The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1880-02-26
Bad Management.

Bad Management.
We fear that Senator voorhees, ha.
overestimated his ability as an engineer
OF Investigations. We quality the ex
| preston because there is no doubt thai
he has ovcrestimated his ability in
other directions. Without stopping tc
enumerate the particular respects in
which he has made this mistake, we
simply say now that we fear he has
made it in the matter of engineering
the exodus investigation. His object in
setting this investigation on foot was,
as everybody knows, to make political
capital by proving that the Republican
party was the author and founder OF
the colored emigration movement from
the South, and that the negroes were
being imported into Indiana for the
purpose of changing the political COM
plexion of the State. He knew, as
everybody else does, that iour-fifths of
the colored people who have come here
were women and children, and that the
money which it cost to get one negro
voter here from North Carolina would
buy at least twenty Democrats in open
market. But that made no difference;
his business was to prove a Republic
can conspiracy. To this end it was
necessary for him to avoid facts, sup
press the truth, and give free play to
the Democratic imagination. The in
vestigatiOn was organized on this
basis. 1t was organized for the purpose
OF seeming to investigate the causes of
the exodus without touching them at
all, and of bringing out such matter as
would serve to fire the Democratic heart
without coming in contact with any
snags or sandbars of truth which might
upset the Democratic craft. This re-
quired very skillful engineering, and it
is right here where we think Mr. Voor-
hees has failed. He has shown good
management by summoning to Wash
ington some forty or fifty pot-house
politicians, jack-legged lawyers, stay-at-
home warriors, bomb-proof colonels,
half-baked statesmen, fat-money finan-
ciers, hungry editors. and, in short, a
small army of Democratic dead-beats
and personal boon companions, to testify
as to what they did not know concern
ing the exodus. But, amid all this
anxiety and engineering on the part of
MIR. Voorhees, to steer clear of facts, he
has accidentally encountered some
which in interest and importance far
outweigh and overshadow the personal
passions and prejudices reflected in the
hearsay testimony of his Democratic
boon companions. There have been
before the committee three witnesses,
and only three, who knew anything
about the origin and cause of the
exodus. The first was j. p. Duke
hart, Southern passenger agent of the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, who testi-
fled that the colored emigration move
ment from North Carolina was worked
up by the Baltimore & Ohio Road as a
business boom. He testified that the
road employed local agents, among
whom were the colOred men Williams
and Perry, to work up the emigration
movement, paying them drawback of
one dollar on each full passenger fare
and fifty cents on each .half-ticket sold.
What representations Perry and Will
Jams may have made does not appear,
and is of no public consequence. The
point is that they were in the employ of
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Com
pany, a Democratic organization, and
not in the employ of the Republican
party. The arrangement was purely q
business one, without any political |
aspect or significance whatever. This |
railroad agent testified that he did all |
in his power to work up the movement,
and if the colored people who had gone |
10 Indiana became dissatisfied and /
wanted to return, ''he would 90 out to
Indiana and try and secure them as
passengers back over the Baltimore &
Ohio line" This testimony set Mr.. |
Voorhees, back good deal, and
ne Immediately telegraphed to
Indiana for fifteen or twenty Demo-
,rats from this city, Terre Haute, Shell
oyville, and other points, to come on
md cheer him up. What he wanted
vas witnesses who did not know any,
hing about the exodus, and his Demo
,ratic friends from this State were of
hat kind. He ought to have guarded
against the admission of any more
witnesses who knew anything, but this
he didn't do. BY some oversight two
more witnesses were summoned who
lad some facts. One of these was Mil
on M. Holland, of the Washington EN-
grant Aid Society, and the other was
samuel A. Perry. The former testified
hat 1.-THE object of the Emigrant Aid
society was solely charitable; not to
promote emigration, but to aid emil
,rants. No political purpose was con-
lected with it. On their own request,
bout sixty emigrants were sent to
ohio instead of Kansas The society
las no agents whatever. So far from
he movement being Republican one,
he society felt very hard toward the
because they had not con.
ributed much money" The other
Perry, was one of the men
Who worked up the movement. The
ollowing is the report of his testi-
nony: .,..
samuel A. Perry, a dark mulatto, testified
hat sas he he Is a resident Of North Carolina, In
rom a man I'm Omaha, detailing the cheapness
4 lands in that vicinity, and SO ne talk was
nd il died out. % In iSD is7s the e matter was re,
fved, but died out again. But lately there
nd S;dse been N, much distress among the negroes,
erity OF landlord-andtenant and other laws.
me hundred negroes got together and en-
Favored to get some Northern capitalists to
elp them emgrate. There was no thought of
n exodus. They forwarded a petition to the
Iational Emigration Aid Society setting forth
agents, were sent to look for a suitable lo- |
alton; their expenses being paid by the col
ome oolored men told them they could do
ell In Indiana They got out a lot of circu-
'ent back to North Carolina At a camp
leeting they distributed these circulars. The
bad law of North Carolina has had a bad ,
orth Carolina complain of injustice in the {
Durts. There are two grades of negroes; | ,
pine have white friends and can get Justice. |
orthern men who had settled in North Caro-
ma mad been driven out by bad treatment. .
egroes noticsl this because they considered
cen taken away from the negroes. There
as one Magistrate in Office who openly stated
lat he thought tho negro was no more q | ,
uman being than a horse was a mule. The /!
emocrats told the witness that this was a |
mite ,, mans Government, and the negroes I
link they have been cheated out Of their rep
and can do better by going to
'me territory away for themselves. Thoy | ,
link IL tho Democrats regain full power the