Democrat and sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1853-1866, 1857-10-21
FALSE PHILANTHROPY.

w learn from our exchanges, tnat q large
number of Factories, Rolling Mills, DC,
have been compelled by the present monetary
crisis, to suspend operations. The result is,
that the laborers in ;hose establishments, who
were earning scarcely sufficient to support
themselves and families, are deprived of en-
ploymcut, aud thrown out destitute upon the
world, to subsist during the coming winter as
best they may. The amount of suffering
that must consequently ensue, especially in
our cities ar d large towns, is painful to con-
template Here in our mountain home, We
know but little of the extremes of either
wealth or poverty. While few are what may
be called wealthy, few, if any, arc destitute
of the necessaries or even the comforts of life.
But it is otherwise in our cities and large
towns. There the laboring man is compelled
to labor hard and unremittingly, to obtain for
himself and those dependent on him for sup
rort, their daily bread. In general stag
nation of business like the present, the pub
lie and newspaper sympathy in our cities is
with the merchant who has I" failed" or is
suspend" but the laboring classes are al
ways the real sufferers. 1t may indeed be
painful to the rich merchant to perceive his
name on the list of suspensions and failures,
but he would feel infinitely more wrctched,
did he find himself like thousands of poor
laborers at the present time, destitute of the
means of procuring food and shelter during
the coming winter for wife and children
whom, he loves, and with no escape before
him from starvation, save through the portals
OF Al almshouse
And this for years, has been the condition
of large majority of the 60 free laborers of
the North" For them to be deprived of en-
ployment for even a single day, was, and is,
70 have grim pcnury and want staring them
in the face.
This being the case is it not little aston
ishing, that such immaculate philan;hropists
u Horace Grcely, Henry Ward Beecher,
Mrs. Stowe and kindred spirits, should go
abroad to minister to the sufferings of the
Poor African Slave" while so much work
remains to be done at home. Would it not
be well for them and the rest Of the Black
Republican fraternity, to do something tow
srds elevating the condition of the free labor
er in the North, before they 60 abroad in
search Of objects on which to exercise their
philanthropy and charity.
We are no friends of slavery in the sb-
s.ract. we have always regarded it as q
great evil; but surely, no one will contend
that the condition of tie slaves in the South
;s much inferior to that of the free laborers
in our cities, who are now out Of employment,
without even the means of procuring break
fast and hear their helpless children crying
around them for bread
Destitution like this destroys every noble
attribute of mans nature, degrades him phys
ically and intellectually, until at length,
-.The godke soul within,
Sinks beneath the fearfnl demon power,
Of poverty and SIM"
Charity always begins at home," and We
would thereferc say to our Black-Republicar
philanthropists, cease prating about the wrong,
of the " Poor Negro exercise your enlarg
ed philanthropy in relieving the genuine OBJ
jects OF charity at your own doors. If yor
fail to do so. and still continue your mad cru
SADIE against the South and her institutions
We must and viii believe, that you are either
hypocritical demagogues, or mad fanatics
imbued with the spirit of fa!se philanthro
py."