Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-05-24
OLIVE REPLIES To
DORSEY AND PASTOR


DR.. M. Ashby Jones, pastor of the
Ponce de Leon Avenue Baptist
church, for their positions relative to
alleged peonage in Georgia, Samuel
L. Olive, of Augusta. president of
the Georgia senate, Monday sent the
following card to The Journal:
Editor The Journal:
when Governor Dorsey courteous
| ly, but evasively, replied to my re-
quest for specific charges and wit
nesses against our state, l felt that
had do my duty, and my part in
the matter was at an end. I have
refused to speak at meetings called
to consider action against the gov
ernor.
Under the heading: Text and
IPretext' DR.. M. Ashby Jones has at
tackled me in a vituperative manner
| in a part of his article. Five years
ago, this gentleman misused his pull
pit by making a political speech
there, in the midst of a campaign.
He attacked the Georgia legislature
for passing the Veazey bill, when
ton. Since that time the doctor
and l have had nothing in common.
His article will be better under
stood in the light of this statement.
| 1.-THE doctor says that I am UNI
| fit to defend Georgia. That may be
all too true, but 1 am none the less
willing to try to answer any man
says that 1 was almost guilty of
'wilful misunderstanding and dis
tortion of the truth when l charg-
ed Governor Dorsey with attacking
the state of Georgia. That part of
the doctors article was evidently
written for children to read, since no
sensible man or woman now serious
ly contends that Georgia is not un-
der fire, superinduced by the COVER
| nor'S attack.
Dropped Title
'The doctor and the governor
seem to have dropped the original
title of the crusade, which was:
Governor Dorsey's report on peonage
conditions When the proper United
States attorney asked for the evil
dence there was none to give.
| "The doctor and the governor
seem to have abandoned the charge
that negroes are held in slavery in
of truth in the charge The doctor
raves about people objecting to
printing the facts Facts are what
we have been trying to get all along.
If the doctor and the governor have
guilty parties. our courts will pun
ieI
charges our people will d1sproVe
them.
when no substantive fact has
been forthcoming after repeated de-
mands, the doctor falls back solely
on the question of lynching.
'Recorus OF generation, or longer
have been combed to get all possible
material, for the arraignment OF
Georgia. The doctor does not men
ton a single cause for a single lynch
ing. They are presented as though no
crime preceded them. should a list of
these crimes be written, it would
shock the world. Lynching is bad
enough in any form; but to color the
account with seeming lack of provo
cation of any kiad Is unfair.
AT present the doctor and the gov
ernor are out of court for lack of evil
dence On all save the lynching
charges. l do not believe the hidden
letters are from people of good char
acter, in the main. l venture the as
sertion that ex-convicts and present
criminals wrote many of those pre-
ciQus epistles, so carefully concealed.
They concern all the people Of Geor-
gia, and should be given to all the
people. Georgia needs no guardian,
ship.
oglethorpe Dispute
1.-THE doctor says that without in
vestigation l jumped to the convlu-
sion that Oglethorpe county was
meant, when it was not meant. The
doctor forgets, or will not see, that
charges till the governor states the
guilty ones. had to guess. That is
the only privilege given to people
who are anxious to have the truth.
1 do know a negro was burned in
Oglethorpe county. He outraged the
mother of a baby three weeks old
in the presence of her other little
one and then murdered the mother by
splitting her skull with hoe, to de-
stroy the evidence against him. The
governor and the doctor somehow or
other do not seem to relish this case
as good material against Georgia. L
did write these words which the doc
tor says reveal me as unfit to de-
fend Georgia, to-wit: L defy the gov
ernor to designate community in
America not a city, where summary
justice would not be administered in
a similar case If that tribute to
American manhood was a defense of
lynching, let the doctor make the
most of it,
1.-The charge that Georgia is cruel
to negroes in general is a deliberate
falsehood, and a SANDER on the good
name of the state. There are in
stances where negroes have been
maltreated, just as white people have
been maltreated in states where the
population is largely white. Oppres-
sion is not a race uestion. 1t is as
old as history.
"The negro is treated and under
stood better right here in the south
than anywhere else in the country.