EMORY UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
GIFT OF
Dr. R. E. Wager
THE NEGRO
Past, Present, and
Future
by
JOHN AMBROSE PRICE
New York asd Washington
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1907
Copyright, 1907, by
The Neale Publishing Company
CONTENTS
I. The Past
chapter
page
I.
Shiloh
11
II.
Abraham Lincoln Inconsistent .
21
III.
The Assassination of Lincoln . .
34
IV.
Slavery
41
V.
The Equality of Man
53
VI.
Negro Life in Dixie before the
War
60
VII.
Restraints of Slavery
69
VIII.
Reflex Lights from the Past
79
IX.
The Changes of Time
91
II. The Present
X.
The Present
99
XI.
Negro Opportunities in the
South
107
XII.
His Lost Opportunities
114
XIII.
The Integrity of the Negro
120
XIV.
Racial Capacity
128
XV.
Race Pride
137
XVI.
Progress of the Negro
143
XVII.
Race Prejudice
156
XVIII.
The Negro a Sycophant
165
XIX.
The Broken Link ....
169
XX.
The Negro and the Ballot .
180
6 CONTENTS
chapter page
XXI. Echoes 188
XXII. Education of the Negro . • 195
XXIII. The South and the Negro . 208
III. The Future
XXIV. Shadows Cast Before .221
XXV. Colonization 229
XXVI. Repeal of the Fifteenth
Amendment 245
XXVII. Immigration a Solution of the
Problem 256
XXVIII. Some Day, Some Time . 268
XXIX. The Future of the Negro . 285
PREFACE
The object of this book is to place the
negro before the American public just as
he lives and moves in the South. His
racial peculiarities and limitations are re¬
lated with no malice toward the race, but
for the benefit of both races, in order that
the white people of the Republic may in¬
vestigate and see the negro as others see
and know him. Mistaken ideas regarding
the race are more hurtful to the negro
than the white man, and if this book can
correct only a few mistakes made in the
past, its mission to both races will be
fulfilled.
The book of the Past has for its object
the vindication of the old South as re¬
gards the black man, and is written for
the benefit of the young generation of the
white race, who know nothing of that day
or its memories. The Present reveals the
negro as he exists in the South to-day
under peculiar conditions and circum¬
stances. The Future relates the possi¬
bilities of what may come to the American
negro. He who doubts the facts recorded
8
PREFACE
in this book has but to come South and
see. Born and reared on an Arkansas
plantation, surrounded by negroes from
my earliest infancy, I profess to know
something of these people.
John Ambrose Price.
Arkansas.
I
THE PAST
THE NEGRO:
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
CHAPTER I
shiloh
" From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,
Thus much I at least may recall,
It hath taught me that which I most cherished
Deserved to be dearest of all."
It was a beautiful May morning on an
Arkansas plantation of the ante-bellum
type. A large elm tree cast a cool shade
across the long, wide portico of the " big
house." The birds were singing their
happy songs to the Creator of such a day.
In the yard profuse flowers were shedding
their fragrance as a compensation to their
owner, and to the God of the Universe.
On this fine May morning, when all was
gay and happy, an old gentleman sat at
the end of the portico living life over, or
thinking of the " has beens " of the dead
past. It was his habit to sit here in the
cool of the morning and read and often
muse over the past and present condition
of the country. The majority of old
12
THE NEGRO:
people, as they near the sunset of life, live
to a great extent in the past; especially
those of the Old South. Mr. Higgins
lived on the plantation inherited from his
father. He was a gentleman of the old
school, and a Confederate soldier, who was
trying to replenish his broken fortunes
that he might live with more comfort in
his last days. He did not believe in the
decree of fate, and looked upon his condi¬
tion as being the fruits of man's mistakes.
As he was thus musing over what might
have been, Dr. Daniels drew rein at the
front gate, with a glad " Good-morning,
Mr. Higgins."
" Glad to see you; get down and come
in."
" Well, so be it," said Dr. Daniels.
After remarking on the weather, and
that Nature seemed to be giving praise to
God for His many blessings, the two gen¬
tlemen began to converse upon subjects
more interesting to them. " I was think¬
ing of the battle of Shiloh, as you rode
up," said Mr. Higgins. " In thinking of
that battle, where so many of our patriotic
soldiers bravely fought and gloriously
fell, I often think how an act or blunder
of one man can entirely change the course
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 13
of events. Shiloh was one of the great¬
est victories of the Confederacy until
death claimed General Albert Sydney
Johnston on that Sunday evening. Grant
would have been captured before Buell
could have arrived if General Beauregard
had not blundered, and refused to follow
up the great victory. I know not what
passed at General Johnston's headquar¬
ters between him and General Beauregard,
but it was understood that they could not
agree about fighting the battle of Shiloh.
General Johnston wanted to fight the
battle and endeavor to capture Grant,
while General Beauregard wanted to
move on to Corinth. This he did, after
allowing Buell to reinforce Grant, and
the battle was lost. General Beauregard
was a great general and a brave soldier,
but, like all flesh, he made mistakes. One
of the greatest mistakes of the flesh is to
put the opinion of self above that of all
others, regardless of the cost. The battle
of Shiloh cost the Confederacy one of its
greatest generals, besides the great num¬
ber of officers and privates, the flower of
our Southland.
" I have always been proud of the part
our Arkansas boys had in that great bat-
14
THE NEGRO:
tie. The army was in four corps, under
the command of Generals Polk, Bragg",
Hardee and Breckinridge, General Beau¬
regard being second in command. Gen¬
eral Hardee, commanding the Third
Corps, was directed to move from Corinth
by the ridge road to a point near the
Mickey house, at the junction of the
Monterey and Savannah roads, about
eight miles from Pittsburg. The Second
Corps, commanded by General Bragg,
was to assemble at Monterey, and move
thence to the Mickey house in two sec¬
tions, the right wing by the Savannah
road, and the left by the Purdy road, and
to go into position in rear of Hardee's
line. The First Corps, under General
Polk, was to assemble near Mickey's,
taking the road behind Bragg's corps;
Buggies' division coming from Corinth
by the ridge road; Cheatham's division
from Bethel and Purdy. The reserve
corps under General Breckinridge was to
assemble at Monterey from Burnville,
follow Bragg's corps to Mickey's, and
fall in behind Polk's corps. The cavalry
to deploy on the flanks, guarding Lick
Creek ford on the right, and the road to
Stantonville on the left.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 15
" The order contemplated an attack on
the Union camps near Pittsburg Landing
at daylight Saturday, April 6th, but on
account of bad roads, incessant rains and
other causes of delay, the several corps
were not in the positions assigned until
4 p. m. of that day. The attack was de¬
ferred till daylight Sunday morning,
April 7th, the army bivouacking Satur¬
day night in order of battle. Hardee's
corps consisted of five regiments of in¬
fantry forming two battalions, a battery
of artillery and a company of cavalry.
Colonel Williams * was commander of
the 27th Tennessee, which formed the cen¬
ter of Hardee's line, its right rising on
the Corinth road and Pittsburg road in
the following order from left to right:
27th Tennessee, 15th Alabama, 44th Ten¬
nessee, 9th Arkansas, 8th Arkansas and
55th Tennessee. The Third Mississippi
battalion, under Major Hardcastle, was on
picket some distance in front of the main
line at the corner of Wood's field. He
was attacked at daylight by a reconnoiter-
ing party sent out by General Prentiss.
* The father of John Sharp Williams, an able and
patriotic leader of the minority in the lower house of
Congress.
16
THE NEGRO:
So began the carnage of Shiloh's hard-
fought battle.
"When the Yankees formed a hollow
square and General Johnston ordered up
the artillery, I noticed General Hindman
of Arkansas as he rode up, mounted on
a splendid black horse. He was dressed
in a fine new uniform, and had a physique
of the highest order, which made him the
Apollo of the Confederacy. Arkansas
had a strong hand in that battle, composed
of the following: The 1st, afterwards the
15th, and the 3d Confederate Infantry,
part of Hindman's legion; with Bragg,
the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 13th Arkansas
regiments. In fact, Tennessee and
Arkansas furnished the greater number
of Confederate soldiers in that fearful
carnage, and a great number fought their
last battle."
The Doctor, who had been silently
listening, said: "When I think and talk
of the battle of Shiloh, a scene that I wit¬
nessed comes before me in all its brilliancy,
and I am glad that such a scene passed
before me. As you know, we belonged to
the command of that Christian soldier,
General Patrick Cleburne, and being a
surgeon, I saw some very sad sights. One
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 17
struck me very forcibly as illustrating
the righteousness of our cause. Late in
the afternoon of the 6th a young man
about eighteen years of age was brought
into the tent mortally wounded. I think
he was a Tennessean, a handsome boy and
as fine a specimen of pure and undefiled
young manhood as has been my lot to
meet. I examined him and found a ter¬
rible wound in the abdomen. Being in¬
formed that, by being quiet, he might live
several hours, the young man looked up
into my face and said: ' It is all right! I
would like to see my mother and sisters
before I die, but I have no regrets to
make. If I had this to do over, I would
do the same thing. I am young; life is in
front of me, but this is all right. I have
done my duty and am willing and ready
to die.' The righteousness of the cause
passed before me in all its glory, for I
believe that when passing through the
shadow of death, the right and wrong of
life will assert itself, our eyes will be
opened and we will see clearly. This
youth did not say, ' If I am wrong, I hope
to be forgiven,' but said that he had no
regrets at having done his duty, and was
ready to die.
18
THE NEGRO:
" When our troops were forced to move
on to Corinth, I was left behind with the
wounded who could not be moved, and
witnessed the parting of that brave boy
with his more fortunate comrades. When
good-bye was said, he told them to meet
him in Heaven. He was very anxious to
be moved to Corinth, but his time was too
short. As our boys in gray, with tear-
dimmed eyes, passed out, I thought, Glori¬
ous youths, who in the flush of life's morn¬
ing willingly pour out your life's blood
upon your country's altar, with a martyr's
devotion which will live throughout time
and eternity.
" That night, after the soul of that
brave boy, together with others of his
comrades, had returned to the God that
gave it, I thanked God for such a life and
such blood as coursed the veins of that
brave boy, for from such does come the
great men and women of the South.
" I then wound my way among the
dead and dying of the battlefield, think¬
ing perhaps my services could be rendered
to some poor unfortunate, but the time
for human aid had passed, for the dead
and dying of both sides were there in great
numbers. Terrible was Shiloh's bloody
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 19
ground that night! It is indelibly written
upon my brain and heart. I think and
wonder now, as I did then, why was such
a war forced upon the people of this
nation? Brother fighting and killing
brother—and what was it all about? Su¬
premacy—a fight for supremacy, based
on the negro, a race that God in the be¬
ginning cursed with servitude! I have
failed to find the just cause for that war
and to see the good results; but in the
hereafter angels may roll the stone from
its grave away."
" Do you know, Doctor, when looking
hack over the flight of years and counting
the cost and the causes that led to that
great struggle, I refuse to accept the
verdict in the same spirit as do some of
my comrades, who say: ' It was Provi¬
dence who rendered the verdict'! I have
never been able to see the works of God
in that light. It was a war waged by
power and the force of overwhelming
numbers against a people without ade¬
quate food, raiment or arms, who held
their ground for four long years and at
last succumbed to starvation and power.
God in His wisdom made His laws, the
laws of nature, by which we are to live
20
THE NEGRO:
and die; each of these laws has a limit, and
this unequal struggle had reached its limit,
and so ended this war of coercion. We
accepted the result in good faith, and time
is fast healing the wound, but the scar
will remain. Slavery is dead, but the real
cause of that war is yet alive—the di¬
vergent interests of the two sections yet
remain—the North will ever strive to dic¬
tate to us and hold control of the gov¬
ernment."
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 21
CHAPTER II
abraham lincoln inconsistent
" Mr. Lincoln,, in a speech made in the
House of Representatives on the 12th of
January, 1848, said: 'Any people any¬
where, being inclined and having the
power, have the right to rise up and shake
off the existing government, and form a
new one that suits them better. This is a
most valuable, a sacred right—a right
which we hope and believe is to liberate
the world. Nor is this right confined to
cases in which the whole people of an ex¬
isting government may choose to exercise
it. Any portion of such people that can,
may revolutionize and make their own of
so much of the territory as they inhabit.'
The people of the South knew this to
be an established truth and accepted it
at that time as being spoken in sincer¬
ity.
" Mr. Greeley in an editorial of his own
paper, the Tribune3 on November 9th,
1860, said: 'The telegraph informs us
22
THE NEGRO:
that most of the Cotton States are medi¬
tating a withdrawal from the Union be¬
cause of Lincoln's election. Very well!
They have a right to meditate, and medi¬
tation is a profitable employment of
leisure. We have a chronic invincible dis¬
belief in disunion as a remedy for either
Northern or Southern grievances. If the
Cotton States consider the value of the
Union debatable, we maintain their per¬
fect right to discuss it. Nay, we hold with
Jefferson to the inalienable right of com¬
munities to alter or abolish a form of gov¬
ernment that has become oppressive or
injurious, and if the Cotton States shall
decide that they can do better out of the
Union than in it, we insist on letting them
go in peace. The right to secede may be
a revolutionary one, but it exists neverthe¬
less, and we do not see how one party has
a right to prevent what another party has
a right to do. We hope never to live in a
republic where one section is pinned to the
residue by bayonets.'
" What is the reason you offer for the
Southern people beginning to talk seces¬
sion as soon as Mr. Lincoln was elected?
From his public utterances before his
election, he was antagonistic, narrow, and
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 28
self-righteous toward the South. He was
elected on a sectional ticket and by a sec¬
tional vote; therefore we had no reason
to think he was broad enough to be Presi¬
dent of the whole country. Christ gave
us the great fundamental principle by
which to judge all men. ' By their fruits
ye shall know them.' Mr. Lincoln went
in disguise to take his seat as President.
While the Southern people felt that his
election meant much to them, it was not
necessary for him to go in disguise to take
his seat; secession was not talked with any
idea of harm to him.
" Mr. Lincoln as late as March 4th,
1861, in his inaugural address says: 'I
have no purpose directly or indirectly to
interfere with the institution of slavery in
the States where it now exists. I believe
I have no lawful right to do so, and I have
no inclination to do so.' He afterward
recommended in the House of Repre¬
sentatives, in the session of 1864, the pas¬
sage of the Thirteenth Amendment abol¬
ishing slavery.
" The South has been charged with
being the aggressor in the war. President
Davis in his inaugural address said: ' We
protest solemnly in the face of mankind
24 THE NEGRO:
that we want peace at any sacrifice save
that of honor. In independence we seek
no conquest, no aggrandizement, no con¬
cessions of any kind from the States with
which we have been lately confederated.
All we ask is to be let alone; that those
who never held power over us shall not
now attempt our subjugation by arms.
This we will, we must resist to the direst
extremity. The moment this pretension
is abandoned the sword will drop from our
grasp, and we shall be ready to enter into
treaties of amity and commerce that can¬
not be otherwise than mutually bene¬
ficial/
" In pursuance of this spirit, he ap¬
pointed a peace commission to go to
Washington to negotiate with the gov¬
ernment there. Mr. Buchanan's term of
office was about to expire; consequently
he referred the commission to the incom¬
ing administration. I have since been of
the opinion that if Buchanan had been the
incoming President, matters would have
been peacefully settled. Mr. Seward,
Secretary of State, delayed acting until
he had prepared to send a force to re¬
inforce Fort Sumter, but before this
force could reach its destination, the fort
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 85
was fired upon and taken by the Confed¬
erates. Because this was done, it has been
charged that the South began the war.
Mr. Lincoln's purpose was to reinforce
Fort Sumter and destroy the city of
Charleston, and enforce his revenue laws,
which was a virtual declaration of war.
Hallam, in his Constitutional History of
England, says: ' The aggressor in war,
that is, the one who begins it, is not the
first who uses force, hut the first who ren¬
ders force necessary.' We did not want
war, and we did not inaugurate it. The
North, which had become more populous
and powerful than the South, determined
to preserve her commercial interests; hence
the war.
"We have a resolution passed by Con¬
gress and signed by Lincoln as President
in July, 1861, after the battle of Manas¬
sas, which reads as follows: ' Resolved,
That the war is not waged upon our part
in any spirit of oppression nor for any
purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor
purpose of overthrowing or interfering
with the rights or established institutions
of those States, but to find and maintain
the supremacy of the Constitution, and to
preserve the Union with all the dignity,
26
THE NEGRO:
equality and the rights of the several
States unimpaired.'
" The South did not secede to dissolve
the Union. Secession was rejected by the
border States. Mr. Davis still thought
that war could be avoided and matters ad¬
justed. It was only when war was de¬
clared and the Constitution set aside that
the border States, driven to the last resort,
and by Mr. Lincoln's call for troops
forced to take one side or the other, to
secede, or to invade their sister States, ex¬
ercised their constitutional right and
withdrew from the Union. If the South
had been allowed to go in peace, as she
deserved, the North would have lost her
richest taxing district, and the best patron
of her manufacturing and tariff-protected
establishments. The South would have
opened free-trade with England and
Europe, and this would have tended to
paralyze, if not pauperize, the great
manufacturing industries of the North,
especially of New England. Such a loss
was more than the North was willing to
bear. Mr. Lincoln disclaimed that the
war was to free the slaves, but to save the
Union. To save the Union for what pur¬
pose? The one I have mentioned, namely,
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 27
to preserve and augment the commercial
interests of the North. It was not the
desire of conquest, but to preserve inher¬
ent rights that actuated the Confederate
States in their appeal to arms. It was
not to compel any one unwillingly to ac¬
cept our civilization or to adopt our Con¬
stitution, but to transmit unimpaired to
their descendants the rights and fran¬
chises which had come from the founders
of this Republic. The civilization of the
old South was the highest and best civili¬
zation the negro will ever know. Servi¬
tude is the condition of civilization to the
negro race. This fight for supremacy
placed a great gulf between the white
man and black man of the South which
grows wider with time. The negro was
happy and contented, and the great ma¬
jority of the race did not seek freedom;
but they were led to believe that freedom
held great possibilities for them, such as
being wealthy land-owners, just like ' Ole
Marster.'
" In September, 1862, President Lin¬
coln issued a proclamation to the effect
that on the 1st of January following he
intended freeing the slaves in such States
or parts of States as might then be found
28
THE NEGRO:
in hostility to the Government. He made
his word good, and on New Year's Day,
1863, slavery practically ended in this
country, and with the passage of the Thir¬
teenth Amendment to the Constitution
slavery was abolished.
" This childish race accepted the free¬
dom thrust upon it, and entered life for
weal or woe, with the exception of a mi¬
nority who remained true to their ' white
folks' under all conditions and circum¬
stances ; this minority was as true as steel,
and chose rather to suffer persecution
with their mistresses and children during
the war than to enjoy the pleasure of
being a Yankee soldier. At no time and
in no place in the world's history have
master and slave been so lovingly bound
together, and never was absolute trust on
the part of one met by more loyal devo¬
tion on the part of the other than was
manifested by the condition of the mi¬
nority of the negro race during the war;
and its memory lingers still in the hearts
of many to bind them together. All this
in spite of outside influences that sought,
and continue to seek, to embitter and
alienate. That these influences have not
been without effect is sadly true. I am
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 29
afraid the work of embittering and alien¬
ating is almost finished, for the devoted
minority are fast passing to the reward
of the faithful servant. I am glad slavery
is dead, but I never thought it was killed
in the right way."
" Mr. Lincoln was a great man."
"Yes," said Dr. Daniels, "he was the
greatest man of one idea that this country
has ever produced. Abraham Lincoln
was of low birth and narrow environ¬
ment, born and reared in poverty, ob¬
scurity and ignorance. He sought, by
diligence and perseverance, to rise to
higher and better things. He left this
example, worthy of imitation by the
youth of the country, that while unyield¬
ing in his purpose to carry out his own
ideas, regardless of the cost and of the
opinions of others, yet he had a stability
of character to admire. But stability and
narrowness are very different character¬
istics. His inability to look at both sides
of the question was the cause of the
trouble. The shield has a white and a
black side in a great majority of cases,
and the troublesome people are those who
will not consent to change places and look
upon the opposite side. Lincoln could
so
THE NEGRO:
only see the black side of slavery, and re¬
fused to look upon the bright side.
Slavery, conscientiously weighed and in¬
vestigated, would have shown a very
bright side in favor of an institution
which was for the uplifting and better¬
ment of the negro race. We were refused
a voice in the matter, and were condemned
as a sinful, barbarous, criminal class of
slaveholders who lived in a tainted atmos¬
phere. Hasty and uncertain condemna¬
tion of people often comes to blight life
and ruin homes because the side of the
seeming criminal is not considered. How
much better it would be to consider all the
facts before rendering a verdict for or
against our fellow-man. Christ said:
' Fear them not therefore; there is nothing
covered, that shall not be revealed; and
hid that shall not be known.' The South¬
ern people have been forced to leave their
cause to the verdict of time, which proves
all things. Time has proved that the real
cause for the emancipation of the slaves
was the commercial interests of the
North.
" Mr. Roosevelt, one of the greatest
men of his day, and the greatest President
we have had since Buchanan, recognized
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 31
the right of secession when he recognized
the secession of Panama. I have often
wondered if the good people of the North
had been allowed time to investigate and
understand Southern rights, would the
result have been different. They were
called to arms to put down the supposed
rebellion. The greater number of North¬
ern people thought we were rebelling
against the Government; therefore they
shouldered their arms to preserve the Gov¬
ernment. It was not a rebellion, and we
were not rebels. We were fighting in de¬
fense of our rights, homes and firesides.
We did not fight to perpetuate human
slavery, but we fought for our rights ac¬
cording to the laws of God and man.
The Southern people considered that they
had the God-given right to do as they
pleased with their own property. The
negroes were our property by right of in¬
heritance, and every man has a right to
dispose of his property as he sees fit. Se¬
cession was settled at Appomattox, and
the South gave up its rights and the
responsibility for the negro. But was the
negro problem settled—or created? We
leave this to the vindication of time."
"Did you think slavery a sin?"
33
THE NEGRO:
"No indeed; slavery was legal, accord¬
ing to the statute laws of the land; all na¬
tions of any consequence admitted the
legality of slavery. The Bible indorses
slavery, both in the Old and New Testa¬
ments. In the beginning Noah, being in¬
spired, said:' Cursed be Canaan, a servant
of servants shall he be unto his, brethren;
and he said blessed be the Lord God of
Shem, and Canaan shall he his servant.
God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall
dwell in tents of Shem; and Canaan shall
be his servant.' The Bible calls Ham the
father of Canaan. This curse will con¬
tinue through time. Although the negro
is free, he will always occupy a servile po¬
sition. If slavery was wrong, I believe
that when God made the covenant of cir¬
cumcision with Abraham, He would have
told Abraham that it was wrong; but in¬
stead God said to him: ' He that is born
in thy house and he that is bought with
thy money must needs be circumsized, and
my covenant shall be in your flesh for an
everlasting covenant.' And the Lord
said unto Moses and Aaron: ' This is the
ordinance of the passover; there shall no
strangers eat thereof; hut every man¬
servant that is bought with money, when
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 33
thou hast circumsized him, then shall he
eat thereof! A foreigner and a hired
servant shall not eat thereof.' Paul says:
' Servants, be obedient to them that are
your masters according to the flesh, with
fear and trembling in singleness of your
heart, as unto Christ, knowing that what¬
soever good thing any man doeth the same
shall receive of the Lord, whether he be
bond or free.' Paul further says: 'All
scripture is given by inspiration of God.'
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were slave¬
holders, who walked and talked with God.
Don't understand me to say that the
slaveholders of the South were as good
men as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; no in¬
deed; I mean to say if slavery was a sin,
then these patriarchs were guilty of the
same sin. Christ said:' Ye shall see Abra¬
ham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the
prophets in the kingdom of God.' "
34
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER III
the assassination of lincoln
" The South for forty years has been
forced to rest under the accusation of in¬
stigating John Wilkes Booth's assassina¬
tion of Mr. Lincoln. We, of course, have
never thought that we were better than
the Saviour of the world, who was accused
of being the ' Prince of Devils'; realiz¬
ing this fact, we have pursued the path
leading into a more perfect day. When
General Lee, worn out by hardships and
suffering, surrendered the ragged soldiers
of the South at Appomattox, they went
down with an honorable defeat—had lost
all save honor. After receiving their
parole they returned to their ruined homes
with the idea to do the best they could in
an honorable way. As the glorious sun
of the old South set on the wreck and ruin
of cherished hopes, the Confederate sol¬
dier set his face toward the stars of the
new South, and through the breakers of
war he brought his honor and integrity.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 35
In speaking of what the Confederate
soldier had to face after his surrender, the
great soul and honest heart of Corporal
Tanner of the G. A. R. gave utterance to
the following words: 'From the hour
when my thoughts were first turned to the
contemplation of this situation, I have
never had any hesitancy in declaring that
the Confederate soldier—when he found
himself thus confronted, as with pride and
defiance, he raised his head in determina¬
tion against adverse fate, and swore by
the God above him that while he was
down for the moment he would not stay
down, and then bravely set to work to re¬
build his broken fortunes and to make the
fair lands of the South bloom and blos¬
som again under banner of peace—ex¬
hibited a type of moral courage that is as
high above mere physical courage as the
stars in their brilliancy are above the dark¬
ened fields of earth.'
" The Southern people had not reached
so high a standard of a Christian life that
they could love their enemies, but they
were of the type who seek no foul means
by which to destroy them. We did not
love Mr. Lincoln any more than the people
of the North loved Mr. Davis. Mr. Lin-
36
THE NEGRO:
coin and Mr. Davis were both great
Kentuckians, but of a very different
breed. While we did not love Mr. Lin¬
coln, we bore him no ill will. He had de¬
stroyed the South and had accomplished
his great purpose: that of alleviating the
fancied sufferings of the accursed poster¬
ity of Ham by sacrificing one-half million
of the blessed children of Shem and
Japheth. I have heard people say that
they believed God raised Abraham Lin¬
coln up to do just what he did do; but the
Apostle James tells us that, ' The wis¬
dom that is from above is first pure, then
peaceable, gentle and easy to be entreated;
full of mercy and good fruits without
partiality and without hypocrisy.' Of
course, we will not know all the people
that God raised up in this world until we
get to Heaven, but Jesus Christ and His
apostles gave us the standard by which to
judge men, and if we are not capable of
judging according to this standard, I be¬
lieve God will let us in with the idiots.
" Booth by the assassination of President
Lincoln brought untold suff ering, censure,
and abuse upon the Southern people.
Those who had remained true to the cause
of the Confederacy were ragged, starv-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 37
ing, and glad to go to the place they
once called home; they had had enough
of the killing business. We had no more
to do with the assassination of Lincoln
than we had to do with the assassination
of Garfield or McKinley, but the condi¬
tions of the country and times were very
different, and Booth was a Virginian. In
the mellow sunlight of a better day when
sectional hate is dead, and slumbering in
the sepulcher of the years, a Northern
newspaper, the Record-Herald of Chi¬
cago, in justice to the South has published
the following: ' In looking over some
original photographs and letters in the
possession of a Springfield, Illinois, art
dealer, pertaining to the time of the as¬
sassination of Lincoln, an interesting and
strange story has been brought to light
which tends to show that the crime of
Wilkes Booth was not altogether impelled
by the Civil War or its results, but because
of his hatred of Lincoln on account of
the execution of Booth's dearest friend
and college roommate, Captain Beall, of
the Confederate army. Booth's ill-fated
friend was a famous Confederate officer,
whose secret and fearless movements ter¬
rorized the whole Federal army in and
38
THE NEGRO:
near New York. In one of his daring
exploits in 1864 Captain Beall was cap¬
tured and sentenced by court-martial to
be hanged. Many were the efforts made
to save the condemned man, as he was a
true and gallant son of the South. Among
the many distinguished persons whose in¬
fluence was exerted in his behalf was Gov¬
ernor Andrews of Massachusetts. A
copy of a letter written to President Lin¬
coln on February 24th, 1865, and signed
by W. H. Browning, a member of the
National House of Representatives, and
ninety other members of Congress, includ¬
ing Speaker Colfax, is in the hands of the
local collector. In part this letter reads:
" This is brief time for precaution in so
solemn and appalling an event. The
friends of Captain Beall desire to appeal
to your clemency for commutation of the
sentence from death to imprisonment, that
they may have the opportunity to prepare
and present for your consideration the
reasons which they hope may induce a
commutation of the sentence. They now
beseech you to grant the unhappy man
such respite as you may deem reasonable
under the circumstances. As a short re¬
spite is all that is asked just now, and as
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 39
that in no event can do any harm, we for¬
bear at present to make any other sug¬
gestion." The letters were delivered and
the appeals were made to no avail, for
Beall was hanged on the day named.'
" Whether or not Beall was guilty of
the charges upon which he was condemned,
may be judged from a letter written by
him shortly before his death, to a personal
friend, James A. L. McClure, of Balti¬
more. It is as follows: * Some of the evi¬
dence is true, some of it is false. I am
not a spy nor a guerrilla. The charges
have not been proved. The execution of
the sentence will be murder.' It was said
by Dr. George N. Foote, a personal
friend of both Beall and Booth, that when
Booth found that there was no possible
chance for his friend, he went to Wash¬
ington and implored President Lincoln
and Secretary Seward to grant the pris¬
oner a short respite. Foote says Lincoln
and Seward agreed to do so, and Booth
hastened to telegraph the joyful news to
Beall's mother. The next morning at 10
o'clock the prison commandant received
orders to execute Beall, and the order was
carried out within thirty yards of the cell
in which Foote was confined at Fort
40
THE NEGRO:
Columbus. When Booth found out what
he considered the perfidy of Lincoln and
Seward, he is said to have sworn revenge.
The plan to assassinate the President was
known to only one man outside the plot,
who, when he found that Booth could not
be dissuaded from his purpose, fled from
the city before the appalling tragedy
occurred.
" This story illustrates the hatred Lin¬
coln had for everybody and everything
Southern. It also shows his narrow na¬
ture and how little love he had for his
fellow-man; it shows to the people of the
South the magnanimous souls of Gov¬
ernor Andrews and others who exerted
their influence in behalf of this gallant
son of the South."
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 41
CHAPTER IV
slavery
After making his regular round of
visits to the sick, Dr. Daniels stopped on
his way home to talk with his friend, Mr.
Higgins. We find them seated, as was
their habit, on the front gallery, talking
of slavery.
" The negro, as a savage, was thrust
upon the Southern colonies, in some cases
in face of their protests, to satisfy the
greed of the English and New England
slave-traders. The enslavement of a sav¬
age people is of necessity attended by
rigorous treatment on the part of the
master, and of a revengeful hate on the
part of the slave; and that it should have
developed into its modified form in 1860
speaks volumes for the good that was in
both races. It was modified to the degree
of absolute trust and attachment on the
part of the master, and was met by loyal
devotion on the part of the slave, as was
proved by the faithful slaves during the
war."
THE NEGRO:
"Do you think that it was wrong for
the slave-traders to take those savages
from their native country and sell them
as slaves? " said Mr. Higgins.
" No, in one sense I do not, because this
savage race of cannibals would have re¬
mained cannibal for all time to come.
God made this most inferior race for serv¬
ants and cursed them with servitude for
our benefit and theirs. The law of God
and of nature required that the earth
should be subdued and replenished; and
God said Canaan should be the servant
of his brethren. He could not have been
a servant had he remained in Africa as a
savage. I believe the slave-traders were,
from the love of greed, made willing in¬
struments in the hand of God to bring
these savages to the people of the South,
but their motive being greed, it was born
of the devil, and this dark motive was the
hold the devil had on the institution of
slavery throughout its existence; which is
often true of the ways and means of life.
The South did not seek or desire the re¬
sponsibility and the onerous burden of
civilizing and Christianizing these de¬
graded savages, but God in His mysteri¬
ous providence brought it about. Of
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 48
course, the institution of slavery was liable
to great abuse; to say otherwise would be
to say that it was not human. The whole
of life is a system of evils and compensa¬
tions. The Africans brought to us had
been, generally speaking, slaves in their
own country, and only underwent a
change of masters. American civiliza¬
tion upon revealed truth and nature's
laws puts the negro in his natural posi¬
tion—that of subordination to the white
man. Republican government has utterly
failed with him, because of the error of
supposing that all men of all races are
naturally equal to one another."
"No," said Mr. Higgins, "the negro
was included in American independence
only as a slave. Our forefathers con¬
tended for their own equality with
Englishmen; this not being granted them,
they declared their independence. But
scarcely had their swords won that inde¬
pendence when the governing classes of
Great Britain began to teach the rising
generation through the medium of books,
schools, and colleges that the democratic
doctrine which declared all white men
equal included the negro; thus making
the learned world believe that democracy
44t
THE NEGRO:
and negro slavery were incompatible that
there could be no such thing as a democ¬
racy, or a government where the people
rule, so long as black people were held
in slavery. The schools not only taught
the doctrine that negro slavery was anti-
republican, but that it was a moral, social,
and political evil, and soon it was de¬
nounced from the pulpit as a sin against
God.
" Under the influence of such an edu¬
cation, imported from Europe, the Amer¬
ican people, even in the South, began to
regard negro slavery as an evil, not from
anything they saw, but from what they
had been taught. After receiving this
false teaching and casting aside the Bible
and the Constitution, the North became
the blind leaders of the blind in one of the
most destructive and bloody wars of the
age.
" As I have already said, slavery was
subject to abuse. There were a few mean
masters and overseers. Occasionally on a
plantation a great distance from the mas¬
ter the overseer would treat the negroes
badly through hatred for the negro and
envy of the master. It has always heen a
characteristic of the negro race not to like
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 45
the people he calls ' po' white folks,' and as
a general thing the overseer was of this
class; therefore there was a certain natural
hatred existing between them. Generally-
speaking, the overseer was forced to treat
the negroes right in order to retain his
position; and we had a great many high-
toned and good men as overseers, whom
the negroes liked and respected. The
mean master belonged to that class of
human beings who will treat his own fam¬
ily—his own flesh and blood—in a brutal
manner, and even beat and unmercifully
use the dumb brute he chances to own.
This class of human beings has existed
since time immemorial and will continue
to exist. But thank God we had very few
slave-holders of this class.
" The divine beatitudes of the institu¬
tion of slavery were the peace, harmony,
affection, good-will, happiness, and con¬
tentment that existed between master and
slave. The negro in slavery was a happy
and harmless individual. He had food
and raiment, and was therefore content.
Why should he not he happy? He had no
cares or responsibilities, he was nursed in
sickness by his white folks, was attended
by the family physician, was provided for
46
THE NEGRO:
and cared for from the cradle to the
grave."
" Every Southern plantation held three
classes of the negro race," said the Doctor.
" The first class comprised those who fol¬
lowed their masters through the carnage
of the war; very often carried their life¬
less bodies from the battle-field and re¬
turned to a saddened home; sometimes
with a last message from 'marster to
missus.' Those who remained with their
master's family and protected and took
care of them as best they could; watched
at night and often would steal up to the
big house to warn the ' missus' and chil¬
dren that the Yankees were coming.
These negro slaves could have butchered
the white women and children and then
gone over to the enemy for the freedom
and protection so abundantly promised to
those who would desert their master's fam¬
ily. This class was as true as steel, for
they loved us and we loved them, but some
of them were forced to leave their homes
and go with the enemy.
" The second class included the negroes
who were lazy and did not want to work;
they did not hate us, neither did they love
us. While they did not relish the idea of
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 47
work, they were harmless, and obeyed and
respected their masters on the same prin¬
ciple that some children are not inclined
to do just as their parents desire, although
they obey and respect them. To this class
belonged those of the negro race who
would rather starve than work. They
welcomed Saturday evening's vacation
with all the joy of a school boy. With
the exception of work, they had nothing
to disturb their happiness or peace of
mind. This class accepted freedom as
being the end of all work. After learning
that freedom was more moonshine than
light of day, he returned to his old habit
of work.
" The minority of the four million
slaves made up the third class. This class
was more brute than human. It seemed
impossible to remove its members from
the savage ways and means of the jungle.
They accepted the white man's civilization
only through fear and force of habit; they
were mean, restless, and dissatisfied, just
as the lion is restless and dissatisfied in
the confinement of the cage. This class
of human brute was subdued only through
fear, just as the lion is made to perform in
the show through fear. This class hated
48
THE NEGRO:
the white man with all the hatred of a
brute nature, and was capable of commit¬
ting the blackest crimes whenever the op¬
portunity arose. But the majority of
this, as well as of the second class, ran
away and joined the Yankee army, which
was a providential act for the women and
children of the South."
" Yes," said Mr. Higgins, " we had one
crime committed by that class in our neigh¬
borhood during the war. It was the kill¬
ing of Mrs. Benson and her three children.
A negro called at the Benson home and
told Mrs. Benson that her husband, who
was then in the army, was at the back of
her field and wanted to see her and the
children. Mrs. Benson gladly accepted
the message, took her baby in her arms,
the negro taking the next little girl, while
the third walked, and started to see the
husband and father, as they supposed. On
arriving at the designated place there
awaited, not her husband, but two more
negro brutes, and the three murdered Mrs.
Benson and her three little children. Mr.
Benson was not a slave-holder, and it could
not have been for hatred of the slave¬
holders. Of course those negroes paid
the penalty of their crime, but this did not
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 49
bring back the wife and children to the
absent Confederate soldier. From this
class came the assaults on white women
after the war, for we had no assaults prior
to that time. This class seemed to increase
wonderfully as the years rolled by.
" Yes, this is one of the blots on the
negro's freedom. The ante-bellum negro
stands to-day a living monument of supe¬
rior quality to the institution of slavery.
He was trained up in the occupation to
which he was adapted, as a farmer, car¬
penter, brick-mason, or in some other of
the useful vocations of life. The slaves
built some very fine old Southern man¬
sions, and a few yet stand as a monument
to their skill and training. Solomon said:
' Train up a child in the way it should go,
and when he is old he will not depart from
it.' The slave departed from his teaching
for a time during reconstruction days, but
soon returned to work for his master and
his living.
" I often ask myself this question: ' Do
not my brethren of the North, who fought
to free the negro and place him in a higher
state of existence, think the plan of salva¬
tion was a little f ar-fetched ?' If not, why
not? Of course their fight for supremacy
50
THE NEGRO:
was a success. Charles Francis Adams, of
Boston, says: 'We, for instance, after
one fierce, final struggle for supremacy,
pacified the Confederacy in twenty years.
We recognize this as a fact, but has the
negro's rights of man and his much-needed
chance materialized, or has his elevation
been absorbed into a permanent condition?
His elevation seems to have been a demon¬
stration of the great fundamental prin¬
ciple of nature that water will seek its
level. Emancipation of the slaves lifted a
very great responsibility from the people
of the South, for we were just as much re¬
sponsible to God for our slaves as we are
for the raising of our children. The
Southern people would not, for millions
and millions of dollars, accept this respon¬
sibility again. The high standard of re¬
ligious training the negro received as a
slave will never come to him again. The
mistress on Sunday taught the little dark¬
ies the catechism, and read the Bible to the
older negroes. The white people had their
churches arranged so that the colored peo¬
ple heard the message of life from the
same preacher and in the same churches as
their masters. Besides this, they had serv¬
ices of their own, at which the white pastor
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 51
or an approved colored brother preached.
The sacraments were duly administered to
them, and for them class meetings and
prayer meetings were established. We
had all Christian denominations repre¬
sented among the slaves, but the Baptists
and Methodists seemed to be the most pop¬
ular. I will talk about the Methodists, for
the reason that I am a Methodist, and am
better acquainted with what the Metho¬
dists did for the slaves.
" The M. E. Church South never had
in its richest churches, or sent to any mis¬
sion field, men of a higher order of intel¬
lect, culture, or consecration than were ap¬
pointed by it as superintendents and pas¬
tors of its missions among the Southern
slaves. Bishops Andrews, Capers, Early,
McTyeire, and Fitzgerald, Drs. McFer-
rin, Evans, and many others, though called
in later years to fill the highest offices in
the church, accounted among their richest
experiences and happiest work that which
came to them while missionaries to the ne¬
groes. That which was true of the M. E.
Church South was also true of the other
denominations. In 1866 there were re¬
ported 78,742 of the colored members of
the M. E. Church South that had mem-
52
THE NEGRO:
bered 207,776. The two African churches
hitherto operating mainly in the North
appropriated a large share of them. An¬
other portion went to Northern Metho¬
dism. The remnants that clave to the
Southern Church, which administered to
them in slavery, were set off into circuits
and annual conferences, and at their re¬
quest were constituted an independent
body under the name chosen by them¬
selves, ' The Colored Methodist Episcopal
Church in America.' The discipline of
the parent body was adopted without ma¬
terial alteration, and two bishops of their
own election were ordained in 1870—
W. H. Miles and It. H. Vanderhost. The
General Conference which authorized this
proceeding also ordered that all church
property that had been acquired, held, and
used for Methodists in the past be turned
over to them by Quarterly Conferences
and trustees. So you see the war placed a
great gulf between the white and black
man of the South, even in religion, and
although we have extended to the colored
church much help financially, morally, and
religiously, the gulf is between us, under
all conditions and circumstances; a sad
fact, but nevertheless a fact."
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 55
CHAPTER V
the equality of man
The Great Architect of the Universe
made man out of the dust of the earth, and
said, "To dust thou shalt return"; but
after the fall of Adam, God made man
both superior and inferior in mind, soul,
and body; of diff erent nature, complexion,
and construction, and of varying capacity
for the different stations in life. If God
had made man of one mind, one nature,
and one capacity, the journey of life
would be very monotonous. Instead, ac¬
cording to His wisdom, He gave us dif¬
ferent talents, and expects us to use our
endowments according to the station in
which He has placed us. We have the
ethics of the Bible and thfe ethics of nature
to follow—these ethics of the Bible are
demonstrated by the ethics of nature.
Thomas Jefferson was a very brainy man,
and a man of whom the South was proud,
but he seems to have held some wrong theo¬
ries, and one of these was the idea that all
54
THE NEGRO:
men are born free and equal. I have read
that Jefferson was an infidel, and he must
have been, for he never bowed to the au¬
thority of the Bible. How can any person
who believes in the Bible admit for a mo¬
ment that God intended to teach by it that
all men are born free and equal. IVe have
a striking illustration of this in Isaac's
two sons, Jacob and Esau. They were
twins, and the Lord told Rebekah that
these twins should beget two nations, and
the older, which was Esau, should serve
the younger, who was called Jacob; Esau
was the inferior of the twin brothers.
Another instance is the two sons of Abra¬
ham, Isaac and Ishmael. Did God look
upon Ishmael as being Isaac's equal? No;
God told Abraham that Isaac was his son
indeed, and that in Isaac his seed should
be called, and " Also of the son of the
bondwoman will I make a nation, because
he is thy seed. But my covenant will I es¬
tablish with Isaac for an everlasting cove¬
nant, and with his seed after him." We
can, by casting aside the Bible and nature,
say that all men are equal, and there is no
such thing as caste, but if the Northern
people who profess this belief will come
South and live on the plantations among
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 55
the negroes for a while, I think a change
will come over the spirit of their dreams,
and they will find that the negro is the
most inferior type of the human race.
The negro is anatomically constructed
more like the brute animal than are the
Caucasian and Mongolian races; not that
the negro is a brute, or half brute and half
man, but he is a genuine human being,
anatomically constructed about the head
and face more like the monkey tribes and
the lower orders of animals than any other
species of the genus man. The blackness
of the prognathous race, known in the
world's history as Canaanites, Cushites,
Ethiopians, black men or negroes, is not
confined to the skin, but pervades in a
greater or less degree the whole inward
man down to the bones themselves, giving
the flesh and the blood, the membranes,
and every part and organ of the body, ex¬
cept the bones, a darker hue than in the
white race.
The ethnology of the negro race not
only proves that subordination to the white
race is its normal condition, but it goes
further and proves that social and politi¬
cal equality is abnormal to it, whether ed¬
ucated or not. Neither negroes nor mulat-
56
THE NEGRO:
toes know how to use power when it is
given them; they always use it capriciously
and tyranically. Another proof of sub¬
ordination to the white race is, wherever
the negro has reached a state of civiliza¬
tion he dwells with the white man and is
dominated by him. The negro's mental
organization is too imperfect to enable him
to extricate himself from barbarism. We
find the black race on all the continents
and on many of the islands of the sea,
whither they have migrated or been car¬
ried as slaves by the stronger races, for
since time immemorial they have been
hewers of wood and drawers of water for
their more favored brethren.
Take the negro away from the white
man and place him in a country by
himself, and he will soon forget what he
has learned, and will relapse into barbar¬
ism. Liberia, as is well known, was colo¬
nized some years ago by American ne¬
groes, who established a republic. A great
number of negroes went there expecting
to find a veritable El Dorado. A majority
are on the verge of starvation. They were
dumped into Liberia by labor agents, and
then left to hustle for themselves as best
they could. Unacquainted with the sea-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 57
sons of the new country, and with its nat¬
ural crops, they became absolutely help¬
less ; with the passing years their condition
has improved in no wise, and the negro
republic is the disgrace of the west Afri¬
can coast. The one thought of the negroes
is to get back to the United States, and
many of them are pining away from in¬
tense homesickness, while others have
lapsed into barbarism.
Subordination of the inferior to the su¬
perior is a normal and not a forced condi¬
tion. The negro is a dependent, and will
ever remain so; the obedience of the negro
to the Caucasian is spontaneous, because
it is normal for a weaker will to yield in
obedience to the stronger. The ordinance
which subjects the negro to the empire of
the white man's will was plainly written
on the heavens during our Civil War by
our faithful slaves. The better element
of the race in this country do not want
social equality; they think that white men
who will associate with them on terms of
equality are " small potatoes and not many
in a hill." Generally speaking, those who
teach and practice social equality are the
illegitimate mulatto idealists of the most
erroneous type. To this class belongs the
58
THE NEGRO:
trouble of the future. We of the South
like the real article of any thing; therefore
we prefer the real negro, who knows he is
a negro, and does not want to be a white
man. The negro's love of country is
strongest in the place where he can get the
most to eat and wear with the least work
possible.
Another trait is the lack of domestic
happiness and affection, and insensibility
to the ties of kindred. Marriage is cele¬
brated with very little concern. The negro
thinks no more of discarding his wife and
taking another than he does of casting
aside one suit of clothes for another. As
a race they pay very little attention to the
marriage relation. The negro excels in
the invention of falsehood—this is one of
his strongest faculties; and so far as im¬
provising falsehood goes, the African
race is without a rival. The negro's free¬
dom does not exist in the nature of things,
but only in the imagination of the politi¬
cal theorist, and in the imagination of the
white nigger who has risen to such an in¬
tellectual height as to think he is the white
man's equal. What do you consider the
ethological factors conspicuous in the dis¬
ability of negro citizenship? Dishonesty,
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 59
thriftlessness, immorality of the lowest
order, with no capacity for real citizen¬
ship. The Bible has, and will ever prove
itself; it is the book of laws, promises, and
commandments, on which rests the civili¬
zation and rights of the human race.
60
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER VI
NEGRO LIFE IN DIXIE BEFORE THE WAR
" As we lift the curtain of the past and
look on the glory of the old South and the
life that was, we realize that life in Dixie
before the war was real life," said Dr.
Daniels.
" To be sure," interrupted Mr. Hig-
gins, " you don't seem to think we are liv¬
ing now!"
" Oh, yes; we are living, but our lives
are a sort of drag-along business com¬
pared with the life of other days; it may
be that we had the vim starved out of us
during the war. Yes, we are creatures of
circumstance to a certain extent, and I
think we are just now getting ' in the cir¬
cumstances ' of the new South with its
new conditions. As early impressions
are the most lasting, I love the old South
of the days of my youth, the land of
peace and plenty, of blue blood, aris¬
tocracy, and happy niggers. There were
very few poor people in the old regime;
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 61
those who were considered poor folks are
now called ' good livers.' The negroes
called the people who did not own negroes
'po' white folks.' Yes, indeed, the old
South was as near an earthly paradise
as ever falls to the lot of man, and
will ever remain to us a ' paradise lost,'
and, as Uncle Henry says, 4 We are glad
that we have ben dar.' You remember
Uncle Henry, the old darky whom Mrs.
Newton employed to drum at the trains
and bring boarders to her hotel. Mrs.
Newton, a lady of the old school, who
was left a widow in poverty, established
a boarding house in the city and engaged
Uncle Henry to assist her in her efforts
to make a living, and well did he assist,
with his judgment and good common
sense. Mrs. Newton had good rooms,
and better rooms for the boarders, and
she told Uncle Henry that she wanted
to put the best people in the best rooms.
When the old darky would come with the
boarders, Mrs. Newton would call him
aside and ask £ who was who.' ' Well,
Mrs. Newton,' said Uncle Henry, ' dat
man dats got on de ole clo's, he ain't dres'
up, but he ben dar, and dat en dats dres'
up fine, he got on de clo's, but he ain't
69
THE NEGRO:
neber ben dar.' This was a true illustra¬
tion of the times just after the war. It
seems that our slaves had more sense than
the young generation of negroes."
" Yes, but that might be because we
owned them and thought they were better
and had more sense."
" No, I know that our slaves were bet¬
ter, happier, and more contented. The
slave had to work, but his work was con¬
ducted upon the right plan—he was not
over-worked, but was required to do a
reasonable amount, without injury to
himself physically, or to his master finan¬
cially. The ethnical elements assimilat¬
ing the negro to the mule were of vast im¬
portance to the negro, because they guar¬
antee to that race ample protection against
the abuse of arbitrary power. We had
shoemakers, mechanics, blacksmiths, farm¬
ers, barbers, and butlers, each happy in his
occupation. The old negro men made
baskets, chair bottoms, rugs, and the like
to sell, as well as to supply the plantation;
the old darkies received the proceeds of
the articles sold. The field-hands who cul¬
tivated the fleecy staple of their masters'
estates were very important factors in
plantation life. Their meals were pre-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 63
pared and ready for them on coming from
work; and they could eat and rest until
called to the field again. The negro is
fond of eating and is a very hearty eater
when he can get food; this desire was
gratified, and down amid the cotton and
the corn his happy song floated on the air
and gave echo of a happy and contented
life.
" I sing in de day time,
I dance in de night,
Fix dat Georgia hoe cake—
Roast dem taters right."
" After his day's work was done he re¬
turned to the quarters, his home, to ' pat
juber' and dance to the music of 4 de ole
banjo' until a stated hour for retiring,
which was very necessary, for the negro
will sit by the fire and doze, or will carouse
all night if allowed. The house servants
considered themselves the ' quality' ne¬
groes, and I suppose they were, for we
had three or four negroes to do the work
done by one white woman now.
" The clothing for the slaves was ap¬
portioned to each to suit the season, and
was made by colored seamstresses under
the superintendency of the mistress. The
64
THE NEGRO:
life of the mistress was not one of idle¬
ness ; she had great care and responsibility
resting upon her, and well did she attend
to her duties, for the slaves looked upon
her as an angel of mercy and goodness,
who ministered to them in sickness and in
health, and when death hovered near she
was there to do all in her power for them.
The death of a slave was a great financial
loss, as well as a rending of the ties of
affection. They were our negroes, and
we were attached to them. The slave was
as dependent upon his master as a ten-
year-old child upon its parents. Occa¬
sionally the negro had a mean master as
some children have mean parents; but the
slave-holders, as a whole, treated the ne¬
groes well and were attached to them, for
it is very natural for us to love the person
or thing belonging to us. We even love
the animals that are ours, and it is reason¬
able to suppose we would love the human
being who was committed to our care, a
family inheritance from generation to
generation.
"Negro child-life was one long holi¬
day, not a holiday from labor, for they
did not have to work until well matured.
Theirs was a holiday with no thought of
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 65
work to-morrow. The negro child was
born a slave, but his life contained no
slavery compared with that of the white
child of to-day. Free from want and
privation, theirs was child-life without a
shadow. The little negroes were nursed
and cared for by the old ' black mammy.'
The little fellows, black and white, often
feasted together, with no thought of so¬
cial equality, for such a thing was an
unknown quantity at that time. The
children's feast or enjoyment was pre¬
sided over by black mammy, and no queen
ever enjoyed her reign more than did the
stately old negress who was next to ' de
white folks up in de big house.' The
children were taught to obey and respect
' black mammy,' whom they loved with the
tender affection of a pure child nature.
Hog-killing time was a feast enjoyed by
the happiest white children and niggers
the world has ever known.
" Saturday evening was a holiday for
every slave on the plantation. They could
fish, hunt, dance, play, and make merry,
free from care. Down in the quarters
about sunset you could hear the tuning
of the banjo and fiddle, which was a signal
of read)^ for the dance.
66
THE NEGRO:
" Ham in every smoke house
Sweet enough fer grace,
Yander come de fiddler;
Ladies, take yo* place! "
4 41 fancy I can hear the merry laugh¬
ter mingled with the strains of the banjo
and the fiddle, as their flying feet went
around in the break-down dance. I have
often gone to the quarters and watched
the negroes dance. Happy days, gone
but not forgotten.
" Christmas meant a great feast and
one week of holidays, with something as a
present, and a dram for every old negro
on the place. The darkies were marched
up to the 4 big house ' to receive their pres¬
ents from 'missus,' and a dram from
'marster.' Their chief delight was to
catch 4 de white folks' Christmas gifts,'
which meant something extra for them.
Christmas was a time of rejoicing, and it
was truly a time of 4 peace on earth, and
good-will toward men!' Down on the
old plantation were ripening corn and
whitening fields of cotton, to be turned
into food and raiment for those who, free
from care, never knowing want, toiled, it
is true, but also reaped. And so down in
the quarters their songs were happy
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 67
songs; and such was life on the plantation
before the war.
" When reviewing the life that is past,
I often wonder if it is possible that those
happy niggers who loved and trusted us
could be the fathers and mothers of a gen¬
eration who hate us, yet still dependent
upon us and will ever remain dependent?
Yes, this race of happy, harmless, and con¬
tented ' niggers,' with their rich white
folks, has passed like the bird songsters
of spring that give place to the winter
season. The negro of to-day is a restless,
dissatisfied wanderer on the face of the
earth, carrying with him the idea of a
great future when he will rule this coun¬
try, or will at least become the white man's
equal, a delusion which comes to him
through education. The sad part of this
delusion is that the better element of the
race must suffer the consequence of the
so-called educated leadership.
" I believe the all-wise God will take a
hand in this condition and settle this ques¬
tion to the good of all concerned. Around
the life in Dixie before the war cling the
sweetest memories, and when we come to
cross over the river and 4 enter in through
the gate into the city,' if I should not meet
68
THE NEGRO:
some of the old darkies in the City of
God, I shall feel disappointed."
" Ca' so dese am mighty fine—dese days ob free¬
dom,
But somehow folks don't seem de same toer me;
An' de white folks an' de niggers—dey don'
seem ter
Git along ez well ez when we wuz'nt free;
An' dey tell me dat my pore ole mine's er ailin',
But it won't be long tell dey lay me down
An' my spirit it will be shakin' han's widMassa's,
Nebber thinkin' ob de cole, cole ground!"
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 69
CHAPTER VII
restraints of slavery
" Slavery set a limit, not to any right
conferred on the negro by the Author of
nature, but upon the evil deeds which he
is capable of committing as a freeman,"
said Dr. Daniels.
"Yes, the God of all men constructed
the negroes on a very different plan from
the whites, and their distinguishing char¬
acteristics are such as peculiarly mark
them for the position they occupy among
us. God gave to the whites qualities de¬
nied the black race—the one a thinking
and reflective being and the other a
creature of feeling and imitation, almost
void of reflective faculties. In slavery we
only had the bright side of the negro's
nature to deal with. As a race, they live
in the present and come nearer obeying
the injunction of Christ, ' Take therefore
no thought for the morrow; for the mor¬
row shall take thought for the things of
itself,' than any other race of people.
70
THE NEGRO:
They certainly take no thought for the
morrow, have no ambition. The real
negro is a stationary race, which shows
that God made them a servile people; he
cannot be independent anywhere on the
face of the earth.
" They are a lazy, shiftless race of
people, who thought their work ended with
slavery, that liberty to them would know
no law except its own will, and who seek
no end except the gratification of a pas¬
sion of the grossest sort. Such was the
idea of these people, who were children in
intellect, with a nature of the lowest or¬
der held in check by slavery. The master
and slave were bound together by the laws
of God and man; the bonds which bound
them were affection and value for that
which was his own, on the part of the
master; on the part of the slave it was
affection, devotion, and loyalty to their
protector and benefactor, who supplied
their needs and wants. To these bonds
were added the restraints of mutual in¬
terest.
" The master ruled the negro with his
superior will power rather than with the
whip. Of course, it was necessary to whip
some of the negroes, just as it is necessary
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 71
to whip some children. Solomon says:
* The rod and reproof give wisdom: but
a child left to himself bringeth his mother
to shame.' He further says: ' A servant
will not be corrected by words: for though
he understands he will not answer.' If a
negro had to be corrected with a whip¬
ping, he never held malice toward his mas¬
ter for whipping him any more than our
children hold malice toward us for whip¬
ping them. The power of a stronger will
over a weaker one, or the power of one
living creature to act upon and influence
another, is an ordinance of nature.
" The same ordinance which keeps the
spheres in their orbits and holds the satel¬
lites in subordination to the planets, is the
ordinance that subjects the negro race to
the empire of the white man's will. This
was the general rule by which the slaves
were controlled.
" I make no effort to correct any libel
published about the inhuman treatment of
slaves in the South: the treatment of the
slave is recorded on high, where no selfish
motive can reverse the verdict, and we
leave the libel writer to answer to what
God says concerning: 4 Whosoever loveth
and maketh a lie.' The will of man is
12
THE NEGRO:
but a spark of the Infinite will, and its
power is only circumscribed by his knowl¬
edge. A man possessing a knowledge of
the negro character can govern a hun¬
dred, a thousand, of the negro race by his
will alone easier than one ignorant of that
character can govern a single individual
of that race by the whip or club. We have
this illustrated by the number of negroes
who suffered and even died to aid the
Confederacy and its people. One very
striking illustration of this was seen in
Dahlgren's intended raid on Richmond.
Dahlgren purposed to cross the river at
either Jude's Ferry on the Morson place
or at Mannikin Ferry, three miles below,
and to approach Richmond by the south
bank of the James. Reaching Belle Isle,
he purposed to liberate the twelve thou¬
sand Federal prisoners encamped thereon,
who, reinforced with his own regiment,
could easily sack the Confederate capital
and hang Jeff Davis and his cabinet.
Dahlgren was ignorant of the depth of
water at the ferry crossings, and therefore
paid a burly black man from the Sanford
place, who professed a knowledge of the
ferry, $10.00 to pilot the troop of cavalry
safely across to the south bank. They
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 75
had not proceeded half-way across the
stream when the advance horsemen were
over their heads, and one of the number
drowned. A retreat was promptly or¬
dered. The negro was hanged after a
' drumhead' court-martial, and his body
left swinging from a limb over the road¬
side. I believe the negro guided the Fed¬
eral soldiers into that water for the pur¬
pose of drowning them, and thereby aid¬
ing the Confederacy and the people he
loved. He sacrificed his life and turned
the course of the raid, so that the strategy
of a Southern woman could be brought
into play to delay the raid until too late
to be successful. When Dahlgren did
charge the Confederates they were ready,
and he was killed and his men routed.
When the great soul of this black slave
took its flight, it gave place to President
Davis and his cabinet—he died that they
might live, for Richmond was then in an
almost defenseless condition, the reserves
having been sent to General Lee at the
front.
" Yes, the thousands of slaves who fol¬
lowed us through the carnage of war,
those who stood by our women and chil¬
dren and those who aided the Confeder-
74
THE NEGRO:
acy, stand as evidence of the treatment
they received in slavery. Our wives and
children were perfectly safe under the
care and protection of the faithful slaves.
Time after time did the old ' black
mammy' hurry the children to a safe hid¬
ing place, thinking that the Yankees
would kill them, while the other slaves
would beg the Yankees not to burn the
property of their master and mistress.
The Yankees were fighting to free the
negroes, while thousands of the slaves
were doing all in their power to keep from
being freed. The restraint of slavery was
for the betterment and uplifting of the
race. Theft in a freeman is a crime; in a
slave it was a vice. Courts of justice had
no more to do with a slave's stealing than
with his lying; that was a matter for the
domestic forum.
" The slaves' offenses were confined to
petty depredations, principally for the
gratification of their desire to take some¬
thing, and were chiefly confined to the
property of their owner which was most
exposed to them. An atrocious crime
committed by a slave was rarely heard of.
They were restrained by the constant, vigi¬
lant, and interested superintendence which
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 75
was exercised over them from the com¬
mission of offenses of great magnitude—
even if they were so disposed. We had no
negroes in the penitentiary, on the chain
gang, at the county farm, or in the poor
houses of the South at that time.
'^Though the negro is naturally lazy
and too improvident to work for himself,
he would often labor for his master with
a right good will, and with a loyal devo¬
tion to his interest, because he felt that in
his master he had a protector and friend.
They were made lazy by the depravity of
human nature, in connection and co¬
operation with long centuries of brutal
ignorance and the savage modes of life
in Africa, which justifies the servitude in
which the Providence of God placed the
negro when a slave.
" Speaking of the slave as a thief
brings to mind an experience of my father
with one of his favorite slaves. This old
darky would steal corn. He lived near¬
est the 'white folks" house, because his
wife and wife's mother were house serv¬
ants. When harvest time came father
had a crib built almost against Uncle
Lon's house. A neighbor came along
while the negroes were building the crib
76
THE NEGRO:
and asked my father why he was building
a crib there. Father said: ' Well, I don't
want Lon to have to walk so far when he
wants to take a little corn, and I am hav¬
ing a crib built for his convenience.'
"Yes, even in slavery, when the negro
had the necessities of life he would take
things, and you may as well undertake to
make water run up hill as to undertake
to break the negro from stealing. As a
slave, if he took anything from a neigh¬
bor, his master made it good, but now-a-
days he goes to the penitentiary or county
farm to work for his crime. He works
under the lash of the guard who cares lit¬
tle whether he lives or dies. The moral
restraint placed upon the slave was for
the betterment of the race physically and
spiritually and for the benefit of the mas¬
ter financially. He was restrained from
becoming a debauchee, a walking carcass
of disease, crap shooter, night walker,
idler, and criminal; in general, he was not
allowed to follow the dictates of his low
brute nature. Of course, we know that
the negro has always been a race of bas¬
tards, but I believe there were fewer bas¬
tards among them in slavery. I know
there were fewer mulattoes on the planta-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 77
tions than in the cities. The cause of this
was that the majority of the free negroes
migrated to the city and a good many
slaves were hired to the people who lived
in the city. (The negro woman, as a slave,
claimed to have been forced into a life
of shame, but time has shown the ab¬
surdity and falsehood of such a state¬
ment. Mulattoes have greatly increased
in number as the years go by with the
negro a freeman. The mulatto child is
the offspring of a low, coarse white man
and a negro woman, and is the cloud
which hangs over the good of both races.
" The negro in slavery was no more like
the prisoner of Sing Sing than is our
child, whom we try to raise up in the way
he should go. The restraints of slavery
were just as necessary to the future wel¬
fare of the negro as the restraints of child¬
hood are necessary to the future welfare
of the child, and the record of the ante¬
bellum negro stands to-day as evidence
of this fact. His absence is conspic¬
uous in the chain gangs, penitentiaries,
and county farms. The rapid increase of
the negro population in slavery and the
old age to which the ante-bellum negro
lived, tells how he was treated as a slave.
78
THE NEGRO:
If slavery, with its restraints, was brutal
and barbarous, what are the restraints
placed upon the negro race to-day north,
south, east and west? Answer: chain
gang with chain and iron ball attached to
ankles, penitentiary and county farms
with lash of obedience, and the mob of
lynchers and murderers; all these are the
restraints of freedom. Like begets like,
and the cause leads to the effect. The
supply must meet the demand. Has time
proved that the abolition of slavery lifted
the negro up out of his supposed degrada¬
tion, or was he lifted up politically and
degraded morally? The glory of our life
comes not from what we do or what we
know, but dwells forever more in what
we are."
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 79
CHAPTER VIII
REFLEX LIGHTS FROM THE PAST
" Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Down the corridors of Time."
The Confederate soldier and his nig¬
gers, after spending together the better
part of life in a day of peace, happiness,
and good will, shall " fold their tents like
the Arabs, and as silently steal away."
The two old gentlemen were engaged
in pleasant conversation when Mrs. Hig-
gins entered, saying to Mr. Higgins: " I
am sorry to interrupt your conversation,
but Aunt Frances is on the kitchen porch
wishing to see you."
" What is the matter now? "
" You know Aunt Frances cannot agree
with the negroes of the new regime, and
I suppose from what she says they have
been disputing over some trivial matter.
I asked her what the trouble was, and she
said Jerry's Liza had been 'buke-in' her
80
THE NEGRO:
and called her ' out of her name,' and that
she wanted you to go and settle the mat¬
ter, for she was not going to take ' buke-
in off en no upstart of a nigger!' I agree
with Aunt Frances, and want you to go
and settle the matter."
"Doctor, excuse me for a short while.
Mrs. Higgins will entertain you."
" Certainly, talk is now cheap and ne¬
gro labor high and unsettled."
"Aunt Frances is one of the few faith¬
ful old darkies, who has been tried and
proved true to us," said Mrs. Higgins,
" and the family loves her just as much
as if she was white. She did not belong
to us, but came to live with us soon after
the war. The old slaves who remained
with us are dead with the exception of
Uncle Lon, who is failing very fast. I
suppose it was old age that made the old
darkies stay with us during the war; what¬
ever it was, they stayed, and we did every¬
thing in our power for them, dividing our
scanty supply with them as long as they
lived. I cannot justly say, either, it was
old age that made them stay, for their
children who were born and raised on the
place are still here. We know that the
majority of the negroes on every planta-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 81
tion ran away to the Yankees. Yes in¬
deed, old and young went to the enemy;
great numbers were killed as Federal
soldiers, and a great many died in contra¬
band camps for want of attention. Re¬
turning to Aunt Frances, I could not keep
house without her. She was reared a
house-servant and understands the work;
it makes no difference who cooks, Aunt
Frances is foreman of the kitchen. She
comes to the house every morning to at¬
tend to her duties before going to the
field. My children love and respect her;
the younger ones call her ' mammy.' I
was amused not long ago. I sent the chil¬
dren with a message to Aunt Frances late
in the evening. When they came back
they said: ' Mamma, what do you think?
Mammy was in bed and it is not yet sun¬
down. We laughed at her for going to
bed so early, and she said: "Yes, I goes
to bed early and I gets up early. I don't
prog round in de night like de res' of dese
proggin' niggers. Dat's de trouble wid
dese young niggers, dey progs all night
and dey ain't no 'count in de day time.
Tell your Ma I'll be dair."' She was
there on time."
" Mrs. Higgins, you are right in priz-
83 THE NEGRO:
ing this old darky so highly," said
Dr. Daniels, " for she is a type that
is passing away faster than we yet
realize, and I believe in giving honor to
whom honor is due. The old aunties
and uncles of a great past are among our
tender memories. Paul said: 'Forget
those things which are behind, and reach
forth unto those things that are before
you.' We are reaching forth to the best
of our ability, but how can we forget the
better part of life; the happy, contented,
and peaceful life of the old South. I
thank God for such a time, and that I was
permitted to enjoy it for a season. The
most difficult task is the taking up of the
broken threads of life; the threads are so
completely broken and cast out that I find
it very hard to tie them. The main thread
of my life is forever broken; the hard¬
ships of four-years' war ruined my health.
I cannot outlive the effects, but I expect
to do my duty and leave the rest to
God."
After Mr. Higgins returned from his
mission of peacemaker, Mrs. Higgins
withdrew, saying that she would leave
them with their hobby of the days that are
no more.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 83
"You settled the matter to the satis¬
faction of both, did you?" asked Dr.
Daniels.
"Yes, I have great influence with the
older negroes, but do you know, I can see
a change that comes with conditions and
teachings. The devil's school of recon¬
struction will ever have its effect on the
negro of the future. In our day and time
we will continue to have a few old-time
darkies of the Aunt Frances type, but our
children will face new conditions and a
much worse type of negro. Yes, I have
often asked myself this question: Was the
welfare of the negro a real factor in the
abolition of slavery? Abolitionism was a
propaganda composed of the fanatics of
the North and South, headed by the
dogma of Thomas Jefferson, ' All men
are born free and equal.' Mrs. Stowe's
book of rot, ' Uncle Tom's Cabin,' did
more for the emancipation of the slave
than all the preaching of the abolitionists.
I suppose that is why the negro's free¬
dom is becoming so rotten; it was founded
on rot.
" The perverted conscience did not exist
alone in the North. One of the abolition¬
ists who won national reputation was born
84
THE NEGRO:
in East Tennessee—John Rankin, born in
Jefferson county in 1793. He was a
Presbyterian clergyman, but was con¬
nected with the under-ground railroad and
assisted in the escape of Eliza and her
child, the originals of the characters in
Mrs. Stowe's book. Going to Ohio, he
joined the Garrison abolition movement.
He was mobbed more than twenty times
for the manner in which he expressed his
anti-slavery views, mostly in the North.
Elihu Embree, of Tennessee, was the
founder and editor of the first abolition
paper published in the United States. It
was a Southern man, Levi Coffin, of New
Garden, North Carolina, who was the
most notorious leader in the infamous
under-ground railway business. For
thirty years he was its president, only re¬
signing when the negroes of Cincinnati
celebrated the adoption of the Fifteenth
Amendment.
" The war of oppression and ruin to the
South was led by a Southern man as Pres¬
ident and Vice-President. I believe a
great many abolitionists at the North were
honestly mistaken, while others hatgd the
South; and I also believe that the South¬
ern abolitionists hated the South and that
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 85
they knew slavery was the ax on which to
grind, and that by continual grinding
they could accomplish the destruction of
the land that gave them birth. I have the
greatest respect for the Northern Federal
soldier who fought in the Civil War
purely from love of his section of the
country: he met his obligation to the best
of his ability. It is but natural for a man
to uphold the cause of the people of his
native soil—a people with whom he is ac¬
quainted and whom he loves. There is no
place like home, and no people like the
home people, therefore I honor the true
Federal army."
" What do you think of the man born
and reared, and living in the South up to
the time of the war, who then joined the
Federal army?" interrogated Dr. Dan¬
iels.
" I have never had any respect for that
class of individuals. I think they were of
the same breed as Judas Iscariot; they
could see that the great majority must
rule in the end, and they wanted to be
with the popular crowd. My belief is
founded on the fact that the Southern
man knew the negro and his real condition
in the South; therefore the Southern Fed-
86
THE NEGRO:
eral soldier could not have been honestly
mistaken. Since time immemorial there
have been classes of individuals who fol¬
low the crowd, regardless of facts or con¬
ditions. Some of the great generals of the
Confederacy were Northern men, but their
cases were very different; they had come
South to live, had come to love the people,
and had become acquainted with condi¬
tions as they then existed; when war was
declared they cast their lots with the
people of their adoption and shouldered
arms in defense of their Southern homes
and firesides. One of the greatest Arkan¬
sas Confederate generals was General
Reynolds, a Northern man. He lived and
died in the State of his adoption loved and
honored by the Southern people. I have
yet to see a Northern gentleman who
comes South to live who does not change
his ideas in regard to the negro race. The
Northern man brought face to face with
the real negro soon discovers that he is
not a white man in a negro's skin.
"As the years roll on the North will
realize this fact to the satisfaction of both
sections. I am glad that slavery is dead,
for we can meet our Maker with less re¬
sponsibility; it was a great responsibility
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 87
to have this weak race of human beings
dependent upon us for everything, but I
have never considered that we had any
atonement to make for slavery to God or
man. If the South had been allowed to
free the slaves by gradual emancipation,
as she wanted to do, the condition of both
races would be very different to-day.
The most divine feature of the institution
of slavery was the great love existing
between master and slave. The war de¬
stroyed this condition so far as the
minority, who remained true to us, is
concerned. The majority of the old
slaves who were led away during the war
came back to the different parts of the
South satisfied to live and die among the
Southern people, and they have lived to
see that their better days belong to a glo¬
rious but dead past. The ante-bellum
darky, who was lured to false hopes,
during the reconstruction period, by the
promise of becoming a ruler over his
former owners, with forty acres and a
mule, soon discovered that he was the chief
actor in a farcical comedy of short dura¬
tion. He found that it would be better to
return to the plantation and pursue the
life to which he was adapted. The old
88
THE NEGRO:
darkies realized that they had been fol¬
lowing the path of impossibility, and that
their future welfare depended on the
Southern white man with the plantation
as a means of support. They returned to
work, but not with the trust and content¬
ment that characterized their work of
the past. The uneducated, ante-bellum
darky, who was taught to work, has been
our stay and dependence through the
years that have passed, and we have been
their sole dependence. They have grown
our cotton and corn, while we provided
for them with our capital. If the old ex-
slave could live about a hundred years
longer, our children would have a great
South without foreign labor."
"Yes, but they cannot live always; the
old Confederate soldier and his niggers
are fast passing away. With the passing
of the old-time darky will also come the
passing of the large plantations of the
South. The old-time darky and the old
plantation will continue to live in song
and story."
" They are going, fast they're going,
From the old-time cabin door,
And the places now that know them
Will know them soon no more.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 89
Aye, the ' uncle ' and the ' aunty '
With the bygones soon will be
And no more ' mars ' and ' missus '
Will there come to you and me.
"No more of the crooning ' mammy '
Softly swaying to and fro,
With her love unchanged, enduring,
Will the Southland's wee ones know;
No more that careless sing-song,
In measure quaint and droll,
Will o'erflow from hearts so happy
Till of music seemed each soul.
" No more that admiration
And that darky pride so great
In the fleecy acres
Of his master's vast estate.
No more that fond affection
For the household on the hill,
For the trusty, old-time darky
Had no equal—nor e'er will.
"No more that joy, the wildest
That a rustic race e'er knew;
When the Christmas feasts were ready
And that day no work to do;
Or the marriage of ' young missus '
To some magnate of the land,
When the darky shared the glory
Of the bravest of that band.
" No more that grief profoundest,
When old 'mars ' or ' missus ' died;
Or the baby from the big house
Was lowered by their side,
THE NEGRO:
For the darky mourned as truly
For the master and his kind,
As the faithful in the annals
Of grief we ever find.
' And to one good old ' aunty '
Still is spared, tho' brief her days,
And I oft in silence wonder
At her dear old darky ways.
Still, when sickness comes, or sorrow,
Other friends may faint and fall,
But ' black mammy ' never falters—
She is faithful thro' it all.
' With a heart surcharged with sorrow,
Do I watch them pass away,
For the old South with them endeth,
And the new assumes its way;
With the passing of the darky
Of that good old golden time,
So passeth out forever
That fair epoch of our clime."
—Josie Frazee Cappleman.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 91
CHAPTER IX
THE CHANGES OF TIME
" Time! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must lag or fly;
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,
But drag or drive us on to die."
It was night, and nature seemed to be
wrapped in slumber, when Mr. Higgins
was called to the Daniels plantation
with a message from Mrs. Daniels say¬
ing the Doctor was very sick, and wished
him to come over. Nearing the Daniels
home he could see a light burning dimly
in the Doctor's room, with a form now
and then passing between the light and
the darkness outside, as if something un¬
usual was going on in the room. On en¬
tering, Mr. Higgins realized the Doctor's
condition, but asked how he was.
" I have reached the end of my journey,
but could not die without seeing my old
friend once more in the flesh," said Dr.
Daniels. " My comrade in war and in
peace, in sunshine and rain; we have spent
some happy hours together as friends and
98
THE NEGRO:
neighbors, but must separate for a while."
All the while the Doctor was talking
Mr. Higgins sat in silence overcome with
grief and deep emotion.
" I know that you will assist my wife
and children in every way possible."
" Yes, I will do the best I can for them,
but you may survive this sickness," said
Mr. Higgins.
" No, I am worn out and must cross the
great divide to where the wicked cease
from troubling and the weary are at rest.
I do not feel that I have lived in vain, but
I could have lived better," the sick man
replied.
After giving instructions to his wife
and children, the Doctor asked them to
retire from the room, and to call Louis,
his faithful servant, for he wished to talk
to him. Old Louis, who was about sev¬
enty-five years of age, had served the
elder Daniels, who gave him to his son,
the Doctor, at his marriage.
Louis came in slowly, with bowed head
and sad countenance. The Doctor beheld
him with a look of much feeling, and said:
" Louis, I am going to leave this world
for a better one, and I want to tell you
what I expect of you after I am gone."
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 93
" Oh, Marse Renta, don't talk dat
way."
" You have been a faithful servant all
your life, to my father first, and then to
me. Now, Louis, if I have ever mis¬
treated you, or hurt your feelings, I want
you to forgive me."
" No, Marse Renta, you is been a good
marster ter me all yo' born days, and how
is dis ole po' nigger gwine ter do widout
you?"
" Louis, your Miss' Sallie and the chil¬
dren will divide with you so long as they
have anything, and I want you to stay
with them and remain as true to them as
you have been to me. My wife and chil¬
dren will provide for you the few years
you have to live."
" Dat I will, Marse Renta. I 'spects to
live and die rite on dis here place; and I
'spects to do de bes' I can for my missus
and dem chillen."
" I believe you will, Louis, and I know
they will treat you right. You can go
now."
Old Louis moved up to the bed, and
taking his master's hands in his, he said:
" Farewell, Marster, farewell. I is gwine
ter meet you up yander."
94
THE NEGRO:
He left the room with the tears flowing
down his black cheeks, and the Doctor was
deeply moved.
As the good old negro passed out, Mr.
Higgins said: " I thank Thee, Lord
Jesus, for the devotion of master and
slave and for the sanctification of this
hour."
A few hours later the magnanimous
soul of Dr. Daniels returned to the God
who gave it, and according to the natural
order of things his tired body was laid
away to await the grand reunion in that
bright morning of the resurrection.
The sundering of the threads of this
life came to these two families very fast.
Ten years later Mr. Higgins succumbed
to the inevitable and joined his comrades
on the celestial shore. He was a man of
sound judgment, although inclined to op¬
timism, a man on whom the neighbors
depended for advice and guidance under
the new conditions. He had great influ¬
ence with the negroes of the community.
The negro knew that if he had occasion to
enter the Higgins home, he must enter the
back door with his hat off; nevertheless
he held Mr. Higgins in very high esteem,
for he knew that he was his friend in need
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 95
and in deed. The respect the negro had
for this Southern gentleman was demon¬
strated by the number who were allowed
to view the body during the two days he
lay in state at his home. So ended a well-
spent life.
We leave these two old plantation
homes, where once reigned happiness,
peace, plenty, and ante-bellum hospitality,
but now devastated by the ravages of time.
Between the life that is and the life that
was, comes the wreck and ruin brought
by the changes of time. The two remain¬
ing children of the Higgins family, who
were married before the death of their
father and mother, have migrated to the
city; the old home is occupied by negroes
and it stands to-day a wreck of its former
grandeur, with only fond memory to
bring the light of other days to it. The
old Daniels home stands deserted, unin¬
habited save by the bats and owls which
have taken refuge in the gloom and still¬
ness of the place. Out from the " big
house " come ghostly shadows of a dead
past.
The Daniels girls married before their
mother's death; two live in an adjoining
State, and one still lives in the great State
96
THE NEGRO:
of Arkansas. Sometimes we wander back
again to where the old home stands, feel¬
ing that we have reached a hallowed spot
that holds the most sacred memories. As
we stand by the ruins of the old home we
thank God for memory. Around each
old cabin door cluster fond memories of
a race that has passed.
" Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer, dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more."
II
THE PRESENT
CHAPTER X
the present
When General Lee surrendered at
Appomattox former things passed away
and all things became new. We of the
South transferred our former rights and
responsibilities for the negro to the people
of the North—but we never transferred
our citizenship or the right to preserve
Anglo-Saxon civilization in the South.
The North has ever been a white man's
country, therefore the Northern people
cannot understand the fallacy of negro
rule; neither does it realize the struggle
the South has undergone to keep pace
with it in retaining white civilization.
Each year draws the two sections nearer
together on this question, and if we live
long enough we shall see them meet face
to face.
After the war it was as impossible for
the negro to accept the new condition
advantageously as it was for the white
man. The new condition was foreign to
99
100
THE NEGRO:
the nature of both races, but the negro be¬
came the greater sufferer, for the mech¬
anism of his constructed being was not
equal to the occasion; consequently he
became the victim of the white man's mis¬
takes. I have thought that if God had
intended the negro to be a white man He
would have made him after the same plan,
mentally, morally, and physically, thereby
giving him the right to the white man's
standard; but an all-wise God constructed
him after a different style of divine archi¬
tecture; therefore he can never be any¬
thing but a negro, and must remain in his
place in this section of the Republic.
After the war the vast majority of the
colored population remained in the South,
attended the school of reconstruction, and
were taught their rights and privileges,
which far surpassed those of the whites
during that dark age. It was not so easy
to teach the ante-bellum negro that he was
his master's equal, and he never really
learned the lesson, although he was
willing to practice said teaching when
occasion presented itself. The members
of the young generation, who have been
given the opportunity of an education,
have been graduated in the doctrine of the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 101
equality of the races, and they pass out
into the world of reality with the idea that
a great future awaits them, in which the
whites will be lost in the dust caused by
their passing.
In their institutions of learning the
negro is taught that his is a great race,
and that he has been hampered and kept
down by the prejudice of the white man.
This lesson is mastered to such an extent
that race hatred reigns supreme with the
new generation, which has become rest¬
less, dissatisfied, and worthless. Such is
the present. The contented old darkies of
the past have given away to the gentle¬
men of leisure, too busy to work, and the
ladies who "jest take " something to keep
these gentlemen from starving. These
toilers for a dishonest living have caused
the planters to abandon their plantation
homes for more economical conditions in
the towns and cities; and while compelled
to seek a more economical condition, the
planter is also forced to seek a safer ex¬
istence for his family, closer to the protec¬
tion of the officers of the law.
That race hatred has reached a high
state of development is beyond doubt, and
it stands to-day the darkest cloud upon
102
THE NEGRO:
the horizon of this land of sunshine. The
presence of the two races is the South, one
the most superior and the other the most
inferior, and their attitude toward each
other, presents a unique situation in the
history of the Republic. That there should
be antagonism and prejudice one toward
another, is natural, since by nature they
belong to the two divisions of the human
family most diverse in racial qualities and
traditions. These racial differences were
caused by the Great Jehovah, but the in¬
tensified alienation produced is the work
of man. The would-be friends of the
negro have made the mistake of trying
to change racial differences by environ¬
ment, but races under the same environ¬
ment do not change in their natural rela¬
tions to each other. Whether the white
man goes into Africa or the black man
comes to America, the inherited racial dis¬
tinction remains, and no change of envi¬
ronment can make the Anglo-Saxon
descend to the African or lift the negro
to the high plane of equality with the
Anglo-Saxon; the hereditary racial quali¬
ties will remain under any environment.
Through moral cultivation men may he
lifted, but we should not lose sight of the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 108
fact that under the best system of educa¬
tion each will be lifted in ratio to his in¬
herited capacity, and no environment will
ever completely change either individual
or racial condition.
The misguided people of the North
have misled the negro, and he lives in
the South under peculiar circumstances.
After forty years of freedom, about eight
millions of negroes remain within the
borders of the South. Why? Because
the Southern white man is his best friend,
has more patience with his laziness, and
will help him if he makes any effort to
get along. In the eight million negroes
there are thousands who endeavor to live
and let live, and there are also thousands
who are trying to live without work.
The most dangerous feature of the
negro's present condition is the increasing
migration from the plantations to the
cities and towns. The desire to live with¬
out work, and to give their children better
opportunities for so-called education, is
the cause for this migration. After con¬
gregating in the cities licentiousness per¬
vades the atmosphere of their idle lives to
the disconcertion of both races. The av¬
erage annual death rate per 10,000 popu-
104
THE NEGRO:
lation in five Southern cities shows an
excess of colored over white of 73.8. Of
all deaths among the negroes 23.24 per
cent, are due to consumption and pneu¬
monia.
Professor Harris, of Fisk University,
says: " While I do not depreciate sanitary
regulations, and a knowledge of hygienic
laws, I am convinced that the sine qua non
of a change for the better in the negro's
physical condition is a higher morality. I
do not believe that his poverty or his re¬
lation to white people presents any real
impediment to his health or physical de¬
velopment. For the causes of his low
vitality, susceptibility to disease, and his
enormous death rate, we must look to
those social conditions which he erects for
himself."
This is true; the negro, being a degen¬
erate, has in freedom erected for himself
a very low standard of morals. It is a well-
established fact that the free negro has
degenerated from the slave, and the
virtues of his bondage are dead to the new
generation. In slavery consumption was
almost unknown, and the rapid increase of
this disease reveals the debauched life of
the present.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 105
The same law holds for the negro race
that is true for other races: "No people
rise above the condition of its women."
Virtue is at a very low ebb among the
negro women, and if the men cannot rise
above the condition of their women, I
think it would be a good idea for the city
negroes to return to the cotton fields and
make cotton. Cotton constitutes a great
part of the wealth of the South, and holds
a powerful relation to the commercial
world; therefore cotton must be produced.
When the negro turns his back on the
cotton field he is losing ground in the
South. He has racial qualities indicating
that his largest possibilities lie in the range
of manual labor, and that as a laborer and
agriculturist he may make of himself a
valued factor to the nation. All honor to
him or any man who is an honest producer
of those things upon which the life of the
world depends.
The trouble with the negro of the pres¬
ent is this: After reaching the primary
grades of an education he considers man¬
ual labor humiliating, and having a
natural aversion to physical labor, he
seeks to live without work, thereby mak¬
ing an effort to shirk the responsibilities
106
THE NEGRO:
of this life. St. Paul says: "Nay, but
O man, who art thou that repliest against
God; shall the thing formed say to him
that formed it, Why hast thou made me
thus? Hath not the potter power over
the clay, of the same lump to make one
vessel unto honor, and another to dis¬
honor? "
We have in the South thousands of
negroes who are following their proper
calling. Of those employed in gainful
occupations, 57 per cent, are engaged in
agriculture and gardening, 31 per cent, in
personal service, and 12 per cent, in all
other occupations. From a penniless pop¬
ulation just out of slavery 372,414 owners
of homes have emerged, and on 255,156
of those homes there is no incumbrance.
In 1900 there were 732,362 farms operated
by negroes in the South valued at $469,-
506,555. We find 150,000 own their own
farms. Ninety per cent, of the property
now owned by negroes is possessed by
those trained in slavery or who grew up
immediately after emancipation. So
much for the grand old ante-bellum negro,
the link connecting the glorious past with
the great, restless, and expanding present.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 107
CHAPTER XI
negro opportunities in the south
When God placed the black man in the
South He also placed a partition wall sep¬
arating the two races, and this partition
wall not being erected by the prejudice
of the Southern people, has given to the
negro his greatest opportunities in the
South. He is by nature adapted to the
climate and to the rule of the Southern
white man, who is his friend so long as
he obeys the law and is satisfied to serve
his country in the capacity in which God
designed him. The Southern people look
upon the negro as a free man, but not as
their equal in any way, shape, or form.
We are always ready to help him travel
life's journey, right direction, real¬
izing that God expects us to simply do our
4utv- toward the colored people, and to
leave the rest to Him.
The South has often withheld the ne¬
gro's right to vote, but never his right to
earn an honest living. Though decreas-
108
THE NEGRO:
ing in number, we still have a great many
who earn their bread by the sweat of their
brow, and this class take little interest in
voting. The young generation would
take a more decided interest in voting if
not required to pay poll tax. The South
has always, and ever will, given to the
negro the opportunity to live honestly and
industriously. This is the " door of hope "
which is open to him at all times. The en¬
tering of this door to the industrial South
lies entirely within the choice of the negro,
and this fact stares him in the face, that
if he does not enter it somebody else will.
These people, who have shown them¬
selves in their own land incapable of
emerging from barbarism and perform¬
ing the duties of a civilized race, have
under the leadership and rule of the South¬
ern white man been taught to perform
these duties, and they are to-day qualified
for the great opportunities in the field of
labor Which the SoutftTi(j/i§ out to them.
Will they accept the opportunities accord¬
ing to their qualifications? Wriili the
negro has no opportunity to hold office
within the jurisdiction of the Southern
white man, he has every opportunity for
the exercise of his capacity as laborer in
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 109
the avenues of industry. We consider
the right to earn bread by honest work his
greatest opportunity, and the best gift of
a civilization to man. The negro in the
South is preacher, teacher, physician, and
lawyer; he is in the dry goods business; he
is shoemaker, carpenter, and blacksmith;
he runs errands and blacks boots. He is
everywhere where there is anything to do;
and if he does his work well, he is usually
treated fairly and paid for it honestly.
The negro accepts the opportunity to
obtain education with more assurance to
himself and with less promise to the South
than he grasps any other privilege within
his reach. The Southern people, while in
poverty, voluntarily taxed themselves and
gave freely for the education of the negro.
In an effort to uplift and better his condi¬
tion we have expended one hundred and
thirty-five millions in taxes for his edu¬
cation. We have 30,000 negro public
schools, and the taxes to maintain these
schools have been paid almost entirely by
the whites. In 1899 the negroes paid a
direct tax of $1,336,291, with a large claim
for indirect taxes. Of the number of
negro children under instruction, 37.8 per
cent, attend school six months or more
110
THE NEGRO:
during the year, and $2.27 per capita for
the number in attendance is expended.
Statistics show that the white people in
the State of Arkansas pay more than 94
per cent, of the total taxes of the State.
A little less than 6 per cent, is paid by the
negroes.
The census of 1900 shows there were at
that time 944,588 whites and 366,825 ne¬
groes in the State. The population has
grown since, but as this growth has been
entirely by immigration of whites, negroes
still form 20 to 25 per cent, of the total
population of the State at the present
time. The public school fund is shared
alike by the negroes and whites, though
the white people pay the taxes. In the
rich farming districts of the State, where
the negroes form the majority of the pop¬
ulation, they have four schools to one for
the whites; still the whites pay the taxes
for said schools.
The latest statistics attainable give the
number of negro schools and colleges in
the South (outside of the common
schools) as 170, with a pupilage of over
20,000. Of this number there are 31 col¬
leges with 750 students that have gradu¬
ated 2,079 men and 252 women. There
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 111
are 98 institutions giving industrial
courses, with 17,188 pupils. There are 94
public high schools employing 326 teach¬
ers, with a pupilage of 12,202. There are
138 high schools and seminaries supported
by churches or private benevolence (five
are in the North ), with 39,419 pupils in all
grades; a large per cent, of these are re¬
ceiving industrial training. There is an¬
nually expended $7,500,000 on the 30,000
negro public schools of the South. These
statistics show the negro's opportunity for
the so-called education in this section of
the country. He has accepted these privi¬
leges to such an extent that the illiteracy
of negro males of voting age had been
reduced to fifty-two per cent, in 1900. In
the face of this, crime increases among the
negroes. In the State penitentiaries of
the South 85 to 93 per cent, of the total
number of convicts are negroes. Of these
more than nine-tenths have grown up since
slavery. Negro crime is proportionally
greater in the North than in the South,
and the negro percentage in both sections
is much larger than the white. Each year
finds the negro less reliable, more worth¬
less, and criminal; yet we do not allow the
failure of the masses to obscure the
112
THE NEGRO:
achievements of the few. We continue
the same methods for the betterment of
his condition, notwithstanding the masses
of the race follow the downward course to
ruin.
The different religions are represented
among the negroes with 23,462 churches.
The white churches have felt somewhat the
relations and responsibilities of parents to
the negro church, and have extended to it
much help, financially and morally. The
South stands ever ready to help the negro
to the ways of truth, honesty, and purity,
but we will never have any social equality
or social mingling of the races; its very
suggestion is an offense to the white man,
and a deluding mirage to the negro. To
both this is a settled question, the agita¬
tion of which is deplored. The climate of
the South is, and will remain, too tropical
for social equality to ever prevail here.
The negro's opportunities, hopes, and wel¬
fare are limited to his capabilities; this is
the natural right of all men, white or black.
He has every opportunity for the enjoy¬
ment of life, liberty, and property, but the
control of the politics of the South will
remain in the present hands. The govern¬
ment of these Southern States was
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 113
founded by our fathers on the virtues and
intelligence of the people, and there we
intend it shall remain. Be it said to honor
of the South that its people have and ever
will stand by the negro in the exercise
and enjoyment of his natural rights; and
the ethics taught by the Bible, and the
facts revealed by natural history regard¬
ing the negro, show very plainly what his
natural rights are.
114
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER XII
his lost opportunities
Lost opportunities are a mournful her¬
itage, and yet a person of ordinary intel¬
ligence can see that the opportunities of
the negro are gradually passing from him,
owing to his inability, as a freeman, to
accept them when offered. The Southern
people have had the idea that the negro
could till the land better, and that he made
a better servant; in fact, they have never
wanted anyone but the negro to work for
them. Our opinions have received a
forced change, and we have been brought
face to face with the negro's worthless-
ness and inability as a free laborer to rank
with the white man. Even in his present
shiftless condition, we regret to give him
up. We pity the poor deluded and mis¬
guided creatures, for we know that they
are not to blame for their present condi¬
tion—that they are the victims of the
white man's differences, and yet it is true
that he is becoming more of a curse as the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 115
years roll on, and must be replaced with a
more reliable class of labor.
There was a time when the carriage-
drivers and delivery-men, barbers, domes¬
tic servants, and farm hands were all
negroes, but this condition is fast passing
away, never to return. We now have
numbers of white carriage-drivers and
delivery-men, and the white barber is
gradually taking the place of the negro,
for the reason that he is a better and
cleaner barber. The replacing of the
negro as a domestic servant seems to be
the slowest process, because the white
servant does not want to come in contact
with the colored domestic; yet we never
allow an opportunity to secure a white do¬
mestic to pass. The women of the South
are learning to do their own work from
force of circumstances, and many will not
employ a negro, yet a large number who
are compelled to have help must endure
the immoral and filthy negro servant. The
" servant problem " in the South is a part
of the " negro problem," and it means as
much to them as to us. The large major¬
ity of young colored women who seek
service in our homes are two generations
removed from slavery and its training.
110 THE NEGRO:
The negroes that our mothers trained are
now too old to serve; their children, who
possibly were taught by their mothers
some of the domestic duties and the " old-
time spirit," are now in middle age with
families and are therefore not often
available. Yet we have a few good negro
servants, whom we hold as treasures and
give due praise, with good wages.
While the immigration movement is as
yet in its infancy in the South, it is al¬
ready having its effect on the Southern
labor market. The large planters in the
cotton belt section are replacing negroes
with Italians—they, after practical expe¬
riments, having shown their superiority
over the negro as a farm laborer. The
labor must be performed, and if the ne¬
groes will not do it, the labor supplies of
the whole world must be drawn on. The
cause for the scarcity of labor on the
plantation at the present is that the ante¬
bellum negroes are dying off from old
age, and those of the next generation who
grew up immediately after the emancipa¬
tion of the slave cannot produce the nec¬
essary amount of cotton. The majority
of young negroes leave the plantations at
the age of sixteen or seventeen and mi-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 117
grate to the cities, leaving vacancies which
must be filled by white labor.
On the great plantations of the western
section of the cotton belt Italians are fast
taking the place of the negro, but the
negro who gives value received for his
wages—and there are still a great many
such left in the South—will continue to
find steady employment. The developers
of the South who employ labor care noth¬
ing about the theories of the " negro
problem" as affected by immigration,
They have no sentiment in the matter, and
no undue prejudice against the negro; so
long as he performs his labor satisfac¬
torily to his employer, the color of his skin
is not taken into account. The large num¬
ber of shirks, eye-servants, lazy vaga¬
bonds, and impostors in the colored race
who are drawing pay for labor unper¬
formed, because they at present enjoy a
monopoly of the South's labor, will find a
change has come when the sturdy foreign
immigrant becomes an active factor of
competition in the labor market. The re¬
placing of the negro with the white man
on the plantations is slowly but surely
coming about. When the labor in the
South is reduced to a question of " the
118
THE NEGRO:
survival of the fittest," the negro as a la¬
borer can be expected to make a wonder¬
ful improvement. No amount of theoriz¬
ing can prevent this condition from being
put into practice, and an impractical the¬
ory is useless.
All our efforts and expenditure of
money to uplift and make a useful citizen
of the negro as a freeman have been in
vain. We have " sown the wind and are
reaping the whirlwind." We have borne
the white man's burden for forty years
and have tried to bear it to the betterment
of both races. It is natural for the bur¬
den-bearer to tire as the burden increases
in weight and decreases in quality; and
" the continual dropping of water wears
away a stone." It is human for us to try
to lighten our burdens and better our con¬
ditions ; we own the land and will employ
the best labor available to cultivate our
plantations. When the negro ceases to be
a laborer on the plantation, his greatest
opportunity is gone.
Through the years that have passed the
negro has held the idea that if the white
folks prospered, he would prosper also,
and he was correct; whether this will hold
good in the years to come remains to be
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 119
seen. Of the opportunities presented the
negro by the South the one that has been
the most acceptable to his race is the op¬
portunity for an education. He takes the
advantage of this with the intention of
some day being a partaker in the higher
things of the country. He is sacrificing
his very existence to this one idea, and is
being left in a very helpless condition. As
a rule, an educated gentleman of leisure
who wanders about with no place to lay
his head usually finds a place in the peni¬
tentiary.
The negroes are gradually becoming a
race of degenerate loafers and criminals,
a condition which naturally demands a
change. How momentous is the end of a
definite period in the life of an individ¬
ual, and how much more so is the close of
an epoch in the history of a nation! Sad
indeed it is, when over against the name of
a whole people is written " Thou art
weighed in the balance and found want¬
ing," and the sentence of divine justice
goes into execution. God expects all
people to follow those paths in life for
which He created and foreordained them,
and He will deal with white and black
according to His promises.
120
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER XIII
the integrity of the negro
The negro lives a double life, one be¬
fore the white man's face and one behind
his back. He is arrayed against the whites
only when in trouble, and there is no con¬
tract he will not break, if the opportunity
presents itself. A strong characteristic of
the negro is his inability to hide his own
misdeed—he will invariably betray him¬
self. Even the best educated mulatto
cannot disguise his true thoughts, and in
his public utterances and in his writings
the intentions and desires of his heart are
easily discerned. Duplicity dominates his
nature. He knows how to deceive a
Southern person when he needs help, or
desires a gift. He will stand around with
his hat off, tell how much he thinks of
" white folks," how he has stood by them
at all times, and that they are his best
friends. He usually gets what he wants,
for the majority who make this plea are
" old-time " darkies, the links connecting
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 121
the old with the new South. The new
generation is not so polite. They ask for
very little, because they have a better
plan of " taking things " in the darkness
of night. The colored cook will hand out
at the kitchen window the food necessary
for these gentlemen of leisure to live
without work. I prefer the negro thief
to the white, for the negro steals on a much
smaller scale. He will steal from you
constantly, and require pay for labor only
half performed, until you are in sight of
the poor house, where he leaves you to get
away as best you can. He then moves to
new fields and continues to work his
schemes with success.
It is a fact that a negro will not live
with, nor work for, people he calls " po'
white folks "—he looks for the white man
who can give him the best living for the
least work. He keeps a contract so far
as the law enforces contracts, and no
farther. He often makes two or three
contracts with as many different planters
during the time from the gathering of the
crop until time to plant a new one. He
manages the contract business in the fol¬
lowing way: At the end of the season he
is usually in debt to the planter who owns
122
THE NEGRO:
the plantation on which he has raised his
crop, and who has furnished him with a
living for a year. He moves in the night
to another plantation, contracts for the
coming season to work a crop, and is sup¬
plied with the necessary food for the
winter months. He then watches for an
opportunity and again moves away, leav¬
ing his second victim to profit by a sad ex¬
perience. If the planter undertakes to
enforce the contract, the negro will have
him arrested for peonage, and when the
white man is arraigned before the Federal
judge for trial, the negro has his colored
friends as witnesses, and they invariably
swear falsely—lying being one of the
negro's strongest characteristics. He wins
his peonage case according to evidence
presented, and the planter pays a fine and
returns to his plantation, a wiser if not a
better man. The down-trodden, injured,
and innocent Afro-American citizen then
invades a new field, seeking fresh victims.
This type of negro predominates the
present South.
The largest planter in the State of
Arkansas, said to be the largest individual
planter in the South, is replacing the
negro with Italians, because he cannot de-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 123
pend upon the unreliable and worthless
negro of the present day. During the
past year he has had thirty-seven houses
vacated in the summer by negroes who
had contracted to cultivate a crop on his
plantation. These negroes had been sup¬
plied with necessary food and clothing,
after receiving which they concluded they
did not have to work, and moved to the
city, where their daughters lead a life of
ill-repute and their boys work only two
days in a week, hanging around low dives
the rest of the time. Here the family
depends upon the negro girl who secures
a place as cook in a white family, to feed
them, while the father walks the street.
Often those forced to employ a cook from
the young class of negroes learn that their
missing cook is in the calaboose. If her
fine is paid with the understanding that
she is to cook until the money is refunded,
nine cases out of ten an empty servant
house is found, vacated in the darkness of
the night, and the money paid for the fine
is never regained.
The president of a negro college in
South Carolina who said, " Negro women
have brought white women to the kitchen,
and I hope they will soon bring them to
124
THE NEGRO:
the washtub," spoke the truth about the
kitchen, but I hardly think his wish of
bringing them to the washtub will be real¬
ized. The white people of the South have
at last learned the lesson of negro worth-
lessness and are looking about to better
their condition. That the white woman
has been brought to the kitchen does not
add luster to the future of the race in the
South; neither does it add to the so-called
" negro progress." The negro president
lost sight of the causes producing this con¬
dition or he would have remained silent.
The cause of this condition is negro im¬
pudence, worthlessness, dishonesty, and
the education which in their opinion quali¬
fies them for a higher position than that
of a domestic servant. The tired house¬
wife of the South lives with the idea that
it is a " long lane that never turns," and
some sweet day she may have a high class
of white servants whom she can trust and
respect for their real worth.
Give the negro rope and he will hang
himself every time. In the invention of
falsehood he stands without a rival. Se¬
cret organizations and lodges are formed
for the purpose of plotting against the
whites, and at these secret meetings full
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 125
vent is given to their hatred by the use of
vile and vituperative language against the
white race in general, and especially the
white man who chances to know the negro
and tells the truth regarding him in pub¬
lic. To tell the truth regarding his race
hurts his feelings, and the white person
who does it is untruthfully branded a
" nigger hater." They also condemn the
better class of their race who are endeav¬
oring to live in peace and harmony with
the whites, calling them " white folks' nig¬
gers," and these find little favor with the
race.
The colored people uphold the criminal
element of their own race and render them
every assistance possible in escaping the
punishment of the law. It makes no
diff erence with the negro how fiendish the
crime; if only a white person he the vic¬
tim, it is all right and he considers it his
duty to assist the poor, downtrodden, in¬
nocent brother of a martyr race to make
good his escape from the usurpers of a
power that should he in the hands of his
own intelligent black race. We have the
testimony of the best educated negroes
who claim that they are the white man's
superior, when given a chance. Educa-
126
THE NEGRO:
tion makes the negro a conceited simple¬
ton. This is my reason for thinking that
God never intended money to be wasted
educating the servile mind of the negro.
It clouds his mind with vain imaginations,
and deepens the mystery of the white
man's world to him. I believe if God had
intended the negro to receive the same ed¬
ucation as the white man, He would have
given him the same faculties of mind.
The negro has the idea that he has a
perfect right to commit crime, and should
go free under all circumstances, because
the Anglo-Saxon made the law. For this
reason the law is wrong and should not be
obeyed by a race kept down by the white
man's prejudices. Does the white man's
prejudice keep the savages of Africa
down ? The colored preacher will condemn
lynching, but never the fiend who brings it
about. The ministers are very often the
most vicious of the race, yet are the
most popular. He who tries to do right
finds little favor with this people. As a
rule, virtue and honesty are unknown
quantities among them; they are an in¬
temperate people, women as well as men
loving liquor and drinking all they can
get. Character receives little considera-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 127
tion, the degenerate and criminal standing
just as high in colored society or church as
the " old-time " darky, who has never been
in the penitentiary. Their society is
graded according to education, conse¬
quently the ante-bellum darky does not
stand very high, for he is illiterate. The
real negro will never have a high standing
in colored society graded by education, for
he cares no more for the schools than does
the monkey that roves at will in his native
haunts.
Generally speaking, the colored race is
a homeless people, and will, I think, re¬
main so, for they were created a servile
race and can never maintain a high place
in the scale of civilization, any more than
an ignorant people can maintain a high
state of culture and refinement. If my
Northern friends doubt my definition of
negro integrity they can come South and
learn of these people. Still I believe the
Southern negro to be superior to the
Northern negro.
128
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER XIV
racial capacity
Racial peculiarities and limitations of
the black race were created in the begin¬
ning ; mere man cannot erase them. In the
creation of the negro, God set a limit, the
above which he cannot rise; they were
created a stationary race, with a brain five
ounces less in weight than that of the white
man. With a larger brain, God gave to
the white man qualities denied the blacks
and made the negro a subordinate to the
superior Anglo-Saxon. The negro can¬
not think for himself and is lacking re¬
flective faculties; he cannot do anything
except by imitation; he imitates the whites
in everything but the right thing; like the
monkey, his sensual nature is the limit of
his ideals. He learns to read and write
very readily, but beyond this his mind is
dull and vacant. We have records of full-
blooded negroes being educated, but they
are prodigies. Nine out of ten of the so-
called educated negroes are half or three-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 129
fourths white, and this fact is one of the
strongest proofs of the authenticity of the
Bible, which declares that God made the
negro race for servants. Another con¬
firmation of the Bible is the inferior phys¬
ical structure and moral organization of
the negro, which illustrates very forcibly
the cause of Ham's curse. Still more evi¬
dence is shown by the fact that the negro
is the only race able to live successfully
with the white people, and that they must
dwell with the white man in order to be
useful. Those of the race who are guilty
of the most fiendish crimes are more brute
than human; they have no capacity for
education and, like a brute, ambition;
therefore the school cannot reach them.
Those who have inherited white blood
enough to receive an education never be¬
come really efficient among white men;
neither do they become really great lead¬
ers of their own race. The duplicity of
the negro will assert itself. As a rule, he
has no capacity beyond the rudiments of
an education.
It seems from the testimony of some of
the best educated negroes that they become
dreamers—in proportion as they are edu¬
cated—dreamers of impossibilities, so far
130
THE NEGRO:
as their welfare in the South is concerned.
With education they seem to acquire a
deep-seated hatred for the Southern
whites because their ancestors were held
in slavery by them.
The negro's greatest capacity is devel¬
oped on the plantation in the cultivation
of cotton and corn. His possibilities are
greatest in industrial pursuits, and even
then he must have the white man to direct
him, or he is a failure. He is very de¬
structive. If a white man leases his land
to the negro and moves away, the planta¬
tion soon has a dilapidated and deserted
appearance; fences are burned for fire¬
wood, and the house in which he lives de¬
stroyed by degrees; soon he moves to
another plantation, to live in better quar¬
ters for a short time.
He is dependent upon the white man for
direction, and instead of blaming either
the negro or white man for this condition,
would it not be better to realize that the
mental and moral limitations of the race
are such that it has no progressive ability
independent of the guidance of a superior
race, other than an imitative faculty. If
the laboring class of the whites had en¬
joyed for nearly two generations in the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 131
South the same advantages the colored
race has, with a knowledge of farming and
the ability to labor, it would now be the
owner of most of the fertile cotton-pro¬
ducing lands. The negro, however, is not
capable of taking advantage of these nat¬
ural conditions, and the land is not his;
he is a poorer and more thriftless laborer
than were his fathers who came forth from
bondage.
God in His wisdom made the negro
race for menial and manual labor; ana¬
tomically he is nearer the brute; his nerv¬
ous system is modeled different from that
of the white; the smaller brain and the
larger nerves make the digestion of the
negro better, and his animal appetites
stronger.
He is slower in motion, and the ethnical
elements, which compare him to the mule,
prove that God created him to perform
manual labor, giving him those ethnical
elements as a guarantee to the race of
ample protection against the abuse of
arbitrary power. The ethnology of the
black race does not stop at proving that
subordination to the white race is its nor¬
mal condition, but it goes farther, and
proves that social and political equality
139
THE NEGRO:
is abnormal, under all circumstances.
Neither negro nor mulatto knows how to
use power when it is given to them.
Power over his family is used in a brutal
manner, although I have seen a few ne¬
groes who really cared for their wives and
children.
The colored man requires governing in
everything, even in his food and drink,
his clothing and hours of repose. This
fact is the cause of his deterioration as a
free man. Disease and filth lurk among
them; consumption is destroying great
numbers every year, a disease brought
on by exposure to cold weather and by
debauchery of the lowest order. At pres¬
ent these conditions do not cost us any
money or anxiety. The negro is a free
man and must account for himself.
The negro is eminently qualified for a
number of occupations which the white
man regards as degrading. They are ever
at the tables, at your elbow in hotels,
steamboats, and Pullman cars, ready
with brush in hand to dust the coat, black
the shoes, or perform any menial service
which may be required. The open palm
is always held out for the dime. Their
strong muscles, hardy frames, and prefer-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 133
ence to labor in the sun qualify them for
agricultural employment in hot climates.
The happiest and most contented of the
race in the South are those who are earn¬
ing their living on the cotton planta¬
tions.
My most tender memories of plantation
life and the plantation darkies are the
songs sung by them while riding the mules
from the farm to the barn at the close of
the day's work. One often sung was:
" I ain't gwine tell you no stories,
I ain't gwine to tell you no lies,
I'm gwine away to leave you,
Sweetheart, good-bye."
The negro is endowed with a talent for
creating simple poetry. In my opinion
the Southern darkies are the sweetest
singers in the world, and, in the days that
are gone, were the happiest people on
earth. God endowed the negro with hap¬
piness and with musical talent, but this
happiness has been destroyed to a great
extent; they are restless and dissatisfied,
and I believe this is one cause for the in¬
crease of crime among them.
We have made the mistake of trying to
lift the negro above his station by the
134
THE NEGRO:
wrong method of education, yet we cen¬
sure him for his condition.
He who doubts that the negro was cre¬
ated a servant to his brethren, doubts the
Word of God. When placing the curse
upon the posterity of Ham, God never
promised to remove it, and He never will.
We may spend all the money in the world
in an attempt to make him the white man's
equal, and fail, and in this unsuccessful
attempt we introduce methods which will
lead to the destruction of the race, sooner
or later.
I do not agree with the theory that the
bringing of the black man to America was
a curse, for God commanded him to be a
servant to his brethren, and he could not
have been a servant had he remained in the
jungles of Africa. The curse has been
brought by the envy and jealousy of the
two sections of our country. I believe
that, when called to give an account for
the deeds done in the body, the whites will
have to account for the condition of the
negro, unless they can find an excuse
through the ignorance of the law. Paul
says: " For as many as have sinned with¬
out law shall perish without law, and as
many as have sinned in the law, shall be
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 135
judged by the law; for not the hearers of
the law are just, but the doers of the law
shall be justified."
Charles Francis Adams in " Reflex
Lights from Africa" says: ''During
the last eighty years science has put in a
good deal of work. Darwin, not less than
Watts, Morse, and Bessemer, has had his
say; and the Book of Genesis has gone the
way of the ' Holy Alliance' and ' Eng¬
land's Wooden Walls.'" It is true that
the Book of Genesis has been ignored and
set aside as relating to the negro race, but
the facts contained in that book, desig¬
nating his station and capacity, remain
steadfast and immovable. His real char¬
acter will assert itself more and more as
the years roll on. The Master stamped
these people with inferiority, and no hu¬
man being can rub it out.
In the whitewashing process we invari¬
ably get too much salt in the mixture, and
it soon falls off, leaving the original man
exposed to view.
Mr. Adams says: "Baker, writing
from Africa in 1865, closes his long enu¬
meration of conditions with a startling
corollary: ' So long as it is generally con¬
sidered that the negro and the white man
136
THE NEGRO:
are to be governed by the same laws and
guided by the same management, so long
will the former remain a thorn in the side
of every community to which he may
unhappily belong.'"
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 137
CHAPTER XV
race pride
If there is race pride among the negroes
of the present, it exists among the few
remaining ante-bellum darkies. I often
hear them say, " I try's to raise my chillen
like I was raised, but I can't do it. I
h'lieves in white folks staying in da place
and collud folks in da'en." Even these
good old darkies do not like to be called
negroes. I remember when a child if I
spoke in the presence of old-time darkies
of negroes, they would reprove me by ask¬
ing: " Who's you talking 'bout? We ain't
niggers. De devil is a nigger." We were
taught to respect them by saying " aunt
and uncle." I have heard of Northern
people saying that we claimed kin with the
negroes, but we do not. This was only a
mark of respect.
The word negro is distasteful to the
majority of the race. They wish you to
say " cullud people."
The old-time darky has no respect for
188
THE NEGRO:
the white person who associates with him
on terms of equality. We had in our com¬
munity an ante-bellum preacher who said
of the mulatto: "Who's you mulattoes?
You ain't white folks an' you ain't nig¬
gers ; you ain't nothing! " This is true, but
the mulatto is not to blame for his or her
existence; it is the low white man, who
mixes his blood with the weaker race. And
yet the mulattoes are very proud of their
white blood and are ever ready to tell you,
" My father was a white man."
Very strong evidence that the negroes
have no race pride is shown by their seek¬
ing to intermingle with the whites on terms
of social equality. If they had race pride,
they would endeavor to keep it a black race
instead of making every effort to form a
mongrel race. It is an evident fact that
they think white blood and social inter¬
mingling of the races elevate them. They
never miss a chance to claim social equality.
Their desire for social equality is so great
that the "Jim Crow " laws of the South
have become a thorn in their flesh, and by
protesting against and condemning these
laws, the people show to the world their
strong desire to force themselves upon the
whites. Those of the race who are finan-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 139
cially able hire private coaches to convey
themselves over the country, rather than
to ride in a " Jim Crow " car.
This shows a tendency to disregard the
laws of the land when possible. Of course
the great majority of the Southern ne¬
groes have no desire for social equality,
and realize that such a thing is dangerous
to their country and the welfare of their
people. This desire rests principally with
the educated, the bishops, preachers, doc¬
tors, lawyers, and professors of the race.
Blackstone's " Commentaries " says:
" There is not a more necessary or more
certain maxim in the frame and constitu¬
tion of society than that every individual
should contribute his share in order to the
well-being of society and the community."
When the negro makes a move toward
social equality in the South, he stirs up
disorder and danger to the community.
In denouncing the segregation of the
races, do they not question the providence
of God as to His purpose in the govern¬
ment of the world? The segregation of
the races is a divine law, enacted for the
defense of society and civilization; there¬
fore the two races will ever remain sep¬
arate in the South, other than association
140
THE NEGRO:
from a business standpoint, and the as¬
sociations of service rendered.
I had a negro to ask me once if I
thought she would be a negro in Heaven,
remarking: " If I thought I would be a
negro when I get to Heaven, I would
never pray another prayer."
I told her I could not tell how that
would be, but I thought that the curse of
Ham was to continue with time and that
the negro who was good enough to spend
eternity in Heaven would have all the en¬
joyment of the Heavenly Kingdom, with
no line dividing the whites and the blacks,
and that Jesus Christ died for her as well
as for me and had gone to prepare a place
for both. I also told her that I believed
our standing in eternity depended upon
our life's work, and that the two races
would leave their human nature in this
world; therefore no dividing line would
be necessary in the world to come. This
darky said: " Well, I don't want to be a
nigger in Heaven."
I do not believe that any negro is proud
of being a negro; the great majority real¬
ize their inferiority, and are satisfied. The
minority, who claim to be the white man's
equal, are the victims of an hallucination
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 141
brought about by their so-called education.
Those of the new generation who are
black and have kinky hair make every ef¬
fort to straighten their locks, some wear¬
ing wigs of straight hair. If they were
proud of being negroes, they would make
no effort to be other than a negro, and
would desire the uplifting of the race as
a negro race.
They have no standard of morals, or of
religion, on which to base race pride.
Their race pride, like their society, is based
on education, regardless of morals or re¬
ligion. After a negro reaches this stand¬
ard, he seeks the pulpit as a means of
exhibiting his intelligence and the great
advancement of his race. He is regarded
as a superior being, worthy of imitation.
He controls the political as well as the re¬
ligious attitude of his people. If he tells
them to hate white people and that the
white people are the cause of their low
position in the world, they believe him, and
follow his teachings, for he has what they
call " a good learning."
Before the negro can have a real cause
to be proud of his race he must establish
a higher standard of morals and a purer
religion for his people; must realize that
143
THE NEGRO:
education without these ihings is only the
" sowing of the wind and the reaping of
the whirlwind." He must base race pride
upon virtue, honesty, and industry and be¬
come reconciled to being created a negro.
When he becomes satisfied to follow the
calling to which he was destined in the be¬
ginning, then and not till then will he have
a right to race pride. Until he reaches this
higher standard of life for his race he
can have no race pride.
Paul says: "As God has distributed to
every man, as the Lord hath called every
one, so let him walk." " Let every man
abide in the same calling wherein he was
called."
If race pride belongs to the negro, he
must find it within the bounds of his call¬
ing and in the opportunities afforded him
by the Southern States. Race pride built
upon a foundation of virtue, honesty, and
industry will remain with its builder.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 143
CHAPTER XVI
progress of the negro
The negro in forty years of freedom
has made considerable progress in the way
of education, and when you consider that
his progress is founded upon false ideas,
led by false and malicious teaching, it is
remarkable that he has done as well as he
has. He has been placed upon a plane of
elevation entirely foreign to his nature and
endowments, and has been taught to hate
the Southern whites because their own an¬
cestors were slaves. It may be said that he
hates the white man because he, himself,
is a negro. However, his literary educa¬
tion is void of common sense and reason,
the great fundamental principles of real
knowledge, although he has made great
progress in the simpler accomplishment of
learning to read and write.
We have this fact demonstrated by the
educated negro ministers of New York
who denounced our President, Mr. Roose¬
velt, for discharging three companies of
144
THE NEGRO:
criminal negro soldiers from the army.
The denunciation was as follows: " It has
been the pretense and contention of the
South that the shiftless negro was the one
she despised; but the real South appeared
in her true colors when she undertook to
run down, humiliate, and outrage the most
intelligent, thrifty, and upright people of
the community. This was scarcely over
before the chief magistrate of the nation
covered himself with eternal shame and
disgrace by his unjust, unkind, undemo¬
cratic, un-American, autocratic, cold,
cruel, drastic, and infamous orders against
as brave, as heroic, as self-sacrificing set
of men as ever wore the blue or ever bore
Old Glory on a field of strife. We will
not be resentful nor revengeful, but we
are bold to denounce the act as an outrage
and aggressive enough to demand justice
at the highest court of the earth and before
the bar of Heaven. Let him of the
' square deal' deal square; let him of the
fair play play fair; him of the door of
opportunity not shut it and bolt it forever
in the face of black veterans." This is a
fair sample of their intellect and educa¬
tional progress, and is also a sample of
their regard for the truth.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 145
(When this preacher said that the shift¬
less and ignorant negro was the only one
despised by the South, he made a mistake,
for the ignorant negro is the only one who
will work, and is the only one who is a real
benefit to the South, for he is less shift¬
less than his educated brother. When he
receives an education he becomes a min¬
ister, a lawyer, doctor, or school-teacher,
and we do not need him in these profes¬
sions. If he had said that the negro brute
and the criminal was the one we despised,
he would have spoken the truth. He said
they were aggressive enough to demand
justice; if they are aggressive in this in¬
stance, it is the first aggressiveness shown
by the race.
The negro has no faculty of taking the
initiative in anything tending toward real
progress. I must acknowledge that the
negro has shown a more aggressive spirit
toward the abuse, hatred, and denuncia¬
tion of the whites; but I consider this to be
the hand of God, holding him up in his
true light, and demonstrating that he has
missed his true calling and has become the
victim of misappropriated usefulness.
This denunciation of the President was
not confined to the North, but extended
146
THE NEGRO:
over the nation wherever the educated
negro ministers, doctors, and lawyers ex¬
isted in sufficient numbers to hold a mass
meeting. The truth seems to have been
that Mr. Roosevelt's family were once
slave-holders, and for this reason Mr.
Roosevelt had never been a friend to the
negro.
The great trouble with the negroes is
that they never have sense enough to know
who their real friends are until it is too
late. When these intelligent gentlemen
meet to denounce the whites, they lose
sight of the fact that the white man's
money paid for the veneering called
education which they enjoy, and that
they must depend upon the white man
for schools, churches, education, em¬
ployment, and livelihood. Their fu¬
ture progress rests entirely upon the
whites. These facts deserve some appre¬
ciation at the hands of the race, but in ad¬
vertising their great progress they never
mention at whose expense it was made.
Their progress consists chiefly of an
appeal for more money with which to
qualify for the political field.
Negro progress is a " will-o'-the-wisp "
that makes its appearance at negro con-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 147
ventions and public gatherings for the
benefit of the unsuspecting public with
more money and religion than knowledge
of the negro.
I am glad to say that we have in the
South thousands of good negroes in the
uneducated working class, the bone and
sinew of the race. This class is made up
of negroes from thirty-five to sixty years
of age who were born and raised in the
South, never have visited the North, and
have no desire to do so. This class is de¬
creasing at such a rapid rate that we have
not been able to fill the vacancies by immi¬
gration. This class of negroes are the real
progressive element of the race, and sta¬
tistics showing that they own ninety per
cent, of the property owned by the ne¬
groes prove that the real progress of the
race has not been in education, but in the
industrial training received in slavery.
The better element of these people, the
element that has made the most progress,
stays in the background and pursues the
even tenor of their lives, while the edu¬
cated negroes boast of their wonderful
progress; consequently the world knows
little of the better element of the negro
race.
148
THE NEGRO:
Illiteracy among the negro males of
voting age has been reduced in the South¬
ern States from eighty-eight per cent, in
1870 to fifty-two per cent, in 1900. This
shows the great progress made toward
qualifying to vote, which is the goal of
their ambition.
Has this reduction in illiteracy been for
the uplifting and for the betterment of
the negroes? If so, in what way? They
have no more virtue, honesty, or industry
now than in 1870; they have gone down¬
ward instead of upward during the fifty
years of freedom. This downward course
cannot be from lack of opportunity, for
he has an equal share in the school funds
of the State.
He can work beside the white man in
the avenues of industry, and yet his only
advancement is the slight veneering re¬
ceived in the schoolroom.
The reduction of illiteracy has the ap¬
pearance of " sowing seed among thorns
that will grow up and choke him," for the
great majority after learning to read and
write seem to feel above work. When the
negro arrives at this point, we do not need
him in the South. He becomes a menace
by traveling among the negroes and giv-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 149
ing out his advanced ideas on negro rights,
thereby stirring up strife among those who
are haters of the whites.
The great barrier to negro advancement
is the weak foundation upon which it is
built. It is temporary; therefore it ebbs
and flows with the tide, never becoming a
reality. Negro progress has no common-
sense basis, and it has only a fictitious
value in the march of civilization.
Charles Francis Adams says: " What
gleam of supposable light does a brief visit
to the White Nile throw on our home
problem? A good deal, perhaps! In the
first place, looking about me among Afri¬
cans in Africa—far removed from Amer¬
ican environments to which I have been ac¬
customed—the scales fell from my eyes. I
found myself most impressed by a realiz¬
ing sense of the appalling amount of error
and cant in which we of the United States
have indulged on this topic. We have
actually wallowed in a bog of self-suffi¬
cient ignorance, especially we philan¬
thropists and theorists of New England.
We do so still. Having eyes, we will not
see. Even now we not infrequently hear
the successor to the abolitionist and the hu¬
manitarian of the ante-civil war period—
150
THE NEGRO:
' The Uncle Tom' period—announce that
the difference between the white man and
the black man is much less considerable
than is ordinarily supposed, and that the
only real obstacle in the negro's way is
that, v He has never been given a chance.'
For myself, after visiting the black man
in his own house, I come back with the de¬
cided impression that this is the sheerest
of delusions, due to pure ignorance of
rudimentary facts. Yet we built upon it
in reconstruction days as upon foundation
stones—a self-evident truth! Let those
who indulge in such theories go to Sou¬
dan, and pass a week at Omdurman. That
place marks in commerce, in letters and in
art, in science and in architecture, the
highest point of development yet reached
by any African race. As already sug¬
gested, the difference between Omdur¬
man and London about measures the dif¬
ference between the white and the black.
Indisputably great, that it admits of meas¬
urement is questionable. So far as I am
advised the Soudanese are the finest race
of the whole African species. Physically,
they are tall. As a whole, well formed;
and, in their savage way, they are indis¬
putably courageous. Yet, in them, not
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 151
the slightest inherent power of develop¬
ment has as yet come to the surface.
Baker, after living among them for
years, calls attention to the striking ele¬
mentary fact that since the beginning of
time to the day that now is they have
neither domesticated the elephant nor
invented pottery."
It is true that the negro has churches,
schools, and colleges, which are monu¬
ments to his advancement, but when look¬
ing into the facts and figures you find that
it is the white man's money that has made
this progress possible. The most richly
endowed negro college of the South is a
colleged endowed with the Northern white
man's money.
There never was a race who have had as
much money expended for its advance¬
ment and which has made so little progress
as the negro race. Eight hundred million
dollars has been expended on his educa¬
tion, and Booker Washington says that
they own three hundred million dollars'
worth of property.
This is called progress, but when you
consider the monopoly he has had upon
the labor of the South, and the millions of
acres he could have accumulated at a very
152
THE NEGRO:
small cost, it does not show any great ad¬
vancement.
One great trouble with negro advance¬
ment is that after emancipation he was
made a traveler on the wrong road. In¬
structed to travel this road to the best of
his ability, he has done so, but instead of
reaching a higher life or becoming a whiter
man, his journey has been downward, and
his fate is still that of a negro.
In the past twenty-five years he has
made more progress in the wrong direc¬
tion than in the previous fifty years. He
has advanced to the point where he cares
no more about murdering a white man
than drinking water; he demands of the
whites equal privileges and rights and the
wants and needs of his race, and he wants
these furnished free of charge. He also
desires the criminals of his race to go free.
The constitutional law of his progress is
to attend school and get a living without
work.
Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, said:
" For even when we were with you, this
we commanded that if any would not
work, neither should he eat. For we hear
that there are some which walk among you
disorderly, working not at all, but are
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 158
busy-bodies. Now, them that are such we
command and exhort by our Lord Jesus
Christ, that with quietness they work and
eat their own bread."
Among the eight million negroes of the
United States there are a great many who
would go hungry if this command to the
Thessalonians were enforced in their cases.
The negro seems to think that the school
will make him a great man and the fact of
his being a negro will be lost in his great¬
ness. If he expects to make real progress
in the South, he must become an honest,
industrious, and efficient laborer in the in¬
dustrial development of the South. The
time of the colored gentleman of leisure is
passing away, and he will have to change
his tactics, or seek a new location.
Of course, it is an easy matter for a
homeless people to change their habitation.
The negro, to live in the South and make
any advancement, must cease to hate the
Southern white and recognize the fact
that he is morally bound to contribute all
in his power to the well-being of the two
races. If he cannot do this and continues
to occupy a place in the community with
no improvement, he must yield to the ad¬
vances of civilization.
154
THE NEGRO:
In the eight million negroes of the
South we have an abundant supply of
labor, if they will only work, and this la¬
bor must be rendered available. If the
negro cannot be absorbed in the march of
civilization and progress, he will, of course,
be dropped out.
When God created man he said unto
him: "Be fruitful and multiply and re¬
plenish the earth and subdue it." God
requires that each of the human race shall
fulfill this great command and contribute
a part in rendering subservient to human
use all the facilities of nature. It is this
that causes effete dynasties and nations
to disappear from the face of the earth
and their places to be filled by those full
of life and energy. It is this that has
rolled back and is blotting out the mongrel
races of the New World, to make room
for the onward march of higher civiliza¬
tion. The negro will never occupy any
place in the South but that of a subordi¬
nate, and the sooner he realizes this fact
the better for him. Then, and not until
then, will he make real progress.
Paul says: "I therefore beseech you
that ye walk worthy of the vocation
wherewith ye are called." When the ne-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 155
gro walks worthy of his vocation, he will
live in peace and harmony with his white
neighbor, who is ever ready to help him
on life's rugged highway. Ruskin puts
it thus: " He only is advancing in life
whose heart is growing, whose blood is
warmer, whose brain is quicker, whose
spirit is entering into living peace."
156
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER XVII
race prejudice
Prejudice is " to prepossess with unex¬
amined opinion, or opinions formed with¬
out due knowledge of the facts and cir¬
cumstances attending the question; to
bias the mind by hasty and incorrect no¬
tions; to give an unreasonable and unjust
aid to one side or the other of a cause."
The North has accused the South of
race prejudice, but according to Mr.
Webster's definition of prejudice, it is the
North who is guilty of race prejudice and
not the South, for the North has formed
opinions of the negro, " without due
knowledge of the facts and circumstances
attending the question."
The South has race pride instead of race
prejudice. It is generally conceded that
the purest Anglo-Saxon blood in America
to-day flows in the veins of the Southern
people. They have been able to preserve
Anglo-Saxon civilization, and will con¬
tinue to do so. We have due knowledge
and correct notions of the negro race and
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 157
have no prejudice; the correctness of this
statement we leave to the verdict of time.
We of the South look upon the black
race as a verj^ inferior people whom God
intrusted to our care, for their benefit, as
well as for ours; to serve the South while
the South served the negro.
While we look upon the negro as a ser¬
vile race, we have more charity for his
faults, and more patience for his short¬
comings, and will render him every assist¬
ance possible if he makes any effort what¬
ever to do right. It is generally conceded
that the Southern white man is the black
man's best friend. If he is the negro's
best friend, how can he he prejudiced
against him?
The refusal to practice social equality
is not race prejudice; it is a difference in
taste and congeniality of associates. It is
very natural for people of refinement to
seek society of like nature. The Southern
people consider it a duty to God, ancestors,
race, country, and even the negro himself,
not to allow the social intermingling of the
races.
God made the superior race to lead and
guide the inferior descendants of Ham,
and if the superior sink to the level of
158
THE NEGRO:
the weaker, they become blind leaders of
the blind; and if the blind lead the blind,
both shall fall into the ditch.
44 Social equality is contrary to the laws
of God, the claims of civilization, the
progress of society, and the laws of
nature." The mention of this question is
very distasteful to the thoroughbred
Southerner, but it is not race prejudice;
it is race distinction.
This distinction was not placed upon the
race by the South, but was made by the
Father above and was handed down to us
to keep and enforce to the honor and bet¬
terment of both races.
The principle of honor or duty has been
the mainspring of heroic action, from the
beginning of history to the present time,
and it is the basis of everything great and
noble in all grades of white society; there¬
fore we hold to the separate and distinct
races in the South. While the new South
is somewhat coarser than the old South,
the blood of the aristocrat is still there,
and this blood will ever refuse to inter¬
mingle socially with the coarser grades of
the white race. When we make the dis¬
tinction with the people of our own race,
it seems to me a strange idea for anyone
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 159
to think for a moment that we would as¬
sociate socially with our negro servants;
and yet this is called race prejudice.
The " Jim Crow " law of the South is
not prejudice; it is a matter of necessity.
" Self-preservation is the first law of
nature," and the young generation of ne¬
groes have grown up free from training,
are very impudent, boisterous, and often
drunk and disorderly when traveling,
making it very dangerous as well as dis¬
agreeable. I know that the Southern
people would not hesitate to ride on the
same car with the good old ante-bellum
negro, who was taught to respect the
whites, hut circumstances alter cases, and
at the present time the two races must
ride on different cars. The conductor is
often attacked while passing through the
negro coach, and is sometimes murdered—
a condition which makes the " Jim Crow "
car very necessary to the welfare of
women and children.
I think that the vast majority of the
negro race prefer to live in the South, for
they fare better there and have a greater
number of friends in that section, even
if they are required to stay in their proper
place.
160
THE NEGRO:
Booker Washington declared, before
the negro Baptist convention in Memphis,
that he was proud of the fact that he lived
in the South, and that he would spend the
rest of his days here because he believed
that the American negro would have to
work out his destiny in this section of the
country. He said in part: " Within the
past year I have inspected and studied the
conditions and progress of our people in
the Northern and Western States as I
have never done before, and I have no
hesitation in reaffirming my former opin¬
ion that the Southern States offer the best
permanent abode for the masses of our
people." If the South is prejudiced to
these people, how can it be their best per¬
manent abode?
Another prominent negro, Charles
Brooks, in addressing the Negro Business
League in Mississippi, said: " I love the
Southland because it is so full of oppor¬
tunities for the American negro, and if he
is to he anything at all, it must he right
here in the South. I would not give one
county in the South for all your North,
yet I am permitted to go to the North
when I feel like it, but I would not
make that part of the country my home.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 161
Look what we have here: negro bankers,
negro lawyers, negro merchants by the
score, tailors; in fact, everything that man
is doing in any part of the world you will
find the negro doing right here, except
anarchy; we do not believe in that."
This Brooks has sense enough to know
that the negro is not hampered by race
prejudice, so-called, but that he is assisted
by the Southern white man in earning a
living. I have wondered why it is that the
North, thinking that the Southern negro
is hampered and kept down by race preju¬
dice, did not take him North and give him
a fair chance. Let him breathe the pure
air of a liberty-loving country. He is free
now, can live where he pleases, and I
should think that the North is under obli¬
gation to him to give him the most com¬
fortable abiding place; but they tell the
negro to stay in the South because it is the
best place for him.
If he should ever reach the point where
he must seek another boarding-place,
would the North be willing to board him?
It may be that some day he will wish to re¬
turn to his former owners. "And this
also is a sore evil," says Solomon, " that
in all points as he came so shall he go: and
163
THE NEGRO:
what profit hath he that hath labored for
the wind? Consider the work of God.
Who can make that straight which he hath
made crooked." If the North can
straighten the crookedness of the negro,
we willingly tender them the task. Ac¬
cording to my judgment neither time nor
money can effect this change, but " The
law of the wise is a fountain of life to de¬
part from the snares of death. Where¬
fore, I perceive that there is nothing bet¬
ter than that a man should rejoice in his
own works, for that is his portion: for who
shall bring him to see what is after him? "
Our Northern friends may call the sep¬
aration of the races prejudice, if they so
desire, but the wall of partition will stand,
and I expect this wall will increase in
height as the years roll on, with the young
generation of negroes making such prog¬
ress in the advanced ideas that they are as
" good as any of the white race."
When the Confederate soldier took the
oath of allegiance to the government of
the United States, this oath did not sub¬
ject him to negro rule. Neither will he
nor his children submit to such rule; there¬
fore the politics of the South will remain
in the same hands as at present.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 168
The crushed and bleeding South threw
off disgraceful negro rule, inaugurated
and enforced by the big brain of Thad
Stevens, one of the greatest men of the
day.
It is unreasonable to believe that if the
South, crushed as it was, could come from
under the black rule as headed by Mr.
Stevens, that we will continue to rule and
preserve Anglo-Saxon civilization, call it
prejudice or what you may.
It is an established fact that of all mas¬
ters, the naturally servile are the most
cruel. " The earth," says Solomon, " can¬
not bear a servant when he reigneth." The
brief period of authority exercised by the
negro during the reconstruction era in¬
stilled in his heart the idea that if he can
get an education this authority will return
to him, but he will never pass that way but
once in this part of the country.
Changes have taken place in Heaven as
well as in earth, and are recorded in the
Word of God. When Lucifer, the great
bearer of light, himself was free, he sought
to be equal with God, and hence was
cursed and cast out of Heaven. Then,
" by devilish art," he reached " the organs
of man's fancy," and with them forged
164
THE NEGRO:
the grand illusion that equality alone was
freedom. Since then the devil has been
advancing his scheme of equality by la¬
beling it liberty.
The Southern negro is free to enjoy
life, liberty, and to accumulate property,
but he will never be free to rule the South¬
ern white man, nor will he ever be accepted
as an equal. Freedom and equality are dif¬
ferent things. When he loses sight of the
idea that he is the white man's equal, and
resolves to work for his living, all will be
well; peace and harmony will reign, and
so-called race prejudice will fade away,
giving place to the divine law of race
distinction.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 165
CHAPTER XVIII
the negro a sycophant
Of the five distinct races of the earth,
the black race carries more sycophancy in
its nature than the other four combined.
It is his very existence and his first knock
for admittance into the good graces of the
South.
He will tell you that he is not like white
folks, that he knows that he is a negro,
and that he tells the other negroes when
they talk about being just as good as any
white person, that they are not. He as¬
serts that he loves white folks and will
stick to them at all times, for they are the
people who help him.
After making this talk to a white man,
this same negro will go to a meeting at
night and join in abuse of the whites by
stating that he works for white people
because he cannot help himself. He says
that he is cheated out of his wages by the
crafty white man.
The principal and the professor in a
negro college will in a public speech tell
166
THE NEGRO:
their race to stand by the white people,
who are their best friends. At the same
time their hearts are full of hatred for
the whites, and in private they are teach¬
ing that the negro race is equal to the
white race, and that, as they rise in the
world, they must assert their rights, which
are the rights of a superior people. The
same professor will represent to the white
people that he is doing a great work for
the uplifting and betterment of his race
and brethren.
The negro has always been a race of
sycophants, although we had in slavery a
minority that were as loyal and true to us
as one human being could be to another.
We still have a few of this type, but in
the race as a whole, sycophancy has
reached a high state of cultivation. This
being the case, we cannot trust them as in
the days gone by.
The negro will sometimes remain with
one family for several years, receiving the
benefit of the white man's substance. Dur¬
ing this time he will often go to a neighbor
and relate the most damaging stories con¬
cerning the family of his benefactor. We
call this " nigger news," and give it very
little credence.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 167
Negroes cannot disguise their counte¬
nances as white people do. An intelligent
and observant white person, well ac¬
quainted with the negro nature, can tell
from their countenances when they are
plotting mischief or have committed some
crime. In the face of this fact, the South¬
ern whites very often fall victims to the
negro sycophant, who gains their sympa¬
thy and favor by apparent faithfulness,
causing them to relax their vigilance, and
often resulting in outrage and murder.
You will be told about negroes who are
stealing from you when very often it is
the informer himself who is the thief.
The negro, when arraigned at the bar
of justice, will, if possible, shift his crime
upon others of his race in order to clear
himself. He can tell a very plausible tale
in declaring his innocence. He considers
his race blameless unless it serves his pur¬
pose to cast blame upon others to clear
himself.
The Southern whites are easy victims of
the negro's deceit. A great many plan¬
tations in the old South stand to-day as
wrecks, and are owned by syndicates, a
condition caused by the negro sycophant
whom the former owner adhered to, and
168
THE NEGRO:
supported until his plantation and negroes
were swept away.
The negro will get his living from a
white man as long as he can, and when the
living gives out, he will say, as a reason
for his not owning property, that the
white man cheated him out of what he
earned. I do not mean to say that he gives
this reason to the Southern white man.
No, indeed! He tells him, " Dat sho wuz a
good man I worked fur! I never did ask
him for anythin' but what I got it." He
proceeds to work the same scheme on his
new master. There are of course excep¬
tions to this rule, as cases have been known
where the ex-slave worked and supported
his master with all the devotion of one
human being to another. I am speaking
of the race as a whole, as it exists at the
present day.
There are exceptions in those of the
blacks who advise members of their race to
stick to the Southern white man, " because
he is their best friend." I believe some of
them mean this, and that this advice comes
from the heart of the few who are really
concerned in the welfare of their race.
Such advice, however, finds few follow¬
ers, because the Southern white man is a
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 169
Democrat, and political recognition is the
goal of the negro's ambition. He thinks
that the future of the race depends upon
politics, and that politics has in store for
him a great future of independence and
authority, with a life of ease.
170
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER XIX
the broken" link
The link binding together the races in
the South is broken, but not altogether de¬
stroyed. The breach widens with time,
regardless of the views of the optimists
of both races. This is a sad condition, but
it exists in our fair Southland, with no ap¬
parent remedy in sight. While emanci¬
pation did not break this link, it made it
possible for the Union League to do its
deadly work, thereby inflicting a wound
which time cannot heal. This wound,
being of long standing, has taken on a
cancerous form that is eating at the vital
organs of our civilization, and all that is
high and holy.
Race hatred reigns supreme, a fact
which brings to mind what the Master
said: "A house divided against itself
cannot stand, and he that gathereth not
with me, scattereth abroad." The two
races are certainly divided, and it remains
to be seen which one " scattereth abroad."
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 171
The negroes array themselves against
the whites on all questions, until they need
aid and protection. I think that the negro
race contains the greater part of this race
hatred. They hate us for the institution
of slavery which gave us the right to hold
their ancestors as slaves; while with the
white race it is the memory of the link
which bound them in former days, which
still lingers, causing them to have more
patience with their black enemies of
to-day.
That there should be antagonism is nat¬
ural, since the two races belong to di¬
visions of the human family most diverse
in racial endowments and traditions. The
great mistake was made in trying to place
the inferior on the same plane of exist¬
ence with the superior race. This is one
of the impossibilities for man.
Before the war a charming unity, yet
well-marked diversity, existed between the
races. The efforts made to cast aside
diverse racial qualities and traditions,
thereby making the two races equal, failed,
succeeding only in breaking the unity and
peace existing between them.
The link is broken, but the white man's
civilization is the house founded upon a
179 THE NEGRO:
rock that has and will stand the storms of
time, before which the house built upon
the sands must fall. Through all ages
the superior power of civilization has been
in the hands of the white man.
The negro never becomes really a ra¬
tional being, but he is God's creature, a
sentient being, capable of suffering as well
as of enjoyment, and is entitled to enjoy
according to his capacity; but it belongs to
the being of superior faculties to judge
of the relations which shall exist between
himself and the inferior, as they march to¬
gether along the path of progress. This
he must do conscientiously and according
to the laws of God and man.
While changes and progression are the
conditions of human affairs, the great
fundamental laws of God, on which is
based civilization, suffer no change. The
negro remains in the South in a changed
condition, less of a factor in human prog¬
ress, and becoming more and more a men¬
ace to civilization. While this is true, it
is also a fact that God will in due season
enforce His laws according to His wis¬
dom and justice toward the human race
whether it meets our views or not.
The broken link includes race hatred,
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 173
antagonism, distrust, and alienation. The
South has ever been generous, patient, and
sympathetic with the negro. We have
pity for his weakness, charity for his
fault, and swift punishment for his bru¬
tality. It seems that neither punishment
nor education affects his brute nature, for
the brutality of the race has increased
rather than decreased, and women and
girls live a very unsafe life, a condition
which bodes no good for the future. >
Every lynching that takes place is a blot
on Southern civilization; hut "like begets
like," and the negro brute will receive bru¬
tal treatment at the hands of the mob so
long as he commits such crimes.
This is the saddest and most dangerous
feature of the broken link. This one fea¬
ture causes the clock of Christendom to
stand still for a while, sending a silence
through civilization, and it is the breaker
against which the waves of prosperity
beat. This condition cannot last because
it is contrary to God's law.
In nine in every ten race riots or con¬
flicts it is the negro who is the aggressor,
and is invariably the greatest sufferer, but
he loses sight of this fact when he desires
to display the power of his race by mur-
174
THE NEGRO:
dering and assaulting the whites. He be¬
comes famous when the negro newspapers
publish stories of his martyrdom, relating
how he met death without a murmur, and
went home to Heaven. Thus he leaves a
place to be filled by another of his race
with the same ideas of negro rights and
aggrandizement. Yet we have a remnant
of the race who realize that their greatest
right in the South is the right to earn their
bread—this is the element that keeps the
broken link from being entirely destroyed.
The right to earn its bread lies at the
heart of the welfare and standing of any
race. As the race cultivates the idea of
asserting its supposed rights, and endeav¬
ors to live without work, just so soon will
they outlive their usefulness. Even the
remnant of the " white man's burden"
who are earning their own bread require
coaxing with all the favors possible to per¬
suade them to work, because they are poor,
down-trodden negroes. They make no
hesitation in telling you, " I am free as you
is; I don't have to work."
This idea is becoming general with the
race, causing the South to seek relief
through immigration. If we are forced
to turn the negro loose, what will be the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 175
result? There is no doubt that the South
is making an effort to free itself from this
burden, which increases in weight with the
years.
We have no legal contract binding us
to support the negro ballot, and it seems to
be the intention of a certain element to
educate him that he may use the ballot
with greater ease. The negro, however,
is incapable of receiving the education and
enlightenment which is offered him, and
therefore his ballot is, and will remain, of
little account in the South.
It seems to me that it is an injustice to
the race for the Federal Government to
persist in regulating his conduct by a sys¬
tem of laws made for the whites, and in
no way suited for the peculiar mental
qualities of the negro.
At the present in the South the only
real function of the negro ballot is to fur¬
nish a bone of contention over which the
two political parties wrangle. The South¬
ern white man has long since learned that
in order to have a decent government he
must hold the reins of power.
In all countries or conditions of man¬
kind, human affairs are controlled by the
"law of force," and we find practically
176
THE NEGRO:
all established rights, civil or social, rest
on and are ultimately maintained by this
" law of force." Therefore, the negro is
forced, if he remains here, to live under
the white man's government and in the
white man's country.
This condition is right and just to both
races, for the negro has no capacity to use
his ballot for the welfare of his fellow-
man. When he had control of the govern¬
ment of several Southern States, he exhib¬
ited to the country a sample of his ability
to make and administer laws. He is no
more capable of exercising his right of
suffrage now than when the right was
first placed in his hands. It was the un¬
educated, ante-bellum negro who did the
voting at that time, and they were a much
better, if not so well educated, class.
The new generation cast their votes with
hearts full of hatred for the whites, and
with dreams of the day when they will
have a large voice in the governmental
forces of the country—a dream which is
bound to remain only a dream.
The white people of the North hold no
higher estimate of the qualifications of the
negro to hold office than do the people of
the South; neither have the ballots of the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 177
Northern white people shown a high esti¬
mate of colored statesmanship. The bonds
of mutual understanding, trust, and devo¬
tion of other days no longer exist. We
realize this condition with regret and sor¬
row for the race, because these people are
not responsible for their condition; they
are victims of the white man's sectional
hate, commercial selfishness, envy, and
jealousy. They were a happy and harm¬
less race when the two political parties
seized upon them, dragging them into pol¬
itics. When the white man planted the
negro in politics he planted a corrupt tree
that has borne only corrupt fruit. Christ
said that a good tree could not bring f orth
evil fruit; neither could a corrupt tree
bring forth good fruit.
Politics is not a part of the negro's call¬
ing, and he will never have a real voice in
the governing forces of the white man's
country. He has been used as a tool to
drag down and humiliate the South, yet
even as a tool he is not a success. He
stands to-day on the brink of the preci¬
pice. Will he he returned to his proper
place, or will he be engulfed in the waters
beneath? This condition belongs, as does
all the future, to God, who cursed the ne-
178
THE NEGRO:
gro with servitude, and said: " A servant
of servants shall he be unto his brethren."
When God says that a thing shall be done,
it will be done, sooner or later. This does
not mean that the negro will ever again be
owned by the white man, but that he will
be returned to his normal position. It is
far more satisfactory to the whites for the
negro to be a hired servant, if he is wor¬
thy of his hire, but a worthless servant is
an expensive annoyance not to be endured.
We have clung to past associations with
a love tender and defensive; but dire ne¬
cessity has compelled the South to grapple
with the living present. Flushed with
courage from the knowledge that the
South has risen again in power, we should
not allow past or present affairs to cloud
our sight in dealing with the problems
confronting us, but should wait on God's
overruling power moving slowly in the
work of progress.
If God gave us these people for their
good and for our benefit, He will work it
out according to His purpose. Who can
thwart His designs? He can right the
wrongs, heal the wounds, and unite the
broken links that bind the two races
together.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 179
It is generally conceded that the negro
is to stay in the South, also that conditions
are bad and are getting worse. If he is to
stay here, conditions will change. Who
can tell? It may be that the cloud of race
hatred and antagonism will change, re¬
vealing the silver lining of peace and har¬
mony in our Southland, or, possibly, from
this cloud will come a storm that will sweep
the negro from the American continent.
180
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER XX
the negro and the ballot
We are indebted to the vengeance of
Thaddeus Stevens and his influence in the
Congress of 1870 for the adoption of the
Fifteenth Amendment, giving the negro
the right to vote.
His right to vote was of short duration
in the South. We have never abridged
his right to the ballot on account of his
race, color, or previous condition of servi¬
tude, hut because of his inability to keep
pace with the white man in voting. The
negro never votes with good intentions
toward the whites of the South, or of this
Republic, but he votes with the hope of
some day becoming the ruler of the white
man.
The greatest bar to negro franchise is
the poll tax amendment to the constitu¬
tions of several Southern States, which re¬
quires each voter to pay a poll tax. The
negro dislikes to pay this tax. The fact
that it is devoted to the increase of the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 181
public school fund does not arouse in him
any desire to pay it. The negro desires to
be an honorary citizen of the United
States, considering his race, color, and
previous condition of servitude a passport
to citizenship of the highest order.
Some claim that the placing of the bal¬
lot in the hands of the negro was a crime.
It was, of course, an offense against mo¬
rality and public welfare and decency; and
I have always considered it a slur at the
intelligence of the Southern people, and a
fruitless effort to show how the negro
could be lifted up, after suddenly emerg¬
ing from so-called barbarism. The ballot
has never uplifted him, or bettered his con¬
dition. The North, in thinking the negro
could rule the politics of the South, un¬
derrated the mentality of the whites, and
overrated the mentality of the negro.
They used him, as men will sometimes use
the vilest instruments, to accomplish their
own purpose, led on by designing schem¬
ers. This is characteristic of any party
that breaks away from the great acknowl¬
edged ties which bind civilized man in fel¬
lowship. They sought to keep the South
down by means of the negro ballot.
The great mind and honest heart of
183
THE NEGRO:
Charles Francis Adams gave expression
to the following words: " The work done
by those who were in political control at
the close of the Civil War was work done
in utter ignorance of ethnologic law, and
total disregard of unalterable facts.
Starting the movement wrong, it will be
yet productive of incalculable injury to
us. The negro, after emancipation, should
not have been dealt with as a political
equal, much less forced into a position of
superiority; he should have been treated
as a ward and dependent—firmly, but in
a spirit of kindness and absolute justice.
Practically impossible as a policy then, it
is not less so now. At best, it is something
which can only be slowly and tentatively
approximated. . . . Equality results
not from law, but exists because things
are in essentials alike; and a political sys¬
tem which works admirably when applied
to homogenous equals, results only in
chaos when generalized into a nostrum to
be administered universally. It has been
markedly so of late with us."
These are wise words according to di¬
vine and human law. Solomon says
in observation of public government:
" When the righteous are in authority, the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 183
people rejoice; but when the wicked
beareth rule, the people mourn."
The South has suffered long and pa¬
tiently under the laws put upon them by
those in authority at the close of the Civil
War, and the negro has been the greatest
sufferer. If political equality is a crime,
they have reaped the full benefit of the
criminal process, and are to-day traveling
a more downward course than their fa¬
thers started upon at the close of the
war.
The race entertains the idea that their
fathers lost control of the government
through a lack of education, and that, if
they obtain an education, political equality
and power will return to them on a
grander scale. This is the cause for the
rapid laying down of the " shovel and the
hoe," and the scramble for an education
in the schools of the cities. " As a bird
that wandereth from her nest, so is man
that wandereth from his place," says Sol¬
omon. He says further: " The man that
wandereth out of the way of understand¬
ing shall remain in the congregation of
the dead."
The ballot in the hands of the negro has
led him far from the way of understand-
184
THE NEGRO:
ing, and has also placed him in a condition
which bodes evil to his race. He is made
to understand only through fear of those
in authority. Remove this restraint, and
he will soon sink to the level of the brute.
Civilization is forced upon the negro*
but even in a forced condition, with the
advantages of an education, he has never
made a very high mark as a freeman. I
often ask myself this question: " How
much longer will the farce of political and
social equality be played to the Southern
people?" The strange and ignorant
course of political and social equality pur¬
sued by our Northern brethren in regard
to the South has done more to embitter
and alienate the two races than all the
wreck, ruin, poverty, and suffering of the
war resulting in emancipation. It is the
nourishment on which sectional hate sur¬
vives in the political world. This policy,
pursued contrary to the natural civil and
social rights of both races, has done more
to retard the progress and prosperity of
the negro than anything else; it has made
him restless and dissatisfied with his con¬
dition and habitation; he moves from
place to place in the hope of some day
being avenged for the great injustice of
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 185
the Southern white man refusing to accept
him as his political equal.
The white man and black man will never
be successfully governed by the same laws
any more than a child and a man can be
controlled by the same rules; children and
negroes are very much alike—each re¬
quires a governing hand in every detail.
The laws of nations applicable to the
different races are radically different;
why, then, should the American and Afro-
American be governed by the same laws?
Inequality is recognized by the most cas¬
ual observer, and an influence and a supe¬
riority is accorded to the one which is
denied to the other. Why not make this
fact broad enough to extend over the
Southland of this Republic?
The race that only partly fulfills its du¬
ties to civilization, the progress of society,
and the laws of the country should and
will remain in a subordinate position to
the superior race.
The American government was founded
by our forefathers upon moral truths and
natural distinctions. It was founded a
white man's government, and should re¬
main strictly a white man's government.
The government in appointing negroes
186 THE NEGRO:
to Federal positions in the South does not
help its condition, but adds fuel to the
flames of race hatred, already burning
fiercely. The great majority appointed
to such positions are pompous with a head
swelled by education and a desire to dis¬
play intelligence and authority. They
sometimes display this by robbing the post-
office to which they have been appointed
postmasters.
An elevated position does not change
the negro character, but gives him a chance
to show himself, and to become a more
troublesome factor in the South, where it
is said he is destined to remain. Be this as
it may, we recognize the fact that the Fed¬
eralists are under obligation to the negro,
and should use every effort to lift him up,
because they fought for him that he might
be placed on a higher plane of existence;
they should endeavor to make him worth
the cost of his freedom. In performing
its duties to the black man, the govern¬
ment should not lose sight of the fact that
the South is still in the Union, and that the
white men of that section have rights that
should be respected. If the Southern
whites are to carry the white man's bur¬
den, they should be allowed to carry it to
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 187
suit themselves. Dictation from a dis¬
tance serves only to add to its weight, apd
if it becomes too heavy, we may cast it
aside.
Is negro suffrage founded on the great
principles of political justice? He makes
use of his ballot by voting against the
Southern white man, on whom he must de¬
pend. He has very little at stake, and
cares nothing for the consequences. His
vote is for sale at a very low price, and has
little to make it attractive even to the
Southern Republicans. He does not vote
with any idea of the great fundamental
principles of government—this is beyond
his comprehension. He has the right of
suffrage, and makes use of it because the
white folks do, becoming simply an imi¬
tator.
The South has long since swallowed
the dose of negro suffrage, and it is to¬
day practically digested. It was a bitter
dose at first for our negroes to vote
against us; but we consider them under
obligations to the Republican party, and
hope they will remain in that party. It
has lifted the negro from a position so
lowly, to one so sublime, that I think he
should fill it to the best of his ability.
188
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER XXI
echoes
In the following statements made at the
meeting of the Niagara movement—an
organization for promoting the equality
of the races—we have echoes which reflect
the growing sentiments of the race. The
Niagara organization meets annually to
pay tribute to the memory of John
Brown, and at a recent meeting addresses
upon John Brown were delivered hy W.
T. Dubois and Rev. Reverdy C. Ranson
of Boston.
Ranson declared that God sent John
Brown to Harper's Ferry " to become a
traitor to the government in order that
he might he true to the slaves." In dis¬
cussing the political rights of the negro,
he said: "The present occupant of the
White House has been absolutely silent
on the question of the enforcement of the
Fifteenth Amendment, while the Secre¬
tary of War has admitted the violation of
the Constitution. The President has re-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 189
cently, in a noted address, condoned, if
not tacitly indorsed, this violation. Sec¬
retary Taft, speaking for the President,
chides us by saying that the negroes are
political children; that they have shown
their incapacity to maintain their political
rights. It is true that the negro has had
a childlike faith in the Republican party,
believing that it would administer the
sacred trust which the fortunes of war
and the Constitution had imposed upon
it, and that it would not seize him like a
gambler's stake in a game of politics.
Thank God that at last the scales are
falling from the negro's eyes. He is
being disillusioned by the acts of the Re¬
publican Congress, the speeches of the
members of a Republican cabinet, and the
silence of a Republican President. He
should not hesitate to repudiate his for¬
mer friends who have betrayed him, nor
refuse to fraternize with former enemies
who are willing to give him aid. While
he remains a political issue, he must insist
upon making his power felt and his rights
respected."
Reverdy C. Ranson is the same negro
who was ejected from a Pullman car in
Tennessee and forced to take a car regu-
190
THE NEGRO:
larly provided for his race, after first
making an effort to create the belief that
he was a foreigner, then feigning deaf¬
ness, and again refusing to obey the com¬
mands to vacate a seat in the white coach.
He is the author of an address urging the
intermarriage of the races in the South.
Rev. R. C. Ranson was forbidden to ad¬
dress the negro students of the Alabama
Colored Normal School because he pre¬
sented himself in a state of intoxication.
The Southern negroes politely, but firmly,
led the drunken Northern negro from
their educational institution and shut the
door in his face.
In the following demands of the ne¬
groes of the Niagara movement at the
close of the meeting, we have some very
striking illustrations of their intelligence
and truthfulness. At the conclusion of a
sermon by Rev. G. Frazier Miller, an ad¬
dress to the country was read. It was in
part as follows: "The men of Niagara,
coming from the toil of a year's hard
work and pausing a moment from the
earning of their daily bread, turn toward
the nation and again ask, in the name
of ten millions, the privilege of a hearing.
Since last year the negro hater has flour-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 191
ished in the land. Stripped of the verbi¬
age and subterfuge and in its naked nasti-
ness, the new American creed says: ' Fear
to let the black men even try to rise, lest
they become the equals of the whites.' In
detail, our demands are clear and une¬
quivocal. First, we would vote; with
the right to vote, goes everything—free¬
dom, manhood, honor of our wives, the
chastity of our daughters, the right to
work, and the chance to rise, and let no
man listen to the liars who deny this. We
want full manhood and suffrage, and we
want it now, henceforth, and forever.
Second, we want discrimination in public
accommodations to cease. Separation in
railway and street cars, based simply on
race and color, is un-American, undemo¬
cratic, and silly. We protest against all
such discrimination. Third, we claim the
right of freedom—to walk, talk, and be
with those who wish to he with us. No
man has a right to choose another man's
friends, and to attempt to do so is an
impudent interference with the most fun¬
damental human privilege. Fourth, we
want the laws enforced against the rich,
as well as against the poor; against capi¬
talist as well as laborer; against white as
THE NEGRO:
well as black. We are not more lawless
than the white race, but we are more often
arrested, convicted, and mobbed. We want
justice even for criminals and outlaws.
We want the Constitution of the country
enforced. We want Congress to take
charge of congressional elections. We
want the Fourteenth Amendment carried
out to the letter and every State disfran¬
chised in Congress which attempts to dis¬
franchise its rightful voters. We want
the Fifteenth Amendment enforced and
no State allowed to base its franchise
simply on color. The failure of the Re¬
publican party in Congress, at the ses¬
sions just closed, to redeem its pledge of
1904 with reference to suffrage at the
South, seems a plain, deliberate, premedi¬
tated breach of promise and stamps that
party as obtaining votes under false pre¬
tenses. Fifth, we want the national gov¬
ernment to wipe out illiteracy in the
South. We want our children trained as
intelligent human beings should be, and
we will fight for all time against any pro¬
posal to educate black boys and girls
simply as servant underlings or simply
for the use of other people. These are
some of the chief things that we want.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 198
How shall we get them? By voting where
we may vote; by persistent and unceasing
agitation; by hammering at the truth; by
sacrifice and work. We do not believe in
violence, hut we do believe in John Brown,
and here, on the scene of John Brown's
martyrdom, we consecrate ourselves, our
honor, and our property to the final eman¬
cipation of the race which John Brown
died to make free."
The address closed with an appeal to
the young men and women of the nation
and asks: " Cannot the nation that has
absorbed 10,000,000 foreigners into its
political life without catastrophe absorb
10,000,000 negro Americans into that
same political life at less cost than their
unjust and illegal exclusion will involve? "
A resolution was adopted urging voters
to question every candidate for Congress
as to his attitude on the Fourteenth
Amendment, and to refuse to support such
as would not positively promise to support
its enforcement.
I record the demands of these distin¬
guished gentlemen that their echoes may
go sounding down the corridors of time;
that we may listen to the reverberations
and watch the rays of light coming from
194
THE NEGRO:
such a brilliant and distinguished people.
Such demands from the negro show the
designs and intentions of the most highly
educated of the race. Will the supply
meet the demand, or will it be "a voice
wafted to an echoless shore "?
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 195
CHAPTER XXII
education of the negro
In the forty years of persistent effort
to educate the negro have we succeeded or
have we failed? It seems that time has
proven the latter. Be it as it may, we
are proud to say that the South has di¬
vided her school fund equally with the
colored people. In poverty and in pros¬
perity she has freely given to their
education.
Whatever the future may bring, we
have chosen the better way. If it brings
failure, it will also bring a clear conscience
of having done our duty to these people.
If we make an honest failure, God will
accept the will for the deed and show us
a way out of our present difficulties.
In surveying the present situation we
can find the weak places in the road lead¬
ing to the elevation of the race. The
proper education of these people is a
duty, and necessary to the progress of
civilization.
It has been said that negro education
196
THE NEGRO:
in the South should be along the lines of:
" The rudiments of an education for all,
industrial training for the many, and a
college course for the talented few."
These are words of wisdom, for the great
majority of the race are only qualified
for the rudiments of an education. Man¬
ual labor is their proper calling, and their
ministers and teachers are of the talented
few. As time reveals the ethnology of
the negro, the intelligent people of this
republic will recognize it, and act accord¬
ingly. We have different classes of the
negro race in the South just as we have
different classes of the white race in
America.
There is one class who have sense
enough to see their inferiority, and are
peaceful, law-abiding citizens, respecting
the rights of the white man who has due
respect for their rights. This class holds
a position in the industrial South by
accepting industrial training. Another
class, with a smattering of an education,
are loafers and crap-shooters. To this
class belongs the greater part of the crim¬
inal element. A third class obtains educa¬
tion enough to destroy their usefulness,
and includes the forgers, burglars, and
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 197
expert thieves of the race. The fourth
class includes so-called educated minis¬
ters, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and news¬
paper men, who are supposed leaders.
This class comprises some of the meanest
and most vicious of the race; while they
are of " the talented few " mentally, edu¬
cation has not changed their character or
nature, but has made them a more dan¬
gerous factor to the welfare of both
races.
Generally speaking, these negro preach¬
ers enter the ministry and politics at the
same time. They seem to have a mania
for being prominent in conventions and
in public meetings, and of indulging in
impassioned and vicious denunciation of
the Southern whites. They never con¬
sider what effect their incendiary course
may have upon their race, for they almost
totally lack reflective faculties.
The chief object of the educated class
is to so display their gifts and graces that
they may demand a good price in politics,
and thereby make themselves great lead¬
ers of their people. A few negro minis¬
ters, who preach a gospel of peace and
of good will to their race, are exceptions.
After forty years of negro education
198
THE NEGRO:
we have only one and one-tenth per cent,
in the professions; these statistics show
their small capacity for higher education.
The negro himself realizes this fact; if
his family is sick, he calls a white physi¬
cian to attend them, and nine times out of
ten he employs a white lawyer when
trouble overtakes him.
The negro is the most inferior type of
the human race. He has a limited intel¬
lect and a very inferior moral organiza¬
tion, and we have made the mistake of try¬
ing to educate him by methods established
for the whites; by so doing we have given
him vague aspirations and led him to make
vain struggles.
The half or three-fourths white have a
superior mentality to that of the black
race, and the typical negroes themselves
are more or less superior or inferior to one
another precisely as they approximate to,
or recede from, the typical standard.
Our Northern brethren have made a
greater mistake in negro education than
we, because they have expended their
millions on him, thinking that he was a
white man in a negro's skin. We have
pursued the same course, but with a dif¬
ferent idea. While we doubted his men-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 199
tality, we gave him the benefit of the
doubt by giving him education according
to the white man's standard.
We find among the ten millions of the
race a few highly educated mulattoes, or
rather, the great majority of the few
highly educated are half white. It seems
to me wrong to establish a system of edu¬
cation for a few mulattoes while the great
majority have no capacity for receiving
it. This is a sacrifice of the many for the
benefit of the few. Our duty is to the
real negro, and we cannot judge him by
the mulatto standard. The white blood
enables the mulatto to climb a notch or
two higher than his black brother; there¬
fore the real black man should receive our
attention and we should educate him ac¬
cording to his capacity and endowments;
give him an industrial training, with but
the rudiments of an education. I do not
mean to have a school labeled " indus¬
trial," in which the greater part of the
time is devoted to the higher education
for which he has no capacity, but give him
a real industrial training. Teach him to
work, to read, and to write. The talented
few who wish to finish their education
can attend the colleges of the North and
200 THE NEGRO:
receive the higher instruction which the
negro professors of the South are not
capable of imparting.
The fact that we have wrongly edu¬
cated the negro broadens, deepens, and
becomes more entangled as the years pass
by. The intention has been to change his
character by education. This has utterly
failed, for nothing but the religion of
Jesus Christ will change a man's charac¬
ter, whether he be of the white or black
race.
While illiteracy has been reduced to
fifty-two per cent., crime has increased.
Statistics show negro crime to be propor¬
tionally greater in the North than in the
South. In the North he attends school
with the whites, has the same teachers, and
has the same opportunities to acquire
knowledge, but negro crime is proportion¬
ally greater. In the State of Pennsyl¬
vania, while the negroes form only two
per cent, of the population, they furnish
sixteen per cent, of the male prisoners and
thirty-four per cent, of the female. In
Chicago, where the negroes form only
one and one-half per cent, of the popula¬
tion, they form ten per cent, of the crim¬
inals.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 201
Public talk about the ignorant negro
being the criminal of the race is false.
Such talk is only a plea in soliciting the
white man's money for negro education.
Criminality strikes deeper than igno¬
rance. Some of the best darkies whom
I have known were the most ignorant.
Criminality exists in the white and in the
black race from the same causes, and no
amount of education will change the
character of the naturally criminal class,
white or black; it simply aids the criminal
in his craft.
The black race, generally speaking, is
lazy and thriftless; an education is sought
in the hope of never more having " to earn
their bread by the sweat of their brows,"
and, as the devil finds work for idle hands
to do, crime increases among them.
Booker Washington says: "I have no
hesitation in saying that one of the ele¬
ments in our present situation which gives
me most concern is the large number of
crimes that are being committed by mem¬
bers of our race. The negro race is com¬
mitting too much crime, North and
South. We should see to it as far as our
influence extends that crimes are fewer
in number; otherwise, the race will suffer
202
THE NEGRO:
permanently." Booker Washington has
been asleep at his post, and the increas¬
ing criminality of his race is a foregone
conclusion.
The elevation of the negro by educa¬
tion is one of the greatest humbugs ever
held up to the American people. The best
element of the race and the happiest and
most contented is the uneducated negro
farmer of the South. This is the pros¬
perous element. We find that one hun¬
dred and fifty thousand own their farms,
and that ninety per cent, of the property
owned by the negroes is possessed by the
uneducated ante-bellum negroes.
This class, in its endowments and at¬
tainments, represents the natural and
normal capacity of the negro. They hold
out the brightest hope to their people and
for the progress of civilization.
No man can rise above his capacity,
and the capacities of the white and black
are as different as their color. No human
race or governmental changes can ever
obliterate this difference. God gave the
negro a servile capacity, mentally, mor¬
ally, and physically, and he should be edu¬
cated accordingly.
Since the existence of man there has
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 208
been a servile race, which has furnished
the base of civilization, and neither in
ancient nor modern times has civilization
been attained by any nation, except in this
way. There has been no change in hu¬
man types during the historic ages. The
paintings upon the old Egyptian monu¬
ments show that at the very dawn of his¬
tory the various races were as distinctly
marked as at the present time, each bear¬
ing their racial badge of color and physi¬
ognomy. In prehistoric ages the superior
races subjugated the inferior, and gave
to them their language and civilization.
God designed the various social divisions
of the human race, from those requiring
but the lowest degree of intellectual
power, to those requiring the very highest,
and the natural endowments of every
class have been apportioned according to
this divine design.
Not for a moment do I think that edu¬
cation can thwart God's purposes for the
negro, in subjecting him to the service of
the white man; but I do think that it is a
waste of money to try to educate him con¬
trary to his destined capacity and by a
method that makes him less worthy. It is
a great injustice to the race.
204
THE NEGRO:
In reflecting upon the present condition
of the negro, it seems as if God is permit¬
ting him to reveal himself to the doubting
Thomases of the North, and I believe
that he will yet come to be known there as
he is known here. When the North comes
to know the negro, the two sections will
unite upon the plan of education for
which he is best adapted, and will educate
him within the limits of his intellect and
destiny. If the negro does not like this
method, he will have the privilege of edu¬
cating himself. So long as the white man
pays for the negro's education he should
have the privilege of selecting the meth¬
ods to be followed. I do not think the
South should be dependent upon the eth¬
nological opinions held by the North
concerning the negro and his education,
but a better and more complete method
could prevail were the two sections united.
To be sure, the Northern people have ex¬
pended more than four times the amount
spent by the Southern people for negro
education, but if the negro is to have a
permanent home in the South, he must be
educated to suit the South and its condi¬
tions.
The only permanent position open to
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 205
the negro is that of a laborer in the in¬
dustrial South. Any system of education
that tends to make him worthless as a la¬
borer, or excites vain hopes in his breast, is
detrimental to his welfare, and the wel¬
fare of the nation. He who doubts that
a literary education is the undoing of the
black man has but to wait, and time will
prove it. It leads him into green pastures
of imagination, where he rests on flowery
beds of ease for the morn of his estab¬
lished rights. You have but to read the
utterances of the educated negro to see
how far he is carried by imagination and
conceit.
If the present system of education
which is making him worthless as a la¬
borer is continued, he must move out and
give place to foreign labor. This condi¬
tion is slowly but surely approaching.
Another phase of the present situation
is the negro's increased viciousness, and
the time may come when forbearance will
cease to be a virtue.
In all times and in all conditions of the
world there has been a people possessing
nothing except the capacity to labor, and
it is reasonable to believe that the South,
with her undeveloped resources, will seek
206
THE NEGRO:
and find the required class of laboring
people. I know that we can get a more
reliable and better class of labor, but our
duty to the negro is to do the best we can
for him. We should give him an indus¬
trial training with only the rudiments of
a literary education, and if this fails,
then let him depart from us.
A change must come over the negro's
ambition, or he will become more trouble¬
some as the years roll on. No human
being can he content who does not per¬
form the duties of his own station, and
we should educate him according to his
mentality, and train him to perform the
duties of the station in which an all-wise
Providence has placed him, or we must
face the consequences of a wrongly
applied usefulness/
Colonel Robert Gates, in an address on
immigration, discussed the economical
side of the question and said: " The labor
system in the South is growing more and
more unsatisfactory, while the demand is
increasing from year to year. The situa¬
tion is already serious, and threatens to
become more aggravated before any rem¬
edy is applied. Several causes have pro¬
duced this result. Education among the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE £07
negroes, the South's main reliance for
labor, is for the present, at least, suggest¬
ing vain hopes and perilous dreams,
swelling the numbers of agitators and the
idle, sowing wider and wider the seed of
unrest, and inspiring the dire spirit of
revenge, instead of the wholesome spirit
of emulation. But we need not hope to
modify this educational phase soon, at
least, for it amounts to a craze and must
run its course, intensifying the evils it
would remove. Misdirected philanthropy,
racial perverts, religious fanatics, and bat¬
talions of cranks and knaves South as
well as North, but mostly North, will not
let common sense and the teaching of his¬
tory prevail in this matter.
" Holding education to be the sovereign
cure-all for political, racial, moral, and
social ills, and the one miraculous power
on earth to equalize the inherently un¬
equal, they will continue to exploit it
without discrimination and in defiance of
experience until the inevitable climax of
conflict comes. And then reaction on
sane lines, let us hope."
208
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER XXIII
the south and the negro
Time seems to have turned backward in
its flight regarding the South and the
negro. It seems to tell us that we have
for forty years made vain efforts and a
fruitless struggle to uplift the free negro,
and that we must start again. The
trouble in making a new start is that it
must be made by the new generation of
whites with the new generation of
negroes.
The beginning, forty years ago, con¬
tained the sacred memories and material
of the old South. The Southern whites of
that time held the memory of "black
mammy " and other faithful slaves very
dear, but these memories have passed dur¬
ing the rapid flight of time, and the South¬
ern whites of to-day know nothing of
those days or their memories, and the
virtues of the institution are dead to the
race. History, in repeating itself, has
brought America to face England's ex¬
perience regarding the negro race.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 209
Great Britain, after emancipating the
slaves, for years made strong efforts to
make the negro a fit subject of the king¬
dom, and utterly failed. No government
has ever been able to make the negro the
civil and social equal of the white man.
In every country where civil and social
equality has been tried, time has proved it
to be impolitic and dangerous. We, to¬
day, face the repetition of history as
regards this policy and the negro race.
Be this as it may, the South has, through
the years that have passed, clung to the
negro. After the storm of battle cleared
away, leaving poverty and desolation in
its path, the Southern people began life
over with the negro, under changed
conditions.
Cast down, but not destroyed, the Con¬
federate soldier resolved to rise again and
to take the negro with him in the strug¬
gle. After the farce of reconstruction
was over, the ante-bellum darky was
willing and able to return to his white
people, and they were just as gladly re¬
ceived. Therefore the two races put their
shoulders to the wheel of progress, re¬
building the new South from the historic
old South, and he it said to the credit of
210
THE NEGRO:
the ante-bellum negro that he never again
loosened his hold upon the task, or turned
from his people. After realizing that the
path of freedom was not all sunshine, he
was satisfied to live and die among the
people of the South.
The vast majority of ante-bellum ne¬
groes were never alienated from the
Southern people, but were led away on
the impulse of the moment. Those who
joined the Federal army and survived
the war returned to the South to draw a
pension and spend it there.
The ante-bellum darky and his chil¬
dren, who grew up immediately after
slavery, have been a very important factor
in the rebuilding of the South, and those
of this type living to-day serve as a bind¬
ing force or influence in keeping down the
young generation of the race.
The grandest testimony of our treat¬
ment of the negro is demonstrated by the
fact that the great bulk of the race have
remained in the South. If they are ill-
treated, they seem to like it, and prefer
to live under such treatment.
Some Southern negroes attend conven¬
tions and associations in the North and
tell how the South " keeps the negro down
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 211
for fear that he will rise and leave the
white man behind "; but we know that
they talk to suit their audiences, and that
they like to be kept down, as is shown by
the fact that the majority of the race stay
in the South. These same negroes, who
make use of such speech at negro conven¬
tions in the North, have more respect for
the Southern white man and more confi¬
dence in what he says than they have in
their Northern friends. The negro is
childlike, and respects those who make
him respect them; he believes that if there
must he sycophancy in the game, he pre¬
fers to be the sycophant.
Though he is arrayed against us, he
readily adapts himself to circumstances,
becomes very tractable upon short notice,
and as the day of adversity approaches, he
gladly turns to the people of the South,
whom he forgot in the days of pros¬
perity.
The negro being " half child and half
animal," can be easily controlled, if you
understand the method. I believe this to
be the strongest point in the salvation of
the negro, because the Master said: " Ex¬
cept ye be converted and become as little
children, ye cannot enter into the King-
213
THE NEGRO:
dom of Heaven." Of course, the negro
steals, commits adultery, and bears false
witness, but he has a faith in God that is
beautiful. The Book says: " Where there
is not much given, there is not much re¬
quired." And this is another point in his
favor. The Southern people give as little
notice as possible to negro thefts. If
we arrest every negro who steals, it will
bankrupt the Southern States to furnish
penitentiaries to hold them; therefore we
punish only those who steal the largest
amounts. If the original is the son or
daughter of a faithful ex-slave, the white
man will stick to him as long as possible,
and very often succeed in keeping him
out of the penitentiary.
Generally speaking, the Southern
people are charitable to his faults and
have great patience with him so long as
he shows any inclination to do right.
Those who hate the negro are the people
who never owned slaves, and who really
know nothing about him, good or bad.
We have a great many of this class who
were born and reared in what is called the
" hill country " of the Southern States.
After the war, when the negroes were
basking in the sunshine of freedom, they
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 213
called the Southern people " poor white
trash," but we never blamed them; we
were poor, but we were aware that there
were no people on earth who knew so well
as the negro did that we were not " trash,"
but superior under all conditions.
The ante-bellum negro and the South¬
ern whites soon forgot this episode and
united on the meat-and-bread question—
helping each other to gain a livelihood.
The negro's part in the prosperity and
progress of the South has been in the pro¬
duction of cotton. Until recent years he
was the sole producer of the fleecy staple.
The passing of the old-time darky ac¬
counts for the disappearance of the negro
as a laborer in the cotton field.
In developing the resources of the
Southland the negro has no part In the
factories and in the coal mines he is al¬
most an unknown quantity. White chil¬
dren work in the factories, while the
negro children attend school.
The South to-day enjoys a system of
white slavery that far exceeds the African
slavery of the past. We now have the
white slavery which the North so long
enjoyed.
The South has been blind to the rights
214
THE NEGRO:
of the white child for forty years, and has
been more than just to the negro. In our
generosity to the weaker people we
should not lose sight of our own race, the
race upon which depends the future great¬
ness of this Republic.
I think that the time has arrived for the
white people to " render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar's, and unto God
the things that are God's." We have, in
the successful effort to rise again, made a
strong attempt to take the negro with us
in the struggle, and have left the white
children of the backwoods to their fate—
a life of ignorance, poverty, and want,
with no future but that of slavery in the
factory. This is the condition of the
whites of the backwoods of the South.
They are a people with as pure Anglo-
Saxon blood as ever coursed the veins of
mortal man. Though they may live in
poverty, ignorance, obscurity, and neglect,
yet their ancestry was of the best, such
as English Puritans, Scotch Covenanters,
and French Huguenots—unrecognized
but nevertheless genuine lineage. Men of
these backwoods districts fought with
honor on both sides during the Civil War.
The condition of these people is to-day a
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 215
stain upon the South which it will be diffi¬
cult to erase.
We have for forty years expended our
money for the education of the negro, and
allowed our own flesh and blood to grow
up in ignorance. The race that God made
to rule, and the negro to serve, we have
neglected. There is a class of Southern¬
ers who have more religion than sense,
where the negro is concerned, and in ap¬
propriating money for educational pur¬
poses they very often give the negro the
greater appropriation. This may be re¬
ligion, but the Book says: " If any pro¬
vide not for his own, and especially for
those of his own house, he hath denied the
faith, and is worse than an infidel."
There is another class who worship the
God of Mammon, and must stand with
the negro, in order to get a position upon
his recommendation. Shades of their an¬
cestors! You must look down in disgust
on such a condition!
There is still a third class who " strain
at a gnat, and swallow a camel." From
this class came the loudest howl when
President Roosevelt was reported to have
dined with Booker Washington; they
" swallow the camel" when they invite
216
THE NEGRO:
Booker to address conferences and
students of Southern colleges.
The cloud of ignorance which we have
allowed to rise in the backwoods of the
South will face us in the future.
In the sowing of seed we have sown
upon stony ground, " where they had not
much earth; and when the sun was up,
they were scorched; and because they had
no root, they withered away."
Our generous endeavors to benefit the
negro is seed sown upon stony places,
with the young generation of the race,
consequently we are to-day reaping the
withered harvest. The humble docility of
the ante-bellum negro, and his spirit to
make amends for his wrong acts, has
passed away in the new generation.
Their animal nature seems to have over¬
come the child nature, which has been one
of the redeeming features of the race.
The increase in crime seems to be the
adopted method by which they intend to
assert their supposed rights. The North¬
ern negroes have gathered at a feast like
unto the feast of Belshazzar, and are
drunk on the wine of social equality and
negro rights, and their drunken revelry
has taken root in the South, thereby caus-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 217
ing some very fiendish crimes, which lead
the Southern white man to cast aside civ¬
ilization and engage with the mob. This
is a blot upon the so-called new South and
a disgrace to the aristocratic old South.
Such is the present condition, and this is
the disturbing element to the thousands
of good negroes; they think when one of
their color is held responsible for a crime,
that the white people hate the whole race.
These people have some very strange
ideas which no amount of education will
remove. It makes no difference how
fiendish the crime; if the criminal is forced
to pay the penalty of his crime, the col¬
ored people will talk about how " white
people hate niggers." The criminal is al¬
ways a martyr. Still, you often hear the
old-time darky make use of the expres¬
sion, " I don't know what our race is com¬
ing to." These old darkies are often
forced to spend the savings of a lifetime
to keep their educated children out of the
penitentiary.
While the South has clung to the col¬
ored people with a feeling that is divine,
it is a fact that the years have loosened
the tie as we have in sadness watched them
outlive their usefulness. The negro's
218
THE NEGRO:
strongest hold upon the South is his
natural ability in the production of cotton,
and when he ceases to be a producer of
cotton, he ceases to be a real factor there.
Time records the fact that he has turned
his back upon the cotton fields, and the
planter is being forced to seek new labor.
As change and progress is the natural
trend of human aff airs, this condition will
find a remedy. May He who holds the
destinies of men apply the remedy ac¬
cording to His purpose.
Ill
THE FUTURE
CHAPTER XXIV
SHADOWS CAST BEFORE
No one knows what the future will
bring, but we can anticipate the future by
the past and present, basing our predic¬
tions upon the theory that " coming events
cast their shadows before."
While the negro problem is a national
problem, it is also intensely a Southern
problem. The South, with its great pos¬
sible future, has the negro clinging to her
in a more worthless condition than at any
previous time. This is the shadow cast
upon her possibilities.
The bonds of mutual understanding
and trust that once bound the two races
have passed away, giving place to intensi¬
fied alienation, which presents a danger¬
ous phase and shows the necessity of both
races preserving their sanity in dealing
with the problems that face them—prob¬
lems of even greater importance—if that
be possible—to the negro than to the
white man; for upon their right solu-
221
229
THE NEGRO:
tion depends his weal or woe, life or death.
The race is yet to face its real condition.
When the ante-bellum darky has passed
to the reward of a faithful servant, the
new generation will face the condition as
it really exists, and, judging from the
demonstrations made by some of their
educated leaders, we can see the shadows
of the coming events.
One of the gloomiest features is the
negro's growing desire to live without
work. When he deserts the plantation he
sells his birthright for a mess of pottage,
and when a better class of labor takes his
place he cannot retrace his steps.
Is it reasonable to suppose that the
South will furnish homes and a living to
a worthless people? No, indeed! There
is no law forcing a people to support a
worthless population, and if the negro
does arrive at the point of utter worth-
lessness, he will be cast aside, just as an
old worn-out garment is cast aside for a
more useful one.
He who doubts that the South is gradu¬
ally pushing the negro aside for a more
efficient class of labor has only to come to
the South and see for himself. This con¬
dition is not hailed with delight by the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 223
Southern people, but is realized with sad¬
ness; though sentiment is swallowed up
by the force of the condition, it is never¬
theless sad.
Looking upon the present changed
condition of the negro, I believe that
places which now know him will in the
future know him no more; for after leav¬
ing the plantation he never returns as a
laborer in the fields.
Secretary of the Navy Bonaparte, in
making a speech of welcome to the Young
People's Negro Congress, which convened
in Washington, discussed the future of
the negro race in America. "You cannot
afford to be lazy, ignorant, and vicious,"
said he, "for all around you, on every
side, is a race with which you will have to
compete, whether you wish or not, and
which it will tax all of your energies to
struggle against. There is no room in
America for people who can't take care
of themselves. I am one of those who
feel strongly the repeated injustice and
frequent perfidy which have marked our
treatment of the Indians; but, after all
has been said, the Indian would not or
could not, at all events did not, learn to
work in competition with the white man,
224
THE NEGRO:
and they have been pushed to the wall
and crushed against it. You must either
share their fate or profit by their example.
You can't in this country rest and be
thankful, for if you try to do this you
will soon have nothing for which to be
thankful. The idle, sensual, and be¬
nighted are never really free, and Amer¬
ica now is a country for free men only."
Mr. Bonaparte said that the man who
speaks with assurance about the future of
the race is not worth listening to, and that
he wished to call attention to two features
of the situation which gave ground to a
reasonable hope as to what was to be.
" The first," he continued, " is the un¬
doubted fact that the negro is the only
race that has ever been able to live with
white people, both races increasing and
prospering on a large scale. Transplant¬
ing the black race to this continent has
strengthened instead of weakened it.
The other thing to which I would direct
your attention is that you can't get rid of
the white people. You can neither get
away from them nor drive them away
from you. To cut black people off from
white people, whether by law or by nat¬
ural causes, cuts them off at the same time
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 225
from the only real and certain improve¬
ment of themselves."
The words of Secretary Bonaparte re¬
veal several shadows of to-day, cast across
the future of the negro in America. The
negro is naturally lazy and is becoming
more and more vicious, and he is entirely
dependent upon the whites. He is being
pushed to the wall because of his inability
to accept present opportunities without
the law of force and he has no capacity
to profit by example.
Mr. Bonaparte said: " The idle and
sensual and benighted are never really
free." Very true, and the negro will
never really be free, because God never
made him to be free. Idleness and sensu¬
ality dominate his very nature, and he has
a natural tendency to retrogression when
left to himself, and must depend upon
the white man.
Talk to the negro about getting a home
and being independent and your words
are wasted; it is like pouring water upon
a duck's back and expecting the duck to
swim on the ground.
Booker Washington says: "The real
work of the negro in America is just be¬
ginning." This may be true, and it may
220
THE NEGRO:
be as far fetched as the assertion that the
negro has, during the forty years of free¬
dom, made more progress than the Latins
in a thousand years. It is but natural for
Booker not to see the impending shadows
of the negro's future. It is worth a great
deal to him in more ways than as a mere
advertisement of negro progress, while
to us it is cheap and without promise.
Booker Washington has done a great edu¬
cational work for his people, but he has
not succeeded in changing the negro char¬
acter, or in bringing out any power of
development in the race. He has suc¬
ceeded in teaching them: " Seek ye first
education, and all rights will soon be
added unto you in this country." In the
South the negro is certainly seeking an
education, whether the supposed rights
will ever be added or not. From the pres¬
ent indications, I would suppose the time
not far distant when the negro will have
nothing to do but to attend school, and
the white people of the North may find
themselves taxed to support a penniless
and worthless population.
I believe that the colored population
will some day be entirely penniless, be¬
cause ninety per cent, of all property
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 227
owned by the negroes is in the hands of
the ante-bellum negroes, and these old
darkies must soon pass away, leaving this
property to their children, who, having a
smattering of education, have outlived
work, dress finely, and travel over the
country until their property is gone, and
then often bring up in the penitentiary.
The new negro has degenerated from
the type of his fathers to such an extent
that more than nine-tenths of the colored
convicts in the penitentiaries of the South
have grown up since slavery.
Race riots and conflicts are shadows
upon the negro's future which grow
darker with time. Of course, the whites
suffer to a certain extent during these
riots, often two or three white men losing
their lives, while a great many negroes are
killed. The dangerous feature of this
condition is that these riots may result in
so much bloodshed, final solution of the
problem will be reached and few negroes
be left to tell the tale. May this never
occur; but judging from the past and the
present, we have every reason to believe
that it may. With the educated members
of the race exciting by vicious and in¬
cendiary speech, and instructing their
228
THE NEGRO:
brethren to assert their supposed rights,
we can see the shadows very plainly.
The negro has never made much head¬
way in asserting his imaginary rights in
the South; but he never profits by the
example of those gone before, and occa¬
sionally wanders in the land of dreams
far enough to make a slight demonstration
of these " rights." Whatever may come,
I have confidence in the people of my
blood, to believe that they will deal as
justly with the negro in the future as they
have in the past, waiting on God's over¬
rule. If the negro is crushed beneath the
wheels of progress, it will be the work of
his own hands. Paul tells us: "If it be
possible, as much as lieth in you, live
peaceably with all men." In obeying this
teaching, we will also heed the call of duty
to the Anglo-Saxon race or the preserva¬
tion of Anglo-Saxon civilization at any
cost. Those who do not want the negro
to be ruled by the Southern white man can
remedy the evil by taking him unto them¬
selves. " Who art thou that judgeth an¬
other man's servant? To his own master
he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be
holden up; for God is able to make him
stand."—Romans.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 229
CHAPTER XXV
colonization
In the future the self-interests of the
American people may assert themselves,
and the misguided negro may have to read,
written on the walls of iniquity, " Coloni¬
zation of the negro race." Whether this
be right or wrong, it may be a forced
condition, and justice is invariably swal¬
lowed up when power rules; neither does
right always prevail.
Colonization of the black race would be
a repetition of history. England, after
emancipating the negro, found relief
through colonization, but I doubt if the
Americans have the ability of the English
to unload such a burden.
On the 22d of May, 1772, it was pro¬
nounced unlawful to hold a slave in Great
Britain. Many English families pos¬
sessed slaves, and by this decision the ne¬
groes were thrown upon their resources.
Memoirs of Granville Sharpe tell us that
the blacks—" Indigent, unemployed, de¬
spised, forlorn, and vicious—became such
230
THE NEGRO:
a nuisance as to make it necessary that they
should be sent somewhere, and no longer
suffered to infest the streets of London.
The government, anxious to remove what
it regarded as injurious, supplied the
means of their transportation and support.
In April, 1787, these people were put on
shipboard bound for Africa and were
landed in Sierra Leone."
Of course, the number of England's ne¬
groes transported at that time does not
compare with the nine and a half million
in America, but it seems that this nine and
a half million in our country are fast
reaching the condition of those thus trans¬
ported in 1772. In 1833 an English mil¬
itary officer thus wrote: " There is a set¬
tlement of negroes a few miles from Hali¬
fax, Nova Scotia, at Hammond's Plains.
Anyone would have imagined that the
government would have taken warning
from the trouble and expense it incurred
by granting protection to those who emi¬
grated from the States during the Revo¬
lution, 1200 of whom were removed to
Sierra Leone in 1792 by their own re¬
quest. Again, when 600 of the insurgent
negroes—the Maroons of Jamaica—were
transported to Nova Scotia in 1796, and
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 231
received every possible encouragement to
become good subjects, by being granted a
settlement at Preston, and being employed
upon the fortifications of Halifax; yet
they, too, soon become discontented, and,
being unwilling to earn a livelihood by
labor, were in 1800 removed to the same
colony, after costing the island of Ja¬
maica more than $225,000 and a large ad¬
ditional expense to the province, that is,
Nova Scotia. Notwithstanding which,
when the runaway slaves were received on
board the fleet off the Chesapeake during
the late war, permission was granted them
to form a settlement at Hammond's
Plains, where the same system of discon¬
tent arose—many of the settlers profess¬
ing that they preferred their former well-
fed life of slavery, in a more congenial
climate, and, earnestly petitioning to be
removed, were sent to Trinidad in 1821.
Some few of these who remained are good
servants and farmers, disposing of the
produce of their lands in the Halifax mar¬
ket; but the majority are idle, roving, and
dirty vagabonds."
Such was the condition of the free ne¬
groes in the British colonies in 1833, and
such is their condition in the South to-day.
£32
THE NEGRO:
This was England's plan of removing a
people, who were a public burden, to a
place where they could be self-supporting;
but instead of becoming self-supporting
these negroes relapsed into barbarism.
The large plantations of the West
Indian colonists were abandoned, and
misery, ruin, decay, and death soon took
the place on the once flourishing and pro¬
ductive estates. The land grew up to
bushes, and deserted mansions marked the
place of the once prosperous planter of
the West Indies.
I fail to see the wisdom in the idea that
we can accomplish, by the colonization of
the negro race, that which Great Britain
failed to achieve. Colonization of the ne¬
gro means casting him off to wallow in
the mire of his native barbarism.
" The white man's burden " in America
to-day rests entirely upon the Southern
people, but the time may come when the
responsibility will rest with the people of
the North, who may be the first to cry
" enough of the poor, downtrodden ne¬
gro." The increasing migration of the
negroes to the North shows an inclination
of the new generation to change their
abiding places. This may be God's means
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 233
of letting the North see the negro face to
face. It is a fact that the North desires
the negro to stay in the South, and if this
migration to the North continues, it may
occasion a call for colonization. Not that
I think colonization would be right; no,
indeed; it would be unjust, unchristian,
un-American, and a crime, because the
negro, to remain a human being, and to be
subservient to human use, must remain
with the white man.
The greatest barrier to colonization
would be the enormous cost of transpor¬
tation, and the financial features would be
the first consulted, because money rules all
great questions and conditions of this day
and time. This is my reason for thinking
that the final solution of the negro prob¬
lem is not far distant. When the whites
find the negro to be a public burden of
great cost they will soon find a relief from
this burden, and I believe the time is near
when he will become a public burden, re¬
gardless of his supposed progress.
Mr. Jefferson favored colonization, be¬
cause he had an insight of the present day;
he could see that the negro would be free,
and, understanding the negro character,
he did not believe that the two races could
234 THE NEGRO:
live together in peace and harmony with
the negro a free man. Mr. Jefferson con¬
sidered the African inferior in both body
and mind to the white man, and while ex¬
pressing his hostility to slavery, vehe¬
mently he avowed the opinion that it was
impossible for the two races to live equally
free under the same government; that
" Nature, habit, and opinion had drawn
indelible lines of distinction between
them "; that accordingly emancipation and
deportation (colonization) should go
hand in hand; that these processes should
be gradual enough to make proper provi¬
sions for the blacks in a new country, and
fill their places in this with free white
labor.
Mr. Jefferson's belief in colonization of
the black man does not make it right. Of
course, if the negro had been colonized
when emancipated, it would have been a
fine thing for the whites of this Republic,
but a very bad thing for the colored
people. If he had been sent back to
Africa when freed, he would have shared
the fate of Africa to-day. Africa is fast
becoming a white man's country and the
negro will be pushed out, or the white man
will rule over him in his own house.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 235
Charles Francis Adams, after a trip to
Africa, says: " The African will at last
find his place in civilization, whatever that
place may prove to be. In the Soudan and
Nile basin he will not be brought, as in
our Southern States, into industrial con¬
flict with the white man. If he meets with
any competitor, it will be the imported
Asiatic—the Asiatic purposely imported
to do what the African will not do, or can¬
not so well do. The native African of the
Nile basin is now a savage; he herds cattle
and cultivates the soil to a limited extent.
He is distinguished from the brute crea¬
tion only by the fact of articulate speech,
the use of tools and weapons of the most
primitive kind, and a knowledge of the
properties of fire. In such matters as
clothes, food, or sanitation he is in no es¬
sential respects better than various kinds
of animals. A savage, he admits, like
nearly all known negro savages, of an imi¬
tative domestication. Thus, in Africa, the
simple question is as to how far he can
be developed by external influences, and
under altered conditions; for as yet he has
evinced no self-elevating capacity.
" If Africa proper is now to be devel¬
oped, and if the laboring white man will
236 THE NEGRO:
not, because he cannot, make a home in it
or in large portions of it, the field is open
to the native. Can he occupy that field,
and fill it, or must he, free from forced,
regulated labor, languish and die out, like
the American aboriginal, and the Aus¬
tralian? A large question; it is as inter¬
esting as its answer is obscure, as yet!
Fortunately, its solution is in the best of
hands, those of the British. Asiatic ex¬
perience thus throws light on the African
problem; and again, the problem working
out in Africa is full of suggestions as
respects America. One thing seems clear:
without being reduced to servitude, the
inferior race must be recognized as such,
and, in some way, so dealt with. Facts
are facts, and only confusion results when
things essentially not equal are dealt with
on the basis of natural equality.
" The world has now for some time been
pondering the African problem—ponder¬
ing it in America as well as in the place of
its origin—it has been laying up a store
of experiences bearing upon it—experi¬
ences stretching through at least 2000
years. The discovery of the Nile source
was delayed to our time; in its turn that
discovery now bids fair to involve the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 237
future of the negro. The wild animals of
Africa are to go; will the negro go with
them? The alternative is domestication.
That he will not go with the wild animals,
our experience shows. That he is imita¬
tive has been proven. That he can ever
become or be made self-elevating in the
mass remains to be shown."
From what Mr. Adams says of condi¬
tions in Africa, we have no foundation on
which to base colonization of the Ameri¬
can negro in Africa, but it is possible to
send them to the Philippines if they be¬
come too great a nuisance in America. It
may be that the government bought those
islands for a home for the negro at some
future day. While I believe colonization
of the negro race would be one of the
greatest events that could come to the
white people, I do not believe it will ever
come to pass, because the final solution of
the problem will be right, and colonization
would be wrong. The negro has been
forced to serve two masters, and has failed.
The Master said: "No servant can serve
two masters; for either he will hate the
one and love the other, or else he will hold
to the one, and despise the other." Such
has been the case with the negro, and I
238
THE NEGRO:
think the time is at hand when the North
must turn the negroes over entirely to the
South, or the South must turn them over
entirely to the North, because they have
been the " bone of contention" long
enough. Paul says: "Let us therefore
follow after the things which make for
peace, and things wherewith one may
edify another."
I believe this condition can be reached
without colonization, because the negro
can be made to understand the course he
is to pursue, and if let alone will very
willingly follow this course. Another
trouble is, he has been given too many in¬
structions which he has no capacity to fol¬
low; therefore he lives in a confused con¬
dition for which he is not responsible. In
the final adjustment of this problem the
great Ruler of the Universe will take a
hand, and the negro will find his proper
place in America, whether it meets our
views or not. Rev. Washington Gladden,
of Ohio, discussed the negro problem and
in part said: " The problem as it con¬
fronts us involves the principles on which
our nation is founded. It is well stated
in the words of Carl Schurz: ' There will
be a movement, either in the direction of
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 239
reducing the negroes to a permanent con¬
dition of servitude, the condition of the
mere plantation hand alongside the mule,
practically without any rights of citizen¬
ship; or a movement in the direction of
recognizing him as a citizen in the full
sense of the term.' Such a movement as
that described in the first alternative is
now in full progress. In the South the
conditions are rapidly becoming more un¬
favorable to the negro. The manifestos
of Governor Vardaman, which some time
will be indorsed by the people of the State,
and the recent campaign in Georgia, in
which the candidate who most unequivo¬
cally favored the repression of the negro
was overwhelmingly elected, show the
drift of opinion in that section. ' To keep
four million in slavery who were born and
reared in that condition was one thing;
to reduce nine million to serfdom after
they have been fifty years free is quite an¬
other thing.' Senator Tillman's predic¬
tion, that race struggles of a bitter nature
are likely to be frequent and continuous
in the future, is not without probability.
I can see no other outcome of a strife of
this nature but the segregation of the
races.
240
THE NEGRO:
" A portion of the Southern domain
would have to be set apart for the blacks;
we should probably have three or four
States of which the population would be
wholly composed of negroes, governing
themselves and represented in Congress at
Washington." (Yes, they would soon
govern themselves in the way that they
have in Africa for thousands of years.)
"The blacks would suffer by being
thrown on their own resources in their
poverty. It would take them several gen¬
erations to work out the problem of civil¬
ization. To the whites, the property in
which they are now rejoicing would suffer
a severe, perhaps a deadly, blow. It is
idiotic to talk of deporting the negroes to
some other country; they are here, and
here to stay, and their home will be in the
southern portion of the United States."
It seems to me that the talk of deport¬
ing the negroes is not as idiotic as talk of
setting apart three or four Southern
States for them. These States may in the
future be set apart for the negroes, but I
think not until the last white man, woman,
and child sleep beneath the soil of the said
States, leaving the Southern mocking-bird
to sing the dirge of a conquered people.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 241
Then, and not until then, will the accursed
posterity of Ham occupy three or four
Southern States. It is a Christian duty
to give the negro a home without blood¬
shed if possible. Why not set apart three
or four Northern States? The South has
furnished him a home through the cen¬
turies that have gone, and when it becomes
necessary for him to change abode, the
North should give him a home.
The negro is about as much of a citizen
now as he will ever be, in the South or
elsewhere, and these bitter race struggles
will continue so long as the negro contin¬
ues to be a brute. " The movement to re¬
duce the negro to the condition of a mere
plantation hand alongside the mule," is a
mistake; we are trying to get a better class
of labor to take his place on the planta¬
tion, not because he has risen above this
position, but that he has become a worth¬
less laborer, and we desire a higher class.
If he will not work, we have no further
use for him, for we wish no negro orna¬
ments in the developing of the South.
This scheme of Dr. Gladden's may be
brought about, but it is unreasonable to
suppose that the whites of these Southern
States will quietly give up their homes to
249
THE NEGRO:
the negro race. Can it be expected that
the interests of the majority should be
made to yield to the servile minority of our
population?
I think that the negro will continue to
hold a home in the South by laboring for
the Southern white man, but under no
other circumstances will he remain here.
If colonization for the black man comes,
it will be deportation; he will never be
colonized in America, for this country be¬
longs to the progressive and aggressive
Anglo-Saxon. Colonization of the negro
anywhere would be a repetition of the
conditions which prevailed in the British
Colonies of the West Indies—he would
soon relapse to barbarism, regardless of
opportunities or advantages.
A missionary wrote in the year 1855
from the island of Jamaica: "From the
number of churches and chapels in the
island, Jamaica ought certainly to be
called a Christian land. The people may
be called a church-going people. There
are chapels and places of worship enough,
at least in this part of the island, to supply
the people if every station of our mission
were given up, and there is not lack of
ministers and preachers. As far as I am
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 24>3
acquainted, almost the entire adult popu¬
lation profess to have a hope of eternal
life, and I think the larger part are con¬
nected with churches. In view of such
facts some have been led to say, ' The
spiritual condition of the population is
very satisfactory.' But there is another
class of facts that is perfectly astounding.
With all the array of the externals of re¬
ligion, one broad, deep wave of moral
death rolls over the land. A man may be a
drunkard, a liar, a Sabbath-breaker, a pro¬
fane man, a fornicator, an adulterer, and
such like—and be known to be such—and
go to the chapel, and hold up his head
there, and feel no disgrace from these
things, because they are so common as to
create a public sentiment in his favor. He
may go to the communion table, and
cherish a hope of Heaven, and not have his
hope disturbed. I might tell of persons
guilty of some, if not all, of these things
ministering in holy things."
The spiritual condition of the negro in
the island of Jamaica in 1855 is repro¬
duced in the Afro-American of to-day, in
the very midst of Anglo-Saxon civiliza¬
tion. The negro has no standard of
morals, therefore he suffers no disgrace.
244
THE NEGRO:
If this is his condition, surrounded by the
white man's civilization, what would it be
when far removed from this civilization?
Mr. Adams says: " So far as self-govern¬
ment is concerned, he who has faith in the
African certainly has the courage of his
convictions. Left to himself, the tend¬
ency of the negro, whether in Uganda or
in San Domingo, is distinctly to deteri¬
oration—he will insensibly but assuredly
relapse into his normal African condi¬
tion." Knowing these facts, we can never
conscientiously indorse colonization of the
negro race.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE M5
CHAPTER XXVI
repeal of the fifteenth amendment
Will this amendment, which was
founded upon sand, give way before a
higher civilization and a broader sweep of
intelligence, or will it remain with the nar¬
row politician of a dark age? Not that I
think the Fifteenth Amendment will ever
have any real effect upon the politics of
the South, for the statute of limitation
seems to have killed it; yet it serves to keep
up a strife which may end in a bloody race
war. I mean by the statute of limitation
that it has taken the negro so long to ac¬
quire a little education to qualify him to
vote, that his vote has passed from him,
never to return. You can give the negro
all the education that his clouded brain can
stand, but his voice will never he heard in
the legislative halls of the Southern States.
I believe the governing of this country
belongs to the white man as a special priv¬
ilege conferred upon him by a wise Provi¬
dence, and that the Southern white man is
246
THE NEGRO:
as much a party to this privilege as the
Northern white man. Hence we take ad¬
vantage of this right. We have confidence
enough in the brains of the South to think
that the people will continue to find a
means for controlling the negro vote with¬
out coming in direct conflict with the Fif¬
teenth Amendment. But the duty of the
white man to the black man is to prevent
bloodshed, if possible, for in every race
riot it is chiefly negro blood that is shed,
and the negro is the greater sufferer in
the assertion of his supposed rights.
He is at present attending school with
the idea that the Fifteenth Ajnendment
will some day bring great things to him;
herein lies the trouble. Not that I think
the amendment will shortly be repealed,
but that it will cause more trouble and
bloodshed in the future than at any previ¬
ous time in our history, and the time may
come when there will be few negroes left
to enjoy the great privileges conferred by
it. May this never become a reality, how¬
ever possible it may be. The Anglo-
Saxon is the same the world over; his aim
is to rule or annihilate, and it being con¬
ceded that the purest Anglo-Saxon blood
in America flows in the veins of the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 247
Southern people, it is unreasonable to sup¬
pose that they will consent to be ruled by
the negro.
Judging from the past, we can see a
real foundation for the prophecy of Sen¬
ator Tillman concerning the race prob¬
lem, but we live in the hope that his
prophecy will never be fulfilled. The
Fifteenth Amendment serves to keep the
negro in politics and in the limelight of
public life, in the South, while it keeps
the North in the Republican column. It
seems that the real result of this amend¬
ment in the South is antagonism and
alienation of the two races, and an act
productive of such results will never bring
good to either race.
Our hope lies in the words of the
Saviour of the world: "A kingdom di¬
vided against itself cannot stand," and
" A bruised reed shall he not break, and
smoking flax shall he not quench, till he
send forth judgment unto victory." The
South may, some day, be given the vic¬
tory over this amendment, because it was
conceived in sin and brought forth in
iniquity. This iniquitous measure is the
basis on which rests the farce of political
and social equality, the basis of race riots
248 THE NEGRO:
and conflicts, the unrest and viciousness
of the negro, and the final adjustment of
the race question.
With this amendment repealed, the two
races would live in peace and harmony;
the two political parties would drop the
negro, and cease to talk of negro " domi¬
nation " and " white supremacy." If the
negro should be dropped from politics, he
would soon return to work for his living,
because he would then understand that
politics held no livelihood for him. Since
emancipation he has been promised great
things in politics, and while he never re¬
ceived his " forty acres and a mule," he has
lived in the hope of receiving greater
things. The Federal government very
often gives him a little " Jim Crow " post-
office in the South as a reward for his
faithfulness to the cause.
Repeal the Fifteenth Amendment, and
the school will lose its charm for the negro,
as it is the incentive for every lesson
learned in the schoolroom; it is the hope
of his future and the guardian angel of his
life; it is the basis on which his religion
stands. We have this fact demonstrated
by the negro preachers who condemned
Mr. Roosevelt in the Brownsville affair;
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 249
the great multitude of colored ministers,
North, South, East, and West, showed
very plainly that the Fifteenth Amend¬
ment contained the greater part of their
religion.
I suppose one reason why the North
makes no effort to repeal the amendment
is that they have no desire to rob the negro
of his religion. Some of the wrathy col¬
ored ministry threatened to leave the Re¬
publican party and join the Democrats;
this would not be a wise move, because I
do not believe the Democrats would want
them in a white man's party, and the Dem¬
ocratic party would have to change its
doctrine of " equal rights to all and special
privileges to none." If every negro in
America should turn Democratic, I would
still believe in the repeal of the Fifteenth
Amendment, because I think there is no
place in the government of this country
for the negro, whether a Democrat or a
Republican. If the Republican party
continues to cling to the negro and uphold
corruption in politics, it must some day
hand over the reins of government to the
Democrats, and by this means will come
the repeal of the negro amendment.
We have at present a great many
250
THE NEGRO:
Northern Republicans who are coming
South to live, and the great majority, after
living here a while, vote the Democratic
ticket—for they refuse to vote with the
negro. The talk that the repeal of this
amendment would place the negro back in
slavery is all very foolish; he would still
occupy his normal servile position in the
South, and would fill his place in a more
happy and contented way. The negroes,
when made to understand that no great
future awaits them, are very humble,
harmless, and happy.
Take the negro out of politics and he
will perform his duty as a factor in the
Republic; leave him in politics and he will
become a public burden of criminal and
degenerate humanity, and must finally
succumb to the inevitable. Repeal of the
amendment would be a repeal of negro
secret societies in which are planned mur¬
der and assaults of the whites; this is the
route which the negro travels to his sup¬
posed rights. In these societies he learns
of the political leaders that the negro's
rights have depreciated in the South, and
that he must rise and assert his power in
defense of said rights.
He will never recognize his duty to
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 251
earn his livelihood until his political pros¬
pects are dead. The repeal of the amend¬
ment would have a decided tendency to
disband the great army of negro idlers
who flock to the city to attend school; it
would forever set at rest the hallucination,
" Seek ye first education, and all rights
will be added unto you."
Governor Jelks of Alabama, in address¬
ing a throng of negro farmers and busi¬
ness men, told the negroes that the races
were living under conditions now that
could not last. He said: " It would he
much better to boast less of cutting down
illiteracy, and more of cutting the number
of those who violate the law. Less reading
and more honesty would be a good slogan.
Any country is better off with a maximum
of illiterates and honest men than a maxi¬
mum of literates and dishonest people."
The Governor then urged that the negroes
look well to their preachers. " See that
they have clean hands and that they preach
the lake of fire and brimstone to the
thief." He pointed out that it is the thief
and loafer that keep the people irritated
and cause the feeling out of which grow
such events as the Atlanta riot.
Governor Vardaman, in appealing to
252
THE NEGRO:
the people of the North to join the South
in an effort to change the Constitution of
the United States, so that this race ques¬
tion can he properly treated by the law¬
making bodies of the different States,
said: " If that is not done, if the Fifteenth
Amendment shall not be repealed, the
friction existing between the races now
will increase as the years go by. As the
disposition which the older negro inherited
from his ancestors to submit to the white
domination shall be eliminated by educa¬
tion, the negro will insist upon political
equality; following that, of course, social
equality. The white man will not consent
to that, and if necessary to prevent it, the
whole negro race will be exterminated in
order to preserve the integrity of the white
race.
" It is one of the distinctive characteris¬
tics of the Anglo-Saxon that he has re¬
fused to amalgamate with an inferior, and
that fact accounts for the strength and
virility of the race. To that fact we are
indebted for the civilization of the twenti¬
eth century, for the literature of the
English-speaking people, for the marvel¬
ous discoveries in science, and inventions
in mechanics. It may be a cruel process,
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 253
but it is a fact, and I dare say there is no
self-respecting white man with a spark of
race pride in his make-up who would have
it otherwise, even though it resulted in the
extermination of every inferior race on
the globe.
" You cannot solve this problem along
humanitarian lines, but it must be upon
rigid scientific principles. The sooner that
fact is recognized the better for both
races."
While Governor Yardaman has a solid
foundation of facts on which to base his
ideas regarding the intention of the new
generation of the negro race, I refuse to
believe that the race will be allowed to
reach the point of extermination, or that
the Southern white man will ever lose his
ability to rule the negro, whether educated
or not; of course we have every reason to
believe that the task will, in the future, be
more complicated and more difficult to
handle, but I believe the South will be
equal to the emergency, and when the
smoke of battle has cleared away, the
Southern white man will stand monarch of
all he surveys.
If the Fifteenth Amendment is ever re¬
pealed, it must come about through the
254
THE NEGRO:
efforts of the brainy men of the North and
South; those who are too broad-minded
for sectional hate or narrow and corrupt
politics to influence. It does not require
a person of great mind to see that the
repeal of the amendment would he a broad
stride toward a solution of the problem;
it would eliminate the negro from politics,
and politics is the cause of all the race
troubles in the South. The negro question
was created by politicians, and the future
will grow darker and darker with the ne¬
gro a politician. We hope that he may
some day be dropped without being elimi¬
nated in blood.
The South did not derive its authority
to govern the negro from the Federal gov¬
ernment, but from the natural law enacted
by the Great Jehovah, and this natural
law, which no human laws or governmental
changes can ever obliterate, will stand
throughout time, even if the Fifteenth
Amendment remains upon the statute
book until the end of time. The history of
the last forty years has demonstrated this
fact, and it is deeply rooted in the nature
of man and the exigencies of human so¬
ciety. Can a section of the Republic
eradicate the apparently inevitable evils
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 255
of our nature by equalizing the condition
of all mankind, consummating the perfec¬
tions of the Southern whites, and thereby
bringing the millennium? I think not!
These evils will be eradicated and the mil¬
lennium brought only at the second com¬
ing of the Master.
256 THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER XXVII
immigration a solution of the
problem
The negro problem is as much talked
of and written about now as in the years
preceding the Civil War. No agitated
question can remain unsettled, and the
South is seeking a solution of this gigantic
problem through immigration. Whether
the movement be wise or not, we have been
brought face to face with its necessity.
Adverse circumstances have changed the
condition of labor to such an extent that
immigration has become a necessity, and
this question bids fair to control the future
of the negro.
John Sharp Williams says on this sub¬
ject: "Negroes are going out and white
men coming in, but we can, by wise indi¬
vidual and State action, accelerate it by
bringing into the South desirable white
immigrants, thus subjecting the darky to
an industrial competition which will re¬
quire him to become either a more
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 257
effectual laborer than he now is, especially
upon the farm, or else to leave the field
and go elsewhere to some sort of unskilled
work requiring heavy muscular exertion
under the supervising intelligence of the
white man.
"Booker Washington said the test for
his race would be whether it should re¬
main or not remain the laboring element
of the South. I say that this test has al¬
ready been applied in the minds of all in¬
telligent men; that the darky as a laborer,
on farm and in factory, has been weighed
in the balance and found wanting. He
realizes it himself, and is seeking the cities,
where he fails to reproduce his race, from
one generation to another. The net birth
rate in the cities is not equal to the death
rate among the negroes. God's laws of
evolution, the survival of the fittest and
the extinction of the unfit, are in opera¬
tion. The birth rate of the negro is de¬
creasing very materially, as every observ¬
ant Southerner will tell you.
" I was told not long ago by a large
planter in Sunflower County that upon
plantations with the same number of
women, where there used to be nineteen or
twenty little pickaninnies running around,
258
THE NEGRO:
there are now only eight or nine or ten.
This has come about very largely from the
fact that the negro women are very poor
mothers, careless and unintelligent. Un¬
der the regime of slavery they had to be
good mothers—they were, in the interests
of their masters, forced to be—and those
who acquired their habits then continued
to be reasonably good mothers after eman¬
cipation. Nearly all the old slavery-reared
mothers have died, however, and the new
generation has been left to its natural in¬
stincts, without any control by the white
race. The death rate of children under
five years of age has increased fearfully
among the negroes in contrast with what
it was in slavery times. The general death
rate among them in the cities is about
double that of the white race. Whisky,
cocaine, and venereal diseases are doing
their deadly work.
" Consumption was so rare among the
slaves before the war that negroes in most
parts of the South were considered im¬
mune. Their strength and lives are being
ravaged by it now. Whether we want to
or not, we must of necessity seek some
class of laborers to do the work in the
South that the negro has hitherto per-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 259
formed. The net increase of the negro
from generation to generation can no
longer keep up with the demands of the
world for cotton and other products of
the South, from farm, mine, and factory.
On the other hand, the natural increase of
the white race of the South, especially in
the uplands of the Cotton States, is larger
than that of any other population in the
world. Thus we see the working out of
the natural law of the ' survival of the
fittest.'
" The process, however, is too slow. We
must help it on, and the right way to do
this is to use strenuous efforts in all the
Southern States to bring in as ' workers
in the Lord's vineyard' men of the pure
white race, desirable types of the race,
and men of desirable individual character.
My ideas may be plebeian, but they are
practical. Some of the remedies I suggest
for public evils may seem to others insig¬
nificant. Whether so or not, however, I
hazard the opinion that if in a few cities
thirty or forty families were to unite and
bring in white women and girls for cooks
and house servants, the effect upon the
darkies would be almost immediate and
would he more far-reaching than at first
260
THE NEGRO:
would be thought possible. It would go
far toward doing away with a great many
of the negro vagrants upon the streets,
who live upon the earnings of the negro
washerwomen, cooks, and house girls,
while they smoke cigarettes and try to
straighten out the kinks in their hair."
These are wise suggestions of Mr.
Williams and should be brought to ac¬
count. While I believe this immigration
movement to be one of the greatest and
strongest features in the solution of the
negro problem, I think we should move
slowly in this direction, pursue this course
only after deep thought and cautiously,
imploring the leadership of the Ruler of
the Universe, for with God's leadership we
cannot fail. Immigration, assisted by the
school and the high death rate, may be the
means by which the end will be reached.
There is no doubt that the school
is the cause for the migration of the negro
to the cities. After attending school a
little while, he becomes an idler and a
slum-dweller, thereby causing the high
death rate and a full criminal calendar.
According to the records of history, the
negro as a free man has always arrived at
the same condition—a race of idlers, living
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 261
in the midst of filth, by stealing or other
nefarious means. The laws of nature are
now sternly working in the South, and it
seems that these laws are bringing the ne¬
gro to the same condition which as a free
man he has occupied through all ages. If
he will not work from rational motives, he
must give way to the laws of political
economy and the necessities of the world.
Governor Hayward, of South Carolina,
at the Immigration Conference in Nash¬
ville, said that immigration would yet
solve the negro problem. There has been
too much theorizing; it is time for action.
He said: " Any solution of our race prob¬
lem in the South lies as much with the
negro as with the white man, but one of
the greatest barriers to any advancement
of the negro is his natural indolence.
This explains his failure to use his oppor¬
tunities, and in this he alone is responsible
for the disastrous results which follow.
An innate sense of irresponsibility lies at
the bottom of the negro's lack of respect
for the law, this lack of respect being in
contradistinction to a certain fear of the
law's penalties which he may sometimes
feel.
" If there were neither murder, arson,
THE NEGRO:
nor criminal assaults, it can be safely said
there would be no lynchings. These crimes
do not receive anything like their just
measure of condemnation from the negro
race. The white man must help the negro,
but it is absolutely necessary that the ne¬
gro help himself. The white race is the
predominant race, and the negro must un¬
derstand once and for all that the bounds
of social and political questions will be de¬
termined by the white man alone, and by
the white man's code. The black man has
a right to expect that his civil status should
be the same in every respect as that of the
white man.
"A proper understanding of these fun¬
damental principles by the negro—and
there is no reason why he should not un¬
derstand—would be a long step in the
right direction. If he refuses to adjust
himself to these inflexible conditions, then
the negro will have to go. The first step
we should take is a strict enforcement of
our vagrancy laws. It is the duty of the
white man to uphold his own laws; when a
mob for any reason whatever takes the
law into its own hands, a blow is struck at
the very root of our own civilization. The
mob spirit is ruled entirely by a desire for
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 263
revenge and a total disregard for all the
forms of established law. This being true,
the very basis of all law is endangered."
At the same Immigration Conference
the question was discussed by Col. Robert
Gates, Special Industrial and Immigra¬
tion Agent of the Louisville and NTashville
Railroad for Tennessee. He said in part:
" White immigrants in reasonable num¬
bers, together with race loyalty, will meas¬
urably remove from the South or mini¬
mize the perils that threaten. The South
needs more labor, but it should have desir¬
able labor or none. Mistakes on this line
would be fatal. It wants immigrants,
but it wants the best or none. The emer¬
gency is great, it is true, for field, shop,
and mine are crying for labor to develop
wealth that only waits an effort. And yet
we must be cautious even if we have to
move slowly. We should remember that
of the shadows on our land to-day, the
chief peril is the result of a policy our an¬
cestors pursued to meet labor emergencies
then existing—African slavery.
" The lesson of this lawful blunder must
not be lost on this or succeeding genera¬
tions. To profit by the experience of oth¬
ers, by the lessons of the past, is the high-
264 THE NEGRO:
est wisdom, and in doing this we do not
reflect on our ancestors in any proper
sense, but simply profit by their mistakes,
as our posterity, let us hope, will profit
by ours. I repeat, we want immigrants
for two reasons: first, to meet the labor
necessity, and second, in order to insure
the best solution of the race problem on
the lines of least friction and peril. But
we want white immigrants only, and a
class or race of whites that will not equal¬
ize or fuse with the negroes and thus in¬
crease the peril of mongrelism. In my
judgment, the most desirable immigrants
are to be had in the North and Northwest.
Experience is demonstrating this to be
true. These people come to us American¬
ized, and readily assimilate with our native
population, benefiting and being bene¬
fited.
" Not that I oppose foreign immigra¬
tion. That is more or less desirable, and
for the most part they make good citizens,
provided they are pure white. But it
would be as wise to undertake to assimilate
fire and water as to Americanize any of
the dark races. And I would draw the
line on both yellow and mongrel types, for
they are built on different lines, as their
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 265
civilization, or lack of it, demonstrates;
besides, we have a sufficiently serious race
problem on hand without complicating
it with other alien races. White people—
small farmers, day laborers, domestic
servants, skilled mechanics—we need, and
they are available in the North and in
Europe. . . . Immigrants properly
selected, directed, and placed in numbers
sufficient for social life among themselves,
but not large enough to preserve objec¬
tionable foreign habits and ideas, will in
season be assimilated and merged into the
body of citizenry. And more: they will
help to maintain the white man's rule,
which is essential to prosperity.
" They will contribute to the solution of
the race problem on the more peaceful
lines of adjustment and survival. More
white people in the South means less fric¬
tion. The negro, not being too independ¬
ent, will become more industrious and re¬
liable. Let me say here that I would not
wrong the negro—but would save him
from himself. For the old-time negro
and his kind I have respect, sympathy, and
tenderness. For the modern product, per¬
verted and insolent, with honorable excep¬
tions, I have only pity or contempt."
266
THE NEGRO:
Generally speaking, Colonel Gates
echoes the sentiment of the South in re¬
gard to the modern negro. This is one of
the dangerous features of the problem.
The immigration bill recently passed by
Congress has the appearance of a direct
blow at the Southern immigration move¬
ment. Cut off foreign white immigration
from the South, and you cut off the hope
of a peaceful solution of the negro prob¬
lem.
Immigration is no doubt the main hope
for a peaceful adjustment of conditions,
for if we cannot get the necessary labor
through immigration, more strenuous
methods will be adopted to make the negro
work; he will be forced to work or move
out. We entertain the hope that this im¬
migration movement will not be crippled
permanently; if so, more complicated con¬
ditions stare us in the face. Time has
proved the negro to be an unalterable
type of the human race, who must be
controlled and elevated by the law of
force; if not, he comes to naught. Time
has also proved his inalienable condition to
be that of servitude. In all countries,
where the free and naturally idle negro is
found, the lessons of history and the in-
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 267
fallible records of experience record him
as a social and moral curse.
The South bears record of this condi¬
tion to-day. Immigration seems to be the
only remedy in sight; if foiled in this
movement, we must wait for future de¬
velopments, which may bring a better and
wiser plan of relief. While immigration
seems to be the right way out of present
difficulties, it may be all wrong. One
thing is certain, however: cotton must be
produced, and the future will bring the
producer, whether he be white or black.
268
THE NEGRO:
CHAPTER XXVIII
some dayj some time
For the future we can only surmise and
wait " till the mists have cleared away,"
but from the present and past condition
of the negro some deductions seem certain.
The North does not want the negro, be¬
cause he forms a useless part of her popu¬
lation. At the discovery of this fact they
sold their slaves to the Southern planters
—thereby relieving themselves of the
white man's burden of the future; but in
casting this burden upon the people of the
South they did not relieve themselves of
the responsibilities of the present and
future.
When the negro was brought to this
country in slavery, the North and South
were equal partners in the business, the
firm bearing the name of " White Ameri¬
can Brothers," but the South made the
profit, and bought the North out, and then
the North discovered that she had been a
partner in a shady business concern, of
which she must relieve her Southern
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 269
brother, if possible. But it seems that the
North failed to discover the right plan of
relief, and only made matters worse for
the Southern people, the people of their
own race and blood. We have long since
forgiven our erring Northern brother
without the asking, and have learned that
it is very natural for some families to be¬
come estranged over property, as it is also
natural for a few members of the same
family to desire the whole estate. The
title to this property was settled at Appo¬
mattox, but the family estrangement has
continued, to a certain extent, through
the years that followed.
I think the main cause for the long sur¬
vival of this estrangement has been that
the South had the idea that the North
loved the negro the best, and she never
liked partiality—therefore we have never
really become a reunited family. Some
day there will be a family reunion, with
a start in business again, and then the ne¬
gro problem will be settled, by the part¬
nership of the North and South. This
partnership will contain no dollars and
cents, no envy or malice, and no sectional
hate, but will represent a reunited broth¬
erhood of white Americans, who will set-
270 THE NEGRO:
tie the negro question for the welfare of
the nation.
We have every reason to believe this time
is not far away. When the two sections
reach that day, and that point of view, the
North will say to the South: "You can
have control of the Southern negro popu¬
lation of the Republic, for they are better
suited to the climate of the South, and the
rule of the Southern white man. We have
at last learned that the negro must he
controlled by somebody, and you are wel¬
come to the job, as he belongs in your line
of business, that of agriculture in the
Southland." Paul says: "Now there are
diversities of gifts, but the same spirit.
And there are differences of administra¬
tions, but the same Lord. And there are
diversities of operations, but it is the same
God which worketh all in all. For by one
Spirit are we all baptized into one body,
whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether
we be bond or free, and have been all made
to drink into one Spirit."
This Spirit that Paul tells us about must
be the controlling feature in the final solu¬
tion of this perplexing problem. Locke
says: " What was thought obscure, per¬
plexed, and too hard for our weak parts,
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 271
will lie open to the understanding in a fair
view." All that we require of our North¬
ern brethren is to take a fair view of con¬
ditions in the South; with this the North
will come to know the negro as he is known
here, and the two sections will reach an
understanding of the homogeneous prin¬
ciples of the Anglo-Saxon, North and
South.
Charles Francis Adams says: " The
fundamental and everlasting principles
enunciated in the Declaration may suffer,
and even have to be subjected to revision,
and limitation, but none the less facts are
facts, and for his own good, and ultimate
possible development, the African has got
to be ' restrained.' But how? In this re¬
spect the Soudan is to-day a most sug¬
gestive field for study. Until subject to
British domination, the Soudan, and
Uganda also, were internal hells and ex¬
ternal nuisances. And as they then were
time out of mind they have been. One has
but to read Baker's account of the condi¬
tions which prevailed in that region an¬
terior to 1890 to appreciate the utter fal¬
lacy of the theoretical rights-of-man and
philanthropical African-and-brother doc¬
trines. In plain vernacular English they
272
THE NEGRO:
are all ' rot/ rot which I myself have in¬
dulged in to a certain extent and in face
of observable facts which would not down,
have had to outgrow. On the other hand,
the domination of the inferior and sta¬
tionary race by the superior for the mere
material and selfish benefit of the latter—
as illustrated in the whole former experi¬
ence of mankind, Greek, Roman, Rus¬
sian, British, and American—is not a
change for the better.
"It is one long, loud lamentation, and
an ancient tale of wrong. British rule in
Egypt marks, at least, not improbably the
beginning of a new era: but of possibly
incalculable importance to the world, it is
not likely at once to displace and replace
the traditional abominations. Frankly
accepted to its full extent, and subject to
its necessary limitations, it might, the ob¬
server is now inclined to think, offer a
solution of our much-talked-of American
inferior race, dependency, and modern¬
ized Monroe-doctrine problems."
We cannot say whether the Monroe
doctrine, or the doctrine of the Bible, that
God created the posterity of Ham serv¬
ants of his other brethren, will be ac¬
cepted in the solution of the race problem.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 273
When the Northern people investigate
and understand the negro problem as it
affects the nation, then will they come to
regard the negro as he really is, and the
North and South will stand together on
this question. In the march of time the
North will discover her mistakes regard¬
ing these people, just as Charles Francis
Adams, of Boston, discovered his mistakes
on the question.
I thank God for Mr. Adams. The
talk about the South solving this problem
alone is foolish—she cannot, because its
scope is national, but so long as the Fed¬
eral government makes use of the negro to
hamper the South, just so long will the
negro problem remain unsettled. So long
as the nation equalizes Afro-American
and white citizenship, so long will the
question remain tangled. The negro prob¬
lem must be solved upon a national basis,
and not by political bias or division. Some
contend that the negro problem must be
solved by the white man and black man,
but I think not, because the negro has er¬
roneous ideas regarding the future of the
race—he thinks his race important, great,
and superior to the white race, with a
great future—therefore it is useless to
274
THE NEGRO:
think of consulting such a race, because
they are not capable of understanding or
seeing what is best for them. They have
never been consulted on the question, and
never will be.
The solution of the problem will be
forced upon the negro, and he will become
satisfied. The final solution must come
as a national question settled according to
ethnological laws. The laws of God and
of nations do not apply to all nations
alike, but vary with the conditions and
character of the people, and the law that
is just and right with regard to the negro
is eminently unjust toward the Anglo-
Saxon. The human races are not alike,
therefore one code of international law
does not apply to the whole, and the in¬
ferior races must be treated according to
the laws of God and man. When the said
laws find national recognition, the two
races will live together in peace and har¬
mony in the South. The negro's future
does not rest with him, but depends upon
the enforcement of the laws applicable to
the races. He must be forced to pay his
debt to civilization and progress; if not,
he must pass out by the same route as that
traveled by the American Indian.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 275
The negro being a descendant of Ham,
can be made subservient to human use, for
his manifest destiny is that of a servant,
and the ordinance of God requires that he
should be placed in a subordinate position
to a superior race. This being the case,
the negro will not pass as the Indian did.
According to Holy Writ, the Indian and
negro have very different destinies; it is
claimed that the Indian is a descendant
of Esau, and his manifest destiny seems to
prove his descent beyond a doubt. If it
is true that the Indian is a descendant of
Esau, then the two races were created to
travel life's journey in different direc¬
tions, under different administrations,
with entirely different racial endow¬
ments. Therefore the Indian and negro
were destined to exist under a different
ordinance of God. The negro will remain
in this country, and be made to perform
his duty to civilization and the human race,
while the Indian will some day belong
entirely to history.
One very bright hope of the future is
contained in the fact that the evidence in
the case of the negro is developing very
fast. It seems that the divine hand is
holding out public manifestations of the
276
THE NEGRO:
negro race. Jesus said: " There is noth¬
ing hid which shall not be manifested."
The negro has been hid to the people of
the North through the years that have
passed ; but I believe that the hiding time
is past, for we have in public view some
large-brained Northern men whose vision
has been cleared in regard to the negro.
Upon this fact lies our hope of the future,
because the South can never do anything
with the negro so long as the North med¬
dles with him, causing him to believe that
he will some day be a great man. Living
in this hope, he is dissatisfied and vicious.
He thinks the Federal government will
stand by him in his meanness and crime,
and he has very good reason for thinking
so. So long as he is allowed to live under
this impression, just so long will his life
be base and his future dark in the South.
We can never really lay claim to being
one of the greatest governments on earth
while the negro holds position in the dif¬
ferent departments of the government.
This is a disgrace to white intelligence and
the claim of an honest government.
The United States government was
founded upon intelligence, virtue, and
natural distinction, and it must stand upon
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 277
these principles or it will suffer the dis¬
grace which comes from government po¬
sitions being filled by negroes. Negro
character is something that will not down;
you can hide it from view for a while, but
it will appear in its true colors sooner or
later. He has no more right to fill a posi¬
tion in the departments of the government
than he has the right to be President of
the United States. No man, or class of
men, can have a natural right to exercise
a power which if intrusted to them is
willed for harm and not for good. This
great fundamental truth has been thor¬
oughly tested in regard to the negro.
He belongs to a race without promise,
so far as worldly prestige, achievements
and power are concerned. Time has
proved the authenticity of the Bible in
regard to these people, and why should
we longer try to lift him up above his
calling? Since the beginning of time
God has enlarged Japheth; he dwells in
the tents of Shem, and the negro is his
servant. Place him in a high position,
and he will one day find his level. At
no time, in no place or country, has the
negro accomplished anything without the
aid and rule of the white man.
278 THE NEGRO:
Dishonesty dominates their nature; the
educated not differing from his unedu¬
cated brother, and being of inferior char¬
acter and looser moral principle, they
readily form the material for demagogues
to work upon. So long as the negro re¬
mains in politics and forms the material
for the political demagogue to work with,
just so long will he be a menace to civili¬
zation. The negro race being naturally
inferior in mind and character, does not
imply that they are less entitled to the
rights of humanity. While the rights of
the two races are equally human, they
are appointed to different positions in
life.
In the years to come the North will rec¬
ognize the inferior mind and character of
the negro, and will right the political and
social wrong done the South. This may
seem unreasonable, but it is inevitable;
it is foretold by existing conditions. A
change must come; if not in a peaceful
manner, it will come through a race war.
Insult can be added to injury. Until for¬
bearance will cease to be a virtue—this
is the danger line, and if the South is in¬
sulted and nagged until she approaches
this line, it will then be too late to make
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 279
amends, or for reason to intervene. We
have several reasons on which to base the
liability of such an approaching danger.
One is the growing race hatred between
the young generations of the whites and
blacks; another is the increased efforts of
the negro race to follow the instructions
of their leaders, who tell them to arm
themselves and assert their rights. If
no remedy is sought and found for this
condition, race riots will increase and
become general, and thereby bring mat¬
ters to a final understanding, which may
be a surprise to the negroes' supposed
friends.
While we have very strong evidence
that the problem may be settled by a race
war, I cannot think that this will be the
method of settlement, but rather I think
race conflicts will continue, and, assisted
by the schools, and by high death rate
among the negroes, bring a solution of the
question.
Judging from the attitude of the two
races toward each other, we have no rea¬
son to think that the struggle between
them will be discontinued until the end is
reached. More evidence pointing toward
this end is that the negro leaders are so
280
THE NEGRO:
absorbed in the future greatness of the
race that they cannot read the hand¬
writing on the wall—they are drunk with
their own importance; sustained by du¬
plicity and lying; blind to reason, with no
moral sense on which to stand.
This is my reason for doubting that
the negro race will be consulted about
what position they are to occupy in the
South, or whether they are to stay here or
not. If we don't want them to stay here,
they will not stay. Booker Washington
says: " We of both races are to live here in
the South, side by side, for all time, no
matter what theories may be advanced and
emphasized. This to any sensible man, it
seems to me, is the fact which we must
face." Booker may be right, and he may
be wrong; no man can say as to the cer¬
tainty of the negro remaining in the
South. We have some sensible men who
say he will remain here, while others
equally as sensible say that he will not
stay in the South. Time only will show.
I think the negro will remain in the South,
but a very decided change will be seen in
his aspirations.
The race will greatly diminish in num¬
bers, and will be made to understand that
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 281
they have only a negro's place in America,
which they must fill. When brought to
this understanding they will go to work,
and will occupy their normal place in civ¬
ilization; their existence will be peaceful
and happy, while the passing years will
see the gradual decrease of the race. How
will this be brought about? Through the
mutual understanding of the negro race
by the North and the South they will he
eliminated from politics, and become less
and less a factor in the national life. But
there is a great deal to happen before the
two sections can reach this understanding.
It may he arrived at through bloodshed,
or it may come through minds made broad
by investigation. The moral philosophy
of the issue recognizes facts on both sides
of the question it proposes to decide. The
question, being national, must be settled
by the counsels of wise, cautious, and far-
seeing statesmen, who can comprehend, in
their plans for final adjustment, all the
diversified and highly-complicated inter¬
ests of society. It will, of course, take
time to develop such progress as will call
together a council of the wise men of the
North and South to settle the negro prob¬
lem, but it will come sooner or later, and
289
THE NEGRO:
the question will be settled philosophically,
for the good of both races.
Mr. Adams says: "It is not easy for
one at all observant to come back from
Egypt and the Soudan without a strong
suspicion that we will, in America, make
small progress toward a solution of our
race problem until we approach it in less
of a theoretic and humanitarian, and more
of a scientific spirit." I agreed with Mr.
Adams, that the solution of the race prob¬
lem must be reached through a scientific
spirit; yet these people are God's crea¬
tures, and the solution must rest upon—
" the science of things divine and human,
and the causes in which they are con¬
tained." God created the negro to be sub¬
servient to human use, just as He created
the beast of burden, but he was created a
human being with a soul as valuable as
that of the white man. While he was
made and destined a servant of men, he
must be treated as a human being in the
solution of the race problem.
In the solution of the problem, racial
peculiarities and limitations will be rec¬
ognized for the first time, and the negro
will be placed in his proper sphere in life;
he will be as free as he has ever been, but
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 288
will follow the vocations to which he is
suited. During the forty years of his
freedom he has been " idle, sensual, and
benighted "; therefore he has never been
really free. The talk of the South want¬
ing to place the negro back in slavery is
all nonsense.
It is true, we are in great need of labor,
but we want a better class of people—a
people who will do more work with less
expense—a people who desire to live and
let live. The salt of the negro race has
almost lost its savour in the South. The
Master said: "Ye are the salt of the
earth, hut if the salt has lost his savour,
wherewith shall it be salted? It is thence¬
forth good for nothing, but to he cast out,
and to be trodden under foot of men."
No! the Southern people want no more
slavery, hut they want the negro placed
where he belongs, in order that he may
pay his debt to civilization.
Reader, we have only to wait on the
counsel of the wise for a final adjustment
of the race question, and I believe them
to be mustering their forces for the occa¬
sion. The Master said: " Wisdom is jus¬
tified of all her children"; therefore a
council of the wise men of the nation will
THE NEGRO:
render a verdict of wisdom and justice to
the people of the Republic. It was the
wise men of the East who were warned
and directed of God to go and find the
young child Jesus, and it was these wise
men who mocked King Herod.
My reason for thinking this to be the
final solution is based on the fact that
" that which is everybody's business, is
nobody's business," and unless the agita¬
tion of the multitude become wise, no so¬
lution will be found. The problem must
first become generally understood, then
solved by the wisdom of Northern and
Southern statesmen. Some time, some
where, we will reach this understanding.
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 285
CHAPTER XXIX
the future of the negro
Perhaps nowhere in the pages of his¬
tory can be found an example of greater
forbearance and fortitude than that man¬
ifested by the people of the South toward
the degenerate and dependent negro race,
but will the future equal this? According
to the present indications, I think not. It
may be that the cherished sentiment of a
dead past will at last find sepulcher in the
cold, calculating logic of gain, and if
sentiment is so buried, the God of Mam¬
mon will rule.
It is a sad fact, but nevertheless the
truth, that the God of Mammon is grad¬
ually gaining a foothold in the South; the
sentiment born of the old South is fast
passing away. It is but natural for the
sentiment toward the negro to pass with
the ante-bellum darky, for the new gen¬
eration has, by its viciousness, destroyed
the kindly spirit of the Old South toward
the race. The Confederate soldier will
286
THE NEGRO:
soon cease to walk in the hall of memory;
he and his " niggers" must soon form
only silent pictures on the wall of this hall.
Will the sons of these old soldiers walk
as their fathers did, amid these tender
memories, or will they shut the door, and
leave the future to the cold, scientific con¬
sideration of logic?
The traditions of father will be trans¬
mitted to son, but the memory of " black
mammy" and other faithful slaves will
sleep with the father in the dust of the
dead. There will be none of the ennobling
sentiments of the old South in dealing
with the future of the negro. It has
passed, and will live only in song and
story.
The solution of the negro problem pre¬
sents several strong features which must
find consideration. The power of the risen
South must find political recognition, and
the voice of her people must be heard and
understood in the halls of Congress. The
South must be recognized as the southern
part of this great Republic, and not as a
charitable institution in which the Afro-
American finds a free home at the expense
of the whites—who must give these dis¬
tinguished citizens the freedom of the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 287
country, where they must not be punished
for crime, nor disturbed in the enjoyment
of their rights and liberty by the sup¬
porters of the said institution. Will the
future find the Southern people as con¬
tent to stay in the background and sup¬
port a worthless race of people, as they
have been in the past? I think not. As
the South grows in strength, she will de¬
clare her position with such power and
force that the North will hear and under¬
stand.
The truthfulness of the negro problem,
and the seriousness of existing conditions
here, must he impressed upon the North¬
ern mind; sectional hate must be done
away with, and the South become a real
part of the nation. The North will read¬
ily see the situation when the facts in the
case are hacked up by power. In the
meantime the South must turn her atten¬
tion to the supply of labor—fill the vacan¬
cies made by the schools with a good class
of white labor, and thereby fortify against
the future.
Our trouble in the past has been our
nearsightedness, and this may he our
trouble in the future; we have a great
many Southern people who say: "Edu-
288
THE NEGRO:
cate the negro and he will be all right "—
they fail to see the unalterable facts in the
case. The great majority who entertain
this idea are the Christians who never
come in contact with the real conditions,
or the real negro. The facts which will
stand foremost in the solution of the prob¬
lem are racial peculiarities and limita¬
tions—the negro's capacity to live and let
live, and his real position in this life—with
no comparison between the negro and
white man.
After years and years of unfounded
comparison it will at last be discovered
that the two races bear no resemblance,
and will not admit of comparison. The
knowledge which the years have brought
will stand paramount in the issue, and the
question will be settled accordingly. But
the hand of God must reveal a great deal
before the majority will be prepared to
accept this knowledge with any degree of
certainty.
If the eyes of the North are not opened
to the seriousness of the question, and to
the honesty and earnestness of the South¬
ern people, then the more cruel process
of which Senator Tillman speaks will be
adopted, with the inevitable result. If
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 289
this comes it will be forced upon the peo¬
ple. When the South is received as a part
of this nation, and the voice of her white
citizenship is heard, we will cease to have a
mulatto negro as dictator of the govern¬
ment appointments in the South—the
cloven foot of the negro will disappear,
leaving no foot-prints on the sands of
time. Such changes come with progress
and prosperity.
The bright side in the future of the
negro race depends upon the timely con¬
sideration of the facts involved. If con¬
ditions are allowed to remain as at present,
the shadows will overcome the light and
the future will be dark indeed. This is
certain concerning the future of the negro
in the South: the whites will continue to
own the land, and rule the negro, whether
the North ever discovers that he is not a
white man with a black skin or not. Gov¬
ernor Vardaman, speaking of the negro's
future, says: " The elimination of the
negro from politics and the absolute sep¬
aration from the white race socially, will
have a potential moral influence upon the
negro, which will result in curbing his
growing disposition to assault white
women and to commit other kindred
290
THE NEGRO:
crimes. That nefarious crime is but the
cruel and barbarous manifestation of the
negro's aspirations for social equality.
When he was a slave and under the control
of the white man, the committing of the
crime of rape never entered his brutal
brain, but it remained for his more en¬
lightened progeny, after forty years of
education and freedom, to horrify the
world by his flagitious crimes. . . .
" The negro is of a plastic nature, and
if properly controlled by the white man
he becomes a very docile and obedient
creature. When properly trained he be¬
comes as obedient and docile as the most
intelligent dog, but when left to himself
he will grow to be as vicious as his fore¬
father, the cannibal of the jungle. He
cannot stand the freedom and privileges
of the white man's civilization. This is
demonstrated in Cuba to-day, as the in¬
surrection in progress on that island
is headed and supported by negroes
and mongrels—probably encouraged by
American interests for selfish purposes.
These things are horrible in their effect,
and discouraging to the present genera¬
tion, but I believe they will lead ultimately
to the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 291
and the placing of the negro in his proper
place before the law. It is the cruel and
bloody process through which natural law
works for the correction of the ' fool mis¬
takes of man.'"
He who doubts the truthfulness of
Governor Vardaman's statement has but
to come South and see. The natural law
of which he speaks is making wonderful
progress toward a solution of the prob¬
lem. This law is recorded in the statute
book of nature—therefore the North can¬
not repeal it; neither can they stop its
work. This natural law forms the only
visible means for the final adjustment of
the race question.
Rev. W. T. Boiling, of the M. E.
Church South, in discussing the negro's
future, said in part: "We certainly wish
the negro well, so long as he moves within
the natural limitations of his race, for in
the South there is a community of inter¬
est which, if conserved, may bring pros¬
perity to both races, but if the negro comes
into unwise conflict with the white race,
the weaker must go down before the
stronger, and all theories born of mere
sentiment will vanish, if the racial ele¬
ments are called out to battle for mastery,
THE NEGRO:
and the dominant aggressive white race
will be sure to remove anything which
may block its path of progress. If the
negro leaders are wise, they will not lose
sight of the fact that ' self-preservation
is the first law of nature,' and that under
this law, in a struggle for the survival of
the fittest, the negro must fail should he
attempt the impossible task of coming
successfully out of a conflict with the white
race. All of the well-grounded hope of
the negro race in this land lies in its work¬
ing in harmony with the white race, under
a white man's government, based upon
culture, industry, and moral refinement.
" Wishing the negro the best possible to
him under the influence, the guidance, and
in harmony with the interest of the white
race, the Southern people stand ready to
aid him to education and success in all
lines of industry. Will the negro accept
the situation and improved opportunities,
or will he refuse the white man's aid, and
enter into a contest with him for social
equality and political mastery? Here we
have the question on the answer to which
depends the future of the negro race, and
the negro alone can answer it. If he will
accept the situation and move in harmony
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 293
with the white race, well; while if not, a
well-grounded hope of success in this
country cannot be found by it."
From an address delivered by Bishop
John M. Walden before the Cincinnati
Methodist Episcopal Ministers' Associa¬
tion on the race problem, we take the fol¬
lowing: " This country will not fulfill its
objects until the nation comes to consider
its relation with the negro as that of a
guardian to a ward. This problem is not
a problem of the North alone, nor of the
South alone; it is a problem for the nation.
This nation, which is so rich and powerful,
must solve the race question itself. Dur¬
ing the days before the war the idea that
the negro was to have, when freed, his
forty acres of land from the government,
was freely circulated. But when the free¬
dom came no forty acres came with it.
There are three things that enter into the
negro question: the thought of implant¬
ing in the negro the idea of industry, the
idea of honesty, the idea of home-mak-
ing.
" The negro has been charged with lazi¬
ness. The Northern traveler who goes
South and comes home is filled with
stories of the lazy negroes he saw about
294
THE NEGRO:
the streets of Southern cities. I tell you
he saw but few. The negro will make a
good citizen, if we only give him a chance,
but the problem is with us individually,
with the Methodist Episcopal Church col¬
lectively, and with the great United States
in a paternal sense. The South for forty
years has endeavored to implant in the
free negro the idea of industry and hon¬
esty, and has failed. He has had forty
years' chance to make a good citizen, and
is further from citizenship to-day than he
was forty years ago."
The good bishop has only to visit one or
two Southern cities to have the statement
of the Northern traveler verified in regard
to the lazy negroes to be seen about the
streets of Southern cities. If the govern¬
ment should ever decide to become a
guardian to these people, it would be a
good idea for the government officials,
from the President down, to locate in the
different Southern cities for at least six
months, so as to look the negro situation
square in the face. Then, and not until
then, will " distance " cease to " lend en¬
chantment to the view." While I do not
believe the government will ever assume
the guardianship or responsibility of the
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 295
negro race, I do believe it will have
the greater part in the settlement of the
race problem. A great many Southern
people think that we will find in the
negro ministers and teachers enough
" leaven to leaven the whole lump," which
will bring the right adjustment of the
question. I doubt this very much, because
the majority of these ministers and teach¬
ers have two influences at work; they have
one influence for the white public and one
for private use with the race.
The Brownsville affair brought out the
Christian character of the majority of the
Afro-American ministers. Mr. Carmach
said: "No more damaging indictment of a
race could be secured than the one written
by itself in the Brownsville affair." We
have a few negro ministers who are real
Christians, and are doing everything in
their power for the betterment of the race.
The solution of the problem will be based
upon wisdom and understanding, and the
negro will not be consulted until we dis¬
cover a process for injecting wisdom into
his brain. The future of any people de¬
pends upon their ability to meet their ob¬
ligations to civilization. No race, white
or black, can rise above its morals. Since
296
THE NEGRO:
time has been, degeneracy has traveled the
same path—that of ruin, decay, and
death.
Every country in which the negro has
been placed, and later made a free man,
records the same story of degeneracy. In
all countries where political equality has
been extended to the negro race it has re¬
sulted in failure, degradation, and blood¬
shed. At every opportunity the cloven
foot of the negro appears and evinces
what he would do if he could. When we
attain the high degree of intellectual
power by which we can undo the work of
God, then, and not until then, will we be
able to make a real citizen of the negro.
This talk of equality and the inalienable
rights-of-man really amounts to nothing,
so far as the negro problem is concerned.
Afro-American citizenship is the means
by which we show enmity, dislike, and
malice for each other—it is the means by
which we seek revenge for differences in
opinion, and it serves as a basis on which
the two political parties vent the spleen of
their differences. Negro citizenship keeps
the South in thraldom to the one-party
system, and divides the country by keep¬
ing alive sectional hate. Our country will
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 297
never be really reunited until the negro is
eliminated from politics.
The race question is gradually pushing
its way into the different departments of
the government—a very good sign of an
approaching solution of the problem. In
the forty years of freedom we have never
given the negro a " square deal," because
we have imposed upon him the white man's
standard of ethics—political and social;
in so doing we have committed a grave
error, and done the negro a great injus¬
tice. He has been misled, misguided, and
misplaced in civilization. The fruits of
hypocrisy and political "bunkum" face
us to-day as never before.
The time has arrived for the whites of
the nation to let the negro know where he
stands, and where he must stand for all
time to come. The political joke of
" equality " has reached its limit, and the
time has come for dealing justly and hon¬
estly with the negro race. If we lead him
further on the road to destruction we must
give an account to God, who intrusted
these people to our care, honesty, and
guidance through time.
The right, as I understand it, would he
to retire the negro to his proper and des-
298
THE NEGRO:
tined place in civilization, which is the
humble walks of life, with the just and
necessary restraints placed upon him.
Time has told us that he must he re¬
strained. Continue to spend money for
his education; but it must be an industrial
and religious training, with the rudiments
of an education. Employ as teachers the
talented few of the race who live moral,
upright lives. The negro would dislike
this plan at first, but would soon become
tractable, contented, and happy. He
would then understand what is expected
of him, and what he is to expect. In an
effort to cast aside the law of subordina¬
tion of the inferior race to the superior,
the negro was sent on life's journey with¬
out aim or intention—he has wandered
from place to place, and instead of making
social and moral advancement, he has gone
backward.
All things considered, we cannot blame
the negro. When we train him to be a
servant worthy of his hire, and give him a
fixed purpose in life, then will we fulfill
our duty to the weaker race. In the solu¬
tion of the problem the negro has rights
that must be respected—the rights of a
human being in the humble walks of life,
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 299
who must depend upon his superiors for
honest and just dealings with him.
When the nation removes the negro
from politics, and places him in his proper
place, that of a subordinate to the white
man, it will have performed its main duty
to the negro and to the Southern whites,
who are conceded to he the negro's best
friend. In the peaceful adjustment of
the race question the gall of by-gone years
will pass away, and its bitterness he for¬
gotten. But if this question is allowed to
stand as at present, the final settlement
will come through the same process by
which all great questions of the past have
been settled—the cruel process of war; a
race war, of which Senator Tillman talks
—the battle of civilization against degen¬
eracy, whether consistent with Christian¬
ity, with even the most elemental sense of
justice and right, will he a forced condi¬
tion. We hope for better things, hut it is
reasonable to suppose a race war will he
the probable solution of the negro prob¬
lem; because it is the strongest evidence
that has yet appeared on the surface of
the question.
May the God of all the people lift His
hand and stay this catastrophe until He
800 THE NEGRO:
can make wisdom, honesty, and justice the
ruling forces of the nation; then guide us
to the rock that is higher than human sel¬
fishness, envy, and malice, where we may
stand amid the joyful surroundings of a
better day. After the night of sectional
hate and strife has passed, the day will
dawn upon the glory of a reunited white
man's country, with two political parties
of the Anglo-Saxon race. So may it be.
THE END