Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1884-02-07
WASHINGTON LETTER.
A Professors Startling Conclusions
Based on Fictitious Facts.
Delicious Deductions From the Crude
Carpet. Bag Census.
Republican Delusions of Negro Suprem-
acy In the South.
Cost Of Fitz John Porter's Case Civil
Service Reform.

Special Correspondence OF the Gazette.
Washington, February 3.-No pub
licist has produced u paper of recent
years which has excited keener inquiry
than one written by Prof. Chas. A.
Gardiner, The reviews have teemed
with replies, and still the story goes
rs the professor gave II, and none
have succeeded in overturning,
satisfactorily to the reading public,
theories and conclusions propounded
by this Observation-Disclosures.
The striking arguments and start
ling conclusions developed by the in
genious and learned professor are based
on she statements of the census bureau
showing that i'm 1870 the white popr-
lation was, in round numbers, 33,000,-
900, aud in 1880, $4,000, coo, an in
crease of "A per cent, The negro popu
lation, In 1870, was 1850, 900; in 1850,
6,5S0,000; an Increase of 80 per cent.
Deduct immigrants, and the increase
of the white population is only 20 per
cent in ten years and of the colored, "a
per cent. The whites double in each
thirty-five years; the negroes in
twenty years. In very brief period
the negroes will predominant by n
great majority in the South, aud In
one hundred years, in the Gulf states,
will double the whitesin numbers.
is 1T NOT ABSURD?
From this basis of facts" CD rs col
lated by the bureau. the learned profess
sor educes the astonishing conclusions
which 30 startle statesmen and philos-
ophers, and ultimately convert the
South In delicious Dahomey.
The Republican stalwart newspapers
are delighted, and they do gloat over
the speedy transformation of the
Southern states into African provinces
of the empire.
THE BOTTOM FACTS.
II the facts recited in census bureau
returns be untrue, the whole fabric OF
DIR. Gardeners prophesy and argu-
ment Is unsubstantial. The theory
and results rs contemplated are empti-
est decisions. Therefore did your cor
respondent confer with u sa-
gacious, thoughtful old gentleman,
many years II journalist and three
years clerk in the census bureau. /
asked the grayhaired, bright-eyed old
gentleman what he Thought of the
trustworthiness of the tabular state
ment of the bureau, quoted by Prof.
Gardiner, and showing that the negro
race outgiew the white fifteen Ter cent.
in ten years@ The ready response of
the venerable scribe was: "It's id
nonsense, sir,-d--d nonsense"
"Wby,n / asked, lis it inserted in
the solemn tables and population re-
turns of the census bureau?"
tits the simplest blunder in the
Il n a. Il IL Va.
clerks in the bureau often discussed
the trustworthiness of deductions to be
made from the population returns of
1870, when compared with those of
1880. Southern clerks used to tell me
every day in 1902, that the returns of
1870 were wholly Enthusiastically. They
always adverted to the fact that the
census was taken then in 1870
by carpet-bag United States marshals
and their carpet-bag deputies. There |
were no supervisors and enumerators
in that census year. On the contrary, |
the United States marshals sat in their |
offices and made up in tabular forms |
the rude estimates furnished by their |
deputies or by residents in different |
neighborhoods. Carpet-baggers didn't |
like TO travel about in the hills and |
hollows or in the backwoOds. These |
returns, thus prepared by persons,
strangers in the South and many of
them having vague apprehensions
of danger ut the hands
of the ku-klux before their
eyes, were neither full nor accurate.
III is only amazing that they found
perhaps three-fourths of the negroes of
the South. In truth they neither saw
nor conversed with nor heard of this
but they counted the visible
negro cabins and estimated the num-
Der of dwellers in each, and thus made
up the round total, and therefore this
grand total was certainly twenty-five
or thirty per cent. too small. The
Southern clerks in the census
bureau said this; / gave them ere
dence. They have no motive for
willful Misrepresentation. Such was
their common assertion in 1870, and in
1880 these Southern clerks again in
sisted that the more careful and accu-
rate returns Of Gen. Walkers enumer-
ators were TO great extent trust
worthy, though the general saw fit to
send down stalwart Republican emu
merators to correct the work of
Democratic enumerators In South Car
olina. The Corrections" signifl fled
The relative members OF the
two races remained the same.
THE OLD CLERK WENT ON.
"No, no,n the old fellow went on,
"you may bet your bot
tom dollar these absurd deductions
from the two census reports, that of
1870 and that OF 1880, are founded in
the grievous blunders of the carpet
bag United States marshals and their
roilicking Yankee DEF uties, who made
a miserable botch of this census bust.
ness in 1870. / never yet talked
with a. Southern born man
who did not tell me that
The negro race Is dying out. my
fathers negroes" they all sand, are
jefunct. The old are dead having left
few or no children. The negro women
all say, "chilluns Is nifty bothersoine,
sDe white folks won't hire me If
have chilluns; lie done quit" says
every greasy grinning Dnah in the
South Then every mortuary report
of every town, city and village
OF the South shows two negroes for
each white person shuflles on TINS
mortal coil. Each month this con,
fessed fact IL illustrated at the Federal
capital Such We're the plain state
ments OF the old clerk, and am per-
suaded that since the whole OF this
supposititious scheme of philosophy
and government Of society, based |
on these census tables of 1870
and 1880, Is most delusive. Southern |
white people need not be alarmed
The white race Is not TO be absorbed, |