Viewing page 150 of 191

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

now in process of construction in this State, able-bodied persons of this class should in no instance be aided with rations, but should only receive the aid of the Bureau to teach them that idleness and vagrancy are not the immunities of citizenship, and that honest industry and frugality, will only secure to them, and their children, the benefit which their emancipation promised them: 

The operations of the Bureau have been well directed, and have resulted beneficially to all classes, yet it is obnoxious to the people; the popular feeling is that of hostility to it.

With the limited number of officers now on duty, it can do but little more than exert a supervisory influence; to withdrawal however would be attended with incalculable injury to this Freedpeople. The moral and restraining influence of its presence in any district of the State is of immense advantage to all classes. Its most active operations have been confined to this issue of rations, since the suspension of the issue, more attention has been given, and should continue to be devoted to other interests, especially that of schools. Of the issue of rations is resumed it will be for the advantage of the freed people, that the distribution be entrusted to the agents of the Bureau as far as possible; this need not interfere with the performance of their other Duties