The Caucasian

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?

In the year 1886 there was, in this country, an awful culmination to the efforts of certain men to inflame the fierce and lawless emotions of other men. This happened at Chicago on May 4th, 1886. Wild alarums and incendiary circulars and speeches were circulated and made with such effect that the most ferocious passions of men were aroused to tempestuous madness and fury. Bombs were thrown and exploded. Many officers of law and peace were killed. The wildest consternation and terror reigned in the great city. Men who incited this terrible occurrence were arrested, and for inciting and causing it (not for actually participating in it) were imprisoned and hanged. And the law-abiding people of the land approved the sentences of both imprisonment and death.

Just now the minds of the people of this section of country are strained and almost distraught with efforts to remedy existing evils. All effort is attended with calm and dispassion. A solution is being sought quietly and peaceably. But the tension is great, and patience is near its limit. If that be passed, who can tell the consequences. This is no time for attempting to arouse prejudices and passions. An attempt might be too successful—no matter from whence it comes nor by whom it is made. It will be criminal—it will simply be brutal to make it; for if it should be successful many others might suffer besides those who make it.

Now read the Democratic circular elsewhere. Does any man of any sort of sense need to have its import explained to him? Is not its purpose plain and glaring? If the clearly apparent, seditious policy of that circular be persisted in, and should result in disturbance, riot and something worse, would there be any less reason for dealing with the desperate and anarchistic spirit which prompted it than existed in the case of the Chicago anarchists?

What is the purpose of this move? Does it deal with any vital question of the day? Certainly it cannot: for the least intelligent individual who has any intelligence at all knows that there can never be any negro supremacy where the Anglo-Saxon lives, and even the most ignorant negroes accept this as a fact until they are inflamed to furious resentment and blind madness. Does it deal with the question of finance or economic policy of any kind? No. It is a rotten, mean, contemptible plan to accomplish something by appealing to the lowest and worst characteristics which can afflict mankind, instead of appealing to their calm pure, deliberate honesty: reason and sober judgment.

Now, here is a question, asked with If the course foreshadowed by this circular is adhered to, and it should result in dire commotion and disaster, would not those who organized and promoted it have as clear a right to the bars and gallows as did the Chicago anarchists?

What is the difference?