The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-02-25
LET Us REASON TOGETHER.

e ana have only to reason together to form sue
e Z combination for their mutual protection q
!, would bid defiance to Federal interference,
and silence forever those who have plotted OF
p co2mon destruction Q. RengFiean.
e That is SO. Now the reason why the whit
e and colored residents" cannot reason tc
r gether is that there are in Louisiana fe,
} hundred men, perhaps five hundred, VIII
stand between the three hundred and sixt
odd thousand white residents and about tn
same number Of negro residents all native
OF the State. We, the old and settled whites
cannot reason with the native blacks, ono,
them.
We cannot reach them because of the few
hundred bad men who stand between u.s. who
pretend to be apostles Of the Republican
party, who organize the colored voters into
clans and secret bands, who instruct and drill
and catechlse the negroes ina few stated rules
and dogmas of adhesion to the Republican
party, who send messengers and exhorters
into all sections of the State who put poltl.
cal tracts into the hands OF every negro man
to every negro who will listen, who organize
negro militia and supply them with arms.
who send out negro preachers that talk ten
times as much of politics as they do of reli-
gion, commingling both and giving to the
former all the sanction of the latter. Our
reasoning cannot reach the colored men of
the State because of these interlopers, who
already have their ear and confidence.
Remove this barrier take away this inter
vening obstacle; cure the adverse prejudice
which has been planted in the minds of the
colored people, and then let them be brought
face to face with their white neighbors. The
reasoning match might not be altogether an
equal one but it would result in good. The
heirs to civilization the growth Of forty CEN
turies might not readily be understood bv
those whose distance from absolute barbarism
is measured by not more than five or six GEN.
eratons.
Our colored felow-citizens, the Grand
children or great grandchildren Of those nude
African savages, who knew little of houses
laws or government, might not understand
the reasoning of men whose birthright of in
tellect has descended to them through pure
Caucasian channels from the civilized ances- |
ers of the Pyramids. They might not under
stand us when telling by what slow degrees
our race has won liberty, and by what fore
cast, what valor, what supreme labor and
what severe selt-sacritice We have been able to
retain it.
Yet some things we could say to our colored
citizens, and so illustrate them that they
would be comprehended. We could show
hem that the overtaXed land cannot pay good
wages to those who till it. We could make
hem understand that they who have labor to
ell cannot get a full price, where the
'uyer OF their labor cannot put it to profitable
Use. We could as was done in many thou
ands OF cases in the State election Of 1874
'roye to the negro farmers that their interests
nd tie interests of their EMPLOYERS the ;
wners OF the land, are Identical and that t
9th are equal benetciaries from good wise 5
nd honest government. We could prove to :
hem that their best protectors are those who :
est know their wants
We could show to them that the tariff falls
pom the consumer, and that taxes come home :
last to the producer. We could show to II
lem that they cannot afford to put in the a
lace OF legislators the corrupt vagabonds e
no come here to steal, nor the rude and ~
norant men Of their own color, when their i,
otes might elect some of their old friends,
orthy of their confidence, capable and
1neSt.
AS to the political relations of the whites
It'll the colored, all we need and all we ask ls
the privilege Of reasoning with them, not pr
rough the medium of subsidized press u'
" by the mouths of Radical hirelings, not
wigwams and secret associations, not in
mps Of the colored Grand Army of the Re
bile, nor yet in their religious assemblages,
t even as we reason together in our own -
'ociations, and through our own journals,
at our own political assemblages Stand
~ between us, then, carpet baggers, and
US 6 reason with our colored fellow-citi-
IS.