Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1880 — A Traveling Man’s Experience in the South—Crime of being a Republican. [ARTICLE]

A Traveling Man’s Experience in the South—Crime of being a Republican.

Cx.kvxi.and, 0., Oct. 18th, 1880. Messrsr Editors Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, N. Y. Gents: My attention has been at traoted by an extensive article and editorial in tbo issue of ths Uniot. and Advertiser of October 16th Aware of the unfairness of Demo cratic sheets in publishing a tirade against political opponents and then refusing thstn the means of de sense through their colums, 1 prefer to ignore that channel entirely, and ask through yonr colums an opportunity to explain my position and the exact truth in the case. 1 went south in the interest o 1 Messrs. 11. H. Warner & Co., sell' ng aud advertising their Safe Kidney and Liver Cure and other reme dies- To say that my impressions of the south and southern people were glowing, and that I antio - 1 pated similar treatment to that I had always received at the north would be to exactly express my feelings before I started. I bad been at the south but a abort time however, when I found the spirit exactly the reverse of what I had expected. Let any man, Mr. Edi. tor, go from the north to any part of the south and express southern sentiments and talk freely and he will be received with open armsbut should he be a Repablioan at heart, and in the strength of bis manhood honestly express his convictions, not only will society ostracise him and business men frown upon him; bat he may consider himself fortunate if he esoapes without an outrage. Such was my misfortune. Instead of adopting a time-serving polioy, I expressed my honest views, and it nearly •oat me my life. .It is true that I wrote the article to a northern paper containing an aoooont of south ern injustice and inhumanity, and i* it also trna “that I.was beset and mobbed for being the author of

that letter. My escape was a for. tdnate one, and dae wholly to my desperation. The statement made by the editor of the Florenen Timet, of Soalh Carolina, that I denied the authorship of the letter npon my beuded' knees, is a malicious and wholly invDented lie, and on a par with the southern spirit to which I have be* lore referred. In the article published in the Union it is asserted that! did not receive rough treatment, aud tnat the southern people uniformly treated traveling man with respect. I should like to know who is best fitted to know abont this—a man who is on the ground and whose body to-day bears the scars which he there received, or men who are more than 1,000 ntilea away, and who have never traveled through the south? I am aware of the bitter partisanship and animosity which exists just at the present time, and that even the slightest things are mag nified for political purposes? but, as an honest man and one who feels bis wrongs, I solemnly aver thst while in the employ of Mr. H. 11. Warner, traveling through the sonth, at two separato and distinot times, I received brutal and uncalled for outrages, the only provocation being that I was a nothern man and expressed northern sentiment. Southern papers aud partisan sheets at the north may de. nounco and vilify me as they choose, but such is the truth, and by this I am willing to abide. W. B. Bell.