New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1870-03-03
)LD MEMORIES AND PRESENT TROUBLES.

l
many different planters, explodes ''thusly:"
We soon come to the sugar plantations
OF Louisiana: See the long neat rows of the
Old slave cabins, where the darkies all
were gay, Massa's old home, anGsthe large
| sugar-houses, and orange groves-ail form
ing picturesque scene. and recalling
strange memories of old times.
10 give you an entirely unbiased opinion
OF negro labor, as learned from
planters from every section of the
South, IS 10 inform you that the
wrrsi statement of the case, as published in
southern papers Is no, eAaggeratiOn of facts.
Planters on Bayou Latourche up the Red
| ilver, about Baton Rouge, endeaVor to OBJ
taia negro labor by Offering to furnish the
plantations with all the requisites Of
cotton culture, such as horses
or mules, agricultural implements,
| Iegro Euts-everything necessary to labor,
Dut ratlons; aud i'll return give half the
| crop, and still are unable TO secure the
necessary labor. The negro's insatiate love
| Tor villages and cities, idleness and monkey
shows Is 80 great. that at every landing the
| beat makes We see fat, lazy bucks snooZing
on cot on bales, summing themselves and
| content 10 make An hours work on the leyee
to supply their actual wants. No promises
| of the comforts of a home or assurances
| that their yearly labor will be paid beyond
| peradventure can induce them to accom-
pahy the Planters, who go from point to
point TO secure their force for the ensuing
year.
We can not dwell at length on those
strange memories OF old times" but in
passing, We wonder what memories were
uppermost in this correspondents mind.
Did he think of the time when the South
ern white man could command the African
as his slave, and the Northern Demo-
crat as his tool? Of the times
when he seemed to expect, if he
did not always realize from both,
about the same abject submission to his
dictation? Did he remember bow the
slave owners faithfully helped the Democ-
racy to win their victories, and how, in re-
turn, his party supported every Southern
measure, echoed every Southern shibbo-
leth, up to the very hour when bayonets
and bullets became elements in the ire
pressible conflict Did it occur to him
how, at that hour. the patriots of his par
ty, under the lead of the lamented Doug
las, stood fast by the national colors,
and how, from that same moment,
another wing of his party, too discreet to
court familiarity with grape and canister,
remained inactive at home, or, at best,
became parlor champions Of the cause
which shared more of their sympathy
than courage? Or was he thinking only
OF the many charms and excellencies,
which, in those old times" Northern
Democrat was quick to observe in the
system of slavery? Perhaps it was
this specially that was running through
bis mind. We rather think SO, because
he recurs with such seeming melancholy
to "the picturesque scene of |
orange groves, large sugar-houses. massas |
old home, and the long neat rows of the |
old slave cabins where the darkies all |
We're gay"
Alas! alas how sad, that this beloved |
system of old times and slavery worshipping
Democracy should have persisted together,
alike martyrs to the advancing civilization
of the nineteenth century But there is a
fitness in the fact that Gin death they We're
not divided Peace to their ashes.
Meantime what of the present? What
obstacle now 10 the way of prosperity:
On this point, our traveller has an opinion
all the more valuable, because sentirely
unbiased" The trouble is with the negro
labor. Planters, i. seems, go from point
10 point, offer the most extraordinary in
even proposing to fnd HITS for
lie shelter Of the negroes and everything
toa laborer, except something. to
at; but even with half the crop added
hey can't obtain necessary help. Strange,
indeed. Did it not at all occur to him, that
possibly, in many instances the negroes had
earned little caution from experience
hat at the end Of tee year they had found
he cost OF their eatables furnished by the
Employer, at his own price, to exceed,
sometimes largely, the proceeds of half
he crop? Did it not strike his mind that
he negroes are now free, entitled to the
protection of freemen, and that there have
,eeu times, when even in our towns and
tiles, there was none too much ofpersonal
afety for the negro. and less still in the
ountry?
We think that in very many instances
ur colored laborers are reluc ant to take
mploy Oh plantations, because they .
oubt whether such employment is =.
ither profitable or prudent, and tLey !
lay have had substantial reasons for
lch' doubts. Indeed we could name
leny other facts which might go far to
lake the c0lored man shy OF the planta- !;
on, but it is scarcely necessary.
To the eye of our unbiased CORES
ondent they are undiscernible, and, per-
apps, no word OF ours would aid his vision.
lie can see but one cause for the dearth of
abor, and that is inherent in the negro. g
is his "lnsatiate love for villages and q
tiles, idleness and monkey shows" de- r
clipping itself wherever the boat landed, e
4 "tat, lazy bucks, snoozing on cotton c
ales, summing themselves, con ent TO make c
n hours work on the levee to supply t
heir actual wants" These so-called fat il
NY bucks should thank their Democratic
lend for one cOncess. on, viz: that. 10 the
xtent of their actual wants. they do honest s
.bor, that is, work On the levee, to this '
xtent ranking them higher in the scale of {