The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1884-09-23
SENATOR JONAS coNrRADIcrs BUTLER
New York Times, Sept soth.

United States Senator Jonas. member
of the national committee from Louisiana,
made the following statement yesterday
in reference to an assertion made by Gen.
Butler: Il find in the papers reports of
the speech delivered by Gen. Butler at
Newark, N. j., on Thursday, from which
/ extract the following: "How can you
laboring men expect to be prosperous,
with the pauper labor of the South COM
ing into direct competition with youi
The old slave masters hold them with a
rod of iron, and they have their labor for
one half what you have. They come into
direct competition with you. This is a
question of labor. You don't want pau
per labor over here from Europe to COM
pete with you, and yet we have in this
country four million or more of laborng
men and women of the South who are
working for half the price that you are,
and the Southerners boast that they can
produce manufactures cheaper than you
can. So they can, when they do not pay
their men anything Those men have
votes as you have votes. but it is no use
for them to put them in the ballot box
They are not counted fairly. and every
man in this country knows it. want you
to reflect upon this. 1t is a serious thing
If the thousands of masters of the slave
can make their negroes, as they call them
still, work for one half what you do, ther
your wages must come down, and what is
the use of tariff in your favor if this Is
to go on?
Nothing could be more unfair or un'
true than this statement, and Gen. Butler
is man of too much ability and infor-
nation to have made it without an inten,
ton to mislead His evident design is tc
prejudice the workingman of the NORTH
against the people of the South. The
colored laborers of the South are engaged
almost exclusively, in agricultural pur'
suits, in the cultivation of cotton, tobac,
co, and cane, raw materials, which art
grown to a very limited extent in the
North, and in the productions of which
they do not come into competition witt
any class of laborers in the North, as Gen
Butler knows full we'll These colored
laborers arc not paupers, nor do they re-
ceive pauper wages. On the contrary
they are better paid and cared for thar
the same class of unskilled Iaborers in
any part of the North They are in nc
wise slaves, nor do they acknowledge any
masters. On the contrary. they make
their own contracts, and there is frequent
ly sharp competition for their employ
ment OF course they often change en-
ploycrs.
The operatives in Southern factorie:
and manufacturing establishments are al
most exclusively white, and receive, as
rule, better wages than are paid to thu
same class of workingmen in the North
Indeed, most of the skilled operatives and
workmen have been brought from the
North They certainly would not have
changed their homes except for SOME
pecuniary benefit to be gained
The charge that the colored men ar(
not permitted to vote and that their votes
are not counted is stale and oftrefuted
Islander. If they are paupers, as Gen
| Butler asserts, they would have no RICH
to vote, but as they are honest and indus
trious laborers they do vote In fact, the,
cast nearly the entire republican vote o
the South. Thousands of them are intel
ligent enough to know that their hes
| friends are to be found in the ranks of tn,
democratic party, and consequently the,
vote that ticket regularly. So far as
have been informed, none of the colore(
people intend to vote for Butler. which,
suppose, is the reason that he stigmatize
them as 'paupers."