"People's Grocery" broken up and the proprietors murdered.

5 _The_ SOUTH'S POSITION

Henry W. Grady in his well-remembered speeches in New England and New York
pictured the Afro-American as incapable of self-government. Through him
and other leading men the cry of the South to the country has been "Hands
off! Leave us to solve our problem." To the Afro-American the South says,
"the white man must and will rule." There is little difference between the
Antebellum South and the New South.

Her white citizens are wedded to any method however revolting, any measure
however extreme, for the subjugation of the young manhood of the race.
They have cheated him out of his ballot, deprived him of civil rights or
redress therefor in the civil courts, robbed him of the fruits of his
labor, and are still murdering, burning and lynching him.

The result is a growing disregard of human life. Lynch law has spread its
insiduous influence till men in New York State, Pennsylvania and on the
free Western plains feel they can take the law in their own hands with
impunity, especially where an Afro-American is concerned. The South is
brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very
foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled.

Public sentiment has had a slight "reaction" though not sufficient to stop
the crusade of lawlessness and lynching. The spirit of christianity of the
great M.E. Church was aroused to the frequent and revolting crimes against
a weak people, enough to pass strong condemnatory resolutions at its
General Conference in Omaha last May. The spirit of justice of the grand
old party asserted itself sufficiently to secure a denunciation of the
wrongs, and a feeble declaration of the belief in human rights in the
Republican platform at Minneapolis, June 7. Some of the great dailies and
weeklies have swung into line declaring that lynch law must go. The
President of the United States issued a proclamation that it be not
tolerated in the territories over which he has jurisdiction. Governor
Northern and Chief Justice Bleckley of Georgia have proclaimed against it.
The citizens of Chattanooga, Tenn., have set a worthy example in that they
not only condemn lynch law, but her public men demanded a trial for Weems,
the accused rapist, and guarded him while the trial was in progress. The
trial only lasted ten minutes, and Weems chose to plead guilty and accept
twenty-one years sentence, than