Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-12-10
THE NEGRO EXODUS ~ GEORGLA An.
ALABAMA

ALABANA.
If the democrats are to be believed,
there is peace in the South and great sat
isfaction amongst both whites and blacks
with the recent elections in that section.
At democratic jubilee meeting in Phla-
delphia last week. Mr.. Samuel j. Ran
dali, democratic representative in Con-
gress from the third Pennsylvania district
said: 1.-THE first fruits of our recent tri-
"umph have been realized in the perfect
"order since maintained in every Southern
"State, and the engendering of better
Feeling between the two races than has
"existed since the war. The white man
"begins to feel secure in his liberty of
"person and conscience, while the colored
imam realizes the fact that honesty and
Intelligence in their rulers best secure to
them permanently the results of their
''labor."
Now it is pity that SO beautiful a pic
ture of peace and happiness in the South
is not true. All good men would rejoice
if it were. Concord between the two
races, based on mutual respect for the
rights of each other, would promote the
prosperity of both. That would end the
.Ku-Klux, the White League, the murder
and abuse of many innocent negroes, and
bring in the golden days of peace and
plenty 10 all the South. All that is needed
in land so fair and fruitful, blessed with
sunny skies and never fading flowers and
verdure, to render its people contented
and rich, is for the whites to extend the
hand of justice and kindness towards the
blacks and uphold perfect liberation of po-
litical opinion and action amongst all
classes.
But we find that in the same week in
which Mr.. Randall presented his picture
of the pacification of the races in the
South, conventions Of colored people were
being held in Alabama and Georgia, to
consider the question Of a general exodus
of their race from those States, in conse-
quence of the wrongs endured by them,
and the opinion that only emigration can
prevent them being reduced to slavery
again. This being SO, Mr.. Randall's rose
colored representations cannot be correct.
The negroes as people are distinguished
for their attachment to localities in which
they are born and find homes. They are
not possessed Of rowing and adventurous
minds, but are contented with little in the
place of their birth, if with that little they
can have peace. When, therefore, they
rise in large bodies to seek homes far
away from their accustomed localities, as
they are doing in Georgia and Alabama,
it needs not their formal declaration that
they are flying from wrong and cruelty to
confirm others in that belief.
Georgia and Alabama both held cleo
lions in November. In both there were
complaints of outrages upon the negroes
in order to prevent them voting the re-
publican ticket. The population of Gcor-
81" 40 NoO,S-O NllilSo " cfci bllNhs. n
portion OF the whites are republicans, and
the negro vote uninfuenced by fear would
be almost entirely republican, but the dem
ocrats elected every member of Congress
by large majorities, as they claim. In order
to account for the large vote by which they
carried the State the democrats report that
considerable portion of the negroes yot-
ed the democratic ticket. Possibly they
did, but only under fear Of death or brutal
oppression if they dared to do otherwise,
not because they voted as they desired
Their effort to leave the State since the
election plainly declares what they think
of the wrongs which have been heaped up,
on them. In Alabama, also, the popula.
ton is nearly equally divided between the
two races, the whites numbering 521, 984
the blacks 1880. Here, too, the whites
are divided politically. while the blacks
are almost solid republican. but the Ku.
Klux and White League created such 9
reign of terror among the blacks that large
numbers of them did not vote, and some