The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-07-02
SpecuIations Based On
City's Personality.
OTHER TOWNS WAYS
How Wilmington People Kept Out Ban.
ished Politician. Way in Which an
Eastern Town Managed a Sim.
liar Case. How College Stud
ents Turn the Trick.

most as marked as that of a man.
What will excite the people of one city
Will not disturb the rest of another.
What one place will laugh at another
VIII throw fits about. What one town
viii consider the widest license, an
other will view as the ordinary rights
or man. What New York would con-
looks upon as merely good morals.
What would scandalize North Carolina,
Illinois would esteem the peace with
out understanding.
Yet, 1T must be understood, that
these symptoms run almost IN inverse
ratio. Standards are different; mo-
uVes are understood IN localities. What
The South might think barbarous, the
North would smoker at; what the
North would condemn, the South un-
derstands as a right
The point of view is shifty thing.
III strikes its roots in race, in climate
In tradition. In a new country it is
necessarily diverse. People stick where
they land and make their impress on
their homes, no matter how in the
progress OF time they may be them
selves impressed and changed by con-
sonaiity of locality-the way in which
different peoples, the stock of differ
ent races, meet the same conditions
ana emergencies, is something more
marked than sectional; il is, even,
municipal
The story of Claude Bernard and
his relation to Raleigh makes the fore
gong opposite comment. Suppose me
ventures to return? What Will be his
ha
nave been question more easily an
swered than now. Human nature is
much the same at the start. If Ber-
nard had come home on last Sunday
the traditions of Raleigh might have
been upset. In the shock of a tragedy,
the people had forgotten their train
ing. In the outrage against woman
hood so lately and so shockingly
brought to their attention they would
have acted with the finest disregard of
convention. conservatism and prece-
dent. What they would do now is not
so certain.
If Bernard should venture back to
Raleigh. If he should again walk into
his accustomed hauntS, Waddiing on
his short legs and shaking his too-big
head with all his old inpertinence and
bravado, would he be permitted to go
his way in peace, or would he have to
deal in one or another way with the
wrath of the citizens, kept SO to speak,
in cold storage for week?
That such question rs possible. is
pertinent, is, even, debatable, marks
the personality of the Capital City.
Raleigh has been often excited 1t
is never excited without tie most stir
ring cause. Other places need q match
10 enthusiasm or Indignation. Raleigh
needs an explosion. Even when The
explosion comes, the town soon recoV-
crs from its effects In that respe5;
ii is the most cosmopolitan place in
the State. Often it's own citizens com
plain that its conservatism is really
indifference; that the town is saturat-
cd with seltishncss.
Ordinary events, over which Other
places throw fit, do not do more thla
make ripple on Raleigh. Presiden-
tial candidates come and go. The peo-
pie turn cat, but sadate.y. They arc
not impressed with the greatness Of
men. They maintain their poise-a
little too much. They seem afraid to
give way, even a little ashamed to do
SO.
Only once i'm a while is there what
one might term real enthusiasm
When Cleveland was elected i'm 1884
there was a torch-light procession and
the widest of talk and the most blood
curdling speeches The like has not
IL. II,
occasion, made twenty-four different
speeches in a night anu had an audi
ence of thousands each time he open
ed his mouth. Today he might I'LL the
opera house; he would not do more
Once or twice the city has been really
mad. On two occasions, both TRACE
dies. the writer has heard the low.
tense. Understandable yet perfectly
translatable murmur of a mob on the
CT a To-
the mob was still, sentiment shifted
within week.
Raleigh is mad with Bernard. 1t is
disgusted with him. Yet if he stays
away much longer. it will be bound TO
forget him. In this the capital city
is not like other Southern towns POI
haps it is better that it is not Yet
one cannot help feeling that some day
il will get in the fashion and strike
To the credit of the city, it has never
AFFORDED but one lynching-and that
by kilpatrick's Yankee troops. 1t has
had opportunity i'm plenty, but It's
crimes have been individual.
The question arises. is collective ard
communal restraint and conservatism,
lack OF passion. the more or less con-
ducive to the individual crime?
Within the past several years there
have been i'm North Carolina one or
two examples of what appear to have
been well considered. determined and
yet sensible exhibitions of an out
ragged people making their own reme-
dies.
ln Wilmington. after the rle,.s- ut
1898. a dozen or more of the white
ringleaders of the negroes RESPONSE
bile for that reign OF terror were
tacitly banished from the city. One
81 these several months afterwards.
concluding that the passion against
him had died down. decided To return
home. lie was man Of property and
had been n citizen OF some influence.
lie felt that he might safely return.
hat To- satisfy his doubts. he let u be
known that he was coming.
what dld Wilmington do9
Twenty-Five 90 thirty Of the bea'
men ~ the town got together anl
came tu az agreement which they
communicated GO the friends OF the
ts uafflhtfa ueHFu politician
wTtt Nuur friend they said "thli
De- niHN fttufn Ia safety We viii not
Aui hiut rui every tims b. goes on