Panama City pilot. (Panama City, Washington County, Fla.) 1907-19??, 1908-01-30
PANAMA CITY. FLA. JAN. 80. 1908.
The SunnySide Case.

An extensive plantation in Missis-
sippi is known as the Sunnyside plan
tation. Ithas employed many foreign
workmen, especially Italians. Com
plant reached the Italian Minister at
Washington that Italians were being
held there in condition bordering
upon slavery. He requested an in
Vestigation, which was made, and the
u. S. Government found sufficient
evidence to institute case against
the owners under the peonage
statutes.
The case having been thoroughly
worked up, was presentedto a grand
jury in the county in which the plan
tation is located, and the result was
a refusal upon the part of the jurors
to bring in bill against the mana
gers. The Government could do no
more, and now have to settle as best
they can, the charge of illegal and
barborous treatment of foreign sub
iects by the inhabitants of State,
with the country with which they are
bound by treaty rights to protect its
subjects. 1t illustrates a case where
in the Government is compelled in
behalf of the States to enter into a
treaty, which the same States can
render it impossible for it to carry
out. 1t shows most forcibly one of
the very weakest features of our form
of government.
But beside the ignominy thrust upon
the United States by the State of
Mississippi failing to perform its
duty, that state has injured theentire
South in vital way. For the South
to progress any farther than it has
done, there must be additional labor.
To secure it there remains but one
resource, that is in immigration.
But when foreign subjects are so
treated as to force the countries from
which the mass of the emigrants
come, to notify their subjects not to go
to the Southern states, the latter are
injured in a most damaging way.
The North receives the emigrant and
wakes strong and wealthy upon the
result of his labors the South through
it's failure to crush out alledged white
slavery can but look on this pros
perity, and see its own untouched
natural wealth remain unproductive,
and the country at stand still.
There is still another feature of
this case that should appeal to the
patriotism of the South, if such an
element enters into the politics of the
present day; it is that this campaign
entered into by the Government
against alledged peonage in the South
is not receiving as it does in similar
cases throughout the North, the sup
port of the people, but on the con-
trary it has now come to pass that
the law officers of the United States
acknowledge they cannot secure even
an Indictment against the offenders,
regardless of the evidence presented.
This is being taken up by the repub-
lican press of the North, and most
thoroughly disseminated where the
foreign vote is the heaviest, with the
result that the democratic party is
being held by these foreign voters as
the upholders of q white slavery,
aimed at their bretheren. 1t is a
shrewd political move, and will, if
unchecked, be the cause of heavy
loss of foreign votes to the demo-
cratic party. The clannishness of these
people rises above any political allie
glance, and to find that any of their
race are being deprived of rights &C
corded others, by representative of
the democratic party, will result in
their combining to defeat it.
The PILOT has heretofore called at
tention to this insiduous movement
upon the part of leading republicans,
and refers to it again as it deems it
defensible position but one that is not
being defended. 1t has noted but one
paper, the Times-Union, that has
made any effort to check this work.
That paper in recent editorial upon
Immigration" which we copy be-
low, has some very pertinent remarks