“Word to the People of Tuskaloosa.”

Word to the People of Tuskaloosa. Some days since the STATE JOURNAL published a report of affairs in Tuskaloosa county. The facts, incidents and ___ughts of the article were supplied by gentlemen, who had been upon the spot___ examined thoroughly into the condition of affairs in that locality. As to the ___ or falsity of the statements, we are ___ling to appeal to the citizens of that ___munity, irrespective of party. The ed___ of the Monitor seeing this article grows ____mensely wrathy and pours out upon ____ JOURNAL and its editor a filthy sluice ____ slanderous personal abuse, coupled ___ an avowed threat to “chastise” the ___tor of the JOURNAL for daring to re-___ the teachings of his paper. To the Monitor and its pugnacious editor we ___ no reply to make, other than this. ___e day for being bullied has passed. ___ere was a time in the South, when ___ion men dared not open their mouths ___ fear of the knife, the pistol and the ___let. It may be so in Tuskaloosa yet, ___ it is not so here in Montgomery. As ___ublic journalist we feel it our duty to ___nke the incendiary doctrines of every ___n or set of men. We shall discharge ___ duty. We shall do so kindly, but ___ shall do so fearlessly, and if the cdi-____ of the Monitor in his cooler moments fit to carry out his threat of per-___ vengeance, the task is open for per___mance. To the citizens of Tuskaloosa, however, we have something to say. The ___ murders and disorders m your ___nty are the legitimate fruits, as we ___ informed, of the lawless and revolutionary doctrines constantly inculeated ___ the Tuskaloosa Monitor. That sheet, ___ conjunction with one or two kindred ___s, has labored with an industry worthy ____a better cause to keep alive old sec___nal animosities and to defeat every of___t to tranquilize the public mind. ___in almost every issue it appeals to the ___dictive feelings of its readers, and ___als its political opponents with the ___ssest personal abuse. It is apparently capable of drawing a distinction be___een a man’s personal and political chraracter, and to differ from the autocrat ___ the Monitor is sufficient to stamp a ___ a scoundrel, and to provoke a power of vulgar vituperation. Even Chief Justice Peck has been singled out ___ scurrilous denunciation, when his ___e, his infirm health, and his private ___rth, should have shielded him from ___ault. The county officers have also ___en splashed with mud in the same ___yle. Divest the Monitor of its malevolence ___d intolerance, and its sting is gone; ___ it has no pretentions to ability. No ___e would ever read it, were it not for grossly vituperative articles, and all ___n of the least tinge of good taste, ___ver read it without being shocked at ___ brutal assaults on the private characters of men whose only crime is their ___liation with the Republican party. The editor of the Monitor, as a correspondent of the Mail alleges, may be personally clever enough, but his paper has dispatably done the State a vast deal of harm, and has no doubt injured the ___y of Tuskaloosa itself. Our purpose in this article is not to attempt to reclaim Randolph, (we look ___on him as incorrigible, and we admit ___s superiority ia vituperation,) but to ___ll the attention of the citizens of Tuskaloosa to the inquiry the Monitor is doing them, by its violent and insane course. ___broad, Tuskaloosa is regarded as the ___ry hot-bed of Ku-KIuxism and lawlessness. Men consider it unsafe to settle here. We do not exaggerate in saying that the impression has got abroad that ___wdyism, bullyism, Ku-Kluxism, and violence flourish in the rankest luxuri___ce in Tuskaloosa, If one is not murdered or robbed, he is vindictively as___filed in the Monitor in terms so grossly persuasive as to shock every man of sensibility to reputation. Not many weeks past the Monitor contained several attacks upon Col. Robert ___mison, Jr., one of the best citizens of the State. Judge Mudd, an estimable gentleman and pure Judge, was also denounced and ridiculed. But the people of Tuskaloosa disclaim responsibility for the insane course of a Monitor, and say all quiet and orderly citizens utterly condemn its teachings. They may use this argument, and yet ___s fatuity is obvious to the obtusest ___ind. If the quiet and orderly citizens ___ reprobate the insane and revoltutiona___ course of the Monitor, they must be ___ry few in number, or very chary in ___owing their reprobation. They have certainly never demonstrated this reproduction men by an outspoken act. People abroad are warranted in com___g to the conclusion, that Monitor reflects the opinions and feelings of the majority of the citizens of Tuskaloosa. They are forced into this conclusion. The paper could not be published were it not for the local patronage it receives, a fact which renders the people there responsible for its insane course, maugre all their disclaimers. We can readily conceive that timid, limber-backed, weak-kneed men, even while condemning the course of the paper would shrink from provoking the wrath of its dirty-mouthed editor, who has shown so little regard for the sacredness of private character. But if they are afraid to do that which they feel to be right, they are estopped from complaining that their city has a bad name abroad. If the people really condemn the course of the Monitor, as they wish to have it believed, they evince an utter lack of moral courage and culpable indifference to the welfare of their city, in continuing to lavish their patronage upon it. It is very certain they could hamstring the print in a month by a consentaneous manifestation of their disapprobation. Perhaps, like the mice in the fable, they want some one else to “bell the cat,” and are too timid to move in the matter. If that be so, we trust Prince Ryland will pull the cuticle clean off of them and treat them to a “top dressing” of vitriol as a merited punishment for their lack of moral courage. If they endorse the course of the Monitor, there is something of consistency, though very little common sense, in supporting it; but when men condemn its course, they have no excuse for supplying it the means of being mischievous. We do not mean to intimate that the people of Tuskaloosa must become Republicans, in order to signalize their detestation of the preeminently destructive doctrines of the Monitor. Time and reason must work this most desirable change of opinion and to them we confidently leave the matter. Those who uphold the Monitor virtually admit that Democracy is synonymous with mob violence, lawlessness, Ku-Kluxism and personal slander, that without free use of such contraband weapons, it must soon melt into air – hat it is incapable of being popularized by means of fair and decorous discussion. The Monitor never has advised obedience to the law, never has discouraged lawlessness, never has endeavored to heal the wounds that the war inflicted, but has labored incessantly to stir up the worst passions of its readers, to incite the deeds of violence, to kindle to a white heat the baleful flames of political persecution, and to convert the people into assassins and cut-throats. Is this Democracy? We proposed this most pertinent question to the people of Tuskaloosa. A Democratic paper need not preach up lawlessness and violence. It need not wantonly indulge in wholesale slander and vulgar vituperation of political foes. It may be able, without indecency – pungent, without scurrility, and firm without inciting to deeds of violence. Democratic editors do not seem to think this p___ble, but for all that it can be done. Doubtless the people of Tuskaloosa would like to sea the prico of real estate enhanced in their county – to see population and capital pouring in upon them – to have factories – companies formed to work their coal mines and manufacture the iron embedded in their hills. If such be the feeling that animates them, we tell them they never can see their hopes realized so long as the Monitor is their organ and guide. They must get rid of that incubus and satisfy the world, that life, property and reputation are safe in their county and city. Our remarks are addressed to the citizens of Tuskaloosa, tho we suppose feel some interest in the welfare of their city. Regarding the Monitor as essentially wrong, we have thus spoken of it, without dealing in personal abuse. — IN ANOTHER column of the JOURNAL will be found a communication from D. L. Dalton, Esq., in relation to the recent troubles in Tuskaloosa county, and explanatory of former statements made by himself, as one of the commissioners appointed by the Governor to examine into those troubles. The letter of Mr. D. needs no comment. Suffice it to say that we sincerely hope the good citizens of Tuskaloosa county are now awakened to a sense of the duty which they owe the State, no less than to themselves. Lawlessness must be put down, and we are glad to know that the State authorities intend doing it – “peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must.”