Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-09-23
He plscRIMlNAIEs

The CoICfed Man Knows When He L.
Justly Treated and When He Is Being
Used as a Tool-Another Proposed "Ex-
odus.'
Leaders of the Republican party new
II forget the negro, wherever his vote
is to be had. The individual choice of
the colored voter passes for nothing if
he does not vote the Republican ticket
In Southern States he is either a Re-
publican voter or he is nothing. If he
chooses to vote the other ticket he gets
that he can best serve his local govern
ment by voting the Democratic ticket,
he does it, wakes fat, and enjoys the
profit of his right to labor and earn.
The negro with his local habitation has
the right of all Americans to say just
what he will do politically for his own
benefit.
But Mr.. Blame, in his speeches in
Maine, where a negro is rarely seen,
declares that the colored man shall not
only vote the Republican ticket by Writ
ue of his Inheritance of freedom, but
that he shall vote it under any and all
circumstances - local considerations
and influences to the contrary notwith-
standing. And if he does not choose to
do that he must be colonized into other
territory.
The plan of the Republican Congress
siona<Committee, as announced, Is too
absurd to be authentic, but if it be true
that negroes are to be sent, at the COM
mittee's expense, to populate certain
territories in the hope that their votes
will be felt in Presidential and Con-
gressional elections to follow, it reflects
but little credit upon the men who
have projected the scheme. We have
had one negro exodus from the South.
It invaded Kansas a few years ago.
Every colored man believed that he
was to get forty acres. He came with
his family and landed at the railway
depot without cent. He seemed to
care nothing about how he was to fare.
His idea was that Kansas, acting
| through its Plumbs and its other patri-
OTIS, was to give him a farm. For five
years or more those negro exodusters
have fought fate. Kansas cities have
more walters, bootblacks, calcimrners,
BARRIERS, shoe repairers and clothes
| busters than any State in the Union,
and their votes have only gone to swell
majority already large.
The home of the Southern negro is
| in the South. There he was born and
reared; there are the local traditions
| and family instincts that root him to
| the soil. The Northern politician OF
the Blaine stamp who seeks his vote
may talk OF colonization and all that,
| but the Southern colored man knows
| where he lives. He knows he is no
| longer slave; he knows that the Sec
ond generation, of which both he and
his employer are types, have long age
forgotten asperities. The man and his
EN- ployer work together in the field
and at the polls-they work for a com
mon interest. If that interest does not
quite meet the views of Mr.. Blaine and
his friends, it is not the fault of the col
ored man. Mr.. Blaine and his friends
can gain nothing by colonizing ne
groes anywhere. Sooner or later the
coionizationists absorb the politica
ideas and views of their surroundings
and it is the highest proof of the col
ored man intelligence that he can anc
does discriminate. When he finds ht
is being used for political purpose:
without corresponding benefit or credi
to himself, he quickly draws the line
| CkicQ0o Herald.