The Alaska daily empire., 1923-06-28
AN OLD ISSUE RECALLED.
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The present exodus of negroes from the South the alarm it is causing. and copy of old news pApeE spIinted at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in the in of officials that had been sent to that State te accomplish tructon, in 1s66 which contains reproduction of of Horace Greeleys editorials the Blair Bill providing for the deportation of the former slaves recalls question that stirred the Nation upon a time. II is said that Presi- dent Lincoln contemplated the colonization of the American negroes of the solutions of the racial problems that he coming in the wake of abolition The proposal strongly supported by Senator Frank P. Blair of Missouri. whose statue is of Missouri's' two contributions to the Hall of Fame in the National Capitol. At this date the proposition chimerca but many of the best minds North South the days following the granting negro tufrage believed in their hearts that was the only thing to do.
 Almost three years have passed since Ap- pamattox and they have demonstrated the wisdom oi the arguments presented in all candor and kindness by Horace Greeley in the Tribune at the time the Senate of the United States was considering the Blair Bill
 After pointing out the great of the pro- posa and concluding that it would be less than $2,o00, 1000 000-a stupendous in that day when the country was loaded with debt of $sooo,- 000, ,0O0--Greeley said:
 Nor ia this all. IL would be capital de-
 stroyed-captal and it's increase forever.
 The cotton crop, the rice crop nearly all the
 tobacco and the hemp and the sugar crops
 of the United States were raised by the ne-
 groes alone Now the proposition to
 patriate the blacks means that we shall
 throw away the vast income derived from
 the sale of these great staples. That's all
 part Of it, rather.
 The exodus therefore would instantly deterorate in value all the lands, lots and
 houses in every Southern State, and by it's re-
 action On the North it would destroy mil lions upon millions of valuable
 property. So widespread would be the ruin
 that the measure would create---if it could
 be carried through-that figures stagger and
 refuse to bear the heavy load that would be
 laid upon them in trying present an ap-
 proximate estimate of the devastation in
 money value.
 It would pay the planters of the South
 to import 4,000.O0 of free negro aborers
 --it would them well but to expatricate
 them would be ruin ruin, ruin inevitable
 irrevocable and universal
 If the leaders of the South would display
 the same energy and sagacity in peace that
 they exhibited in the negro element would speedily to trouble their cal culations of profit to their dreams of power :r Let them accept accomplished facts. fully and with cheerful aacrity; let them bow to the
 fiat of the age; and let them remember that
 there is no fnality in human events-that
 other facts be speedily accomplished as
 well as those of today, By rising up to the
 moral summit of the era they could soon
 draw millions of workngmen their terri
 tory; white men, If they pleased intelligent
 industrous and skilful and thus, without
 Infringing a single right of the black race. they could reduce it's relative strength co low that ii would cease to be element ' Of strife to any This they could do and thereby become rulers of richer States of I moro numerous and nobler people than the South haPs yet known. Greelsx'e RdFicq was taken The negroes were not .-a AG @@@