Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1902-08-14
From Alexander, Ills.


as this has been. Wheat went near
fifty bushels per acre; oats is heavier
than for many year and corn prom
ises to be record. breaking crop. OF
course, there are storms yet to risk,
as the corn is now at a critical stage.
In most localities late rains have
favored the crop. On river bottoms,
OF course, it is gone, and upon our
larger creeks. too, while further south
chinch bugs have done much damage,
but ou our best corn lands it is sight
to look at. Apples, too, will surpass
expectations where we'll sprayed. This
year men went about spraying at 30
much per tree, and the result is we
may have apples enough to do us.
One trouble here is there are so many
old and neglected trees that are fit
only to breed insects.
Your writer did not pass through
Bismarck on trip south. but went
through Cairo and Birds Point down
the Cotton Belt Railroad. Grand
Prairie, Ark, and Shreveport, La,
we're objective points, and as result
of the trip residence in Prairie
county, Ark, will be the outcome.
So description of the country will be
postponed until letters can be dated
from there.
Although this is "Legislature" year,
and candidates have been named,
everything is remarkably quiet in a
political way. Pehaps the storm may
come later. At least one of our Demo
cratic candidates for the Legislature,
out of two, is pledged to introduce a
bill for the initiatiye and the refer
endum. Neither of them, however,
comes out openly for industrial free
dom, though one privately avows him
self single taxer.
There is a growing sentiment down
south in favor of getting the negro out
OF the country. This policy is op-
posed by the large landholders, as
they are profiting, pecuniarily, by a
system of peonage in which they get
more money out OF black man than
they could if they owned him as a
slave. And if my informants were
truthful, there are quite a number of
white men in the cities who keep black
concubines and whom, it is supposed,
would oppose the separation of the
races. For the truth of this cannot
vouch. The information was vclun-
teered, in Mobile, by a northern man
long resident there; in Vicksburg, by
a Confederate soldier; in Shreveport,
by man of southern birth and breed
ing, who had been an overseer in the
Mississippi delta. But there is feel.
ing that if the large holdings of land,
which seem to be now mostly in the
hands of Jews and foreigners, could
be broken up, better class of work.
ing farmers would come in and the
negro be colonized in some suitable
place. There are places now il
Louisiana, and even in Texas, where
blacks are not allowed to live; but
where they are tolerated they seem tc
increase faster than the whites. Three
blacks to two whites was the proper.
tion estimated In Mobile; seven and a
halt blacks to one white in Vicksburg,
and more than half in Shreveport. II
the present tendency continues the
south must inevitably become over.
whemingly black. However this
may be counteracted, the plan should
be humane and just to both white and
black, and not the brutal practice now
followed in Oklahoma. In the town.
ship was most favorably impressed
with in Arkansas there was but one
negro, and | was told he would be
ordered out this fall.
The tide of emigration from the
northern States has set in strongly TO-
ward British America, yet it would &C
to our southern States If the black
problem was properly settled. A
. prompt solution of the land question
= seems nearer in the Dominion, ant
this attracts some Of our people wht
want homes, and it Is probable tina
, we must have industrial freedom be
fore we can get rid OF the dregs o
chattle slavery. The white race be
ing superior will displace the black
other things being equal; but wher
! land can be monopolized the most sub
seryient laborers will be in demand
and this demand will eventually ant
inevitably produce preponderance o
blacks. VIM. CAMM, SR.
August 4, 1902.