Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1866-05-24

atty is above suspicion. 1ney preach or prey Will
equal facility and if they can't dance, they "make
the fiddler pay"
Opinions of the Press upon the Freedmen's b.
Report ofGens. Steedman and Full
IertOn.
Wehave SO frequently given our opinion adverse
Iy to the Freedmen's Bureau, that we desire to
let our readers see what our contemporaries of the
press have to say of the institution. We have
therefore at considerable labor collated from sever
al of our leading exchanges extracts OF their edl
torials, reviewing the late Interesting and lmpor
tant report of Generals Steedman and Fullerton.
The n Y. Herald, of late date, in reviewing the
attempted defence of these Bureau agents by Gen
eral Howard and the lame defence of himself by
Colonel Whittlesey, which we have already pub
ished speaks of Generals Steedman and Fullerton
as men of honor. and bearing military reputa-
ton beyond reproach and more than that they
report from facts gathered at the scene of action,
and not making loose statements before negro
sympathizing assemblage. Says the Herald:
''The whole system is a bad one badly managed.
It reminds us of the times when Warren Hastings
was the British Governor General In India His
tory tells that Hastings INSCRIPTIONS and
cruel, but resolute. He depopulated whole dis
tricts by his exactions and committed acts of sig
nal injustice. But, like the radicals IN Congress,
success followed him. He defeated opposition in
his council, overawed the minority, refused to
obey the orders of the Board of Directors of the
East India Company, and was denied the support
of the home government. Edmund Burke, in
1856, brought articles of impeachment against
him. He charged with numerous acts of OPP
preston, with desolating whole regions of British
domain, with pecuation and corruption, with
citing useless wars, and with various acts dis
honOring the British name. But he adroitly
managed to fatter the British that public opinion
changed in his favor, and instead of the charges
being sustained, they were all dismissed"
From the New York Herald.
We published yesterday page of new matter
relative to the Freedman's Bureau. One-half the
space was occupied by the efficient report of Gen
erals Steedman and Fullerton, in which damning
proofs were furnished of the corrupt and even di-
abolical manner in which the affairs of the Bureau
are administered in two OF the Southern States
= * But the report of these officers is
clear enough in all essential respects, and fully
justifes all have said in regard to the workings
of the Bureau. We find that in the States of Vir-
ginia and North Carolina the Bureau is managed
by cruel and INSCRIPTIONS class of persons.
The horrors of the prison pen
at Andersonville are overshadowed by some of the
modes of torture instituted by these officers as a
punishment for trivial offences. In case there
was Wirz of Infamous memory, in the other
there seems to be a Fitz emulous of similar de-
testable renOwn.
This, it must be recollected, is the testimony of
genuemen VINO nave served under General How
ard, the Superintendent of the Freedmen's Blu
reau, and not likely to speak from prejudice
against him in regard to any matters in which he
may be interested. General Howard may make
speeches till doomsday in favor of the Bureau, he
may dash his remarks with humorous anecdotes
IN the negro dialect, he may employ all the cant
of a Mawworm to wheedle his pro-abolition audi
tors, black and white, but he can never overthrow
the plain and indubitable facts in regard to this
Freedmens Bureau communicated in this report
by responsible, intelligent and impartial agents of
the government.
From the New York Times (Republcan.)
Horrifying as are some of the cases reported
from this State-where military officers missiona-
ries and teachers from New England, nearly all in
the pay of the Government, are in partnership
with planters in practically carrying on a slave
system under new forms-we are inclined to hope
that they exceptional cases. They demand, it
is true, the most rigid scrutiny and for the guilty
10 punishment can be too severe. But what we
regard as even more calculated to awaken pain
full interest in the relations of the freedmen to the
Bureau, is the danger, so clearly pointed out in
this report, OF making permanent dependents of a
very large class of the emancipated population
The populations, and jobbings and tyranny of
few unfaithful chaplains and military superinten-
dents may be made up for in the penalties which,
presume, will follow the perpetrators But if
the tendency of the continuance of the Bureau is
to create permanent sense of dependence on the
part of any large number of the negroes it must
simply become q destroying agency, paving the
way for the ultimate determination of the whole
race.
The Times further says, in speaking of the pro-
position of the Commissioners to place the freed
men under charge of the military:
With this put in force, such speculatons in ne
gro labor are laid to the charge of the Rev.
Messrs. Fitz and James, would be impossible
Whatever missionary zeal might do thereafter to
elevate the negro, and make him useful and in
dependent citizen, would be zeal of a voluntary
kind neither paid for by the Government nor
stimulated by contracts for the sale of negro labor
on the Southern plantations.