But after all, the season of agony, doubts and fears was but of short duration. By the year 1881, at the very latest, the regular tide of the refugees had discontinued to flow, the work of the "Kansas Freedmen's Relief Association" had entirely and successfully completed its work and disbanded itself, as the Union soldiers did when the Civil War was over. How glorious is all this now to sit down and think of! "As one door shuts, another opens." Very good, indeed. Let us thank God that the world is so big and roomy; and if we have plenty of enemies here, we have plenty of friends also. It was so in the old-time bible days, for in that blessed book we read how hosts of people, and even individuals, rose up, and departed in millions, in thousands and hundreds, and even in single cases, and went away from among "devils," that they might dwell in peace among better people. Thus history has simply repeated itself over and over again, and the exodus of colored people from the South is perhaps the most recent example of that oft-repeated affair. And it is safe to say, when we consider the natural badness of the human race, that other exoduses elsewhere will follow. It may not be in this country, but it will be somewhere.
There is an old but true saying that "None are so blind as those who don't want to see," which leads me on to say that the Hon. D. W. Voorhees, United States Senator from Indiana, must either have been most dreadfully blind to the truth, or else he must have been in a very childish humor, when he introduced his famous resolution into the Senate at Washington for the investigation of "The causes of the migration of the colored people from the Southern to the Northern States." Now, since this world began, dear reader, when did any one of us ever hear of such a farce as this? To institute a national inquiry of the causes of the exodus of entire legions of men, women and children, when Mr. Voorhees and the whole population of the United States knew all about things before he ever asked the question? That inquiry cost the government thousands of dollars--flung away upon what every man, woman and child knew already! Verily, this was the greatest national farce ever heard of from the creation of the world down to the present time of writing!