New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-07-22
Is IT sOPHISTRY7

! The Franklin Enterprise compliments
the New Orleans REPUBLICAN with being
an ably edited paper, and speaks. of the
sophistry of the talented, erudite and we'll
| paid editor of the REPUBLICAN. 1t is
| very sad, but We are obliged to surrender
all these very pleasant epithets, especially
in respect to the sophistry and excellent
compensation. Both these imputations we
must respectfully but decidedly decline.
What sophistry can there be in pointing
out the practical effect of driving all the
colored laborers into Texas, or the still
hotter place which was once regarded the
equal alternative of emigration to that
favored State. Is it a picture of imagin-
alton to say that laborers can not make
cotton in Louisiana if they be driven
out Of the State? Is it fiction to as
sert that if no colored women be
allowed to cook, wash or SCOUT,
that white ladies will be compelled
to perform these duties, or that streets
will 60 unworked, victuals uncooked, and
floors unsecured? That PENNSYLVANIA
Creole on the Teche who teaches that
colored men could not possibly live or
labor except on his farm, should certainly
be aware that there are plenty of people
in Arkansas and Texas who will give the
colored men just as good land, just as
liberal wages, and allow him to ride his
pillow mule to the nearest precinct and
vote as he pleases. That chief of sophists,
Rousseau, never for a moment imagined
that land and labor were not reciprocal
agents of mutual production and pros
perity. All the speculations of Kant,
Compte or Stuart Mill on the free agency
OF man never for moment intimated
that q laborer dissatisfied with the condi-
tons of the landlord could not walk
off at any time, if there was any
where else for him to walk to.
Why immigration from Europe to
the united States has for century
shown the sophistry of the White
Leaguers. An Irish laborer is told by the |
agent of his absentee landlord: "You can
have one 'pratie' out of every five that you
make, but you must go to the church that !
tell you and obey such other orders as a
landlord may choose to give tenant
Tory political economists had perhaps |
told that landlord that the laborer could |
not live without his land and wages. This
was the sophistry Of the Teche. It was
by Patrick, who crossed the
channel to the English hay harvest, took
ship at Liverpool with his earnings and
RENTED money from Ohio to pay the fare
Of his family to land where free labor
md free suffrage are not saddled with the
of taking the ballot from the
landlord.
But we follow up this question of the
'ophistical. The White League organ is
exasperated that the REpUB-
.1cAN has proved by the New Orleans Cot
on Exchange the order, industry and
agricultural science of the colored people
n the nine cotton Stahs. It asks:
Rest content must we with this and bow
!own our heads to the cold calculation OF |
he Cotton Exchange Wha: care they in
New Orleans who suffers, provided the
rops are made by somebody and shipped
o them to grow rich upon! What does it
natter even if every planter in Louisiana
bankrupt so long as labor can be pro-
ured to cultivate the mortgaged planta-
ions at profit to the factors and the |
Now, it is hard that these cotton mer-
hants, whose labors are intended to keep
ne world truly advised of the state of the
otton crop, should be spoken of as sor-
i'd, hard-hearted and Indifferent to the 1
interests of the planter. 1t NAV not ner.
APPS, have penetrated to the Teche. but .
is known elsewhere that the interests Of
he planters have suffered from crop re-
orts made in the interest of the consum- :
;, and that the cotton factor has institut-
the Exchange in the interest of the J
roducer. But this extremely practical
wiser, who thinks it sophistical to sup A,