The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-09-06
CONVICTS AND EMIGRATION.
n south CarOlinian Who Wants
Georgia TO Have All the Negroes.


Georgia TO Have All the Negroes.
| party of South Carolinians who are
in the city on business were seated yes
terday afternoon in the lobby of one OF
the city hotels dolefuny gazing out upon
the rain, which had so rudely broken into
their prospective trip to Thunderbolt and
the enjoyment of the seductive pleasures
Of that popular resort. As they pulled on
| their fragrant "Savannahs" the gloominess
of their own position, probably, suggest
ed as topic of conversation the convict
| question on this side of the river. which
is now so greatly agitating the public
mind. One of the gentlemen, who, not
so much on account Of any native mod
esty as from the fact that he is intimately
connected with the peculiar politics of the
Palmetto state. which forbids the Caro-
linian holding Opinions" of any kind Of
his own, requests that he be designated
as Mr.. A. acted as spokesman for the
party, when requested to formulate their
expressions for the more convenient use
of the reporter of the Morning News, that
the public might have the benefit of their
views on the problem as it touched free
labor in other states.
Mr.. A. since it was
so agreed to designate him, said that
he might be in a minority when he de-
clared his delight over the prospective
revolution that would be wrought in labor
in South Carolina, but he believed that
the minority he represented would event.
/ ually become majority, and that the
whole people would rejoice with him in
the change he predicted
The effect, he said, of removing the
Georgia conVicts from the turpentine
farms would be to draft heavily on the
free negro labor of North and South Car
DINA to meet the deficiency of the supply
in Georgia. He expected to see the i'm
migration agent in evidence again, as he
was few years ago, and to see negroes
drawn by the dozens and by the hundreds
from the fields of South Carolina to the
forests of Georgia. This emissary of the
turpentine men of Georgia a few years
ago regularly depleted some sections OF
South Carolina of negroes, and the farm
erS at the time were very much wrought
up. In many instances the agents had
narrow escapes from rough ham
ding by the infuriated farmers,
who saw their fields white
with cotton and the available labor, drawn
away like mist before the morning sun.
Very stringent laws were insisted upon
by the farmers restricting this unpopular
commerce and gradually this latter day
Moses passed into tradition. The sudden
removal of so many hands from the farms
within a short time would necessitate tao
ties of the same sort being used again, and
the probabilities are that just as great a
kick would b. made as was made then.
He, for one, sivwever, he said, would be
delighted to see that day come, and would
offer the immigration agents a refuge
from the vigilance committees just as far
a =
safety. He had no desiremo make the
state of Georgia a penal c0Iony," nor to
fill her fair fields and forests with a class
of people that were not wanted in South
Carolina, but if Georgia wanted every ne
gro in South Carolina she was welcome to
them, so far as he was concerned, and to
his aid in getting them.
AS a matter of fact, he said, these sec
tons of South Carolina from which the
heaviest drafts of negroes were made are
to-day the most prosperous sections of the
state, and it is a significant fact that their
improvement dated from the day of deple-
ton that raised the farmers ire so great
ly. Negro labor he declared, was always
unreliable, it's influence was bad,
no section of the world could or
would prosper that had load of negroes
to carry The negro as a free laborer is
failure, as great a failure, he thought,
as the negro as free agent, and this lat
pute, for the negro was essentially a crea-
ture of imitation and had no moral sense
at all. His morals are like his manners,
all borrowed from his white associations
and if left to himself in a generation or
two would all be lost
The farmers of Virginia, he said, real
lied long ago that they could not pros
per with the negro at their elbow and
they tacitly agreed to crowd the negro out
of the country They began by giving him
no work and Furnishing him If he commit
ted any of those little lapses of integrity
that a starving man was likely to COM
nit, and gradually the black tide swept
southwark. The farmers of North Caro-
| lima took the cue from their friends and
| the waves of color spread over South Car
| DINA, Georgia and Florida. South Caro-
lima was long in awakening to the fact
that the emancipation of the white man
| from the yoke of his brother in black was
an essential to prosperity, and the great
majority of white people have not yet
learned 1t. 1T is generally considered
that we, in South Carolina" he
said, could not do without
the negro, that our cotton fields
would grow up in weeds and our rice
fields sink again into the salt marshes of
the sea, but there was never such an err
ror in domestic economy since Cain slew
Abel for Offering a more acceptable sac
rifice. Time will show it more clearly, il
there be any doubt left after looking over
the country from which the negroes have
been forced or drawn"
lone might" he said. 'descaut a month
on the benefits to be derived from a rid
dance of this incubus but there are a
few essential points that win commend
themselves to thinking men. In the first
place. there can be no real progress in
civilization until the substrata of society
is lifted As long as there is a bottom
there will be a tendency on the part of
man to drift towards that bottom, and if
the negro is the bottom the white man
who does not fight to keep himself up in
the social swim will settle to that bottom.
and become as black as the blacklist ne
gro Therefore that bottom must be re-
moved, 1t can never be bodily raised
Again, the white man. left to his own re-
sources will find a way to carry on his
enterprises and win have added strength
from the test he is put to.
Again, the removal of the ne
gro will necessitate what has been
| preached for years and what might
| be preached to doomsday. and yet never
adopted until stern necessity obliged It,,
| and that is intensive farming.
Again the neVer-ending conflict and lar