Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-07-07
HEAVY STOCK COMPANY PROPOSED.
What Representative Colored Men of Pitts
burg Think of the Proposed
Wholesale Movement
Its PRACTICABILITY AND BENEFITS.
The Experience Of Woman Who Lived in Liberia for
Quarter of Century.

fornia man, for the migration of the colore
people of this country to Africa.
The author of this gigantic project
Thomas b. Dawson, the editor of the Obser
ger, newspaper published at Corning, Cal.
in the interest of the colored people. MI
Dawson formerly lived in Chicago, wher
he was recognized as an intelligent leade
among his people. He went to CaIiforn;
about two years ago.
Walter S. Brown, the newsdealer at tn
Central Hotel, knows Mr.. Dawson an,
speak of him with praise. His scheme wa
published in the Observer of last Saturday
Mr.. Dawson gives patriotic basis to hi'
project 1t will, he says, give the United
States a commercial foothoId in Africa
where England and Germany are nov
struggling for supremacy. He believes tina
thousands of colored people would be glst
to 60 to Africa under favorable auspices
and that their removal from here will re
lieve the labor market in the great cities
The founding of great American colony
in Africa will give a new market for tn,
manufactures of the United States.
THE PROPOSED ORGANIZATION.
The managers proposed will be appointed
by the Governors of the STATES, one for each
state. These managers are to meet in St
Louis and organize.
The scheme proposed, then, is the forma-
tion of a stock company, with a capital OF
SO, 0o0, 900, in shares worth SIS each, the
organization to be known as the African
will ha
carried to the colony at the company's ex-
pc nse, organized into armed regiments OF
], 900 each. Each emigrant will be given
160 acres of land. or less il near town.
The company will erect all. buildings, to be
paid for by the emigrants in yearly INSTALL
ments, without interest Families of the
emigrants will be taken over when their
homes are ready.
This scheme is not intended solely for
colored men. Mr.. Dawson evidently hopes
that many white people will find it to their
interest to go to Africa. Chinese alone are
barred. The scheme is peculiarly designed,
however, for the benefit of colored people
who are ambitious but poor, and who desire
TO become property owners. The emigrants
for general investment in this country.
A LOCATION FOR THE COLONY.
As to the location OF the colony, that is to
be, the prospectus says at the best seashore
harbor that can be found, not occupied by q
foreign nation. A city will be laid out,
docks and warehouses built, and the emf
grants, as they go over. one regiment after
the other, will be employed, at suitable
wages, in building railroads inland. The
workers will be relieved, in relays, as their
homesteads are ready for them. Every third
section of land or town lot will be retained
by the company, and every fourth section
will be for school and State purposes.
Ex-Governor George c. Perkins, of Cali
fornia, has been inYited to call upon the
Governors of the States to appoint their
representatives. Mr. Dawson believes that
energetic action will induce many States to
vote money to aid the project.
A number of representative colored men
of this city were yesterday interviewed as
to the possibility of inducing the people of
their race to enter into such colony. Rev
George W. Clinton, of the John Wesley
Church, after reading Mr., Dawson's circu-
lar, said:
BELIEVES IN IMMIGRATION.
81 believe in plan of emigration to be
inaugurated and carried on by the men of
our race without the aid of State or national
appropriation, for the reason that it will
teach the race that independence and self
respect that must necessarily enter into the
successful upbuiiding of any people. My
objection to national or State aid is that it
savors too much of that former plan of
slavery, supplying the slave with all that is
necessary and teaching him dependence
looking up to somebody else, thereby killing
the elements of strength, selt-respect and
progress which every race or people must
have in order successfully to develop that
manhood and womanhood which are pos
sessed, 1 believe, by our race.
81 have not examined this plsn sufficiently
to pass an opinion on it, but at first sight it
seems to a very reasonable one. 1 believe
the race should inaugurate some plan,
whether this or another. pointing toward the
and elevation of Africa. / be-
lieve that Africa will never be properly
civilized and Christianized until it is done
by the men and women OF our race. / be-
lieve that God intends to civilize and ele-
vate and Christianize Africa through and by
men of the race. The other nations and
races who may enter African territory have
not for their aim the highest good o! the
or its Inhabitants, but are rather
seeking personal aggrandizement and the
increasing of the commercial interest aud
territorial control of their own Governments.
But when Africans inaugurate a plan to
ciyilize that country they will have but
three aims; first, its civilization; second, its
Christianization, and third, the full de-
velopment of that country, in order to bring
it up to the standard which, believe, in
the providence of God, it will reach in the
near future, and take its place alongside of
the other civilized nations of the world.
POSSIBILITIES OF THE CONTINENT.
Ct believe in the highest possibilities and
for that continent, and that
the day will come when the people of Al
rica, supplemented by members of the race
from other countries, will show to the
world bv their high civilization and their
full education and Characterization that
they are the equal, in every element of man
hood and womanhood, OF any other race in
the world.
81 think that this emigration would be
confined chiefly to the South, where there
is continual restlessness among our peo-
ple because OF their political and social op-
preston. At the same time, l believe that
the privileges and opportunities of the col
ored people in the North in many cases mil
itate against their development in those
WAYS which will best show the strength and
and physical possibilities OF the
race; that in the South, where their oppor-
tunities and privileges are more meager, the
race is making far better progress, accumu-
lating more wealth, making more rapid in
tellectual advancement, and showing the
possibilities of the race to better advan-
tages."
Lemuel Googins, of Crawford street.
looked over the scheme and said: "This is
the first had heard of q lis. L do know this
paper nor its editor. / do not think this