The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1907-06-28

they grind exceedingly small" there
is r%etribution in history"
There was another view of slavery
which challenged the attention and
consideration of thoughtful men many
years before the war:-that it was
economically a failure in much of the
territory of the south, and, e. mad
not the civil war been fought, the
border states of Maryland, Virginia,
North Carolina and Tennessee would
have become practically non-slave
holding-not perhaps by constitutional
amendment or legislative enactment,
but by the business solution that the
slave did not pay except in the tide
water sections, raising rice, sugar and
| cottoa. West of a line drawn from
Charlotte t o Danvilie, North Carolina
was only nominally a slave state, and
the same was true of Virginia.
A very significant fact was notable
for fifty or twenty years up to 1910
| Slave spectators were buyers in Mary
| land, Virginia and North Carolina, and
! sellers to the r~ice-growers Of South
Carolina, and the cotton and suga:
planters of Alabamy, Mississippi and
| Louisiana. The first named above
three states were being gradually de
populated of their slaves-shifted from
territory where they did not pay to
| +orri4orv urhopo fhnir labor uaS nrOh.
table.
Even on many large farms and
plantations the slave had become an
improbable investment. / know many
extensive slave owners in Cumberland
county, but l can recall hardly Ole
This, it is true, was partly due to
shiftless discipline and management.
The homestead of a we'll to do farmer
would have n or two servants to
every member Of the family, whi.e
the field hands were worked to death
to feed the non-self-supporting con-
tingent. In Cumberland and Other
counties similarly situated the only
owners who got the profit from theil
slaves were those who hired out IL
trades of carpenter, brick-mason, blacl
smith, ETC., or those who were goot
Ioooks, gardeners, coachmen and wash
erwomen.
The Evening Chronicle points GU
the gross error of the north in max
ing the race problem" If the soutl
o;,~o5 - hos or;ovo,clu cTfforod TIL.
enormity Of Lincoln's emancipation
proclamation, and making it good by
a conQuesting army vas dwarfed by
the enormity of the dominant Northt
reconstruction policy, the disastreu'
effects of which are fragrant today
The military satrapy and the freed
mans bureau endeavored to teach tn
negro that it was war to he knife
between him and his old master. The!
failed in that for he was better Q
heart than his liberators; but they dit
teach him that the bottom rail wa;
ON top" and that. as his old maste
had lived on him for a century, tn
time had come for him to live on hi
master.
It was true that a large ~perCentag
of the negroes of the south, the mas
learned BY the colored mans good ad
vice and example, are industrious
have accumulated property. and ar
good citizens. Blu the younger gene
ration are idle, lawless and vicious
and. unfortunately, they are among u
in so many thousands and tens o
thousands as to make the white man
burden-and just here comes in tn
economic feature of the enfTanchlSe
negro. These Migrants and loaferS ar
eating without working. and whenc
come the bread and meat? They com
chiefly from the cooks and housemald
L employed in the white families, Wn
support this worthless population u
: their wage and the provisions whic
they carry Off from the pantries an
} kitchens of their employers-that Il
the non-wage-earning negro is hv1n
ON the Wage-earning white man. Thu
is the size of it. twist it as o vii
The north "sowed the wind" an
1 is "reaping the whirlwind" IN a siisi
! degree by its minor share or II
L white mans burden" But the o
. saying that misery loves company :"
. cold comfort to a suffering man.
Some queer things grew out OF IN
. same old time slavery. The foliowii
short, true story I believe I have on