The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-12-02


% oEnIn United s. states s.a ssn.to+ w e.
shot down in a pistol duel on the
streets of Nashville the other day and In
stantly the northern newspapers raised
their editorial hands in horror over what
they were pleased to term the "lawless-
ness of the south"
Bands of ignorant and criminal men,
known as the night riders, have de-
stroyed some property taken human life
and committed other outrages in Few
of the isolated provinces of kentucky
and Tennessee.
The northern press blames 1t all to-
the "lawlessness of the SOUTH" notwith-
standing that all the official powers OF
those two states, from the governor
down, were promptly invoked to put an
end to the depredations and capture and
punish the guilty.
If a brute of a negro is lynched in,
Mississippi the northern papers shrek
southern lawlessness."
Whenever a crime Of any special public
interest is committed anywhere below
Mason and Dixons line the whole south
is held up as an awful example or pe-
nie-hted. uuregenerate and criminal So
ciety and placarded throughout the north
as the land of the outlaw, where the mop
is sovereign and every native swaggers
about with a six-shooter on hunt for
human target!
The south has been Iibeled and ma
ligned by the northern press long enough
and more columns of editorial rot nave
been published about the 'Iawlessness OF
the south than would be required TO re-
count the degenerate and criminal esca-
pades of 'high society from Pittsburg
north for the last 20 years and that's
saying a heap.
When you recall the shooting down
of Stanford White by Thaw In the very
heart of New York city, the Hains-Annis
tragedy at a swell Long Island resort,
the dynamiting outrages of the Black
Hand in the metropolis of this state,
the anarchist massacre in Chicago, the
butchery at Homestead in Pennsylvania,
the annual wholesale election crimes IN
Manhattan, the slaughter of men, women
and children by motor-mad, law-breaking
northern millionaires and the stupehdous,
unchecked and unpublished crimes of high
finance in which whole communities have
been deliberately and lawlessly looted
as in the New York city traction deals,
YOU should marvel at the patient mod
Grafton of the southern press in not at
least retailating by pointing to the north
as the land where stalks the hideous
spirit Of lawlessness.
There is no such thing as the law
lessness of the south" Criminal charac-
ters are there, but are there none in the
north? Isn't it a fact that there are
streets in the heart Of Chicago where
| ten-fold the danger turks to life and
| property than in the loneliest mountain
maths of the south? And what about
the salacious records of the northern di-
| yorce courts which represent in an In
| estimable degree greater menace to
the country than do the negro lynch
| ers of the south?
The south has problems to deal with
| concerning which nine out OF ten north
| ern editors possess not even primitive
i intelligence. There are districts In the
/ south where the negroes outnumber the
whites 200 to 1 and the back country
| southern negro Is the most ben1ghted
human being on the continent without ex-
| ception. You can go into the black
| belts of any state in the south and flnd
! more inhabitants to a square mile VINO
/ resemble mere animals in their social
| and material activities than you can find
| in the Bronx zoo.
| And yet, taking it all in all throughout
the south the blacks do not produce as
much trouble and lawlessness as do the
criminal and immoral elements in Pitts
burg, Chicago and New York.
THE northern newspapers that, through
/ IGNORANCE or design, persistently seek to
instill in the public mind that there Is