The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1881-01-21

islates and fills positions for which he is
fitted not only with the sympathy but of
ten by the voters of the whites. / saw q
score of colored policemen on the streets
OF New Orleans, serving under Demo
cratic Mayor, but it would cost Mayor
Stokley his last hope of election if he
were to put the sable policemen on Chest
nut street | saw black man sitting
on the Democratic side of Southern Leg
islatures, and no Republican district in
Philadelphia or Pennsylvania has ven
tured to nominate one of the seventy
five hundred colored voters of the city,
or one of the thrice that number in the
State, for any legislative position, either
state or municipal. | saw the colOTed
men miugle with the Democratic organi-
cations in the South, but not one could
sit in the councils of the League or the
Union Club or march in mixed ranks
with Invincibes or Young Republicans
in Philadelphia. saw him have free
access to every channel of mechanical in
dustry in the South but he is relentlessly
excluded from the organized mechani-
cal pursuits of Republican Philadelphia.
His admission into the printing office of
The Times or the Press or the North
Ame"icm would vacate every white
mans case, where most of them vote the
Republican Ticket to help the black man;
and the colored laborer of the South, as
q rule, is to-day better paid, more steadi-
| ly employed and more uniformly free
from want, than the farm laborer of the
North or any country in the world. In
deed, so great is the demand for labor
in the now rapidly progressing South,
that all cOlored laborers are employed
from January to January; their wives and
children double or quadruple their in
come in the cotton picking season, that
lasts three months in the year, and there
is now yearly winter influx of white
labor from the North to aid in the sugar
and rice harvests. This is the peace to
che black and the white man that has fol
lowed the now accepted domination of
the whites in the South, and the black
man does not wish it changed for re-
newal of struggle to which he is utter
| ly unequal. If the North must assume
the task of elevating the black man to
equal power regardless of fitness, let it
begin by giving him in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, New York and other Re
publican States, the same industrial
equality and political promotion that the
less educated blacks of the South now
enjoy with the cordial sympathy of the
Southern whites. ! see the same color
ed leader, Ex-senator Revels,) who was
excluded from the forum of the Academy
of Music, when a Republican United
States Senator. solely because of his
race, now at the head of colored coll
ege that is sustained entirely by the
Democratic State government of Miss
issippi, and he holds his high commission
from the same authority, while Republi-
can Pennsylvania has no such temple
of learning for the black man. Although
forbidden to speak in the Philadelphia
Academy,he can speak to intelligent and
appreciative white audiences in the State
that is blotted by the Kemper and the
Yazoo tragedies. In all the reign OF
, passion that has followed the war OF
races in the South, l can find no immi
tation of the exclusion of Curtis from
a public hall by the Mayor of Philadel
peia. These are unpleasant contrasts tc
present, but between the accusers of the
North and the accusers of the South
! there must one day be truth, and shal
= not hinder its coming.
THE FUTURE PERIL OF THE SOUTH.
The one great peril to the South fol
t which | can see no immediate remedy j.
the now inevitable division of the whit,
: vote OF the South and the certain appea
t of contending factions to the blacks a.
| the arbiter of disputing ambition.
e have, until recently, shared the very gen
G eral belief of the north that the division
S of the white vote of the South must bt
+ fortunate for the black voters, as i,
= would create rivalry in extending the
Y fullest protection to the blacks. | an
J, now thoroughly convinced against al
e my wishes. that the necessary and now
near division of the whites will be fruit
= ful OF great decentralization to both races
+ and that it will be the severest trial O.
+ wisdom or universal suffrage. There i,
S now nothing to demoralize the blacl
, man or to divert him from his industr,
+ and the education of his children. III,
| is rapidly becoming the owner or lese,
1 of lands and is his own farmer, and is
: in many instances, accommodating wealtl
| with habits OF industry; but when tn
/ white man locks horns with his fellow il
n the battle of ambition, the most artfu
n demagogues will best control the igno.
p rant freedmen, and the degradation o
h both races must follow. Malone tea acl
), es the lesson most pointedly in Virginia
e where he has outstripped the Bourbon
/. in the devices of the demagogue AM
l. has consolidated eighty thousand proper
l. tyless voters to stamp the ineffaceabl
> stain of reputation upon an honore
l. Commonwealth, and repeal the Just ta
t that opens the free schools to the colore
1t children. The division of the whites i
4, Georgia under the Colquitt and Norwoo
l. flags, sent a hurricane of debaucher,
n among the colored vote of that State
1t and all the thriftless cupidity of ignol
5 ance has been whetted for future col
it tests. This severe trial of universal SUI
frage must now come, ,and it will presen
the problem in an unexpected phase t
the nation. The whites can do nothin
q else than divide, They cannot and the
q should not do otherwise. They are flu
= of human nature; they have now III
l common danger to make them forget a
II differences of opinion and all the impu
II ses of ambition; the repressed iealousie
o and longings of this people will bun
IS out in widespread and bitter antagonisu
Y and the black man will be the umpire b,
e tween them. The seductive appeal {
d the agrarian and the cry of the commul
+ lists will be heard by the courted blac
+ + man, and his prejudices, his passions, h
u appetites and his Incidence will be al
e pealed to rather than his reason and h
u interests. ! now fear this surely al
a preaching trial of the blac. man as ii
y sorest that he has yet grappled With
}, all his many mistortunes since his libe
q alton. and apprehend that it will, at \