Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1874 — STARVING TO DEATH. [ARTICLE]

STARVING TO DEATH.

There will never be another crop of “Southern outrage*” sown. The harvest this year didn’t return the seed planted. That hobby wm ridden to death. It is a dead issue. Like troth with many partisan papers, it out. Some people pretend to think that advertisements are not read. We read one the other day. It was in the Oxford Tribune, A man offered to sell liis house, and in his description said it “contains seven rooms, good well of water and stable.”— Quite convenient for a lazy family in the winter-time. Senator Thurman thinks that the Kn-klux intimidated the Republican# in Massachusetts and kept them from the polls on election day, especially in the Essex district, and thus accounts for the clectiou of a Democratic Governor and the defeat of Mr. B. F. Butler for Congress. Now will not the Inter-Ocean look into this matter and publish a column or two of blood-curdling details? Or has that paper also decided not to publish any more political “outrages” until a few weeks before next election?

Like a boy with a sore toe, the genius who supplies political editorial “copy” for the Republican ovei the way, stubs against every stone in the path. lie don’t know when to quit crying over defeat. He doesn’t seem to know that spilt milk can’t be gathered up without dirt. A much wiser policy is to let the dead past bury its dead; is not to whine over deteat like a spaniel; is not to harrow up the wounded sensibilities of those who have risked and lost; is to all act like practical men—the successful with deferential respect towards those over whom they have been preferred by the people, and the unsuccessful with a fortitude and grace that wins popular admiration and corn man d s re sped.

It is reported that ten thousand industrious men, hard-working women and tender children are destitute of proper clothing and on the verge of starvation in Nebraska, Kansas and other regions west ot the Missouri river where crops were destroyed by grasshoppers last summer. Winter, with its pitiless frosts, its ciuel snows, its cutting winds and its deathly rigors, is fast approaching and will soon envelop them, all unprepared as they are for its merciless assaults and defenseless against its ruthless anger. These people are pioneers, and the children that have been born to them, who left old settled States and went to settle, subdue, and prepare for civilization, the w ilds of the border. Many of them are our acquaintances, children of our neighbors, youths with whom we attended school, and comrades wfio shared with us the dangerous vicis-

situdes of war. They are our countrymen and our kindred. They toiled this last summer as we toiled; they ploughed, and planted, and cultivated, as we ploughed, planted and cultivated; they were industrious, economical'and hopeful. Our labor was crowned with success, a bountiful harvest rewards our industry, fat cattle, fat hogs and' bursting granaries greet us on every hand—we have plenty and to spare while they are suffering for even necessaries of life.—While we watched and our hearts gladdened as day by day our fields

perfected their wealth of grain, they, our unhappy countrymen, savy destruction as a cloud settle down upon promising fields and remorselessly devour the fruit of their toil, and the bread of their children, leaving in its path not even a green blade. Men, women, and children now shiver in the cold and are bangry. They have no money to boy food or clothing. Famine and death stare them in the face. They are now compelled to appeal to the charity of those who are surrounded with plenty, for succor in their extreme peril. Six months of gloomy printer and three months after spring has coroe will drag wearily by before they can raise anything to cat, and during this

period they must have help. It will require immense stores of food, clothing and seed, but there is plenty m the land outside bf the stricken districts, and it would be horrid cruelty were they permitted to perish for lack of it. No neighborhood can supply all they want, but each can and ought to give something.. Public meetings should be field everywhere that plenty abounds, and arangements made to send what can be spared as well as not. A little from each who has a surplus will help in these cases of necessity, and should be givon freely. Meetings are being held in the cities and large towns of the United States, and business men are responding with commendable alacrity to these piteous cries for help. This is noble and reflects gloriously upon those who give, but tradesmen ought not to bear all the burden. The sufferers are mostly farmers, and farmer's ought to be willing to assist them in their unequal struggle for existance.— Jasper county ought to donate for their relief Carloads of corn, beef, pork and clothing; and it the farmers and Grangers here sit by indifferently, surrounded and blessed as they are with more than they need to use, and permit these cries of suffering, coming from their own class, uttered by fainting women and little tender children, to fall upon unheeding, unsympathetic ears, it will be their eternal shame. Introduce this subject in your Grange meetings; talk it over with your neighbor, call meetings in every school house and collect donations of money, food and clothing to be sent to the sufferers. Give this matter prompt attention, and have these things done at once.