New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-12-27

operate in Louisiana are felt nearly or quite
as much in other Southern States. All over
this State, New-Jersey and Pennsylvahla
there can now be found efficient cOoreu
workers, male and female, who have migrated
within the past year or two from Virginia
or other Southern Atlantic States. lhey
are showing willingness to WORK.
fidelity and teachableness which en-
ployars have often sought III VAN
in workers of different origin
they are generally thrifty, and the wages
which give them full observation-disclosures
larger than they have ever been pad at the
South-are decidedly lower than many other
workers have been accustomed to exact Tor less
satisfactory work. The knowledge OF THESE
facts is becoming dlffused, so that those VINO
are not content with the workers previously
within their reach are beginning to SEND iOr
c0ored men and women i'll large numbers al
the West, tine migration has been much greater
Though enough colored people to do all the
work for several Southern counties nave gone
into Kansas alone Governor ST. John mas re-
Gently rcported that nearly all OF them are
doing well, have found permanent employ
ment. and are making useful citizens. Inc
same results are seen in Indiana, Illinois and
other Western States.
There are very few landowners at the
South by this lime, who fail to see that a
great mistake has been made III the treat
mcn' OF The colOled people. The greater part
I'll the mischc already done has been in con-
sequence oil political differences. The deter
mination of tho Southern Democrats to get
and keep ooutro Of their local Governments
was not unnatural, though the methods re-
sorted - were often both unnatural and IN
famous. Rut the worst feature OF this bad
buslncss is that a new generation OF whites at
The South has been educated to regard the
blacks with all the preJudces, and to treat
them with all the insOlencc and brutality, OF
a system OF labor that has passed away for
ever.
sixteen years ago, when freedom was given
to the slave, nc had no knowledge OF any
otter state of existence than that TO which he
had been trained. Ii was wholly in the power
of the white landowners, by reasonable and
kindly treatment, to attach these workers to
the soil on which they stood to make the
South such a home for them that they should
never wish to leave it, and to gain such an
influence with them that no serious antage-
nism between capital and labor could arise,
at least for many years. Democracy pre-
vented. The Democratic party wanted
power and it used Southern preJudlces
and passions as its tools The result
has been no advantage to the Demo
cratic party, but incalcuable and irremedlable
injury to the Southern landowners. They
have gone on, practically denying man
hood to the negro workman, just as
they did IN the days of slavery. In all their
Intercourse they have treated him as an in
fcror being induStrially useful as a species
of cattle with some intelligence, but politically
an enemy to be crushed out, by any means,
fair or foul.
The habits of the fathers and mothers of
the South have gone into the very nature of
the sons and the daughters. new genera
ton of whites has grown up more than half
the property at the South is now in the hands
of men and women who were minors sixteen
wears ago. and never owned a slave. But for
the unspeakable folly and brutality which pO-
litical ambition has kindled and kept alive
the Young South would long ago have
learned to get on pcaceably and profit
ably with the cOlOred labOrers. But the
insolence and cruelty of the generation that
once owned slaves trained, like the men and
women of that generation, to look upon the
negroes as cattle, who can never be fit for
pohtical rights, nor entitled to the same per-
sonal rights as white people Ont of this
vicious training it has come to pass that,
while the negro has gained sixteen years
of experience and education, the white
race of the South has gained nothing
As whole it stands where it did in 1865 ;
stunned aud dazed by emancipation, incapable
of cOmprehending that the negro Is not only
free but man, unfit to employ selfrespecting
free persons of any race or color, and unable
to treat the colored people so that they shalt
be content to stay where they are.
The exodus has begun, and in the nature of
things it grows. Two hundred thousand work
ers now at the North have been writing, dur
ing this Christmas time, to their cOlored friends
IN every corner of the South. They have been
telling. not now for the first time, how work
ers are treated at the North, what they do
how they live, what pay they get, and what
sort of freedom they here enjoy. Particularly,
they are telling what places there are TO find
work, IN many cases inclosing money from
would-be employers at the North to pay the
cost of travel. The exodus will grow because
the North welcomes free labor and knows
how to treat it, and because the South insists
upon treating its labOrers as if they ought still
To be slaves.