Year: 1874




us and these half savage negroes. will
add here that not one of the white Re-
, publicans here have any word of apology
for these negroes, but, on the contrary,
all are with the whites in this trying time.
Never were our people united as now.
Party lines are broken down and all
bound together by a feeling of common
; danger and common interest. MAA.
i Mark the second paragraph above ::
"The majority of our people have no
words to condemn them No words to
condemn the shooting down OF sixteen
prisoners, whose hands were tied, and
who had not harmed white man IN the
slightest degree! My God, what senti-
ment! Well may the memphis Avalaache
| put the question stAre we civihzedY


"Let such people go North, says the
writer of this account; that is such as
/ condemn lynch law in its most cruel and
unjustifable features. You may be GER
tain that thousands of anxious eyes are
turned upon Gibson county, and if those
murderers are not punished, more peo-
pie will go North and stay, there than
will be good for Tennessee.


Sleeping upon mine, yet not white
man has been injured in the slightest de-
gree, either in person or property, and
they outnumber the negroes nearly three
1 w SiACs 4Oup AdfO 4-O 1870 AO~ Vim
| ment. The reference in the closing par
agraph to the white Republicans is redic-
ulous. l want every reader to go through
this account carefully, and note every
word that this man could say in justifica-
tion of the cruel murder of sixteen un-
armed and bound prisoners. 1t is terri
BILE beyond power of words to express.
l drop my pen and pace the floor in ag-
ony ofspirit that there should be those
of my own race in my adopted State to
justify this cruel, barbarous, inhuman,
savage, cold-blooded, beastly, brutal
butchery


Tennessee Will stand or fall by the re-
suit of the Gibson county investigation.
If the murderers are arrested for muir
der, tried for murder, convicted for muir
der and hung for murder, the public will
believe that the resolutions of condem-
nation adopted at public meetings and
the protests of the press are sincere, and
that the laws of Tennessee are strong
enough to protect the weak and punish
the guilty. On the other hand, if such
wholesale murder can be committed and
ne one punished, the law is failure, the
weak can not be protected and all the
emigration that Tennessee will get can
be put into an omnibus So far from
people moving in here, many who can
get away will leave Particularly will
West Tenn essee be avoided. That there
is a single county in that section which
can send out seYenty-five murderers in a
night, and savage, cowardly murderers at
that. and their acts be justified by any
portion of their fellow-citizens, is strong
inducement for law-abiding, peace-loYing
people to go in an opposite direction.


CONCLUSION


Lest wrong inference be drawn, | will
state that of the eight murders in Sum-
ner county, since January, none were on
account of color. or politics that l know
of They were the natural outgrowth of
an unhealthy public sentiment and lax
administration of law.-I know of no in
stance of murder or outrage in that
county on account of politics or color.
| state this to prevent the bloody record
being turned to political account Of
the twelve murders in Rathford, two of
them certainly were negroes, murdered
in cold blood by masked men. The
others were personal difficulties, of one
sort and another, from causes operating
in an alarming degree all over the West
and Middle Tennessee. 1t is but Justice
to say that there is very much less crime
in Cast Tennessee, and the laws are bet
ter enforced than in the other two divis-
ions of the State. There is not and
never -uaS U00u huhluX organization
there, and l can not now recall single
instance of lynehing.


Of the nineteen murders In Gibson
county nearly all were colored men-all
but one, certainly. This gives thirty
nine murders, in three counties since
January. What a terrible record.


H. v. r.


BABY TYRANTs.-Here is picture true
to life, from the Oneida CTrcular When
will mothers learn how to train their
babies


"a traveller from Oneida has often a
story to tell on his return home On his
last trip there was a handsome, we'll
dressed young woman in the cars who
had in her arms an infant, not old
enough to walk, but quite old enough to
be tyrant The little fellow had the
complete mastery of his mother and ex-
ercised his tyranny continually. He
made her walkAthe car with him until