Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1877-08-10
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.
Correspondence of the Bulletin.
WASHINGTON. d. G.. Aup. 3 1877


WASHINGTON, D. c., Aug. 3, 1877.
POSTAL CARDS.
The post office officials are showing
considerable opposition to the use of
postal cards by the public, and claim
that they are great nuisance, causing
the government to lose quite an amount
in revenue New York city post-office
alone loses $1,000 a day by reason of
them, for people will send by cards now
what they formerly had to buy three
cent stamps for Postal cards have
proved to be such a great convenience
that the public will not consent for
them to be abolished even if the post
office loses part of it's revenue, and as
this department was established for the
convenience of the people, and as they
are benefited by it the post office offic-
ials should be contented to put up with
a little loss of money The post-office
department has never been self-support-
ing, and never will be so long as we have
the present costly Western and South
ern mail service in sparsely settled dis
tricts. But public sentiment is so
averse to depriving these sections of the
country of the benefits of mails that Mr.
Key must not attempt to supply detic
iencies by cutting off postal cards.
THE STRIKES
The terrible disasters inflicted upon
Pittsburg by it's lawless, maddened
mobs were not repeated upon us as they
were upon some other cities. We had
no strikes and no cessation from duty
by any of our laborers, and as conse-
quence, while ruin and bloodshed were
poured upon Pittsburg and Baltimore,
giving their law-abiding people some of
the heartrending experiences of actual
war, we had the same peace and quiet
which has ever since the war character
lied our laboring people, having no
mines here or manufacturing industries
of any general or extensive nature
which necessarily draw together large
bodies of ignorant white people Our
laboring classes are nearly wholly made
up from negroes, who are not sufficiently
belligerent to ever give such troubles as
flowed out of the recent strikes in Bal
timore or Pittsburg. During and since
the war we have had full opportunity
for extensive observation of the negroes
mental characteristics, and our judg-
ment is that he is not natural bellig
erent as is the white man, hence in any
community where he does not largely
outnumber the whites he will prove
powerless to infict injury through mob
violence save in a very inferior degree.
In the sad conflicts between him and
the whites in the Southern States since
the war, in which ten or twenty, or a
hundred negroes were killed to one
white man, we regard the result as simp-
ly due to his lack of true belligerency
which has always characterized the
white race. He is inferior to the white.
The first impulse of the white is to or
ganize and elect his leader, hence he is
powerful to the extent of his combina-
ton, be it great or small. But the ne
gro lacks this great principle of strength
and where he attempts conflict with
the white, as he has in some cases in
the Southern States since the war, the
end of his strike or rebellion is swift,
sure and bloody We cannot conceive
that white men are so lacking in organi-
cation and belligerency as that millions
of them could be held in helpless, child
ish control, as were the blacks in the
South during the war. We have been
in counties where every able bodied
white man and lad were absent at times,
and yet no slave ever offered the slight
est violence to person or property or
the whites There was an entire alb
sence of organization or combination
among these slaves, and no leader could
have led them into fight againat a cor
poral's guard of the native whites. 1t
was not until the disciplining power Of
the white man was felt by them as
leaders in our colored regiments that he
could fight, and even then with the best
of officers and discipline he was not at
all the equal of the white private sol
der. That he can be an element of evil
is undisputed, but we have no fear of him
here in mobs so long as there is not
enough of the ignorant and lawless white
element to incite, combine and lead him
into great and continued excuses. And
such is his native lack of cohesion that
he, even with his white leaders, would
be scattered as chatf before the determ-
ined charge and onslaught of white po-
lice or troops.
The German Schutzenfest drew off
nearly our whole German population to
its beautiful grounds near the city boun-
diaries. 1t seems commendable custom
indeed for any people to devote one por-
ton of the year to pleasure, putting
aside, for the time being, business care
and turmoil to engage in outdoor exer-
cises and gayties which arouse and keep
warm and fresh the memories of then
fatherland. But we cannot appreciate
the necessity of wholesale imbibing OF
lager beer as the one essential means OF
commcmorating any day or occasion
Yet we admire the German love of peace
and order as seen in their tests, and par
don them their astounding guzzling OF
lager inasmuch as they do not adopt ouI
American and Irish custom of drinking
whisky and terminating public gather,
ing with free fight and general smash
up.
Our old-fogy sister city, Georgetown
has Just discovered that she has no ordi
nance prohibiting the opening OF drink
ing saloons on Sunday, and is terribly
exercised. She processes to be a perfect
pattern of propriety in all things, conse
quently open liquor saloons on Sunday
give her deal of disquietude.