Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1881-10-14
speech of G.. E. Hamilton.
As Delivered by him before the Inmi
grafton Society at Port Tobacco.

thank you fellow citizens, / sincerely
than you, for the great honor you have
conferred upon me; and l congratulate
you upon the step we are now taking
the iniatial step in great and progress
sive movement.
This meeting of the people in the aid
and interest of immigration to Charles
county, which comes as certain augury
of brighter and more prosperous days, is
to me the fulflment of dream, the reali
cation of hope that has possessed my
mind for years.
1t is the first attempt on oar part at any
organized effort to correct the many grie-
vous evils that afflict us-evis which rot
cd in the late war and its fatal conse-
quences, have since grown with each sue
ceeding year, exhausting in their growth
the means of the people, paralyzing our
energies, and entailing on US actual Pow
erty and threatened ruin. 1t is an awak-
ening from ruinous policy of inaction.
1t marks new era in the history of our
country, an era which promises to replace
the donothingism of the past, with a fu-
ture of strong vigorous organized action
nor fellow citizens, does this awakening
of the people, this resolve on earnest and
united action come any too soon.
The present unfortunate and almost
desperate condition of our county's affairs
"a condition attributable in part to our
lethargy and seeming Indifference, and in
part to the evils to which | have before
referred, and will presently revert-calls
for the careful, the anxious and the
immediate consideration of all good citi-
zens.
That our county is in this condition.
That its prosperity has been steadily on
tho decline since the late war, which
wrought so many and such positive
changes in the condition of affairs, is a
fact as evident as it is melancholy.
Year by year the area of land cultivated
has decreased, until today, one third OF
the arabic land of Charles county is grow
ing up in brier and sedge; the remaining
portion thereof is rapidlywearing out I'M
der superficial cultivation and injudicious
treatment. There has been an annual fall
ling off in the shipments of grain and other
staples and there has been no effort on
the part of our people to make up the de-
ficiency by new enterprise and industry.
The class from which our labor is drawn
is becoming each day more worthless and
UNI eliable and its inefciency is increased
tenfold by the absence of all rule, system
or control.
Mortgages and trusts are being con
stantly recorded at the Court House in
Port Tobacco, and but few releases there
frcm are ever made, while debt and taxes,
poverty and anxiety are at once consuming
the means and wearing away the lives OF
the people.
That these evils do exist, We are, fellow
citizens, >all agreed, and in the loss OF
property, and change in our labor system
brought about by the emancipation OF
slaves, we can rec why they should once
have existed. But why is it they now
exist2 Why is it that after the lapse OF
nearly twenty years, we should find our
condition in all respects worse than du-
ring the years Immediately following the
ruin of the late WARE Other localities
that received the same shock-that suf-
fered the same losses, have with fewer ma
tural advantages long since recovered, and
for themselves built up, under the new or
der of things, a better and more solid
prosperity than they ever enjoyed under
the old. Why is it that We are an excep-
tion to the almost general rule of recuper-
alton, progress and prosperity every