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Title
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Word to the People of Tuskaloosa.
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Source Type
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Newspapers
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Publisher
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Alabama State Journal
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Publication Place
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Montgomery, AL
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Publication Date
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05/29/1869
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Transcript
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Word to the People of Tuskaloosa. Some days since the STATE JOURNAL published a report of affairs in Tuskaloosa county. The facts, incidents and thoughts of the article were supplied by gentlemen, who had been upon the spot examined thoroughly into the condition of affairs in that locality. As to the falsity of the statements, we are willing to appeal to the citizens of that community, irrespective of party. The edition of the Monitor seeing this article grows immensely wrath and pours out upon its JOURNAL and its editor a filthy sluice slanderous personal abuse, coupled an avowed threat to "chastise" the editor of the JOURNAL for daring the teachings of his paper. To the Monitor and its pugnacious editor we have no reply to make, other than this. The day for being bullied has passed. Were was a time in the South, when mention men dared not open their mouths fear of the knife, the pistol and the let. It may be so in Tuskaloosa yet, it is not so here in Montgomery. As public journalist we feel it our duty to the incendiary doctrines of every or set of men. We shall discharge of duty. We shall do so kindly, but shall do so fearlessly, and if the Monitor in his cooler moments fit to carry out his threat of vengeance, the task is open for permeance. To the citizens of Tuskaloosa, however, we have something to say. The murders and disorders your community are the legitimate fruits, as we informed, of the lawless and revolutionary doctrines constantly inculpated the Tuskaloosa Monitor. That sheet, conjunction with one or two kindreds, has labored with an industry worthy a better cause to keep alive old Seconal animosities and to defeat every of to tranquilize the public mind. In almost every issue it appeals to the dictate feelings of its readers, and its political opponents the assets personal abuse. It is apparently capable of drawing a distinction been a man's personal and political chraracter, and to differ from the autocrat the Monitor is sufficient to stamp a scoundrel, and to provoke a power of vulgar vituperation. Even Chief Justice Peck has been singled outscurrilous denunciation, when his, his infirm health, and his private, should have shielded him from assault. The county officers have also splashed with mud in the same. Divest the Monitor of its malevolence intolerance, and its sting is gone; it has no pretentions to ability. No one would ever read it, were it not for grossly vituperative articles, and all on of the least tinge of good taste, ever read it without being shocked at brutal assaults on the private characters of men whose only crime is their liation with the Republican party. The editor of the Monitor, as a correspondent of the Mail alleges, may be personally clever enough, but his paper has dispatably done the State a vast deal of harm, and has no doubt injured the of Tuskaloosa itself. Our purpose in this article is not to attempt to reclaim Randolph, (we look on him as incorrigible, and we admits superiority ia vituperation,) but to the attention of the citizens of Tuskaloosa to the inquiry the Monitor is doing them, by its violent and insane course. broad, Tuskaloosa is regarded as the hot-bed of Ku-KIuxism and lawlessness. Men consider it unsafe to settle here. We do not exaggerate in saying that the impression has got abroad that wdyism, bullyism, Ku-Kluxism, and violence flourish in the rankest luxurice in Tuskaloosa, If one is not murdered or robbed, he is vindictively as filed in the Monitor in terms so grossly persuasive as to shock every man of sensibility to reputation. Not many weeks past the Monitor contained several attacks upon Col. Robert mison, Jr., one of the best citizens of the State. Judge Mudd, an estimable gentleman and pure Judge, was also denounced and ridiculed. But the people of Tuskaloosa disclaim responsibility for the insane course of a Monitor, and say all quiet and orderly citizens utterly condemn its teachings. They may use this argument, and yet fatuity is obvious to the obtusest. If the quiet and orderly citizens reprobate the insane and revolution course of the Monitor, they must be very few in number, or very chary in owing their reprobation. They have certainly never demonstrated their reproduction men by an outspoken act. People abroad are warranted in coming to the conclusion, that Monitor reflects the opinions and feelings of the majority of the citizens of Tuskaloosa. They are forced into this conclusion. The paper could not be published were it not for the local patronage it receives, a fact which renders the people there responsible for its insane course, maugre all their disclaimers. We can readily conceive that timid, limber-backed, weak-kneed men, even while condemning the course of the paper would shrink from provoking the wrath of its dirty-mouthed editor, who has shown so little regard for the sacredness of private character. But if they are afraid to do that which they feel to be right, they are estopped from complaining that their city has a bad name abroad. If the people really condemn the course of the Monitor, as they wish to have it believed, they evince an utter lack of moral courage and culpable indifference to the welfare of their city, in continuing to lavish their patronage upon it. It is very certain they could hamstring the print in a month by a consentaneous manifestation of their disapprobation. Perhaps, like the mice in the fable, they want some one else to "bell the cat," and are too timid to move in the matter. If that be so, we trust Prince Ryland will pull the cuticle clean off of them and treat them to a "top dressing" of vitriol as a merited punishment for their lack of moral courage. If they endorse the course of the Monitor, there is something of consistency, though very little common sense, in supporting it; but when men condemn its course, they have no excuse for supplying it the means of being mischievous. We do not mean to intimate that the people of Tuskaloosa must become Republicans, in order to signalize their detestation of the preeminently destructive doctrines of the Monitor. Time and reason must work this most desirable change of opinion and to them we confidently leave the matter. Those who uphold the Monitor virtually admit that Democracy is synonymous with mob violence, lawlessness, Ku-Kluxism and personal slander, that without free use of such contraband weapons, it must soon melt into air - hat it is incapable of being popularized by means of fair and decorous discussion. The Monitor never has advised obedience to the law, never has discouraged lawlessness, never has endeavored to heal the wounds that the war inflicted, but has labored incessantly to stir up the worst passions of its readers, to incite the deeds of violence, to kindle to a white heat the baleful flames of political persecution, and to convert the people into assassins and cut-throats. Is this Democracy? We proposed this most pertinent question to the people of Tuskaloosa. A Democratic paper need not preach up lawlessness and violence. It need not wantonly indulge in wholesale slander and vulgar vituperation of political foes. It may be able, without indecency - pungent, without scurrility, and firm without inciting to deeds of violence. Democratic editors do not seem to think this p___ble, but for all that it can be done. Doubtless the people of Tuskaloosa would like to sea the prico of real estate enhanced in their county - to see population and capital pouring in upon them - to have factories - companies formed to work their coal mines and manufacture the iron embedded in their hills. If such be the feeling that animates them, we tell them they never can see their hopes realized so long as the Monitor is their organ and guide. They must get rid of that incubus and satisfy the world, that life, property and reputation are safe in their county and city. Our remarks are addressed to the citizens of Tuskaloosa, tho we suppose feel some interest in the welfare of their city. Regarding the Monitor as essentially wrong, we have thus spoken of it, without dealing in personal abuse. — IN ANOTHER column of the JOURNAL will be found a communication from D. L. Dalton, Esq., in relation to the recent troubles in Tuskaloosa county, and explanatory of former statements made by himself, as one of the commissioners appointed by the Governor to examine into those troubles. The letter of Mr. D. needs no comment. Suffice it to say that we sincerely hope the good citizens of Tuskaloosa county are now awakened to a sense of the duty which they owe the State, no less than to themselves. Lawlessness must be put down, and we are glad to know that the State authorities intend doing it - “peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must.”
