The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-09

have taken to abusing the national freedman
and the ward of the nation in a shocking
manner, and there is some reason TO believe
in the truth of the rumor that MIR. Sumner is
preparing speech, to be delivered at an
early day of the approaching session of Con-
gress, based upon that declaration of the
higher law-"Cursed be Canaan''-and prov
ing, by the most improved Sumneresque
logic, that the interests of humanity and
progress, with initial letters, demand the ex
elusion of every negro who cannot construe
page OF Virgil, or who has not committed to
memory all the speeches of Sumner, from the
suffrage. Mr.. Parker Pillsbury led off
in this new crusade against the me-
groes; and now comes ''N. G. NJ"
a correspondent of the same school, de-
claring that these unhappy children of Africa
are poor devils, sunken in such abiect misery
and degradation that it is absurd to expect
them to exercise the rights of citizenship
with the most infinitesimal degree of intelli-
gence or independence. 1t is to be remarked
that curious change has come over the Re-
| publican mind in regard to the prospects of
| the negroes. For the last three or four years
they have been telling us that the ballot was
| the one thing needful for the freedman; give
him but the ballot, and all other things would
be added unto him; it would be food, cloth
| ing, education, enlightenment, and protec-
ton for him; and having it, he would lack
nothing else. Now they are telling us that
| the ballot is useless, and worse than useless,
to him; and that it will be curse until he
first acquires intelligence, independence, and
| virtue. Formerly, our Republican friends
| took q poetical and romantic view of the
| questions; now they have gone to the other
extreme, and are grovellingly utilitarian. 81
| have no faith in any educational OF missionary
| enterprises when bedsteads are scarce,
| exclaims IN. G. NJ" ''It is in vain to sing
1 lI..ge L
| ton with a sublime faith, when the only bed
is a long box, OF pole bedstead, with bark
| rope, and rags for bedclothes." 'The freed
men are only children, and need to be taught
| everything" the correspondent continues
| The negroes, we used to be told, would soon
| all become landowners, and thus acquire in
| Dependence but IN. O. M. dispels this pleas
| ing dream. ''The whites own the land, and
| will not sell to the negroes-not because they
are negroes, but because they have no money.
l do not see how they are ever to get money
nor can it be shown that, with their limited
| knowledge, the land would be worth what
| they should pay for it,. IN. G. NJ" goes on
| to confess, ''since the time has come when
some good can be done by stating the fact, :"
that all the stories that have been told at Freed
mems Bureau meetings and elsewhere about the
anxiety and ability of the negroes to acquire
| education were, not to put too fine q point
studies that require reason they are DULL"
and, although they can be made to learn to
read they there pause content, the novelty
of the thing being exhausted. In short, as
the correspondent sums it up, sit must be
seen that the negro cannot compete with the
white man; he must remain q servant, serf,
and q slave in all but the name. The posses
sion of the suffrage will only still further de-
grade him, as it will cause him to be drugged
with bad liquor in order to make him vote
the right ticket and the most happy thing
that can be hoped for himis a speedy extinc-
ton. All this was foreseen and prophesied
deaf to the warning. They are now confess
ing their folly; but it is too late to repair the
mischief they have wrought