Thus it may be said without exaggeration that by striving to keep up in the Southern States a condition of things which cannot fail to bring forth constant irritation and unrest; which threatens to burden the South with an other “peculiar institution” by making the bulk of its laboring force again a clog to progressive development—and to put the South once more in a position provokingly offensive to the moral sense and the enlightened spirit of the world outside—the reactionists are the worst enemies the Southern people have to fear.
As to the outlook, there are signs pointing in different ways. The applause called forth by such virulent pronouncements as those by Governor Vardaman, and the growls with which some Southern newspapers and agitators receive the united efforts of high-minded Southern and Northern men to advance education in the Southern States among both races, as well as the political appeals made to a reckless race-prejudice, are evidence that the reactionary spirit is a strong power with many Southern people. How far that spirit may go in its practical ventures was shown in the Alabama peonage cases, which disclosed a degree of unscrupulous greed, and an atrocious disregard of the most elementary principles of justice and humanity. And what has been proven creates the apprehension that there is still more of the same kind behind.
On the other hand, the fact that the united efforts for education in the South, which I mentioned, are heartily and effectively supported not only by a large number of Southern men of high standing in society, but by some in important political office in the Southern States, and by a large portion of the Southern press; and the further facts that the crimes committed in the peonages cases were disclosed by Southern officers of the law, that the indictments were found by Southern grand juries, that verdicts of guilty were pronounced by Southern petit juries, that
