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Quindaro Chindowan.
A Free-State Paper.
Vol. I. Quindaro, Kanzas, Saturday, May 1, 1858. No. 46
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J. M. Walden. Edmund Babb.
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PHYSICIANS.
Dr. R. M. Ainsworth,
No. 10……………Kanzas Avenue.
Dr. R. C. Anderson,
No. 21……………Kanzas Avenue.
Dr. Geo. E. Budington,
No. 1……………..Kanzas Avenue.
Dr. J. B. Welborn,
No. 38……………Kanzas Avenue.
ATTORNEYS.
Charles Chadwick,
No. 2…………….West Main St.
Alfred Gray,
No. 179………….East Main St.
LAND AGENTS.
Basset & Brackett,
No. 1…………….Kanzas Avenue.
Charles Chadwick,
No. 2…………….West Main St.
Alfred Gray,
No. 179………….East Main St.
R. P. Gray & Co.,
Chindowan Office,
No. 7…………….Kanzas Avenue.
R. P. Gray,
No. 179.... Kanzas Avenue.
Newman & Ainsworth,
No. 10…………...Kanzas Avenue.
SURVEYORS.
Charles B. Ellis,
No. 2……………West Main St.
HOTELS.
Quindaro House,
Nos. 1, 3, & 5…..Kanzas Avenue.
Wyandott House,
No. 2…………...Kanzas Avenue.
TAILORING.
T. P. O’Meara,
No. 138………...Main St.
DRUGGISTS.
A.C. Strock & Co.,
No. 38………….Kanzas Avenue.
HARDWARE.
Shepherd & Henry,
No. 179………...East Main St.
CLOTHING.
N. Ranzohoff & Co.,
No. 11………..Kanszas Avenue.
DRY GOODS AND GROCERIES.
Johnson & Veale,
No. 3…………Kanzas Avenue.
W. J. McCown,
No. 7…………Kanzas Avenue.
A. C. Strock & Co.,
No. 38………..Kanzas Avenue.
GROCERIES AND PROVISIONS.
William Lansing,
Cor. Kanzas Avenue & Fifth St.
A. Tuttle,
No. 76……….Levee.
W. J. McCown,
No. 7………...Kanzas Avenue.
MEAT STORES.
P. Caswell & Lewis,
No. 140……..East Main St.
J. A. Bartles,
Cor. Seventh & N St.
BOOT & SHOE SHOP.
Henry P. Downs,
No. 177…….East Main St.
P. C. Muhlbach,
No. 17………………O St.
STONE CUTTER & BUILDER.
F. Klaus,
No. 18………………O St.
CARPENTERS & JOINERS.
John S. McCorkle,
No. 69………………R St.
S. H. Marchant,
No. 65………………R St.
C. H. Carpener [sic],
No. 16………………S St.
Quindaro Chin-do-wan.
J. M. Walden………Editor.
Saturday, May 1, 1858.
Responses from two of the Northern "Mud-Sills."
Senator Hammond's Democratic speech, denouncing the laboring men of the North as the mere mud-sills of society, has elicited noble responses from Senator Broderick of California, and Senator Wilson of Massachusetts, both of whom passed their youth and early manhood at hard and honest toil. Senator Broderick spoke as follows:
“I suppose, sir, the Senator from South Carolina did not intend to be personal in his remarks to any of his peers upon this floor. If I had thought so, I would have noticed them at the time. I am, sir, with one exception, the youngest in years of the Senators upon this floor. It is not long since I served an apprenticeship of five years at one of the most laborious mechanical trades pursued by man – a trade that from its nature devotes its follower to thought, but debars him from conversation. I would not have alluded to this, if it were not for the remarks of the Senator from South Carolina; and the thousands who know that I am the son of an artizan, and have been a mechanic, would feel disappointed in me if I did not reply to him. I am not proud of this. I am sorry ‘tis true. I would that I could have enjoyed the pleasures of life in my boyhood’s days, but they were denied to me. I say this with pain. I have not the admiration for the men of the class from whence I sprung that might be expected; they submit too tamely to oppression, are too prone to neglect their rights and duties as citizens. But, sir, the society to whose toil I was born, under our form of government, will yet control the destinies of this nation. If I were inclined to forget my connection with them, this chamber would not be the place in which I could do either. – While I hold a seat here, I have but to look at the beautiful capitals adorning the pilasters that support this roof, to be reminded of my father’s talent, and to see his handiwork.”
Senator Wilson’s response to the mud-sill taunt was in the following striking language:
“The Senator from South Carolina exclaims, “The man who lives by daily labor are essentially slaves” – “they feel galled by their degradation.” What a sentiment is this to hear uttered in the councils of this democratic Republic! – The Senator’s political associates, who listen to these words which brands hundreds of thousands of the men they represent in the free States, and hundreds of their neighbors and personal friends as slaves, have found no words to repel or rebuke this language. This language of scorn and contempt is addressed to Senators who were not nursed by a slave; whose lot it was to toil with their own hands – to eat bread, earned, not with the sweat of another’s brow, but by their own. Sir, I am the son of a “hireling manual laborer,” who, with the frosts of seventy winters on his brow, “lives by daily labor.” I, too, have “lived by daily labor.” I, too, have been “a hireling manual laborer.” Poverty cast its dark and chilling shadow over the home of my childhood, and want was there sometimes – an unbidden guest. At the age of ten years – to aid him who gave me being, in keeping the gaunt spectre from the hearth of the mother who bore me – I left the home of my boyhood, and went to earn my bread by “daily labor.” Many a weary mile I have travelled,
“To beg a brother of the earth
To give me leave to toil.”
Sir, I have toiled as a “hireling manual laborer” in the field and in the workshop; and I tell the Senator from South Carolina that I never “felt galled by my degradation.” No, sir – never! Perhaps the Senator who represents that “other class – which leads progress, civilization and refinement,” will ascribe this to obtuseness of intellect and blunted sensibilities of the heart. Sir, I was conscious of my manhood; I was the peer of my employer; I knew that the laws and institutions of my native and adopted States threw over him and over me alike the panoply of equality; I knew, too, that the world was before me, that its wealth, its garnered treasures of knowledge, its honors, the coveted prizes of life, were within the grasp of a brave heart, and a tireless hand, and I accepted the responsibilities of my positions, all unconscious that I was a “slave.” I have employed others, hundreds of “hireling manual laborers.” Some of them then possessed, and now possess, more property that I ever owned; some of them were better educated than myself – yes, sir, better educated, and better read, too, than some Senators on this floor; and many of them, in moral excellence and purity of character, I could not but feel, were my superiors. I have occupied, Mr. President, for more than thirty years, the relation of employer and employed; and while I never felt “galled by my degradation” in the one case, in the other I was never conscious that my “hireling laborers” were my inferiors. That man is a “snob” who boasts of being a “hireling laborer;” that man is a “snob” who feels any inferiority to any man because he is a “hireling laborer,” or who assumes any superiority over others because he is an employer. Honest labor is honorable; and the man who is ashamed that he is or was a “hireling laborer” has not manhood enough to “feel galled by his degradation.”
Having occupied, Mr. President, the relation of either employed or employer for the third of a century; having lived in a Commonwealth where the “hireling class of manual laborers” are “the depositaries of political power;” having associated with this class in all the relations of life; I tell the Senator from South Carolina and the class he represents, that he libels, grossly libels them, when he declares that they are “essentially slaves!” There can be found nowhere in America class of men more proudly conscious or tenacious of their rights. Friend or foe has ever found them
“A stubborn race, fearing and flattering none.”
But the Senator from South Carolina tells us that if the hireling laborers knew the “tremendous secret” of the ballot-box, our “society would be re-constructed, our government overthrown, and our property divided.” Does not the Senator know that an immense majority of the “hireling class of manual laborers” of New England posses property? Does he not know that the man who has accumulated a few hundreds of dollars by his own toil, by the savings of years, who has a family growing up around him upon which his hopes are centered, is a conservative? – Does not the Senator know that he watches the appropriation bills on the meetings of those little democracies – the towns – as narrowly as the Representative from Tennessee, in the other House, [Geo. W. Jones,] watches the money bills on the Private Calendar? I live, Mr. President, in a small town of five thousand inhabitants. Nearly half of the population are employed as operatives and mechanics for the manufacture of shoes for the Southern and Western markets.
In 1840, we had thirteen hundred inhabitants, and the property valuation was about three hundred thousand dollars. – Last May, we had fourteen hundred names on our poll list, two-thirds of them “hireling mechanics,” and a property valuation of over two millions of dollars. – These “hireling laborers,” on town meeting days, make the appropriations for schools, for roads, and for all other purposes. Do they not know “the tremendous secret of the ballot-box”? Have they proposed to divide the property they themselves created? No, sir, no; but I will tell the Senator what they have done. Since 1850, they have built seven new school-houses, with all the modern improvements, and at the expense of about forty thousand dollars – one house costing more than fourteen thousand dollars; they have established a high school, where the most advanced scholars of the common schools are fitted for admission to the colleges, or for the professions, the business and the duties of life; they have established a town library, freely accessible to the inhabitants, containing the choicest works of the Old World and the New, of ancient and modern times. The poorest “hireling manual laborer,” without cost, can take from that library to his home the works of the master minds, and hold communion with
“The dead by sceptered sovereigns who rule
Our spirits from their urns.”
- The New York papers published a biography of Col. Benton, from the New American Cyclopedia, in which the name of Mrs. Fremont is put down as Ann Benton. This gave rise to some queries about the real name of “our Jessie,” to which the Tribune replies by saying that the paragraph in question was written by Col. Benton, himself, and set up from his own manuscript, which is still preserved, and in which the name in question stands plainly Ann, and not Jessie.
- The Government paid for lithographing and printing in colors, a single Ox, for the Patent Office Report, $10,576 – for a similar service for one Bull, $10,576 – for a cow, $7,500, and for a horse, $5,576; total for the four pictures, $34,228. That’s the way the money goes.
- “You’ve destroyed my peace of mind,” said a desponding lover to a truant lass. “It can’t do you much harm, John, for it was an amazing small piece you had, anyway!”
The Deficiency Bill.
The Republican, or rather the power behind the throne, arraigns Mr. Blair for his vote against the deficiency bill. It alleges that in taking his position in regard to the appropriation of many millions of dollars he should have been controlled to support the measure because some of his own constituents held claims upon the government which might not be realized until this donceur was given to the administration. Now there are two or three points of view in which neither the Republican nor its prompter can have looked at this question, else they would scarce have been so silly as to make an attack that betrays more of malice than of reason.
First. It must have been a very outrageous bill indeed which was voted down in a democratic House of Representatives by a large majority, and that too when the administration which presented it, has ostensibly the control of that house by some twenty odd votes. Has it nothing to say to the forty odd administration democrats who refused to sanction the combination which it presented of appropriations for deficiencies proper, and appropriations to pay for swindling transactions of the office holders?
Second. The Senate likewise, it seems, which is two to one in favor of the administration, and which has never scrupled to do any dirty work at presidential dictation, halts and draws back at this deficiency bill. It has had it for more than a week, yet has refused so far to take it up. Can the Republican place no reliance upon the scruples of a Senate which could swallow Lecompton at a gulp, and confirm John Hogan without delay?
Third. The deficiency bill is known to be made up of a batch of items, some necessary, others villainous, yet bunched together to make the weak carry the strong, and the fraudulent the legitimate. Many members of both branches have expressed freely their willingness to vote separate parts of the deficiency bill – grant relief to the army in Utah, to forward stores and pay contractors – but were not willing to furnish money for other matters of expenditure that did not belong to a deficiency bill, and that should never be allowed. Still the administration refused to separate them; would have all or none; would sacrifice Col. Johnson if it could not secure plunder for its harpies also.
Fourth. How comes there to be a deficiency when Mr. Buchanan boasted a short year ago that he had twenty millions in the treasury; and who is to blame, the Congress that will not make up all the extravagancies of a corrupt administration, or the President who recklessly squanders the public revenue in flagitious expenditure or still more corrupt bribes to his dependent partisans? On this point we may cite a feature in the debate wherein Mr. Phelps, of Missouri stated he was in favor of voting the money, but took occasion to observe that the President had removed Col. Hays from office for defeating the deficiency.
Fifth. Among the items of the deficiency bill was one for surveying public lands in California being a very large and extravagant amount over and above the sum allowed by law. Thus Congress appropriated $50,000 for this purpose, and the government officers in California, without shadow of authority, have expended $220,000. Where is the law to sanction such a proceeding? It is bad precedent to act, to thus legalize proceedings of a subordinate officer who has involved the government to such large amounts. This is a matter that might well demand investigation. We might also ask whether the money advanced by citizens was not credited rather on the faith of a fair demand on Congress, for necessary supplies, than upon the questionable passage of an omnibus of all sorts of items, enough in themselves to crush any bill in any Congress. - Missouri Democrat.
Ontonagon, the New State. – Two names have been suggested for the new state to be erected from parts of Michigan and northern Wisconsin – Superior and Ontonagon. The latter is the more popular, and has the advantage of being aboriginal. Superior is a name that might be applied to a colony in New South Wales, as well as a new American state. Ontonagon is an Indian word, and is pronounced as if written On-ton-aw-gon.
- In reading the trashy and sophistical speeches of the leading Lecomptonites in Congress, we are reminded of the old Quaker lady’s quiet responses to a palavering store-keeper: “Friend, what a pity it is a sin to lie, when it seems so necessary to thy business.” - Louisville Jour.
- A beautiful inscription, it is said, may be found in an Italian graveyard: “Here lies Estella, who transported a large fortune to heaven in acts of charity, and has gone thither to enjoy it.”
The Land Sales.
The proclamation of the President, by which the Lecompton and Kickapoo districts are to be brought to the hammers on the 5th of July next, is the most serious blow struck by a partizan administration at the people of Kanzas. The slanders of the President about the “lawless” and “vicious” character of our people, will not injure us materially. His falsehood and perfidy will take the sting from such reproaches. His attempts to back up the Border Ruffian outrages have already shown themselves to be futile weapons against us. Even the attempt to thrust upon us a hated Constitution, fatal to our best interests, is likely to fail. But this blow at the private interests and rights of the squatters of Kanzas is serious. It is the first time that a Federal executive has thus hurried the lands into market against the expressed wished of the squatters. As the great bulk of these lands are occupied, no motive for such haste could have existed save to annoy a people who have incurred she splenetic hatred of a partisan administration by their zealous maintenance of their civil rights.
But it is useless to waste language in deprecating an act which does not exhibit one spark of statesmanship. Just as idle as it would be to hope anything from an appeal to the tender mercies of those who have done it. A corrupt and pusillanimous party has placed in power a chief magistrate who does not scruple to prostitute that power for such a purpose, and it becomes our duty calmly to look the matter in the face and devise a remedy.
In this Lecompton district upwards of 9,000 squatters have filed upon claims. Of these but a few over 2,000 have pre-empted. Besides these there are many squatters who have not filed, and the incoming emigration of this spring will add to the number. The number of claims thus occupied, filed on and pre-empted in the Kickapoo district is not so large, but not very far behind it. In two little months and a half the title to this land must be secured, or it will be brought to the hammer.
How is it to be done? Some three or four millions of specie is demanded for this purpose, or its equivalent in land warrants. Where is it to come from? The commercial world of the East is just emerging from a severe financial crisis. Kanzas has not emerged from it yet. The wave of commercial revulsion has only reached us with its deepest flood. Prior to this fresh and heavy demand for money, the article was so scarce that ten per cent. a month was unable to extract it. – Where is the source of income that is to believe us? Not in the soil, for in many of the chief staples of even food, we are still tributary to Missouri. The army, which annually disburses thousands here, is now emitting a species of paper promises, not now available. The sums paid the Indians, although valuable as a regular adjunct of trade, are inadequate. Emigration will do something towards it. We cannot now say how much, for we neither know what will be the extent, or character of the emigration – whether it will be chiefly of the kind to bring capital, or of that which needs supporting employment. Money may be sent here by speculators to invest.
We do not wish to alarm any of our readers. Our object is to set the main facts distinctly before the public, to prepare, so far as we are able, those who are interested for what is before them, and to suggest what occurs to us as most favorable.
We have heard suggestions that squatters’ organizations would be formed to prevent speculators from bidding on the land at the sales. We suppose that this will be done, and we do not stop to discuss either its propriety or impropriety. We would merely recall those who are satisfied with this as a means of relief, to a fact they have overlooked. They may prevent speculators from bidding off the land on the day of the sale, but how are they to prevent thousands of acres of it from being quietly taken by warrants afterwards. Warrants will not pay for the land at the sale, but any one can use any number of them to locate land unsold after the day of sale.
The fact is, there must by a more thorough and practicable remedy. Land warrants enough, or money enough, must be obtained to secure the land.
Land warrants can be had, if we give enough for them. Money, too, scarce though it is, can he had, if we give those who have got it as good security and a better rate of interest that they can get elsewhere. We must make our wants known, in the proper quarter and in time, however. There must be nothing ‘bogus’ about our security. Those who lend, do it upon two considerations: first, that they will be paid again when they want it, and second that it will yield them good interest. Neither our logic nor our necessities can evade these two points. ‘Money’ has a very sensitive nerve. It is shrewd, too, and we may as well make up our minds to begin with that it ‘knows all about it.’
But is it not just barely possible that we may ‘give too much for the whistle?’ A debt that loads to-morrow with the burden we are unable to bear to-day, is to be incurred cautiously. We expect we will be stronger to-morrow – we know we will, for the hands of industry have only pressed for the first time the virgin soil; but do not let us make that burden too heavy.
Ten per cent. a month no man can afford to pay. The business man who preserves his reputation by it, may afford it as an accident in his business: but both his reputation and his means are past redemption if he attempts to make it a system. The spectacular might afford it if he could make twenty per cent. on the investment; but we opine such speculations are not rife to-day, however they may have been heretofore. The farmer cannot afford to borrow money to buy his farm for ten, or even five per cent. a month. Yet, if he has a farm that he believes to be worth $1000, and he is going to lose it unless he borrows for one year $200 at 100 per cent., he will do it. It is the knowledge that he will that impels us to urge all who have influence to devise a means to avert a usury so ruinous. The country cannot afford to have the masses of its producing population mulcted so grievously. Its future interests forbid it.
We learn that land warrants for 106 acres have been loaned for one year, the party receiving them to give the security of his land, and pay at the end of the year, $25o. This, at first, does not look large. Let us see: Land warrants within the past two months have sold in the eastern market as low as $130. Just now we may quote them at $145. Perhaps the pressure of this new demand will raise them to $150, or more. At the last quoted figure, $150, the rate at which we say they have been loaned, would give $100 for twelve months’ use of them. That is 6 per cent. a month. – That is bad enough, but it is not the worst that confronts us. Recently they have been sold on a year’s time for $290, and even $300; 100 per cent. per annum. Are we even sure that if the matter is left to the private enterprise of the “Jews” that will throng our money markets at the sales, that they will be got even for that?
We think, if there is credit enough in the Territory for a basis for operations, that a company ought to be organized upon it, and an agent, or agents, dispatched to quarters from which a sufficiency of land warrants may be obtained, for something in the shape of decent rates. We must pay high or we will not get them; but they might be obtained for one year for 30 per cent., and in some case for a second year for 20 more. Is there patriotism enough in the Free State party to organize such an association amongst those who have means and credit, thus to save our “bone and sinew” from the tender mercies of money sharks? Of course all who expect to make a golden harvest off the wants of our yeomen, will oppose this. We turn a deaf ear to each. – When our Free State men are convened from all parts of the Territory, at the ensuing State Convention, let steps be taken to secure this. Time is precious.
Doubtless a number of our Squatters are forehanded, and are prepared for what is before them. Let them extend their aid, and at least their influence to those who are less fortunate. To the Squatters we would say that it would be better in a great many cases where the claim has only an agriculture value, to give one half of it for the warrant that locates it. Such opportunities will doubtless be afforded. It would be better for them to buy it hereafter at a higher price than shackle themselves now with debt. We cannot reconcile ourselves to the unfortunate necessity by which our farmers shall mortgage their future improvements and energy for a mere title to the soil. - Kanzas News.
Edward Everett. – To our mind, Mr. Everett is not a platform orator at all; and indeed we doubt if he is an orator, in the correct sense of that term. He is an eloquent writer – an essayist much more than an orator – and is far more radiant in the “North American Review” which was not altogether such “an effable buzzard” as Edgar Poe called it, than on the platform. He lacks the robust enthusiasm which flings out its impromptu epigrams, quick-witted paradoxes, broad humor, or tearful pathos on the masses. He is as it were, a sort of dignified mile-stone, indicating how far one may proceed on the road to knowledge. - Washington States.
- “Mrs. Grimes, lend me your tub.” – “Can’t do it – all the hoops are off – it’s full of suds, and besides, I never had one – I washes in a barrel.”
”Do unto Others as ye would have Others do unto You.”
A correspondent of the Blair County (Pa.) Whig, furnishes that paper with the particulars of the following interesting incident, of which he was an eye witness. It occurred a few years ago on the line of the great national improvements in that State. It was one of those acts of genuine kind heartedness which fill the mind with an involuntary consciousness that there is something of the angel still in our common nature:
“At the point this side of the mountains where occurred the transshipment of passengers from the West, was moored a canal boat awaiting the arrival of the train, ere starting on its way through to the East. The captain of the boat – a tall, rough, sun-browned man – stood by his craft, superintending the labors of his men, when the cars rolled up, and a few moments after, a party of about half a dozen gentlemen came out, and deliberately walked up to the captain, addressing him in this wise: “Sir, we wish to go on East, but our further progress depends on you. In the cars we have just left a sick man, whose presence is disagreeable. We have been appointed a committee by the passengers to ask that you will deny this man a passage on your boat. If he goes, we remain – what say you?” “Gentlemen,” replied the captain, “I have heard the passengers thro’ their committee. Has the sick man a representative here?” To this unexpected interrogatory there was no answer, when, without a moment’s pause, the captain passed over to the car, and entering behind, in one corner found a poor, emaciated, worn-out creature, whose life was nearly eaten up by that canker-worm consumption. This man’s head was bowed in his hands, and he was weeping. The captain advanced, and spoke to him kindly. “Oh, sir,” said the shivering invalid looking up, his face now lit up with trembling expectation, “are you the captain, and will you take me? God help me. The passengers look upon me as a breathing pestilence, and are so unkind. You see, sir, I am dying; but oh, if I am spared to reach my mother, I shall then be more reconciled – I shall die happy. She lives in Burlington, sir, and my journey is half performed. I am a poor painter, and the only child of her in whose arms I wish to die.” “You shall go,” said the captain, “if I lose every passenger for the trip!” By this time, the whole crowd of passengers were grouped around the boat, with their baggage piled on the path, awaiting the decision of the captain before engaging their passage. A moment more, and the decision was made known, as they beheld him coming from the cars, with the sick man cradled in his arms. Pushing directly through the crowd with his dying burden, he ordered a mattress to be spread in the choicest part of the boat, and in a few hours after, another committee was sent to the captain, entreating his presence among the passengers in the cabin. He went, and from the midst there arose a white haired man, who, with tear drops in his eyes, told that rough, sun-browned man, that they felt humbled before him, and asked his forgiveness. It was a touching scene. The fountain of true sympathy was broken in a heart of nature, and its waters swelled up, choking the utterance of all present. On the instant, a purse was made up for the sick man, with a ‘God speed’ on his way home to die in the arms of his mother.”
Sumner. – We had the pleasure of visiting Sumner a short time since, and was agreeably surprised at its fine location, and the rapidity with which the town is growing up. It is not quite one year old, yet it is now enjoying advantages far superior to some of the oldest towns in Kanzas. By referring to the list of mail contracts it will be seen that it is made quite a central point, and among them is one connecting with Topeka. – The contract is taken by Messrs. Lowser & Co., of Keokuk, Iowa, who are preparing to put on a line of hacks immediately, to run by the way of Grasshopper Falls.
Sumner is also attracting considerable attention as a manufacturing town, for agricultural implements, and wagons for Major & Russell, who we understand are making that a starting point for part of their trains, under the financial management of Mr. Wheeler, the present agent of the company. Combined with its natural advantages, Sumner is destined to become one of our important river towns. - Topeka Tribune.
The Hoop Train. – Such quantities of steel are being turned out by a Connecticut firm, for the manufacture of ladies’ hoped skirts, that the railway train which forwards the weekly allotment to the factory in New York is called the “hoop train,” and of course regarded with more than ordinary consideration.
Transcribed by Shannon McElroy