Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-02-23
Is TENNESSEE A PAUPER AND A
BANKRUPT

our first page that Mr.. Colyar, of
Davidson county, answers this ques-
ton i'm the affirmative, and that
portion of the press of Tennessee,
taking the statements of his speech
in the State Legislature for estab-
iished facts, endorses the statement.
The position maintained is that /
Tennesseans not only cannot pay |
their debts, but cannot live upon |
their income. If it were true, this |
were not a patriotic assertion to
make, but happily il is not true. and,
what is better, it is not believed, for
hundreds of stalwart, industrious
immigrants are every day showing
their disbelief of it by investing
their capital and their labor in the
good old State and making it their
home, which they would scarcely
do if they believed it to be the rotten,
poverty-stricken concern which Mr..
Colyar and his endOrsers would
make it out. 1t is not, therefore,
because we fear that these misrep-
reservations will be believed to the
prejudice of the citizens of the State
that we undertake to refute them
now; it is to show the disingenuOus-
ness of continuing to promulgate
these statements when they have
already been answered and dis
proved by the plainest statement of
facts.
We have before us the speech
made by the Hon. Jno. r. Good
pasture, which was made in the
Tennessee House of Representatives
in answer to Mr.. Colyar's speech on
this subject. Mr.. G. shall fur
nish nearly all that we have to say,
and we would rather use his points
than our own, because the fact We
desire TO establish is not that Mr..
COlyar can be alstCered, but that he
has been answered so completely that
il was not honest to continue
urging his ideas without at least
attempting to set aside the refutatiOn
that has been already given of them.
He quotes, or rather misquOtes, a
portion of Gov. Porter's message
and infers from it that all the pro-
ducts of this State, of every kind,
amount in all to $4,000, 900, and
then dividing this sum by the
census population of the State ne
calculates that the average income
of the people of Tennessee is 81
per head. This established to his
satisfaction he plaintively asks can
81 man feed and clOthe and educate
his family and pay his taxes besides
on S4l year? This is his argument
in a nutshell, and all the rest is an
amplificatiOn of this.
Itwas hardly worth the while of
Mr.. GOOdpasture to array against
such an absurd statement as this the
mastery statistical argument with
which he refuted it; for what audi
ence of negroes would listen other
wise than with an incredulous laugh
if they were to be told that their av-
erage income was 81 year, which
is Il trifle over 10 cents a week. Tell
that to an average crowd of Clarks-
vile negroes-whether they make
their living by saving wood, or
driving drays, OF sweeping out Off
ces, or by cooking or washing-tell
them that the average income they
make is about rs cents a week; tell
it to boy of twelve years old who
lives by doing jobs about livery
stable, and you are convicted by
universal consent of an enormous
blunder somewhere. They might
not be able to follow Mr.. COlyar in
his arithmetical statements, but
Cuffee would tell him in a minute {:
mo, no, boss! you can't git dis
chile to do nothin' at as cents a
week; that's shO'." So that we are
prepared with the certainty that
there is an enormous error in Mr..
COlyar's statement somewhere, even
before we scrutinize it in detail.
The first error pointed out is that
Mr.. COlyar completely misquOtes
Gov. Porter, who never limited the
tch0te productions of the State to
$4,000, 900, but included in that sum
only few of the crops that are sold
abroad, such as wheat, tobacco, cot
ton, etc. Mr.. GOOdpasture says:
He did not do justice to the Gov
ernOr by quoting his message cor
rectly. The message gives the pro-
auctions in 1876 of the principal crops
or, in other words, the principal pro-
auctions, and his estimate for 1877
had reference to the same source of
production. He is alluding to those
crops which are most commonly
sent out to the markets of the world,
and consequently form the pricipal
source of surplus money. / need not
dwell longer on this point. If the
gentleman will look to the census
reports he will find that in 1870 the
total estimated value of all farm
productions, including betterments
and additions TO stock in Tennessee,
amounted to $50, Az, S47 add to this
S34, 1862, $50, the amount of the pro-
ducts of manufacture for the same
year and we have as the total pro-
duction $l20, $50, 1873.
And even that does not give credit
for the large production in the State
of mineral wealth, which, as Mr.
GOOdpasture shows i'm a subsequent
paragraph, have within the last five
years increased over 200 per cent;
nor the vast quantity of produce
produced and consumed ON the farms
themselves, which, to make Mr..
Colyar's argument good, should all
be paid for out of the 81 a year.
Adding all these, the So, OO0, 900 al
lowed for by Mr.. Colyar a. thevalue
of Tennessee products may fairly be
multiplied by and be stated at