in great numbers.

The dailies and associated press reports heralded these men to the country
as "toughs," and "Negro desperadoes who kept a low dive." This same press
service printed that the Negro who was lynched at Indianola, Miss., in
May, had outraged the sheriff's eight-year-old daughter. The girl was more
than eighteen years old, and was found by her father in this man's room,
who was a servant on the place.

Not content with misrepresenting the race, the mob-spirit was not to be
satisfied until the paper which was doing all it could to counteract this
impression was silenced. The colored people were resenting their bad
treatment in a way to make itself felt, yet gave the mob no excuse for
further murder, until the appearance of the editorial which is construed
as a reflection on the "honor" of the Southern white women. It is not half
so libelous as that of the _Commercial_ which appeared four days before,
and which has been given in these pages. They would have lynched the
manager of the _Free Speech_ for exercising the right of free speech if
they had found him as quickly as they would have hung a rapist, and glad
of the excuse to do so. The owners were ordered not to return, the _Free
Speech_ was suspended with as little compunction as the business of the
"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