New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1873-09-16

tolerates it. Your politician by trade re-
eNsds no commerce except the trade IN
Offices. His only harvest is the gathering
of votes His only short crop is the
annnal party Esgistry, and qfhe-sole frost
feared by him ID de chill of.a minority.
What else but insanity could set SO much
of the wealth and intelligence of country
against a people laborious, intelligent and
respectable?y We had lately an attempt
to convince the colored people that their
interests lay with certain Office hunters
called Fusionists, from these having been
everywhere refused by the people. The
population thus appealed to declined the
bargain offered them, The same interest
now assails the colored people, and our
ambitious neighbor Of the Picay,lne tries to
prove that the colored people are great
nuisance, and seems to congratulate itself
that they are rapidly approaching e1tinc-
ton" It then becomes our duty to dis
abuse the minds both of planter and
plowman of the idea that their world is
to come to an end very suddenly. These
propositions are to be proven from what
we deem misappication, or misappre-
hension of the federal census. Beginning
with the assumption that the whole in
crease Of the colored population in the
United States was but five per cent in the
last decade (the census puts it at 9. 21 }, the
statistician claims that this slow rate of
increase is due to Legitimate relations,
and asks, ""Has it not, with its kindred
diseases, accelerated by whisky and
smallpox, already, checked their, in
crease, of population in the South?'
and demands, in theatrical ecstacy, il
these causes will not check increase, pro-
duce diminution, and gradually occasion
extinction? It is added that this Eek
tinction) ..has been the inyariable fate of
all other races in compstitien with the eau
casian race" Whether this means that no
race can compile with the Caucasian in |
point of illegitimacy, smallpox and
whisky, requires explanation. But we
have the right to infer that those who de-
nounce this alleged immortality, and yet |
take no steps to instruct or reform, wish |
to rid socis.yin any manner of those whom
they believe thus to infect it. . Our
present object is to offer to the,colored
people, and to business men, the comfort
Of knowing that the figures employed to
prove extinction" are fallacious. It is
said figures can not lie" We add, they
may be made to bear false witness. -,
It would be obviously difficult to cal
culate, from the known operation Of the
immoral causes cited, how long it will
be before the colored race will be EEK
tinct" in louisiana. It is here. we pre-
sumo, the statistician is most interested
to get rid Of this race. An increase Of
either i've or nine per cent on the past
decade shows q positive gain Of about
half million Of souls. Any increase at all
is no 'diminution." But we propose to
show that, SO long as this population ex-
lists no diminuion of its present numbers
is to be unprecedented in the cotton and
sugar States. That millennium when we
will have tc plow our own fields and cook
our own dinners, is about as indetermin-
ate as the coming Of Holley's comet.
which held all Christendom in prayer and
perturbation. So it may be relied on that
this process Of extinction is rather slow
for those who wish for Office within the
present century. The statistician of sex
inction" is rather cloudy in this state
ment @7 m rH =
From the census it appears that there
has been no very large emigration of ne
yroes from the North to the South, and that |
here has been from 1860 to 1870 greater
Increase OF negro population in the North
than in the South. - Te.. t
Now, from the census it appears that
here has been an increase, by birth and
migration, as follows: In the Northern
States about 25.006; in the Western and
Pacific States about IS, $50, or an aggre-
gate increase in States formerly non-slave-
adding Of 113, $50. The increase in the !
Southern States has been, in the same 6
lime, about 2G3, 566. We presume this
means that there has been a 9
greater pro rata increase at the North than
n the South. This is as true as it is de-
usive. Percentage increases in the in
1erse ratio of additional numbers. If a q
. single man marries wife he adds one I
lundred per cent to the number of his
amily; the first child born to the pair re-
luces the ratio Of populous increment to c
hirty-three per cent on the whole family. i
{ he tenth child born adds less than nine !;
Der cent. The error of inferring popular
,ain from the percentage Of increase may i
'e shown by simple example taken from
he census itself Iowa, in gain of q
673 colored people, adds to that +
population 49, per cent; Maryland, in :
gain Of 1850, adds but 2.49 per cent to A.,
he same class; Minnesota adds 500 to 8
Ter colored population, which is gain of :
SO. O5 per cent, while Georgia, with an :
edition Of 79,446, gains but 1906 per :
ent. We have only corrected, or perhaps ,
Explained, this expression of the Picayo,ne, =
because it was necessary to our argument, :
hat there need be no expectation of col
red extinction at the South so long as
here is any such population in the other
states Of the Union. The increase by I
lature and by migration in the South is a
raa ter than of the North or Wect and l.