The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1886-09-29
HE DIscRlMlNATEs

the Cotored Man Knows When He Il
Justly Treated and When He Is Being
Used as a Tool-Another Proposed sEx-
odus."
Leaders of the Republican party new
er 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
no credit. If, in the South, he feels
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
ne 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
siOnal 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.
1t invaded Kansas 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 farm. For five
years or more those negro exodusters
have fought fate. Kansas cities have
more walters, bootblacks, calcimmers,
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 oil
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 nc
longer a 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
employer work together in the field
and at the polls-they work for a com.
mon interest. If that interest does moi
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
colonizationists absorb the politica
ideas and views of their surroundings
and it is the highest proof of the col
ored mans intelligence that he can anc
does discriminate. When he finds he
is being used for political purposes
without corresponding benefit or credi
to himself, he quickly draws the line. =
Chicago Herald.