The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1878-02-21
WASHINGTON NOTES.
Sambo to the Front-Colored otium
Cum Dignitate-Work Of the
Legislative Machine.
Occasional Correspondence of the Citizen. !

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8, 1878.
During my first residence in
Washington sixteen years ago our
colored brethren were pronounced
contraband of war, and it was won
derful to see them pouring into
Washington from the "old Virginny
shoah;" both sexes and all ages
from the new born piccaninny to the
ancient and gray headed patriarch
of an African family of intelligent
descent. How they streamed over
the long bridge and up the avenue
to the Capitol. They locked to it
as to a grand citadel of freedom, a
freedom that signified to them life
long holiday with plenty to eat and
somebody to cook it. Their enthu-
siasm was slightly dashed when
they found that the stones OF Wash
ington would not turn to bread, but
this did not check the incoming
multitude, who swarmed from every
direction and centered all their
hopes of earthly happiness on the
nations capital. Sixteen years
have lessened but not changed the
toe of colored immigrants
Throughout Virginia and Maryland,
and away off through the forests,
fields and fertile savannas of the
South, Sambo looks to Washington
as the Mecca of all his hopes. The
more ambitious aspire TO seats
amongst the conscript fathers of
the Senate, or the younger Solons
of the House, while the more mod
est, who stand in awe of the civil
service enactment content them
selves with seats in the galleries.
CoLoRED oTIUM CUM DIGEITATE.
How they can while away the
blissful hours of undisturbed re-
pose, while they seem to be drink
ing in great draughts OF wisdom in
terspersed with pleasant dreams or
gentle slumbers. Here they sit day
after day and month after month,
rank after rank of colored human
ity, running through all the shades
of miscegenation from the light side
saddle up TO the original oiled
ebony. How happy they seem
How little they care whether Con-
gress adjourns or not. Nothing
short of an incipient famine can dis
turb their blissful repose. AS they
sit thus in their solemn equanimity
they have been compared to "the
lilies of the field that toll not nei-
ther do they spin," but there the
quotation must stop for the dollar
store pinchback will not compare
with Solomon's barbaric gold.
WHERE WILL THIS END?
What is to be the end OF this con-
centration of the colored population
of the country in the cities, large
towns and villages? The negro is
naturally very sociable-loves to be
in company-loves to enjoy the
hospitality of his neighbor as well
as to dispense his own. He takes
about as little "thoCght for the
morrow" as the lilies to which he
has been compared. He is opposed
to much active exertion and prefers
a life Of ease and incidence. While
not naturally vicious, quarrelsome,
bloody-minded or revengeful, his
easy nature is easily led astray by
the dominating influence of vicious
white men, and he soon becomes
the victim of his own vices and IN
firmities. The aborigines Of this
country are fast disappearing, be-
cause they have INDUCED too freely
in some OF the concomitants of the
white mans civilization. The ne
gro will follow still faster towards
the same point, and q few genera
tions will write utter extinction
upon the graves Of the African race