and since the war from the treatment which the Boers have received at the hands of the British Government. As Mir. Thomas AyAN. n l. -kf IL already referred to, says, if a Southern man had installed his negroes in the State house of Massachusetts, and, by a travesty of law, filled the legislative halls with thieves and proceeded to dis franchise the best and the proudest people of the commonwealth; then had he, sustained by bayonets. during eight yAars ridden rough-shod over them; cut the value of their property in half; quadrupled their taxes; sold out over twenty per cent. of the landed property of the State for forfeiture; appointed over two hundred negro trial justices who could neither read nor write, put a negro ex-convict on the bench of their highest court, and paraded through the State something like S0,o00 negro mili- tia, armed with money stolen from the State, to insult and overawe the people, while the whole South looked coolly on and declared 1t was just; then might there be partial but not a complete parallel to what some of the States of the South endured under negro rule"
 In every respect except in their treat ment of the South the people of the North are a great, progressive, mag unanimous people, but while the press and literature in that section Is filled with condemnation of the people of the South for having objected to the des- truction without compensation of a system foisted upon them in the first instance without their consent, and in which they had thousands of millions of dollars invested, it seems to me that the people of the North should have something to answer for, before the bar of civilization, on account of the cruel, unjust and ungenerous course which has been pursued, and which is still being pursued, towards our peo- pie.
 The course pursued by George III and Lord North towards the American colonies was mild in degree to the treatment received by the South from the dominant element in the North. The South, as a minority section, unaided, may be unable to resist this aggression, but in this connection I am reminded of the. noble protest which Edmund Burke in his great speech on concilia- tion with America made in Parliament against this policy ''I do not" he