Year: 1871

CHICdGO AND IT'D 0UUIns


No clear-sighted observer can have read
the record of the weeks first following
the great Western calamity without feeling
that the effect Of the great outburst Of sym
pathy for the outcasts of Chicago has been
most wholesome and elevating upon the
national temper. We had ll begun to look
at human nature toe. much through the medium
Of Tammany thefts, Ku-Klux Klans, and trials
for adultery and murder. They had almost
put out Of our sight the actual framework OF
social and domestic life, its silent modesties
and pure affections, and the myriad unselish
ties which In real life bind men together.
Only such a disaster as that Of Chicago could
call this hidden ground of humanity to light
in It's most generous work. The country has
had her moments of justifable pride before
now in the display of her strength or wealth
or success in arms; but she was never 90
great as when in the spirit of her Master she
went into the highways and byways and com
PEELED the homeless and destitute to come into
her royal feast, be warmed and clothed and
fed. 1t will need many years OF squabbles
and thefts and International jealousies to blot
out this glimpse of the substratum Of mani-
ness and kndliness in ordinary human nature,
or to make us forget how from every nation
came the quick response when the great city
sat in ashes and cried aloud like Job, Ny
"bone cleaveth to my skin and my flesh. Have
"pity upon me, o ye my friends, for the hand
"Of God hath touched me-"


There is q plain word in connection with
this subject, however, which it seems but
just should be spoken, and that promptly
But little notice, if any, we believe, was OK
cited by the fact that the sympathy or help
proffered by the South was but feeble. 1t
was regarded, if thought of at all, as not
only natural but probable, that this should
be. One or two cities gave munifcently. AS
for the rest, the world knows that the coun-
try is impoverished by the war, and that the
feeling of resentment toward the North still
rankles deep and bitter among the common
people. 1t would have been perhaps too
much to expect from the uneducated South
erner that, in view of this great
disaster, he would forget this resentment
in sympathy for the suffering of his late
enemy. But it certainly Is not expecting
too much from his sense of good taste and
decency to suppose that he would shrink from
using this opportunity to drag to light and
parade any virulence and anger. Our surprise
has been great to find Southern papers of the
baser sort picturing the burned homesteads
and ruined fortunes which the Rebellion left
them, with a scarcely hidden savage exulta-
ton that the Chicagoans have the same bitter
cup to drink Now no journal in the North
has labored with more energy and sincerity
than THE TRIBUNE, since the war closed, to
promote the growth of kindly feeling between
- o,,1 kn
with stronger ties than those OF in
terest or force: we hope our Southern breth-
rem, therefore, will allow us now few plain
words Of warning. We do not propose now
or at any other time to discuss the alleged
atrocities of Sherman's raid, the cruelties OF
Andersonville, or the propriety of Buffers
orders, any more than We shall the whip or
scars of Slavery. The war is over. 1t was
the method chosen by the South to solve GER
tain problems involving the life Of the nation.
We believe that the wisdom Of God or COM
mon sense of man will soon suggest some
other mode of settling national differences.
Brute force is necessarily brutal; the worst
men in wartime find opportunity and scope
to work out their greed and cruelty. But
whatever war is, the South resorted to it of
her own free choice: We believe that her
best men now acknowledge that the
issue was favorable to them; that Slav-
cry was hinderance to them as much
as to the black man; that they stand
higher, have wider chances now, crippled
as they are, as part Of free, live republic,
than as a slave-breeding, slave-importing en-
pire handcuffed with Mexico. Weaker men
and women may not be able to look outside
of their own empty slave-pens or lost crops
to see this. But the weakest man ought to
see the common sense of accepting an inevita-
BILE situation; ought to know that the South
can no more separate her business relations
from the North than the legs can leave the
body without decay. For the sake Of expe-
diency, If for no higher motive, we urge them
not to tamper with their own well-being. The
temper Of the Northern States Is now most
kindly and generous toward them, but an In
suit in the time of misfortune stabs deep. II
no Christian or human feeling, therefore, can
restrain these unreasonable recriminaGons, we
beg for the sake of policy to be silent. Wise
men agree to let the unhsndsome corpses of
Slavery and the war lie, and to raise above
them the profitable front Of new issues


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