The Elko independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 1869-1872, 1869-07-24
The Labor Problem in III, south.

That the Southern States are soon to be
come the theater of new political complica
tons growing out of the introduction, on d
large scale, of Asiatics, there is no longer any
doubt in the minds Of intelligent observers OF
passing events. The cotton, sugar and rice
fields Of the South promise again to become
the seat and source Of endless and destructive
controversies in national politics, which may,
in less than single decade, upturn the foun-
dations of social order, and deluge the land in
| fraternal blood. That the Southern States,
with their peculiar labor, land and social sys-
TENS, are to become the Pandora-box of
American politics, is becoming more obvious
each passing day. The Southern cauldron is
already seething to its brim with molten ele-
ments of discord, turmoil and bitter conten-
tons growing ont of the natural antagonism
of race and condition.; and, into this bubbling
crater is now to be thrown n new element of
discord without regard to the consequences
which are likely to ensue. That Chinese Ia
Dor, like enforced African labor will prove a
source of immense profit, and give to the
South vigorous recuperatiye power to build
up her waste places made desolate by the
ravages of war, is too obvious to demand ar
gument; and that wealth, influence and politi-
cal power will return again to the landowner
and capitalist of the South, is equally certain,
as slave labor, i'll its palmiest days, was not
near SO profitable rs will be that of the patient,
industrious and frugal Asiatic. But, while
the planter and landowner are growing
wealthy, prosperous and contented from the
profits of cheap alien labor imported from
Asia, what is to become the condition of
the houseless, homeless, friendless African,
who, although q native and to the manor born,
is yet an alien race, without country or n
name in the land of his birth who, although
a citizen and representative in part of the SOW
ereign power of the State, is yet the sport of
circumstances and the toy of political power,
rs the sunlight of freedom, which flashed so
suddenly upon his poor nebulous brain, found
him totally unprepared to receive and profit
by its dazzling light and although a man in
stature and physical endowment, the field
hand of the South, just liberated from the
bonds of chattel slavery, is rs dependent and
helpless in all that pertains 10 politics and
statecraft as the mild-eyed Caucasian youth Of
ten summers in the cultivated state If, then,
it is decreed by the land owner, the political
and moneyed power Of the South, that the
African shall be turned adrift, a wanderer and
an exile in the land that give him birth, and
the white lows Of simple but comfortable
cabins, with truck-patch and grounds adjoin-
ing, which have been his home for a genera
ton, are to be turned over to and occupied by
the swarthy child of the Orient because a
few more dollars each year can be wrung from
the sweat of his brow, pitiable indeed will be
the condition of the Southern freedman Of
this and coming generations. Will he quietly
submit to see his home, his hopes, and all
that stands between himself and starvation.
wrested from him and bestowed upon race
who are strangers To our language and owe
allegiance To a foreign Government? He will
soon come to hate the Chinese with all the
hot luminosity of his southern animal nature,
and that hatred and jealousy once aroused, it
will break ont in acts of violence and atrocity,
not only against the unoflending Asiatics but
against those who encourage their coming
and give them employment after arriyal-at
which the world will stand appalled, And
should the Government interfere, as in duty
bound under treaty stipulatons it will, to
give protection to the Chinese laborer and his
landed employer, the result will be the rapid
destruction and extinction Of the African race
in this country. But during the progress of
determination, the South will again be shaken
with bloody commissions which will ramify all
the political arteries OF the national life, and
bring upon the country perpetual and bloody
strife.