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Political Murder.A BULLDOZER BULLDOZED.Oar news columns give the intelligence that Capt. Henry M. Dixon, independent candidate for sheriff in Yazoo county, Mississippi, was assassinated on the principal street of that city in broad day, by Janies H. Barksdale, a candidate for office on the democratic ticket. All oar readers may not know the previous history of this case which is now the talk of the nation.Capt. Dixon announced himself some weeks since as an independent candidate for sheriff. This so aroused the indignation of the democrats of that county that an armed mob visited him and fairly forced him to sign an agreement to withdraw from the field. Afterwards it seems he was persuaded by his friends to re-enter the contest, and for this temerity he was shot down in cold blood by a prominent democratic politician.As outrageous and cold-blooded as this assassiuation is, it has its features of justice. Dixon was himself a prominent bulldozer. In 1875, he was a leader in this “Mississippi plan” which “redeemed the state from the radicals. In that year Mr. Kedfield of the Cincinnati Commercial was in Mississippi, and in a letter to his paper he says: “In the past sixty days not less than one hundred men have been killed”—all the murders being of a political character, and all the victims lieing republicans. On one occasion, when Sheriff Morgan was addressing the Republican Club of Yazoo City, he was denounced by an armed rnffian as a liar, and immediately some fifty shots were fired from the i crowd. Mitchell, a leading white re- i publican, was shot dead, and several l negroes were wounded. ]Iu another letter Mr. Redfield men- ( tions “H. M. Dixon, who took such a I prominent part iu the shooting at the time Mitchell was killed.” These scenes ] were repeated all over the state, and i the republican vote was suppressed, lt;Then, a few months after the election, i Mr. Dixon’s fellow citizens presented j him with a massive silver pitcher suit- lt;ably inscribed. sNotwithstanding Capt. Dixon’s emi- lt;nent services trf the democratic party c and the South, he was given a dose of lt;his own medicine when he had the courage to go contrary to the wishes of f of his party, and there is not the least , dauger that his murderer will ever be | punished for it unless some one gives him a dose in kind. :The worst feature of this business is s the fact that many of the leading men ; of Mississippi either approve of such j work, or are silent in regard to it. Be- 1 fore the murder, but while this excite- c ruent was going on, the Natchez (Miss.) V Democrat said that “independency thus far in this state has meant radicalism, 1 and it will be treated with the same severity that has met all attempts to I revive republicanism.” Tbte Corinth n (Miss.) Record boldly declared that all I opposition to the democracy must be put down at the muzzle of the rifle, z The chairman of the democratic state (] committee, who is also candidate for t U. S. Senator, couclnded an address with these words: “The reforms which t have leen inaugurated can Ire perfected \ and carried out only by a rigid adherence to the discipline and observ- | auce of the methods by which the vie- , lories of 1875, ’7(i and ’77 were won.” Those victories, as all know, were won by the shot-gun. lSince the assassination Senator La- , mar has been interviewed at Washington, but lie refuses to express his views 6 “for fear that his language may be mis- t construed.” Such is the feeble utter- ( auce of the great Mississippi Senator j when a democrat and Confederate sol- ( dier is shot in the back by a brother democrat for his political actions and opinions. What hope is there for a state which does not repudiate such 1 barbarism 1
Newspaper Details
Saint Johnsbury Caledonian
Saint Johnsbury, Vermont, US
Fri, Aug 29, 1879
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OH, USA 23 Sep 2024
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