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The Ypsilantian On The Race Question

The Ypsilantian On The Race Question image
Parent Issue
Day
15
Month
July
Year
1892
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The extract given below is from the Ypsilantian - not from a Southern paper, mind you. That paper, which now says that any person would be rendering a public service to shoot down such a ravening beast as Griffin, has been one of the very foremost in denouncing "Southern outrages." Why its different tone at home? What difference between shooting down a negro and lynching one? We are commenting upon the language used by the Ypsilantian and not upon the action of officer Eaton, who was justified in preventing the escape of his man, but who would not have been justified in shooting him down as a ravening beast. The Ypsilantian says: In the face of all this accumulated evidence, the Rev. Mr. Davis professes to believe that Griffin was a presumably innocent man, that he was pursued and shot down because he was a negro, and that the shooting was needless for his capture. It is difficult to see how Mr. Davis can believe any such thing, or how he can justify to his own conscience the exciting or encouraging of such ideas in' the minds of his people. It is difficult to see how he can help knowing that the creature Griffin was a ravening beast, whom any person would be rendering a ,public service to shoot down as a mad dog would be shot down. No woman was safe here, undefended, even in her own house, while he lived; and yet this preacher, who is sent here to look after the welfare of that church, is leading his people to contribute their money and enlist their sympathies in behalf of a brute like that, and to array themselves in an attitude which proclaims tothecommunity that any such charge against a negro will be met as an attack upon their race, and the cause of every such villain will be made their cause. The Rev. Mr. Davis is doing his people, his church and himself a sorry service in this, and Mr. Straker is doing them a sorry service to give his encouragement as alawyerto the prosecution of so frivolous and groundless a charge. They will discover that this entire community, and all the regiĆ³n round about, feel that Officer Eaton earned their thanks and their support vhen he put an end to the beastly ravening of that monstrous creature.

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News