It is useless to argue the guilt or innocence of James Tillman; but we all know that human nature is prejudiced by political feeling; and none will deny that the feud between Tillman and Gonzales was a political feud. The killing was a political killing. In a case like that the action of court and jury will be influenced by political feeling, whether the result be right or wrong. Has Albert Bushnell Hart never heard of a political feud in any other part of the world than the South, and has he never known political feeling to protect one who was prosecuted for a crime? Has he never known of instances in Northern cities where prisoners at the Bar apparently owed their salvation to _secret societies_ of any sort—or _to political pull_ of any sort? It has not been so very long since Edward S. Stokes met James Fisk on the staircase, in the Grand Central Hotel, in New York City, _and shot him down_. One might think this amounted to about the same thing as the shooting down of a personal enemy on the street. Fisk died, as Gonzales died. Stokes was tried, as Tillman was tried. Stokes was not hanged in New York any more than Tillman was hanged in South Carolina. Will Dr. Hart please furnish an explanation which will not fit the South Carolina case as snugly as it fits the New York case? * * * * * Professor Hart asks, “Why should the Northern people believe that the South means well by the negro when such a man as Governor Vardaman, of Mississippi, brutally threatens him and his white friends in the North?” _When and where has Governor James K. Vardaman “brutally threatened the negro and his Northern friends”?_ Governor Vardaman, not many days ago, _risked his political life_, to say nothing of personal danger, _to protect a negro from a white mob_. Perhaps every white man in the mob had voted for Vardaman, and was his personal and political friend; yet, although it was generally believed that the negro was guilty of a heinous offense, this Governor, who has been singled out for abuse, did not hesitate one moment to jeopardize his whole political future by throwing around the hunted negro the official protection of the law. No matter how much Governor Vardaman may be mistaken in some of his views, and some of his utterances, no man ought now to deny that he possesses personal and political courage, or that his respect for law is of that high character which proclaims, “_The color of a man’s skin shall not be the measure of his legal rights_.” * * * * * Furthermore, Dr. Hart says, “in one respect the poor whites are terrible teachers to the negroes; they are an ungovernable people and _do not allow themselves to be punished for such peccadillos as murder_.” O Mr. Professor of History at Harvard! has your blind passion against the South lost you to all sense of proportion in the making of public statements?