The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1889-04-25
HENDERSON. n. G..
The Negro Exodus.
Wilmington Star. j

The negro exodus promises to reach
very large portions in North Carolina.
The Star has expressed its opinion
that the negroes are free to 60 and no
obstacles should be put in the way OF
their departure. Where they have en-
tered into contracts for given time
if possible they should be prevented
from breaking them. But after all, is
it not safer to let even this class go :
VIII not those negroes who have no
sense of obligation prove a dangerous
class if interfered with in their purpose
to em;gratc? You cannot reason with
such creatures for many of them are
open to the appeals that are intended
for the understanding and not for su-
perstition and prejudice. 1t is per
haps a good radiance to let the dis
turbed element have an escape. Oper-
ated upon by designing men and al
lured by promises that are absurd and
baseless they move away and nothing
in the way of candid statemen or ar
gument will reach them. So let all
go who will.
There is one great mistake that
white men make just here. They are
wrong in thinking that the white race
can ever be dependent upon the col
ored race for anything. There are
millions of white laborers awaiting to
be asked to come and work our fields
an in our, factories. Do not think
that North Carolina will become a
waste bowling wilderness if Sambo
and Nose and Cuffy should go away
forever. The highest and most cult
waited intellect in the State is in no
sense necessity to the progress and
happiness of the State. AS soon as
the grave closes the world moves on,
business continues, other toilers and
factories come to the front, and you
are feign to think that no man is i'm
portant in this world, whether kasler
or peasant, President or postmaster.
If every negro in the State should
leave in. five years you would hardly
realize that they were ever here. The
whites must learn to do for themselve
learn to labor and to wait. Other
labor will quickly come in when the
black labor is gone. Do not under
stand us to be in any way inimical to
the negroes. We know them, and in
some respects they are a desirable
labor. We are used to them and know
how to deal with them. They are not
the best workers, but they fill ser
viceable end fairly we'll, and if they
were contented it would be best, we
suppose, to have them to remain. Blu
they will not be worth much as lat
borers SO long as they are FESTIVE and
their heads are filled with great prom
ises never to be realized and the red
dest pictures of life somewhere else
placed before their eyes.
Left to themselves, and, therefore,
not interfered with by lying agents or
manipulating political emissaries of
evil, they are contented, happy,
docile race. But foreign agencies soon
render them worthless and even tur-
bulent.
The .strangest feature of this new
exodus fever that promises to be filled
with great results, is the State selected
whence to carry the negroes and the
Southern State selected whittier to take
them. OF all the States, with perhaps
the single exception Of Virginia, this
State is the one in which the negro
has the most liberty, his personal and
political rights are most protected, and
where he is at liberty to work out his
own destiny under free and equal laws
There is no buldezing of negro voters
in North Carolina. We believe that
in all the State last year there was
scarcely one negro elector who was in
terfered with. Bribery is not common
and buldozing is not practiced. The
negroes vote free and unmolested. As
yet there is no educational or no prop
erty test. He not only votes, but
Sambo now and then slips in two
votes when he can catch the whites
mapping.
Why remove the negroes or any
part of them from the State where he
is best protected and where he can
vote without restraint? Why take
them to Arkansas? In that State he
will have fewer rights and is sure to
have many serious collisions and that
too where human life is held to be
somewhat cheaper than in North Car
DINA or Virginia? If the whites in
Arkansas shall find it necessary for
their own safety and preservation to
adopt the Australian system they will
do it quickly and enforce it to the let
ter and at the point of the pistol. In
Arkansas there have been some warm
times between the races already, and
other conflicts are ahead. -
How will the Arkansas whites relish
the influx of :; hundred or hundred
thousand negroes or even more if the
big plans can be carried out? Will
they allow their State to be African
ICED and then civilization to take
wings? Will they stand their ground
and fight it out to the bitter end, or to
pack up and go where the Aryan race
lives unspotted from faint of negrodom
What WlX be the issue