New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-12-23
SETTLING on PUBLIC LANDS,

Contrary to prevalent impression, the rudest
savage-Hottentot or Observation-Disclosures or
Apache-wll work rather than starve. If
he does starve (Which is sometimes the
easel it is not because he will not work,
but because work will not now avail.
If he had worked months ago, he might
have averted the present calamity; but then
he could live without work; nor, work will
not save him. "The sluggard will not pillow,
because of the cold" saith Holy Writ;
therefore he shall beg in the harvest and
"have nothing"
Settlements are made and cultivation begun
in the wilderness by two radically different
classes. The former may be distinguished as
the skirmish-line of civilization; rough wild,
reckless devil-may- care fellows, who hate the
prim sober, orderly ways of sedate, law-goy-
erned communities, and rush into the wilder
ness to live there a wilder life than would be
tolerated elsewhere often to escape the penalty
or the dsrepute of some outrage. Each OF
these fellows cuts down a few trees, gets up
rude cabin, in time makes what he calls
clearing and pretends to surround it with a
fence, which serves till the cattle outside sniff
something growing within which they would
like to taste; when fence and crop cease to be
of any account. Fishing, hunting, and drinking
whisky for a living, these chaps often manage
TO hang on for ten or fifteen years; until at
length-a " storen having struggled into their
neighborhoOd-t get into debt to its keeper,
and he winds each of them up, with or with
out the aid of the sheriff, sells out their I'M
provements." and they take fresh plunge
into the wilderness-as poor as eyer-tO begin,
| CO.. ctr 6 oil two ar
three hundred miles farther West.
The other class is in strong contrast with the
| fOregOing-sOber, earnest industrious, prOvi-
dent, often religious men, usually blessed with
few goods and many children-who plunge into
| the deep woods Oristick their stakes ont on the
broad, virgin prairie, with fixed intent to work
their way up to comfort and competence.
| They go expecting to work hard and live
roughly as well as frugally for ten or fifteen
years; but they see through all this, and beyond
| it. For every days work that yields a ready
present return, they must do two for the future
in clearing or breaking up, fencing, building
road making, &c, &c. Give them life and
health, and they will work out, and have good
FARMS fair buildings, fine stock, choice imple
ments, &c, &C. They will secure these by
working on in poverty and need for ends which
savages or sem-savages deem remote and
problematcal, and for which these will not deny
themselves present enjoyment or ease.
The proposition that Two Millions be taken
from the Federal Treasury and expended in
aiding the Southern poor, without distinction
of color to settle on the Public Lands, ignores
the above facts. 1t is designed to help the
Southern Blacks to freeholds; but what could
it do2 Certainly, 800 is as little as "a poor
man could be expected to make start on;
and this would make tho Two Millions suffice
for twenty Thousand settlers-not one of every
ten who would eagerly hold up their plates
for portions of the Governmental mama, and
would be unsettled, restless, anxious, ineili-
Gent till their fate was decided. That neither
the applicants nor the recipients would be the
fittest either of Whites or Blacks for piOneers
of civilization and industry, we need hardly
suggest
Whether we are or are not friendly 10 the
Freedmen, others must judge but we insist
that few of them are fitted for pioneer life
that Slavery has unftted them therefor The
slave lives in the present, thinking little OF the
past or the future-a bottle of whisky or a
watermelon to-day is more priced by him than
a farm or a fortune twenty years hence. 1t is
no discredlt-it is the simple truth-tO say Of
men hardly four generations out OF the jungle
and not ten years out of Slavery, that the
mass of them lack certain qualities essential TO
successful pioneers.
The Two Millions proposed. " NO lent them