Worcester, June 26,1856
I have a momentary lull, having yesterday sent off my second
party to Kansas. . . . The first had forty-seven and our Committee will send no
more, leaving it for the State Committee, which was appointed yesterday,
chiefly on my urging. . . .
At Chicago they show an energy which disgraces us; have
arrangements and men already and need only money. The night I came from
Brattleboro', Friday, we had letters from Chicago, and our Finance Committee
voted them fifteen hundred dollars and voted to add three thousand dollars
more, unless I could raise this second party by Wednesday, which I did.
Saturday, the day after, I was sent to Boston, with the same letters, to urge
the Boston Committee to send money to Chicago. With great difficulty I got five
minutes each from Pat Jackson and several other merchants, and at two they came
together for ten minutes and voted to send two thousand dollars, Ingersoll
Bowditch being happily absent, who had just told me he should come and oppose
it entirely. I saw the telegraphic despatch written and came back.
That very night we got a telegraphic despatch from
Chicago, imploring us to send that precise sum, for the relief of a large party
of emigrants, detained at Iowa City for want of means. The two despatches
crossed on the way.
This two thousand dollars, with our remittance, and our two
parties of emigrants (which would not have gone till by this time if I had not
gone to work on it the first night I came) are absolutely All that has yet been
done by New England for Kansas, in this time of imminent need. This I say to
show you how ill-prepared we are for such emergencies. The busy give no time
and the leisurely no energy, and there is no organization. I should except the
Committee here, which has done admirably, and that in Concord, Massachusetts,
and Dr. Howe, Sam Cabot, Charles Higginson, and a few others in Boston.
There is talk now of sending Dr. Howe to Kansas with a large
sum of money, and this will be the best thing possible, but it should have been
done a fortnight ago.
SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters
and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 137-9
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