Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-04-23
"THE wAKDs OF TnE NArIoN.-

When The negroes were declared free, the
Republican party insisted that they should be
made the "Wards of the Nation, - and every
Radical ofice-seeker constituted himself a
guardian. The wards were taken into the
loyal leagues where their guardians admin
istered horrid oaths, requiring the wards to
array themselves against the whites and to
vote only as the guardians dictated. The
wards were promised forty acres of land and
a mule. They were induced to invest their
hard earnings in the Freedmen's bank. The
innocent wards soon discovered that they
were cheated by their guardians. But it
seems the Republicans again propose to make
the blacks the wards of the nation and to
constitute themselves their guardians. Our
dispatches from Washington announce that
on Monday last Mr.. Garfield introduced a
bill authorizing the secretary of war to fur
nish tents and rations to certain destitute
colored emigrants in Kansas, and making an
appropriation of seventy-fve thousand dol
lars for that purpose" A stream of white
emigrants have been pouring into Texas for
the past two years. Most of them are in
rags, destitute of comforts, and many of them
without money and suffering with
hunger. If a member of congress
were to propose to furnish them
with tents and rations, or to offer a resolution
approprlating seventy-five thousand dollars
for the benefit of these suffering white emf
grants, he would be ridiculed and told that
the poor whites were rot ''the wards of the
nation" and that it was not the duty of the
government to feed needy adventurers seek
ing new homes. Thousands of foreigners
land upon our shores ragged and hungry.
Their destination is Kansas. They have not
the money to reach there; but they have the
misfortune to have white skins, and if mem
Der of congress should be so silly as to make
them ''the wards of the nation" give them
tents, rGtions and seventy-fve thousand dol
lars, he would be told that the government
was not an almoner to distribute aims for the
benefit of impecunious immigrants. The
resolution of Garfield was introduced for the
sole purpose of adding to the small stock of
capital which the Radicals have left. They
see that they are losing the colored vote,
and they hope to reclaim it
by showing to the blacks that
WY eAo otil NAC Wdiu5 VI TIC ndllOu
and that the Republican party Is still their
guardian. No one for a moment supposes
Gar6eld's resolution will pass. If it should
become law, the entire colored population
would cease all labor and become a race of
Migrants. st. Louis would be overrun with
negroes, all clamoring for their tents, their
rations and their pro-rata share of the new
appropriations, which congress would soon
to millions. The passage of Gar
fields bill would cause the entire colored race
TO rush into a heels-over-head movement
The whole colored population OF the south |
would be on the march, and if the govern
ment did not feed them, they would perish |
oil hunger. 1t would diminish the product |
OF cotton, and the whites would be forced to |
raise their own supplies, and at the close of
the year they would find that they had lost
nothing 10y the revolution, for in raising
cotton, after paying the negroes for their labor
no profits have been made. Indeed, nearly
every planter engaged iu the production
OF cotton since the war has beea bankrupted.
a fact which gives the lie to the charge that