Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-06-10
SPIRIT OF THE GERMAN PRESS
From the st. Louis Anzciger des Westerns

From the St Louis Anzciger des Westens.
According to the views of the Radical
majority in the House, an applicant for a
homestead under the new law has TO take the
oath that he did not participate in the late
rebellion. BY this oath the whole mass Of
the white people Of the South are excluded
from all the benefits Of the law. 1t is not
easy to -Smprehend the advantages of such
a measure, nor to discover how they square
with the policy of the Radical party in re-
gard to other questions. The purpose of
any homestead bill is the advancement of
the culture of the public lands, and of the
speedy settlement of great uncultivated ter
ritories, and in consequence the increase OF
the National wealth Rather than to create
difficulties and impediments, it evidently
should be the policy of the Government to
facilitate the settlement of public lands as
much as possible, especially in the Southern
States, where as yet there is only very
sparse population.
The oath, as embodied in that bill, viii
be new impediment to the revival of pros
perity in the Southern States, and therefore
not only punishment of the former rebels,
but of all the inhabitants Of those States and
of the whole country in general. Besides,
the rich and influential men in the South
will not be hurt by that bill, because they
will never apply to it; whilst only the poor
are to be the sufferers, whom that oath de-
prives Of the opportunity to become free
holders. Only the "poor whites in the
South will suffer; the very people whose
miserable situation is the text Of SO many
stirring articles; who have been pitied as
the victims of the pest of slavery; who have
been promised so happy future so soon as
slavery should be abolished and who now,
at the very first opportunity, are to be put
far behind the negro.
The public lands are accessible to the
blacks, according to the new bill; they are
closed to the poor whites, who, knowing no
better, allowed themselves TO be used by the
ruling classes of the South in their war
against the Union.
Instead of fayoring by all imaginable
means the establishment of a class OF small
white property-holders, to tie the poor whites
of the Southern States to the interests OF the
Union, and to make them independent OF
the former ruling classes, this element, by a
blind fury is estranged from the Union, and
the already existing hatred between the
poor whites and the negroes given new
life.
Such policy is inconceivable. If such
laws are not dictated by malice and bru-
fish sense of revenge, then they are the of
spring of the blind fury of fanaticism, that
may possibly achieve great deal more mis-
chief. The Radicals must admit that the
poor whites of the South are to be allowed
to live, and that even the whole mass of the
Southern people are to be pardoned, because
there cannot be made a penitentiary of 9
whole country; and admitting further, that
it is better to make small property-holders
out of them, than to force them to work on
the plantations of the rich, why in the name
Of reason shall they not be allowed to settle
on the uncultivated public lands.