Anarchy

     EDITOR NATIONAL TRIBUNE: Anarchy is abroad in the land. Why? Wrongs are the result of the violation of law; and violation of law is anarchy. One wrong leads to another. For example the wrong of slavery produced the great rebellion, and this in turn has led to further injustice to the black man. This being true, let me ask: Does not the fact that great wrongs—such as slavery, the rebellion, injustice to the black man, lynching, and the like—have been too often excused or justified by individuals, the press, writers of history and other literature, incite and cause the commission of other wrongs? I think so.
     Let me illustrate. Everybody and everything that can be raked up, except the real culprits, and blamed, in one way or another, with causing the great rebellion by some of the recent historical writers, and, indeed, by others further back. The real originators and promoters of that rebellion are excused or justified, either directly or indirectly, for the great crime. We are asked, by some writers, to believe that it was but a “quarrel” between the North and the South, over the meaning of the Constitution or how it was made, or something of that kind—perhaps the so-called doctrine of State rights or State sovereignty—that no one could prevent, that it had to be, as though that excused or justified the rebellion and made patriots of all who battled on either side.
     The youth of our schools are seldom taught that the rebellion was wrong, was wicked, was a crime. On the contrary, in some places they are taught that it was right, and the leaders of it are exalted as patriots. In other communities, when they are questioned as to the wrong of the rebellion, in many cases the answer is about as follows: “I don’t know much about it. From the history that I studied, it appears that one side was about as much to blame as the other. I can’t tell from it which side was right nor which wrong.”
     No wonder that there is so little respect for law, that Anarchy shows its slimy head and assassinates our beloved President—when the rebellion and other great wrongs are excused or justified, when historians and other writers falsify history, either ignorantly or wilfully [sic], and the youth of our land are taught in that way. Such teachings do not tend to make good citizens.—ROBERT KISSICK, Oskaloosa, Iowa.