Year: 1875

From the Burlington nsvh.ys.


The Carpet I3aggers.


Col. Miller is q warrior who testi-
fed before the Congressional investi-
eating committee at Vicksburg yes.
terday, lie commanded a part Of
the mob which drove the sheriff Of
Warren county from his Office re-
Gently, and murdered number OF
cOlored citizens. He drew, for the
instruction of the committee, a
gloomy picture of the condition of
affairs at the South, and especially In
Mississippi; its financial distress, its
social troubles and conflicts, aud It's
political unpleasantness. He cited
the fact that plantations which be-
fore the war were worth $l00, 900,
would sell now for Sls, 900 II they
could find buyers. And all this dis
tress, Col. Miller charged directly to
the carpet baggers."


A potent term, that, without
which the South would be bankrupt
in argument. The term Is applied
Unfortunately to oil men who
went from the North to the South.
Men who went down into that desc
late, poverty-stricken, war-swept
country, whose undeveloped resour-
ces never had been and never would
have been brought out by Southern
people: Nortbsra men who took In
to that country oil the money there
was in it, who built mills, who es-
tablished business, who made the
neglected plantations blossom and
bring forth fruits and abundant har-
vests; who infused all the life into
the country it has ever known, are
sneered at and called "carpet bag
gers" by lot Of poverty-pinched
wretches who beg the tobacco they
chew. If the great mass of North
ern men who went South had been
actuated by no other or better mo-
tives than supreme and unalloyed
selfishness, they would still have
most earnestly and heartily desired
to see the country prosper and grow
rich that all political and social dis
sensions might cease (; for in the
peace and prosperity Of the South
lay the safety Of these Southern in
vestments. These Northern men
had invested their money in the
South, and they naturally desired
that all the conditions essential to
realizing something from that In
vestment, might be attained. And
they knew that their business would
not prosper while the country was
unsettled and governed by mob law.
Nothing then could be farther from
their minds than to foment discord.


These " carpet-baggers were men
who had never seen the South until
they went down there during the
war in the character Of "knapsack-
ers." They saw the South then in its
most forbidding aspect, but they were
shrewd enough to see that there
were hidden mines Of wealth In the
resources Of that country, only wait
ing for industry, enterprise and per-
severence to uncover their treasures.
They saw that a c0antry which
would support and keep alive the
lazy, shiftless and indolent popnla-
ton which existed i'm ii, with less
work in a year than the Northern
farmer does In q month, would yield
not only a living, but a fortune TO a
man who went there and worked,
and they went there for that pur-
pose. They robbed no one; they
took the bread from no mans
mouth; they worked hard, develop
ing the resources Of the country,
while the natives spent their time
organizing White Leagues. and ex-
pressing their contempt for "carpet
baggers.p


1t seems hardly possible that the
South should be- SO blind AZ not TO see
that it cripples itself by thus repell-
ing northern immigration. 1T Is
wonderful that one section Of this
eo.ntry should be inhabited by such
barbarians. In the north almost