Some Intelligent Testimony Before The Senate Committee On The Negro Exodus

El-Senator Burch of' Louisiana, was l.efore the senute counnittee on Tuesday. He said the cfforts last winter by the deruocrats tn p:i-s " the cliain-gang law " and the uncertainty of the status of the coloml peopie ander democratie rule, prevented ruany trom niaking thfi usual lahor contract in Junuury and Febrnary this year, and the rcsult is already obssrvable in the large nuuber of colored people who have moved trom the planting district into the cilios and towns ou the banks of the rivere, so as to take advantage of opportunitie for transportaron to the west. He grouped the cauffcs of the exodus undrr tivo hoads, viz. : Kear on the part of the colored people of olnss legislation uy.'im-t thcin by democratie r_'i-l:itureH. Fi'ar of interference with their educatioiuil privileges. The uucertuinty of obtaining homos and insecuri'y of retaining theiu. Interference with their religiou- and personsd ritrhiH. Feu of diaftmotiwai- t He thought it not improbable 't hit proteotioo of his poople in all their righta would produce the offoct upon thcui it lias produced in tho case of Irish, Germán and Eoglish immigrants that have fnund homes and educational advantages and civil and politica) righU in this oouutry. He belieod (bat in right and justice the experiiueut tthould be tried. It would at leat 9tup kbe exodus of his race. To the great change in -the politica! i mplexion of voters in some parixlies within the last few yearn a.i 8H0WN BV THE ELECTION KKTÜRNS, he iostanced, Ouachita parish, where in 1876, frora 1,200 to 1,500 rupubücan and 400 to 500 democratie votes wcre cast, while ut the last election the leuding democratie candidate polled 1,976 and thu republicui caodidate oaly eleven votes. Tliis and similar changes, he aid, were acooiupli-lud l'j' democratie county returuing toinls. Krom five to seven polieo jurors were l'ormerly elected in tacb puri-li as supervisow of eliction. Subsequoutly the democrats pard a law autherizing Governor Nichols to appoint five. The additional pólice jurors appointed were all democrats, and this gave the demócrata a majority of the pólice jurors or county rtturniug boards, as witness called thein, in every parish in tho State, with one exoeption, and in this exceptional pariflh the republican majority were dnveu away by anued demócrata. He thought it was not neceseay for the democrats to use foroe now to carry the elections, as the legal machinery thoy have devised enablus tliem " to count out any one they choose. " The witneas was then asked by Mr. Voorhees to explain how it is that iu so many parishes where colored republicana outnumber white detnocrata so largely they do not defend themselves and prevent the wrongs it is alleged they suffer from. In reply Mr. Burch stated, that when it was remembered that thesewhite demoorats are the same people who when engaged in rebellion, it requiredthe expenditure of millions of treasure, the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, and over four years of timo to subdue ; that while it is borne in mind that ever since the oollapse of the rebellion the whites have Itept up their military organization, and an army of them, drilled and trained fighters, exists to-day, it is absurd to expect the negro, " with a hoe in his hnd," to resist these men. Tbe witnesa admitted that affaira were quieter uow than jn 1874, wben the state was under republican rule ; that negroes were persecuted more then than now, but i quiet persecutions, he said, are being car ried on, which result in driving away from their parishes representative colored men to a much greater extent than under republi. can rule.