Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 291, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1912 — CITY RECALLS DEATH [ARTICLE]

CITY RECALLS DEATH

Killing of Editor Occurred at Alton, 111., 75 Years Ago. Incident of Long Ago Had Direct Bearing on Civil War, Which Followed It After Twenty-Five Years. , v Alton, Ill.—Seventy-five years ago there occurred In this city an event which, with the single exception of the John Brown raid, was probably the most sensational feature of the long struggling over the slavery question that preceded the Civil war. This was the mobbing and destruction of an anti-slavery paper and the murder of its editor, Elijah P. Lovejoy. Although It occurred twenty-five years before the war, it contributed in a marked degree to that culmination. Elijah P. Lovejoy was of an ardently pious nature, and hiß advocacy of the causePfor which he perished took the form of extremely violent attacks on the Institution of slavery, and all who directly or indirectly helped to favor and perpetuate it In 1826 Lovejoy, then a young man of twenty-four, came from his home in Maine to St Louis, where he established a school and became an industrious contributor to the . press. Several years later he took an active interest in politics and became the editor of a political newspaper which advocated the election of Henry Clay for the presidency. Although he was unsuccessful In his campaign he earned The reputation and influence of a political leader, but in three years more he became possessed of so much religious zeal that he determined to entier the ministry, and he was licensed to preach in 1833. As editor of the Observer, a religious paper published In SL Louis, Lovejoy began his most ardent advocacy of abolition. Before long he had become so violent in his agitation that a letter was sent to him signed by some of the most respected citizens of St. Loulb which requested him to moderate the tone of his editorial utterances with regard to slavery. Lovejoy replied to this letter in a statement in his paper which did not tend to conciliate his opponents. After this he was threatened with violence so determinedly that he decid-

ed to remove from St. Louis, and In 1836 he came to Alton, which was to be the scene of his death The citizens of Alton threatened him without result, and then mobs destroyed his press. As often as they wrecked one he replaced it, until three presses had been destroyed and a fourth one was ordered. The night after It was reoelved a mob attacked the building. Lovejoy was there with some friends, and in the fight that followed one of the attacking party waß killed. When the mob then undertook to fire the building Lovejoy was one of three volunteers to make a sortie. As soon as he got outside he was assailed with a storm of bullets and fell dead. The tragic death of Lovejoy created a profound Impression throughout the country and an outburst of condemnation from the press. At a mass meeting held in Faneuil hall, Boston, Wendell Phillips made his first public addresß. It was a speech that immediately made him famous, and from that great meeting dated his tremendous oratorical efforts against slgvery-