Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-08-29
SEQUEL to the Kansas Exodus

the spring and summer of 1880, just
previous to the Presidential election of
that year, when Senator Window and
other prominent philanthropists @ and
Radical leaders, desiring to make politi-
cal capital for their party. conceived the
brilliant idea of deluding thousands of
Southern negroes to leave the land of
their birth and emigrate to Kansas AMI
the West. The country was represented
to them as a land of milk and
honey, where, freed from the in
reference of the white race, they
might be delivered from the restraints of
caste, and enjoy to the full liberty, so
cial equality and wealth-when &C
quired. The object of these eminent
philanthropIsts (sO-called) and Radical
politicians was two-fold. They thought,
if they could induce the negroes to leave
their old homes in large body, it would
afford the Northern SOuth-haters an adj
ditional argument to show that the ne
gro was driven away from his home by
desperation, the result of oppression by
the Southern whites, and that,
at the same time, the voting
population, and therefore the Congress
sional representation of the South would
be diminished, while large number of
Republican voters could be colonized at
any time in doubtful Western States so
as to ensure Republican victory there.
Indeed, the last object was one of the
chief factors in the exodus programme
For although Kansas was to be the os-
tensible destination of the exodusters. a
very considerable proportion were to be
left in Indiana to make sure of the cleo
toral vote of that really Democratic
commonwealth.
The true friends of the negroes, the
Southern whites, warned them against
listening to these seductive appeals of
Window & Co. They were told that the
Radicals merely intended to treat them
as they had ever done, and cared nothing
about their welfare except SO far as they
might be used to advance the interests of
Radicalism; that Kansas and the West
was bleak, cold region, where if money
could be made at all it could only be
acquired by the expenditure of capital
and much hard labor; that they (the ne
grOes) would not be able, after having been
born and reared in a sunny cline, to
stand the haIdships incident to their new
homes, and that the end would be they
would live in squalid poverty and dis
comfort for few years and then die off
like sheep.
This advice was given, too, from mo-
tives of purely disinterested friendship.
From both a political and social stand
point it was better for the South that the
disconnected and deluded negroes should
go, for not only would the Democratic
strength of this section be thereby in
creased, but the idle and thriftless alone
would be likely to leave, while the indus
trious and thrifty would remain to assist
the whites in developing the land.
But the negroes turned deaf ear to
this counsel. Forgetful of how their
political masters and manipulators, the
Radical politicians, had so frequently
abused and deceived them in the past,
they again allowed themselves to be
duped, and took their departure The
sequel was Just such as their old white
friends had predicted. From the very
first they were Stunned in their new
homes as beggars and paupers, and were
| allowed to shift for themselves. Suffer
| ing and death soon became the rule
among them, and the charitably disposed
of the entire country were called upon
for contributions to keep them alive.
| All who could do so returned to their
| former homes, but the vast majority.
without either money or friends. were
forced to remain and stare pitiless fate in
the face. And now after two years of trial
in what condition do we find them?
Almost absolutely penniless, and even
now one Judge James belong, of In
dependence, Missouri, is visiting the
Eastern cities on another begging ex-
petition in their behalf. He says,
we read, that the most serious obstacle
to his success is the prevailing opinion
that only in the winter season is there
any restitution and suffering among
| them, and that during the spring, sum-
mer and autumn they have no difficulty
in obtaining all the necessaries and most
of the comforts of life in the fair and
fruitful Canaan" to which they fled from
the ''house of bondage" But Judge
belong declares this popular delusion,
and says there are oTer ten thousand of
these people now il absolute poverty in
| the State of Kansas, eating nothing but
cOrnbfeGd, water and green's, and some
are dying of want" His explanation of
their condition is that they have no
money to pay for the government lands
they are occupying; that it is almost i'm
possible for them to procure days work
even in the short busy season, and that
the white people of Kansas haye already
given the last dollar they can afford"
This is indeed q sad and shameful
sequel to the Radical scheme to sacrifice
Southern negroes to their reckless ambi-
ton and greedy desire to maintain
themselves ia power at any cost. But
as there is no evil totally unmixed with
good, so this beartless plot of the North
ern Radical philsnthropist will prove of
some benefit 1t mast at least open the
eyes of the ''poor African" to the true
value of Radical professions of love and
regard for him, and teach him that,
after all. his ''Old master" and the South
ern white who has grown up with him
is his truest friend and counsellor. If
after being so often duped by false
promises; after being used so frequently
as political tool and hobby upon which
white Radicals could ride into power;
after being defrauded and robbed of his
hard-earned savings by the Freedman's
Savings Bank, and after being lured on