Show CONDITION OF THE SOUTH The Observations Tlade by Marl ScJmrz Buring His Visit Tlierc7 Carl Schurz who lately returned from a lecturing tour in the course of which he visited all the Southern States but one has recorded his impressions in a pamphlet pam-phlet entitled The New South It is always worth while to have the opinion ofso good an observer and such an independent inde-pendent thinker as Mr Schurz and though this pamphlet presents few new points upon the condition oUheSouth it is valuable corroborative evidence That great changes have been wrought within a few years and that the new South is very unlike the old South is evident to all who have eyes and are willing to use them There are classes of persons in the North who resist all evidence and will continue to do so who formed their opinions about the South twenty years ago and have never modified them It is useless to expect to conveit such people but they are being gradually removed by the process of nature just as a similar class of obstructives in the South are being thinned out by time If there were n o other cause cbangaiii the Soufhithe rise of a new generation of Southerners South-erners would in itselt soon enough alter all previously existing facts In point of fact Mr Schurz says in a very few years an absolute majority of the voters of the South will consist of men who never saw a Confederate flag who never in their lives saw a negro who was not a freeman and who know of slavery only i as a thing of mere histQric interest These young men whatever they may think of the principles for which their fathers fought know that they are nOthing by which this generation can live These young men are ambitious to accomplish something to make their abilities felt and they will necessarily throw themselves into the mam current of the poJitical and social life of the country coun-try Never in the history of this republic repub-lic says Schurz with perfect truth has there been a time when there was no disunion feeling at all in this country until now Ever since the revolutionary period until within a few years there have always been some people for some reason or another who desired the dissolution of the Union or who thought it possible or who speculated upon its effects Now for the first time there is nowhere such a wish or such a thought or such a speculation specu-lation By everybody the Union now and forever is taken for granted The condition of the colored people viewed in the light of Clevclands election elec-tion is naturally the subject of I 111 Schurzs most interesting observations When the election of a Democratic President Presi-dent was realized there was a scare among the blacks and very many of I the former slaves went to their former masters to offer themselves anew for service ser-vice But this irrational fright was not of long duration and the revolution will make a great change in the principles of action of colored politicians The elec tion of a Democratic President has baen to the negro a great blessing for it has delivered him of two dangerous delusions delu-sions one that the success of the Democratic Demo-cratic party in a National election would make him a slave again and the other that by acting together as a race the negroes could wield in politic controlling influence with much profit to themselves them-selves They know that negro politics in the old way will never pay them again Mr Schurz quotes from an addrcss by a colored man in which such sentiments as these are expressed Man cannot live upon bread alone nor can a race achieve civil and political success in Politic3 alone Education wealth and morality must keep pace with political progress pro-gress in order for that progress to be of a lasting and permanent character Having given nearly twenty years to vain endeavors to secure full and complete civil and political polit-ical rights under Republican rule and L hay ing failed Democratic restoration destroys ballot all hope of securing them with the the will eliminate himself therefore negro from the body politic His ambitions and aspirations will naturally turn to the obtaining of education and taining money property the improvement of his morals And when he shall have spent as much time and consideration con-sideration upon these subiects as he has upon politics his condition will be advanced a hundred per cent The tendency of the colored men toward to-ward independent political action is very I I strong the ties which bound them to the Republican party having now been snapped The phrase that the debt of gratitude to the Republican party was more than paid I heard from so many colored men in nearly the same language that it seemed as if the word lIad been passed around among them In respect to the future of the new South Mr Schurz remarks If there are any dangerous political tendencies perceptible among the Southern people they are not such as are frequently used as bugbears to frighten the loyal sentiment of the North but rather lie in the opposite direction There stubborn adherence is no longer any danger of a herence to State rights doctrines of an antinational character The danger is rather in an indication to look too much National Government for benefits to the conferred the people of the to be c upon Southern Statesan inclination cropping out in a variety of ways of far greater practical significance than mere discussions discus-sions on theories of government Alta California Hay 22 |