Year: 1865




GREAT PROBLEM.


We have taken occasion TO indicate the
shortest. and, as we think, the best and wisest
method of saving the nation and the colored
race from the present and prospective evils
that impend over them, by aifording idlers
employment, and compelling industry and
thrift in given direction. And the Justice of
the proposed method none can fairly object
to, when the great fact looms up at every turn,
that all over the South the Government is dis
pensing rations to those who receive them
thriftlessly, or only as an encouragement to
continued vagrancy and neglect Of every en-
deavor to improve permanently their condl
ton. Educated for long period to Il he be-
lief that freedom means exemption from labor.
overwhelmingly impressed with the idea that
the Government at Washington is powerful
for all things, but especially as giver of aims
thousands of these poor people have broken
loose suddenly from their old homes to en-
camp around the nearest military post, or to
set up for themselves in any spot made par
TALLY desolate by the events of the war ; and
the approach of cold weather finds such
starving, freezing, suffering from disease and
all else that want of means and of foresight
insures and entails; and it is such as these
that must be sought out, put into some or9ani-
zatioR for their o,on good, and made to sup
port themselves in comfort, ceasing to be a
dead weight upon the Government and a
source of decentralization to the communities
where they are located.


nd IL,
such position, we do not mean to be
understood as severely arraigning them for
what, under the circumstances, has seemed
inevitable. Victims Of circumstances be-
yond their control, and subject to convic
tions and illusions springing from the
hopes partially realized, of lifetime, the
only wonder is that they have not COM
ted greater errors, been further still mis-
led by the belief that freedom comprised
every earthly good. Suddenly dssolving old
relationships, and casting themselves on the
future before adequate provision could be
made from any quarter for so tremendous a
change, it is matter of course that so total
and sudden revolution should produce the
most disastrous consequences to vast num-
ber, ndvidualy-should bring consequences
such as can only be palliated or more etfec
lively met by the most energetic and kindly
efforts of the dominant race who yet hold the
fate of the colored man measurably in their
hands.


And now, amid the widespread suffering
and desolation that prevails in all portions of
the South, and with the whites, also, suffering
to that intolerable degree that no merely ord-
nary remedies by individual effort seem of
avail, what hopes have the inferior race of re-
lief, unless a potent and wise Government
takes the matter in hand, and provides for
those clearly shown to be unable to take care
of themselves? That the fears and disastrous
consequences we have foreshadowed are fairly
grounded, every thing goes to prove. From a
circular issued from the Office of the "AMERI-
CAN FREEDMEN's AID COMMISSION" at Wash
ington, under date of the 18th instant appeal
ing to the nation for instant help, we take the
following terribly significant paragraphs in al
lusion to the hardships and perils which
threaten the colored people at the South the
coming winter:


"The officers of the Bureau declare that
"thirty thousand cW perish in Georgia alone
'and forty thousand more in Alabama.


SIN Texas, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, in
Tennessee, in South Carolina, in every
- Southern State, there are many who need.


i'It is not true that the able bodied have not
'labored industriously and lived prudently
I" hitherto, as they have had opportunity. 1t
% is susceptible Of proof that no class Of people
:" in the United States have struggled with ad-
"versity more manfully or successfully, the
" circumstances being considered.


''But the desolations of war, the utter con-
fusion of all social and industrial conditions,
I" the abect poverty in which the return Of
''peace found white and black alike, the ex-
traordinary blight upon the very imperfect
"crops of this year, have together, not
% strangely, proven too much for the best en-
'.deavors of many. Thousands have sue
" "ceeded-hundreds of fthousands-despite all
"these difficulties, in providing for the winter,
"and ask no charity. Other hundreds Of
thousands will, by steady industry, although
"unable to provide in advance, keep the wolf
60 at bay until the.spring drives him back; and
these ask no charity.


''But there remain the equally industrious
"but less fortunate, who can find neither work
"nor wages until the planting season returns,
besides the infrm and the thousands upon
thousands of orphans whose mothers cannot
'be found, and whose fathers gave up their
lives that we might celebrate this peace


The President Of the United States assures
"us that, so plainly IS the relief of these, the
NATIONS POOR, the national duty, that he
shall cause rations Of food to be purchased
and distributed generously, at the expense Of
"Me National Treasury


Now, with this plain, and. of course truthful
declaration of the necessit les of the case, and
of the Presidents purposes in relation to these
people, we insist upon it that all of them who
desire to maintain in their own persons a
modicum of independence and sef-respect,
shall be provided with employment by the
Government in return for the rations furnished;
that those who, from physical inability, are un
able to perform full task, shall have chance
afforded and be made to perform half or a
third of one; and that the bodied, but idle,
who will not work. shall not eat. The rations
are to be dispensed; that is fixed fact; we may
ada gratifying fact. If they are indeed-as
this circular from a high source assures us they
are-"The Nations Poor" let the Govern
ment assume to itself the right, in all fairness,
to initiate any municipality in the land; insist
upon some return for its enforced charity; in
sist upon its chances to get something back OF
its needful expenditure. To do this is merely
following out the principle of selfpreserva-
ton. Half the nation, or two-thirds of it
more or less-should not be called upon to
support in idleness the other portion, and with
the most fertile lands in the world all ready
and demanding cultivation, let it thoroughly
organize this vast host of unhappy and desti,
tute idlers, feed them, clothe them, furnish
them labor, until the threatening crisis is sur
mounted. The treasury-we repeat it-needs
revenue, these people need food and employ
ment, the world at large, cotton. Let able
craftsmanship come to the rescue in this novel
but terrible contingency, and what has been
and is considered, an impending calamity,