The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1867-10-31
Letter from the Country.
pEPLoEABLE POVERTY OF THE pEoPLE-DEaroRALIzA-
TON OF LABoG-rHE EFFECTS OF RADICAL INFLu-
ENCEs-A MODEL POLICEMAN.
rrnoM OUR owN CORRESPONDENT

| The poverty Of the people is like the darkness
which can be felt. All efforts to repair their fal
| lon fortunes have thus far been unsuccessful. Th
low price of cotton utterly prostrates the planters
After meeting the liens on the crop, there vii
| really be nothing left. In very many instance
| the expenses OF the year will exceed the income
and even the liens cannot be satisfied. This re
suit cannot be charged to extravaganza or indul
gence in the Iuxuries of former day. Econom
mas been rigidly practiccd- household expense
reduced to the mnimum-delicate women hav
performed the cooking and washing for their ia
milies-and college graduates have dashed cheer
fully into manual toll. In the midst of surround
ings sufficiently gloomy TO paralyze almost an.
people, ours have sought to triumph over fate
but thus fan they have been baffied again ant
again.
The labor of the country is fatally demoralized
Politics is the theme. The party and the platform
are the strange gods of the freedmen. OF thu
whites, some are disfrancaised and the rest ig
nored and of the whole white population, with
very few unenviable exceptions it may be sale
that they have decided to suffer in unresistine
apathy and uncomplainng silence the great Sronl
and humiliation now forced upon them. The
blacks are kept in state Of camp-meeting excite
ment Meetings arc held everywhere. Travel
ling disorganiZers. well paid by somebody's
money, visit all the points, and whenever an OPP
posing conservative influence shows itself, there
the party rallies its forces, and with the widest and
most reckless Of its speakers Whips back the dis
affected into line. In vain the opening cotton
pleads for the haryestthe platform is to bring al
elysum, including farm, house, office, indepen.
dence, and the poor deluded freedman turns his
back upon the field and hies to the meeting. The
workshops are closed while those who once made
them vocal with the hum of industry may be seen
stationed at the street corners ready to button
hole every registered colored felow-citizen who
comes in from the country. Bureau corn and party
funds may support all this for awhile, but it must
lead to habits of confirmed idleness and dissipation.
and poverty, and complete the ruin of the land.
There is No necessity for this, even to secure q
party triumph. There is re .ly no opposition
the white population is quescent and ruled out;
for, strange to say, even those who harmonize
with Congress and would accept Convention in
accordance with the Reconstruction Acts, cannot
vote witt the party in this State, because they
from all part and voice in the State government
almost the entire educated white clement
And hence, the approaching election will present
the strange spectacle of educated advocates and
opponents Of the Congressional platform, stand
ing together in opposition to the Convention as it
is evidently to be constituted by the extreme Ra-
dical League party in this State. A few wire pull
ers will nominate the delegates for each District,
and these may be elected by thousands Of votes
(?), but the voters will be mere dutomata moved
by machinery, and the idea of such delegates re-
presenting the Districts from which they hail, will
be tarcical in the extreme. The white population
have neither been stubborn nor refractory-but
they are emphaticaly forced outside the ring, un-
less they consent 10 endorse measures which ig-
more all craftsmanship, and threaten ruin to
both races and the section they jointly inha-
bit. A military order nominating the dele
gates from each district and even con-
timing its selection to men OF the extreme
party, would have been equally republican, con-
sttutional and just to the State. and would no
doubt have reached the same end in manner
more satisfactory to the white population, and
certainly less hurtfu to the substantial interests
of the country; for it would not have been
attended with the present fatal Generalization Of
labor, and might have saved the vast amounts
now being expended the campaign. This
money will be needed TO clothe and feed the idlers
of next year-idlers now multiplying On every
hand, under the benign influences OF party
politics.
What think you OF an incorporated town whose
taxpayers are required to support black police,
appointed by the late Commanding General, one
of the said black policeman after his appointment
having been detected purloning the property Of
one of our merchants while on duty, and yet is re
tanned in Office simply because he is back 1t is
undeniably true that if the same circumstances
had existed in the case of ,chae man, the Offend
or would at least have been dismissed from Office,
if he succeeded by any ingenuity of counsel in es-
Gaping the punishment of the law. No crcum-
stance can exhibit more clearly the helpless state
Of humiliation to which we are reduced.
These are some of the few hattering incidents of
Southern life at present. They are literally true
Of leading points in middle Carolina, but doubtless
have still wider application. \. \.