Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/290

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266
THE NEGRO

competency. He also has letters from the Argentine Republic and Bolivia, offering very flattering inducements. He is favorable to Brazil, and if the present troubles do not disturb his plans, will undoubtedly favor negotiations with that government. The climatic conditions are favorable, and there is plenty of land at very low prices. Speaking of the social question as it relates to that country, he said: " There the color line is obliterated and we would stand upon the same footing with the natives. Here we never can hope to enjoy that privilege."

Effect of the First Deportation

He believes the first deportation of negroes for the new Eldorado would create great excitement among their brethren in the South, and that thousands would want to join the procession. On this line he said: "Let a boatload of negroes, bound for the new country, leave St. Louis singing their old plantation songs as they floated down the Mississippi, and it would be almost impossible to hold the multitudes that cultivate and pick the cotton from the plantations along its banks. They would want to join the throng, because they would see beneath the lowering clouds that have shut out the light of freedom and independence, a silver lining, and they would feel that a brighter era was dawning. They would realize that there was in store for them in their new home something better than a life of drudgery and ceaseless toil, from which they are barely able to live. And this is not all," remarked President Brown. " For the first time in the history of this country the old ex-slave drivers and plantation magnates of the South would feel the sands slipping from under them. The cheap labor from which they have been able to amass fortunes would depart for a Southern clime in another country, and their plantations would grow up in weeds. The Winchester rifle and shot-gun, potent factors in Southern elections, would rust in their racks, and the race problem would be settled, and settled forever, in this coun-