Politics of AlabamaManning, Joseph C. (Joseph Columbus)
History
Politics of Alabama
Manning, Joseph C. (Joseph Columbus)
Alabama -- Politics and government
It is the most idle and hollow mockery for any writer or any newspaper
to attempt to repudiate the rightful accusation, so long made, that the
Democratic party in the South is responsible for the campaign intolerance
that is practiced in this section. These outbursts of violence in the
South and in Alabama are but the spasmodic ventings of an overwrought
public sentiment that has been instilled and tutored by the press and
leaders of that party ever since the war. In reality, not half has been
told of the attempts at stifling free speech in Alabama.
Although the entire record of the "Bourbon" element is indeed unenviable
and astonishing, yet, never before in the history of Southern Democratic
campaign ruffianism had this spirit reached the height of deviltry
displayed during 1892, in Alabama. With organized rabbles at their back,
and partisan courts at their faces, political bullies openly boasted of
their lawlessness and engaged in their dastardly outrages defiant to
morality, honesty, conscience or prosecution.
During the last weeks of the Kolb-Jones campaign this barbaric nature
was beginning to be fully drawn out; the most cowardly demonstration of
its existence having first been made at Florence, Ala., where the writer
was attacked at midnight, July 27, by a mob that had assembled at the
depot to do him violence upon his departure from the town. The mob, as
was stated by dispatches published in the Democratic press, consisted of
"fifty enraged citizens." The riotous crowd was incited and collected by
partisans, for no other than a political cause; and had it not been that
the writer succeeded in reaching the platform of the car unobserved, no
doubt but that he would have been egged, stoned, or shot to death. The
lights had been extinguished in the depot, which is located in a desolate
part of the town, and every other arrangement was seemingly made for the
doing of a dark and bloody deed. These villainous plans proved, however,
to be advantageous to the writer, who escaped a brutally-designed
assassination by getting on the platform of the car before the shower of
missiles had commenced. The writer's hat suffered ruin from the
"indignation," and a Memphis & Charleston car was turned into the shops
spattered and battered. Herewith is given a letter, referring to the
Florence incident, and as its author is one of Alabama's most eminent
ministers, this document will prove valuable literature:
"Study of L. F. WHITTEN,
Pastor M. E. Church, South.
JASPER, Ala., Aug. 1, 1892.
"My dear Brother Manning:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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