The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-11
THE CARPET-BAGGERs IN CONGRESS.

From the ". Y World.
Now that the people of the Southern States
are slowly emerging from the condition of
captives to recover their rights with their
duties as citizens of the Union, it will begin
perhaps to be clear to all mems perceptions
not only that the class of persons known as
''carpet-baggers' really are held in contempt
at the South, but also that they deserve to be
held in contempt, and that in the North as
well as in the South. The carpet-bag
in itself is harmless, necessary i'm
pediment enough, nor is it intrinsically
contemplate that man whose whole worldly
goods are cOmpressible within a carpet-bag
should pack them into one, take it up, and
set forth in search of fortune. Honest men,
men of sense and of character with or with
out carpet-bags, are needed in the South, as
they are needed in the West, in the East
wherever there is work to be done, wherever
there are resources to be developed and OPP
portunities to be put to profit. Nor is there
any reason to suppose that the South, any
more than the West or the East, desires to
repel such persons from its borders. The
'carpet-bagger' is political adventurer who
has got place and pelf for himself by
making the poverty and the po-
Iitical prostration of the Southern
whites work together with the credulity and
ignorance of the Southern blacks for his
personal Advancement All honest and re-
spectacle Northern leaders of the party with
which such adventurers have necessarily
acted know perfectly we'll that the arts and
influences bywhich the ''carpet-baggers' have
gained their object are influences and arts
which no honest and respectable man could
possibly use either at the South or at the
North. Knowing this, they naturally shun all
but the most strictly formal associations for
strictly political purposes with such persons.
The ''carpet-bagger" who appears at Washing
ton in the guise of a radical representative from
Georgia or of a Republican Senator from
Louisiana may be put upon committee, but
he is not taken into its councils; he may be
admitted to a caucus, but he has no share III
shaping its decisions; he may be granted the
floor in Congress, but no man listens to his
palaver. The scandal of his presence among
them must be endured by the Republicans
| who really represent real constituencies, tol
| it is thew who have made that scandal pos
sible by the tissue of outra8es upon
liberty which they have christened the
| Reconstruction of the South But they
! are only willing to endure this scandal
as a body. As individuals, they keep thell
! skirts as clear of personal contact as posslDle
with the creatures of their evil work. Inc
| position is an awkward and disagreeable one
doubtless. But it is of their own making
They are punished whereby they slnaed
| DeslIlilS " SeI Idulcal li0lIiDOi' ~ -
gress from the South, they planned a, system
under which it is simply impossible thai
radical members should get into Congress
from the South without disgrace anC
dishonor. Northern men who appear
in Congress as Democratic conser
vative members from the South ar'
treated by respectable radicals from the
North with courtesy and respect, because
those respectable radicals know that they
were sent to Congress by the best men, the
real people, of the districts which they claim
to represent. The nonsense which is talked
on the stump at the North and West abou