The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-23

ing that the lower half Of She Unisn. cannot
yet reasonably expect any great immediate
influx of settlers.
The utmost plausibility of argument and
statement will not induce men and women
to undertake the making of homes ina sec
ton where property and life itself are in
constant danger. We shall doubtless be
told that this is no answer to the cry of the
South for immigration. But it is very con-
elusive answer nevertheless. Life and pro-
perty are not safe down there except on con-
ditions to which few settlers will assent.
Every citizen of value to any community is
q thinking man, with opinions that he does
not choose to hide or suppress. Each days
record of Southern action is proof that per-
sons holding views different from those of
the resident white majority are not wanted
and will net be tolerated. The society and
newspapers of the South practically sey this
to those who contemplate settlementt-We
are glad to have you come here, but you must
not set up as reformers, must not attempt to
interfere with our affairs, must not preach or
advocate your Northern notions. If the new
settler fails to heed this counsel and COM
mand he speedily disappears from the earth
or is forced to leave the Southern country.
We do not speak of particular looalities,-
our view is of the South generally; and we
repeat that there property and life ere not
are in the North and West.
Even if this state of things we're remedied,
there is still further reason why the South
fails to get the immigration it needs and for
which it is adapted. The Northerner and
the intelligent foreigner are persons who
radically believe in education and the COM
mon school system as a means thereto. If
they look out for themselves on the one
hand, on the other they sharply look out for
their sons and daughters. The South as a
community knows little of common schools,
and what is far worse and most deplorable,
as yet shows little disposition to establish
and sustain them. Tennessee has already
overthrown the school system set up at the
close of the war; North Carolina gives but
two hundred thousand dollars the present
year for the education of nearly three hun
dred and fifty thousand children; South
Carolina is niggardly as to her school taxes,
and payment of these is resisted in some
quarters of the State; ia Georgia progress is
reported, but at many points the public school
system encounters coldness or opposition; in
Alabama the law of two or three years ago
meets with such inertia or hostility that It's
results are hardly worth mentioning; in Mis-
sissippi it is asserted by the Governor that a
considerable proportion of the existing trouble
comes from efforts to collect the school tax;
while Texas, six years after the close of the
war; is yet without a common-sehool system
in operation. We wish it were possible to
make a better showing on this head; in the
facts as they are is prime cause why immi-
grafton moves but slowly to the southwark.
We do not doubt that there are communal
ties in each Southern State wherein life and
property are entirely safe, and where good
educational privileges are open for enjoy
ment. These are the exceptions, whilo the
general rule is otherwise. Men content to
be mere workers, machines for the produc-
ton of wealth, can probably settle anywhere
and be secure in their homes and possessions.
But the average Yankee or continental emf
grant will not be mere grubber. He knows
some things, and is eager to know deal
more; wherever he goes it is inevitable that
he will become part of the community; he
is teacher, reformer, progressive, in the
very grain of his being. He, and not youl
mere digger of the soil, your mere swinger OF
the axe, is the man who build States and set;
them aglow with the blood of healthy ant
vigorous life. And, however dsplorable the
fact, this man the South does not yet welcome
to her borders.