greatly reduced.  Said the Review of Reviews in editorial comment:[1] “One of the most gratifying incidents of the Spanish War has been the enthusiasm that the colored regiments of the regular army have aroused throughout the whole country.  Their fighting at Santiago was magnificent.  The Negro soldiers showed excellent discipline, the highest qualities of personal bravery, very superior physical endurance, unfailing good temper, and the most generous disposition toward all comrades in arms, whether white or black.  Roosevelt’s Rough Riders have come back singing the praises of the colored troops.  There is not a dissenting voice in the chorus of praise....  Men who can fight for their country as did these colored troops ought to have their full share of gratitude and honor.”

[Footnote 1:  October, 1898, p. 387.]

4. Mob Violence; Election Troubles; The Atlanta Massacre

After two or three years of comparative quiet—­but only comparative quiet—­mob violence burst forth about the turn of the century with redoubled intensity.  In a large way this was simply a result of the campaigns for disfranchisement that in some of the Southern states were just now getting under way; but charges of assault and questions of labor also played a part.  In some places people who were innocent of any charge whatever were attacked, and so many were killed that sometimes it seemed that the law had broken down altogether.  Not the least interesting development of these troublous years was that in some cases as never before Negroes began to fight with their backs to the wall, and thus at the very close of the century—­at the end of a bitter decade and the beginning of one still more bitter—­a new factor entered into the problem, one that was destined more and more to demand consideration.

On one Sunday toward the close of October, 1898, the country recorded two race wars, one lynching, two murders, one of which was expected to lead to a lynching, with a total of ten Negroes killed and four wounded and four white men killed and seven wounded.  The most serious outbreak was in the state of Mississippi, and it is worthy of note that in not one single case was there any question of rape.

November was made red by election troubles in both North and South Carolina.  In the latter state, at Phoenix, in Greenwood County, on November 8 and for some days thereafter, the Tolberts, a well-known family of white Republicans, were attacked by mobs and barely escaped alive.  R.R.  Tolbert was a candidate for Congress and also chairman of the Republican state committee.  John R. Tolbert, his father, collector of the port of Charleston, had come home to vote and was at one of the polling-places in the county.  Thomas Tolbert at Phoenix was taking the affidavits of the Negroes who were not permitted to vote for his brother in order that later there might be ground on which to contest the election.  While thus engaged he was attacked by Etheridge, the