The Washington bee., 1910-09-10
it will be for him. The Negro
pulpit Will not do itself and it
abuses others who are doing. We
want no more Ross.
THE TEXAS RACE RIOT.
What the Leading Newspapers Had
to Say On 1t.

.
las recently occurred near Palestine,
| Texas. suggests the Rochester Demo-
Crat and Chronicle, would be for the
| Powers Of Europe to unite III an en-
phatic protest to Washington against
! the lynchings, burnings, and massa-
cres OF innocent people which are
| taking place in some parts of this
| country Although the press dis
patches telling of this particular out
| break are very meageT and conflicting
| as to details, II seems that at least
| score OF Negroes have been killed by
a band of armed whites. While the
earlier accounts told of a pitched bar
| tie between the two races, with many
casualties on both sides, according to
later accounts furnished by the As
| soCiated Press, 1t was not race war,
but Just murder To quote from
the news columns of the New York
| Sun.
The slaughter of the Negroes was
not the result of any race war, al
though the feeling which the whole
sale killing engendered threatened for
time to cause an uprising on the
part OF the Negroes of the two COM
munities
"Mobs of white men started out
early Friday night and rode from
cabin to cabin calling out the Negroes
who had been marked for the slaugh-
ter and shot them down in their
tracks. This W )rk continued all Fri
day night, and with the dawning of
new day the lust of the mObs for
blood seemed 10 increase
Negroes were shot and killed upon
the highways and in the fields where
they were working, despite the pray
ers they made that their lives be
spared.
while twenty dead bodies of VIC
TINS have been found scattered along
| the roads and over the country, it
may never be definitely known how
many more Negroes were murdered
in Out-Of-the-Way places where their
bodies may never be found.
SO far as learned the Negroes who
were killed offered no resistance to
the mob.
The wholesale slaughter OF Ne
groes was brought about by the re-
port that reached the ears of white
men of the Slocum community that
secret meetings of the blacks had been
held at which plans were formulated
for burning the barns and residences
of certain white citizens
According to other stories, the
trouble originated in a quarrel be-
tween a white man and a Negro who
failed to pay a note indOrsed by the
former
The Texas authorities are given full
credit for taking prompt measures to
suppress the outbreak, and to find and
punish the guilty whites. Sheriff
Black, of Anderson County, where the
slaughter occurred, is reported as max
ing this statement:
Il found he greatest excitement
Men were killing Negroes as fast as
they could find them, and so far as |
have been able to ascertain without
any real cause. These Negroes have
never done anything that | could dis
cover. There was just hOt-headed
gang hunting them down and killing
them.
I'VE found eleven dead bodies, but
from what | have heard the dead must
number fifteen or twenty We came
across four bodies in one house on
a marsh between benson Springs and
SlOCum
"One Negro had been killed at this
house the night before, and three were
sitting up with the remains, one of
them being old and white-haired
These three were killed right where
they were. SO far as | can learn the
Negroes were not armed
4 sent two deputies out through
that country to collect all the arms
they could find in the houses of Ne
grOes. They made a thorough search,
but found only nine single-barreled
shOtguns. none of which seemed to
have been fired lately, and about
thirty shells, all loaded with small
shot
I'VE found two negroes in the road
that had been shot about 10 o'clock
the night before last. 1t was evident
that at the time they were killed they
were trying TO get out of the country,
for they had their bundles of clothes
with them"
This story is indeed "a pitiful one"
says the New Orleans Times-Demo-
crat, and puts the slaughter in a very
bad light" and it adds
White supremacy is in danger no
where in Texas, so far as we have
been informed, and at this distance we
know of no other cause adequate to
condone the horrible slaughter which
IS reported
Other Southern papers speak as
strongly, the Richmond Times-Dis-
patch characterizing this brutal
butchery of innocents" as a "reproach
to the State and an offense to human
ity.' And in Texas the Houston
Chronicle cries out against such "in-
discriminate butchery of Negroes be-
cause of some crime committed by an
individual member of the race"
1T would puzzle Satan to find a
satisfactory excuse for such an out
break With all the faults
of the individuals the Negro race is.
not bad race. Fidelity, loyalty, and
courage are not uncommon traits.
And the Negro is the satellite of the
white man You could not drive him
away from the white man, in whose
shadow he hourishes, and the white
race IS not yet ready to dispense with
the Negro; certainly it can not afford