The code of rules by which Mr. Rapp
manages his conscientious and devoted flock, and enriches a common
treasury, must be little applicable to the dissimilar assemblage
in question. His experience may afford valuable aid in its general
organization, and in the distribution of details of the work to be
performed. But an efficient administration must, as is judiciously
proposed, be in hands practically acquainted with the propensities and
habits of the members of the new community."
FROM FREDERICK DOUGLASS'S PAPER, 1853: "LEARN TRADES OR STARVE"
These are the obvious alternatives sternly presented to the free
colored people of the United States. It is idle, yea even ruinous, to
disguise the matter for a single hour longer; every day begins and
ends with the impressive lesson that free negroes must learn trades,
or die.
The old avocations, by which colored men obtained a livelihood, are
rapidly, unceasingly and inevitably passing into other hands; every
hour sees the black man elbowed out of employment by some newly
arrived emigrant, whose hunger and whose color are thought to give him
a better title to the place; and so we believe it will continue to be
until the last prop is levelled beneath us.
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