The Seattle Post Intelligencer

W. Bourke Cochrane has been nominated by Tammany for congress. He will probably be elected. The Tenth congressional district of New York is safe.

San Francisco has been trying for five or six years to obtain a more central site for the postoffice, and now that one has been secured it is said to be a quagmire. While the authorities have been delaying property has gone up immensely in price and large pieces of available land are not readily to be had.

Oklahoma, which was carved out of the Indian Territory by and for the whites, promises to become a negro territory. Investigation has revealed an astonishing number of settlers of this class. Of the 8,000 people at Guthrie fully 8,000 are said to be negroes. Langston City, of 1,000, is a distinctively negro settlement. There are 500 more at Oklahoma City, 2,000 in the Black Jack country near Kingfisher, 1,000 near Purcell, and 2,500 more in other places, and 2,000 more have crossed into the land recently opened. It is estimated that the new country will have a negro population by the end of six months of 22,000. Langston City is to be an exclusively negro town. Only people of that race now own property there, and they are bidden not to sell to whites, of whom not a soul lives in the place. Some $25,000 has already been raised to found a negro college there, and more is coming.

Wild lands in Mower county, Minn., that brought a year ago from $8 to $10 an acre are now worth from $12 to $15 an acre. A farmer in that locality has recently sold for $5,000 a farm that could not sell for $4,000 a year since, and sales equally or more profitable are reported from a wide extent of territory. In some towns of that state there has been an advance of 50 per cent, and in nearly all an advance in values averaging about 25 per cent is reported. This is true also of many farming towns of South and North Dakota. The Pioneer Press estimates on the basis of its reports from its correspondents a total increase in real values for the three states of about $200,000,000, which is more than the value of the whole wheat crop of the territory referred to. The great crops of this year have produced the rise in the value of farming land.

With 50,000 spindles running continuously the Massachusetts mill would produce 17,500,000 yards of print cloth per year at 3 21-100 cents per yard. Running nine months in the year it would produce 13,124,475 yards at a cost of 3 73-100 cents per yard. In other words it costs one-half cent more per yard to run three-quarters time than full time. Under the McKinley act the woolen and various other mills are able to run full time and to sell at lower prices than before, and still pay the same wages.

Dealings in grain futures have been pronounced legal by the Massachusetts supreme court and their principle the life of trade. Now the Minnesota supreme court has declared them illegal. Where delivery is actually contemplated, says the court, there is nothing wrong in the trade, but as in most of such dealings recorded on boards of trade and exchanges a contemplation of actual delivery does not exist, the whole business is swept under the ban of the law.

In 1880 the national census showed that Louisiana had 102,937 illiterate voters, of whom 16,377 were white and 86,565 were colored. A state census made in 1888 showed that the illiterate white voters had increased to 23,915 and the illiterate colored voters to 103,526.

THE COLORED VOTER'S PATH.

SEATTLE, Oct. 5, 1891.

To the Editor: I desire to call the attention of the colored voters of King county to the fact that we are not prepared to accept the proposition given in the Press-Times of September 21 by William S. Hoffman, relative to his individual desire to straddle the fence. It is a fact that colored men enjoyed that distinction before they were granted suffrage. Instead of being permitted to vote they were always in possession, on election day, of a stage plank, ginger cake and a sour bottle of cider.

But by the grace of God and the Republican party we have been made men, and are capable of being our own judges and do not have to resort to a position on the fence to save ourselves politically. Perhaps, if Mr. Hoffman could explain from whence he got the oil to anoint himself, he might prevail on some of the colored voters so they would follow his perilous pathway that leads to the political grave of Greenbackers, Grangers and Mugwumps. Otherwise we prefer to hunt for our game, like the American eagle, rather than have it brought to us as suggested by Mr. Hoffman.

In other words, we propose to stand by the party that stood by us in the dark ante-bellum days. We would respectfully request him to come down from his lofty perch, and be received back among the faithful and sin no more.

A word, if you please, with Mr. C. A. Rideout, some unknown party, who tells why he is a Democrat and proposes that we "lend him an ear," which we cannot afford to do, and which we must indefinitely decline, as we know too much about the Democratic party of this country to ever get caught on a hook baited with a negro. We are well aware that the Democratic party holds in its slimy folds the poorest citizens of our country. We will swear that every enemy the negroes of this country ever had, from the landing of the Mayflower in 1620 to date, were Democrats.

Knowing them as we do, how can negroes get their stomachs in shape to digest their doctrines, no matter how they may be seasoned? Study the Democratic party of today. They are nothing more than the bloodhounds of the '50s. See their smiles when you speak to them. Oh, how they would like to bite a negro.

The negroes in the Republican party are like the white people in the United States—they look back to their independence with as much pride as the whites do to their freedom from the Briton's rule. This is due to the Republican party, and we glory in the fact that we are members thereof, as it was the only party that had the courage to declare that human slavery was a curse, and that the 4,000,000 negroes then in this country should be free, and that there should be no distinction among us on account of "color, race or previous condition of servitude."

We will here give you another hint of Democratic affection for the negro, and why we should forever disregard them, on account of their hobby—slavery, which was conducted absolutely by them. The demoralization which that institution entailed upon all classes in the community in which it existed was fearful to contemplate, and was the curse of all curses, while it made its victims mere chattels, taking from our race every character of man and womanhood. Immorality pervaded every slaveholding city, town and dwelling in the South, and its promoters were all negro-loving Democrats, with whom morality and virtue were always the exception. The Southern church even instructed its clergy to defend the Southerners in their rights to hold us as slaves, an offense chargeable solely to Democrats. Since the Republican party stretched forth a mighty arm and wiped all slavery and its attendant evils away Mr. Democrat steps up with his "straddle the fence and constitutional rights" propositions. Perhaps it would be as well to here give a copy of an old newspaper add. that I have for Mr. Democrat's perusal. It was taken from the New Orleans True Delta, issue of January 1, 1853, and is as follows:

Mr. Joseph Jennings respectfully informs his friends and the public, that at the request of many of my friends and acquaintances, I have been induced to purchase from Mr. Osbon, of Missouri, the celebrated dark bay horse, Star, aged 5 years, square trotter and warranted sound, with a new light trotting buggy and harness. Also the stout mulatto wench Sarah, aged about 20 years; general house servant; valued at $900, and guaranteed sound. Will be raffled for at 4 o'clock p. m., on February 1, 1853, at any hotel selected by the subscribers. The above is as represented and those persons who wish to engage in the usual practice of raffling will, I assure them, get perfect satisfaction with their participation in this affair. Fifteen hundred chances at $1 each. The whole is valued at its just worth—$1,500. The raffle will be conducted by gentlemen selected by those interested present. Five nights allowed to complete the raffle. Both of the above can be seen at my store, No. 75 Common street, second door from Camp's, at from 9 o'clock a. m. till 2:30 p. m. The highest throw takes the first choice, the lowest throw the wench and other traps, the fortunate winners to pay $20 (twenty dollars) each for refreshments for the ladies and gentlemen in attendance.

In conclusion if there are any ladies of color in this Republican country of ours who have husbands, brothers or kinsmen who are contemplating violating the trust reposed in them by this grand Republican party of ours, for God's sake have them retrace their steps, or forever discard them.

Samuel Burdett,
No. 1514 Third Street.