Year: 1872

|
mors OF disorders aud I<u l<lux out
RACES. These rulnors will not be so fire.
quent as they would have been, had
Congress adopted the Presidents pet
scheme of buying up the telegraph
lines, and putting them under the man
agclnent of the Postofiice Department !;
but even in private hands the telegraph
is not infalliblc; operators and reporters
are subject to like passions with other
men; and the desire for a startling item,
which is constant in the reporters
bosom, will help the manufacturers of
spurious news.


For months past the common testi-
mony of all has declared the South as
peaceful as Massachusetts. The I<u
KluN organization is known to have
been entirely abandoned. Southern
men are doing all in their power to
secure it. On all accounts we welcome
the purpose and the practice. But do
they realize how important it is that
they should be on their guard, and con-
duct themselves during the canvass
with uncommon prudence? There will
not be wanting base persons, ready and
eager to inflamc the old wounds, to
bring on collisions between tho whites
and blacks, or between Republicans and
Democrats, and they may be certain
that from now until next November
every affair of tisticutls in any Southern
State will be magnitied by the Grant
papers into n new Rebellion, and every
murder or wounding made to appear to
the Northern public as another * u
KluX outrage. If Il negro laborer is
discharged, some one will be found to
represent this as II prescription for
principles sake; and we do not doubt
that before three weeks are over, the
Grant press will tccm daily with re-
ports Of murdcrous l<u klux assassinu-
tions, and Il desperate attempt will be
made to alarm the Northern voters,
by pictures Of disorder and lawlessness
in the South. The truth is, Il good,
square, atrocious piece of lawlessness
and violence in the South would Just
now be a god-send to the Grant party.
Ifthey could prove within the next two
months that half u dozen negroes had
been burned at the stal. in Alabama
and that number of white women
ana children had attended the incrc-
nation and waved Confederate flags
over the flames, Grants fuglelnen
would at once .sthank God, and take
courage They are just now Il little
blue and dlshcartened, and stand badly
in need of something Of this kind, for
they have no arguments to offer.


We trust Southern Democrats will
give no occasion for evil reports. 1t is
their duty, as citizens Of a free country,
and as the more influential citizens OF
their States, not merely to keep the
peace themselves, but to see that it is
kept. They have a right freely to vote
themselves, and it is their duty to see
that their opponents freely exercise the
same right. They havea right peace
fully to discuss the political questions
at issue in the campaign; ; and we can
not but believe that they can present to
their own people so forcible case as to
carry with them the greater part of the
independent voters in their States. But
their opponents have the same right of
peaceable discussion and wherever
roWdies or evil disposed persons may
attempt to Interfere with this right,
Southern Democrats ought to be the
first and most conspicuous to interpose
their protecting arm.


There is but one thing, as we believe.
that can re-clcct Grant, and that is Il
new out break of violence in the South
ern States; or, what would answer the
same purpose, plausible false reports of
violence in the South as would thor
oughly annoy the Northern mind. The
Grant leaders and managers arc every
where talking about "the Rebellion."
That is their political stock in trade.
They appeal to tn" Union sentiment" ;"
They curry favor with the uUniOn
soldiers" as though these had not,
seven years ago, become citizens they
are doing their best to preach up 4 new
crusade against the South. 1T belongs
to Southern Democrats TO defeat this
atrocious and unpatriotic plot, and the
way to do it is to maintain-.,s they
can-cNcn better order in the South
than is observed in the North And
for the rest, when a lie is reported, let
it be at once fully and authoritatively
proved to be Il lie. That can and ought
to be done.


81 keep the best bread" said IL ccr-
tain baker TO poor fellow who com
planned of the inferior quality of the
article he had purchased Of him the day
before. 81 don't doubt it" replied the
customer. "Thcn why do you COM