The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1878-11-27
Emigration from Tennessee.
Nashville America

mat heaven on earth to the emil
grant-before he gets there-Texas.
appears to be a mirage which fades
on near approach. Tt is currently
believed that there are thousands of
people ia Texas who are there like
the man in the dungeon-because
they are not somewhere else. Some
man has said that if he owned hi
and Texas, he would rent Texas.
Another man who was offered at the
end of a rope the alternative of hi
or Texas, said, sadly, he had been
to Texas and didn't like the country.
A lecturer in a neighboring town,
after scornfully scanning an audience
of six persons. said, gentlemen. you
can get your money back at the door,
and you can go to HI and I'll go to
Texas" Whether he was politely
taking the worst for himself or put.
ting the worst upon his audience, it
seems that these two vast countries
of boundless resources and exten-
sive immigration are closely connec.
ted in the popular thought; there
are many tracks leading into both
and none returning. We have won
derful accounts of the climate of
both. but nothing reliable. Both
have an extraordinary cohesive pow
er. Neither gives up its victim, and
from the one the way to the other is
supposed to be broad and easy.
Our newspapers are continually
filed with doleful accounts of losses
to Tennessee by migration to this
land of the cohesive soil, whence no
man ever extricates himself. We
believe this loss is purely shadowy.
The people who migrate from Ten.
nessee to Texas are in general-not
always, of course-a class who can
we'll be spared. They are a class
who do no good so long as they are
rooted to the old spot. When they
have lived around neighborhood
until they can live no more, or worn
a tract of land into the red and al
lowed all its fences to rot to the
ground, and even the briers have
ceased to furnish blackberries, they
pull up stakes and seek new land.
They sometimes, through the stirring
up of new scenes and travel, do some
good in the new country, or if they
do not their children are shaken up
by the change and learn new modes
of life. The best thing they can do
is to migrate. The best thing Ten
nessee can do is to lose this class of
people. It is tolerably certain that
no man--as a general rule--goes
who can or will make living here.
and every other is a burden to the
State and a clog upon its progress.
We can afford to lose this class and
Texas can afford to gain it. They
have settled down into a state of
despair here without ray of hope.
They see only ruin. In new land
they will have a good soil, and the
necessity for work, besides loss of
all the old props to Incidence and
unthrift which sustained them at
home. The same class have made
thrifty citizens in Illinois and In
diana, though in general the emil
grant to ''the Illinoy" and "Indi-
any" of years ago was perhaps
superior to the class we fiud gener-
ally leaving Tennessee to day. The
tide which set from East and Mid
die Tennessee to the "Forky deer"
and the Kentucky purchase have
made good citizens, moderately pro-
gressive. They at least improved
their fortunes and cleared mp the
country. The citizens we want in
Tennessee are those who know what
is fact, that man can make a
living and more IN Tennessee if he
knows how to adapt himself to
new state. of affairs and will do it
with energy and individual exertion.
All others it can afford to lose, and
when one man leaves another will
come, by the simple law of replace
ment of that which, Withdrawn,
leaves vacuum. Those who emil
CRATE leave lands which must be
cheaply sold. These will attract
live men from elsewhere. and instead
of loss we may be gaining now. If
not. we soon will be. Let us not
deplore these blessings in disguise,
or envy the land which seems to be
convertible into hill, those who
choose to emigrate thither or regret
that they viii; come no more. Ten
nessee will regret to losesany Of her
children, but they may benefit them
selves and her by going when they
can no longer successfully meet the
conditions around them. When our
live young men go to seek new
homes We suffer a real loss, but
whatever there is of this we suspect
is replaced by live young men from
elsewhere seeking Tennessee.