Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-10-08

simplicity. Each member pays, on al
average, one dollar for every death. ant
such sum is not felt to be a burden
while the aggregate collection constitutes
a seasonable relief to the afflicted family
1t is also approved because it gives tx
many struggling people an assurance o
provision for their families in case o
death which they are too poor to secur,
through the ordinary insurance machin
cry. It must of course be apparent
that the principle is one which
may be defeated by carrying it too far
1t is possible, for example, to conceive Of 6
state of things in which the plan would be
neutralized by being made to include the
whole community. In that case every,
body would be insuring everybody, and
the net outcome would be the same as il
nobody was insured. And there are some
drawbacks to the arrangement, though
whether they deserve to be regarded as
formidable will depend upon individual
opinion largely. All projects which tend
to cultivate dependence upon some external
agency, tend, to the same extent, to
weaken selfreliance. Experience abun.
dainty proves that the best way to make
men self-sustaining is to compel them
to depend entirely upon their own
resources. When by any patent method
some of the contingencies of life are
provided against, and the necessity for
present exertion in regard to them is
obviated, the inclination to put forth so
much energy is destroyed or weakened.
In the case of insurance the provident dis
position may be thus diminished, and too
much reliance be placed upon the artificial
prop. When, however, we consider the
extreme uncertainty of life, and the fire.
quent futility of the best-ordered arrange
ments, we must conclude that the adyan-
tages of mutual-aid schemes more than coun-
terbalance their disadvantages, and that
the benefits they produce are worth all the
risks incurred in securing them. The mu-
tual-aid system is necessarily temporary,
as we have indicated, but it will no doubt
remain practicable for many years, and
there is no sufficient reason why the Good
Templars should not avail themselves of the
principle for the good of their Order.
oSTRACISM AS A POLITICAL WEAPON.
Governor Perry, of South Carolina,
wrote letter to the Darlington
Is. o. Soaaherner, from which we extract
the following remarks "The poor, miser-
" able, unprincipled white man who tries to
F." restore the Radical party topowerin South
I" Carolina should be socially ostracised,
"and not even spoken to on the streets.
"The colored man should be told that his
+" leaders are making tool of him only to
4" crafty their pitiable ambition, and to
"have chance of stealing his hard
f" earnings. He should be told, too,
+" that if he will vote to put negroes and
+" scoundrels into Gffice and power, no
" honorable Democrat will employ him in
GO any way. This should be resolved on
&c and adhered to throughout the State
81 social oStraciSns for the ,rhae man, and no
employment for the colored man." IN
happily it is only too notorious that both
these methods have been employed at the
South, and to the fullest possible extent
1t appears to be beyond the capacity of
the Southern mind to realize that the
use of such methods is equivalent to the
of intimidation or force.
They say, we will not shoot OF whip the
negro as formerly; we will merely threat
en- him with starvation. If the negroes
were in position to retaliate in kind, and
if they were to refuse to do any work for
the planters who hold this language to-
ward them, the Democrats would OBJ
tain realizing sense of the nature of the
they practice. All pretense of
free choice in politics is of course
neutralized by the adoption Of such argu-
ments as ostracism and the refusal of en-
ployment. These are only other ways OF
suppressing the franchise, and in the case
Of the negroes they are probably as effect
ual as bulldozing The naive way in
which Governor Perry classes all possible
Radicals as necessarily "rogues and scoun-
"drels is also characteristic, and shows
how incapable he and his class are of rea-
soning on partylpolitics. Sectionalism con-
trolls them absolutely, in fact, and they
refuse to recognize any good in those who
will not think as they do, and support their
theories. "Ostracism for the white man,
F" and no employment for the cclored man,
is their notion of politics. 1t is essentially
identical with that of the old English Tory
landlords who used to turn their tenants
out of their holdings unless they voted as
they were ordered. There is nothing
American about it, and nothing free.