The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1869-08-19
The Printer Douglass
What His Father Says Of Him.


alluded to the case of his son and said:
Gin the days of slavery, when was
slave, negro having master might work
at any trade or calling in the Southern
States or at Washington without any OPP
position. While his wages went into the
pocket of another, while the bread that he
earned In the sweat of his face was to be
eaten by another, while bewas to toll that
another might live at ease, he could do SO
without opposition but when he had bis
own mouth to feed, his own back to clothe,
his own body u shelter, his own children
to support and educate, the case is differ
ent. White bricklayers, white carpenters,
and white printers combine. to prevent
any black man from working at these re-
spective trades, and attempt to bend the
Government to this narrow selfish purpose.
I think you will agree with me that the
case is hard one for the negro. I have
aeard of putting men in a. tight place, and
AVE sometimes been severely pinched my
ielf, but know Of no tighter place than
that into which it is attempted to place
the negro to-day. If he steals, we send
lin to prison; if he begs, we spurn him
rom our door as a good-for-nothing; il
ne attempts to work, we combine to pre-
vent him and even threaten his life. |
have intinaated that the question has ris
en- in the right place, and may say, since
it must come, am, upon the whole, not
sorry that have a personal interest in its
decision. For the moment, Lewis FL
Douglass represents our whole people,
rising from degradation to responsibility
md from prescription to equal rights. The
rinciple involved is one for which every
ian ought to contest It involves the
light ot!life, liberty and the pursuit of
tappines, and it is the business of every.
.merican citizen, white and black, to
land for this principle, each for all, and
IL for each, as the sheet anchor of a COM
non safety. a9 70
[ believe there was never crime com
nitted for which apologies of some sort
could not be made, and the attempt to de-
grade and starve the colored printer at
Washington is no exception to the general
rule. 1t is alleged that he is an improper
person to be allowed to work; that he has
at sometime in his life worked at lower
rate of wages than that fixed upon as the
proper one by the Printers Union; that
he has worked in a town or city where
such Unions existed and did not become
member; that he has. served no regular
apprenticeship; that the card permitting
him to work in the Government Printing
Office was improperly issued, and much
else of the same sort. My friends, l have
neither time nor patience to expose and
refute in detail these paltry allegations
From beginning to end they are miserable
shams, designed to give color Of decen-
cy to one of the meanest acts of cruelty
and injustice ever perpetrated against
fellow-man. #
There is no Disgusting the fact-his
crime was his color It was his color in
Denver, it was his color in Rochester, it
is his color in Washington to-day In
connection with this subject, have now
word to say of this goodly city in which
have lived for the past twenty years,
and where I still reside-a city than
which not one in the country is more
civilized, refined and cultivated. 1T
abounds in both educational and religious,
institutions, and its people are generally
as liberal and friendly to the colored race
as any other in the State, and far more SO
tlan most cities outside of this. Here
the common schools have been open to all
classes alikeior dozen years, colored and
white children have sat on the same
benches and played the same games in
the same school-yards, and they have
done so in peace. can say many good
things of Rochester. The Fugitive Slave
Law never toelzI a7slaYe out7of its limits,
though several attempts were made to do
so. When eolored people were hunted
and mobbed IN other cities, and public
fury famed against them a N chant.
pro-slayery press, the colored man was
always safe and well protected in Roches-
ter; and yet have somewhat against it,
One of the saddest spectacles that ever