New Light on the
Negro Question
BY A NEGRO
£
New Light on the Negro
Question
an address delivered by
JOHN W. A. SHAW
before the
New England Suffrage Conference
held in
PARKER MEMORIAL HALL
Berkeley St., Cor. Appleton
Boston, Mass.
Monday Evening, March 30, 1903
cambridge :
printed by j. frank. facey
1903
MORE LIGHT ON THE NEGRO QUESTION
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : —
At the very threshold of our meeting to-night, I recall
the language which came to Moses from the burning bush,
" Put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon
thou standest is holy ground." Let us place wreaths of
laurel and oak upon the graves of our departed dead.
In this age of apostasy, let it not be charged of the
negro that he has forgotten the debt of gratitude which he
owes to those heroic sons and daughters of Massachusetts
whose mission it was to educate the public mind, to stimu¬
late the national conscience, and to inform mankind of the
enormity of the national sin, so that when the times were
ripe the falling of chains accompanied the crackle of mus¬
ketry and the reverberation of cannon to the supreme ad¬
vantage of the negro race.
It is Our privilege to invoke the spirit of the devotees
of abolition and to draw the line of demarcation between
their acts and the indifferent attitude since assumed by
their invertebrate successors at whose doors we must lay
the responsibility for the cruel reprisals which have kept
our South Land in the delirium of unrest from the close of
the Rebellion to the present day.
The activities of Garrison and Sumner, Phillips and Beecher,
and their confreres were strenuous for emancipation, but
when the work in which they invested their all had been
accomplished, they became the very incarnation of mag¬
nanimity ; with steadfast gaze upon the tableau of Appomat¬
tox, they caught the invocation of a lasting peace which
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fell from the lips of the victorious hero of the northern le¬
gions. Had their influence increased with the fruits of vic¬
tory, it is safe to assume that " the sting of the South "
would have been lessened and the saturnalia which m^n
will always associate with reconstruction would have been
avoided. There is warrant for this assumption in the fact
that it was Sumner who proposed to expunge from the regi¬
mental colors the records of fratricidal battles in which the
North were victorious, thus incurring the censure of his be¬
loved Commonwealth. How much the South owes to the
eloquence of Wendell Phillips for the reversal of the repres¬
sive policy of reconstruction by the withdrawal of federal
troops, which act was warranted by northern sentiment, I
will leave my hearers to judge.
It was also reserved for Henry Ward Beecher to step with
confident stride from among the pessimists of his time to
grasp the hand of the nominee of a rejuvenated democracy, thus
evincing his faith in the stability of the institutions of our
common country and showing his disposition to assist in re¬
moving the last remnant of the odium of secession from the
citizens of the South whose political affiliations, for obvious
reasons, were different from those of his own. All honor
to the men and women whose memory we must ever keep
green, and whose endeavor it is our privilege to emulate.
The abolitionists were magnanimous because their bene¬
factions were disinterested. Love of humanity and pride
of race were the motives which impelled them. They
sought compensation in the removal of the accursed insti¬
tution of slavery and when their work was finished, by
placing the ballot in the hands of freedmen, they were only
too glad to leave the perquisites of office to be scrambled
for by smaller men.
It is to the remaining few of this noble band that we may
turn with confidence for the defence of our civil rights from
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the assaults of party degenerates who are ever and anon
lamenting the lack of foresight which placed the ballot in
the black man's hand and the precipitancy with which he
was clothed with political power. With pens in the virile
hands of the Higginsons and Hallowells apathy in the pulpit
will be rebuked and the fullest efficiency of the press will
be employed to accomplish the pacification of the South
without the surrender of the constitutional guarantees of
our civil rights.
The evidence that a brighter dawn is about to dispel our
political night is to be found in the transference of conflict
from the distracted South to the rarified atmosphere of New
England, where evolutionary forces are opposed to that of
reaction, where giants contend for the mastery and where
the weapons are clean.
Our Share of Blame.
Before proceeding beyond this point we may find intro¬
spection beneficial. It is frankly to be admitted that
through long years of our early citizenship, we exhibited
phenomenal servility in a vicious thrall to which we were
subjected by the party of our enfranchisement. While we
invited the commiseration of some, we gained the contempt
of a more numerous class and our sovereignty has ever
since been resented by an incorrigible minority, the victims,
it is alleged, of our prentice efforts, with the inevitable
consequence of abiding mistrust. It must not be assumed,
however, that by our mistakes we have forfeited our rights,
nor will the shedding of penitential tears make us immune
from their repetition; nevertheless we may walk warily in
the light of past experience, proving ourselves worthy pos¬
sessors of the boon, which had been reserved for the privi¬
leged few, by rejecting the emoluments with which rogues
are baited and honest men seduced.
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Since citizenship implies the right to vote and be voted
for, to hold office or to accept place, subject only to the
limitations of capacity and a good name, it is our duty to
buttress the greater right in which is included the minor
privileges, some of which are social despite the loud assev¬
erations to the contrary.
There are enemies of the colored race who would mini¬
mise the value of our suspended ballot and by distributing
an occasional sop to a party favorite seek to placate our
resentment and divert public discussion from the important
subject.
Even more baneful than the huxtering of offices, in its
effect upon our racial development and national solidarity,
is the sentiment which is extant in some quarters that the
colored citizen must be content with the suspension of his
civil rights in the South until he is educated in " hand, head
and heart." This alliterative platitude is worthy of its
author, but it must fail if agitation can eradicate the evil.
Industrial Education and the Ballot.
The colored citizen is here confronted with a more insid¬
ious influence operating against his civil rights, because of
the locality of its origin, than ever lurked in cumbrous
rifled clubs or Klu Klux league.
The spectre of industrial education for the blacks is not
more attractive when it stalks abroad in altruistic garb,
spreading apathy on the one hand and 'exciting a false
standard of American life on the other, than when its
avowed purpose is to create an efficient and contented peas¬
antry without a vote and without voice in public affairs.
The avidity with which the dictum of the great high priest
of this new evangel of negro industrialism has been ac¬
cepted without question in responsible quarters gives color
to the suspicion that he has furnished a welcome escape
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rom an embarrassing position on the part of those who
should have been expected to defend the negro, since they
had been largely the beneficiaries of the malversation,
which sanctioned rampant prodigality and, by promoting
legislation, distributed wealth among party favorites, be¬
yond the dream of avarice, from which has sprung the so¬
cial and economic conditions which vex society.
The gospel of grind is not new, it began with the itinerary
of Adam at Eden, received momentum at the dispersion at
Babel, and through succeeding generations of preachers it
has prepared four-fifths of the human family to crook their
necks and take the yoke and stoop their backs to carry the
load, while the other fifth have graciously condescended to
govern in the sacred name of civilization, varying the
monotony with devastating wars promoted by racial jeal¬
ousies. We in America have happily passed from that
primitive stage, or, to be more accurate, our institutions
have been built upon a better foundation; hence, the black
man's future is neither in the keeping of the doctrineers of
the hod nor subject to the curtailments of reactionaries,
North or South, who are just now in panic because of the
fecundity of our women and the assimilative qualities of
our men. The scheme to prepare the American negro in¬
dustrially synchronizes with similar intentions in other
lands, where the labor question is acute and the conquest
of nature is going on apace, with prejudice oscillating
between the negro and the Asiatic. When England
would educate a princeling for the purpose of exploiting
his ancestral domain, he is taken to England and given the
best education the United Kingdom affords. The motive
is selfish, yet the contrast is obvious, and the result in
strength to the Imperial power of England is great.
If we were not to be made excrescenses on the body
politic, warts on the social nose or pimples on the face of
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society, in the absence of national provision for education,
a benevolent and comprehensive scheme would have
brought the pick of the negro youth from the South,
domiciled them in the cultured homes of New England,
matriculated them in her best institutions, thus giving an
object lesson in Christian ethics and catholic principle
worthy of our nation, our time and our boasted philan¬
thropy. The benefits from such a scheme would have
been incalculable.
During the forty years since emancipation our men
should have been familiar objects upon the quarter decks
of our ships, known to the official mess of the Army,
could have arisen from the mediocrities of the bar, en"
hanced the dignity of the consular and diplomatic service,
and added lustre to the American bench. In all of the re"
lations enumerated, it is true, except in the Navy, we have
figured with more or less success, but amid it all our men
of arms have reflected the greatest credit upon our achieve¬
ments. We have commanded listening Senates and, until
Frederick Douglass passed over to the great majority, we
had in him an incomparable organ of national expression.
But Mr. Douglass was the product of a past dispensation
under which only the fittest survived.
Our deliverance will come, as come it must, through the
manual of arms and not from the curricula of the schools.
In the perilous journey upon which the nation has entered
in its policy of expansion, whether the situation be designated
territorial greed or manifest destiny, the necessity for
preparation for armed defence is the same. Nor will the
commercial rivalries of the old world, the discontent of its
people, and the jealousies of its ruler, stimulated by the un-
paralled!prosperity of the United States, lessen the possibility
of their adventure upon this hemisphere, the guardianship
of which we have assumed.
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The future of the negro is so indissolubly mixed in those
evolutionary processess through which the United States
has attained her pre-eminent position that he may be ex¬
pected to repeat his past achievement in defending the flag
and commanding respect for the international policies of
the government and people of the Republic in case of a
crisis, we can hardly imagine ourselves assuming any other
attitude than that of defenders of the territorial and diplo¬
matic integrity of America. Hence, being prepared and
expected to fight in times of stress we have a right to seek
admission to the council chambers when policies involving
our national life are being discussed, and in every other
manner to discharge the co-ordinate duties of citzenship,
sharing its responsibilities and braving its dangers, with all
the benefits that accrue.
Political Disenthrallment the Need of the Hour.
If we are to be purged from the ban of universal con¬
tempt under which we have fallen, our first endeavor must
be complete release from party thralldom, even at the risk
of seeming to lick the hands that scourge us. But happily
we are not driven to this extremity. The Democratic plat¬
form has always been broad enough for our feet; its
founder was the author of the inimitable declaration of our
independence, the charter of our civil liberty. There has
never been a time since we came in possession of the rights
of free men when we could not have entered its portals
and found warrant for so during*** If-this' were not so,
then freedom and citizenship were meaningless terms.
Our " alarming political situation in this country " is
serious only in proportion as we refuse to broaden our
horizon and observe the happenings of the world and their
influence upon our national policies. Certainly, were the
statesmen at Washington made aware that the armed truce
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of thirty-two years was about to be broken by mutual con¬
cessions on the part of Germany and France, thus allowing
greater freedom in the establishment of more amicable re¬
lations between the powers of Europe, " the negro ques¬
tion" would at once recede and there would be less heard
of this being a white man's country.
Indeed, greater benefit will "accrue to the American
negro, from the growing cordiality among European rulers
and their disposition to allay popular discontent by con¬
cessions of a substantial nature, than is to be expected by
the distribution of petty offices or the reception of negro
office-holders at the White House.
England, through the personal influence of Edward VII.,
is seeking to heal the sore in her side which has been bleed¬
ing since the days of Wolf Tone, and if reports are accurate
her ministry has inaugurated a scheme of land tenure for
Ireland, which is to lessen the friction between landlord and
tenant and which is acceptable to the leaders in Parliament.
" When Secretary Wyndham met the representatives of
the Irish landlords and tenants, and laid before them his
land purchase scheme, William O'Brien pushed his chair
back from the table and exclaimed : ' For the first time in
my life I say, ' God save the King!' ' while Lord Clanri-
carde, the most unpopular and most unmerciful of Irish
landlords, capped this utterance with the words, 'God save
Ireland!' And this illustrates the manner in which the
scheme is catching on all around."
Those who understand the chivalry of the Irish race can
well appreciate the far reaching sequence of this imperial
act and its tranquilizing influence upon the Emerald Isle,
nor need another Ireland be expected to arise in South
Africa, as the same pacific influences are at work in that
locality.
The recent ukase of Nicholas II. granting religious liberty
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to all sects beyond the pale of the Greek Church, and
otherwise intended to ameliorate the condition of his
subjects, has been received with reservation in some
quarters, but for the purposes of this address it is sufficient,
as showing the disposition on the part of the rulers of the
old world to promote domestic tranquility so that their
hands may be free for conquest or adventure; nor is it un¬
likely that their subjects will be less inclined to bear the
burden of war if this new interest in their welfare inspires
the expectation of commercial gain as well as military
glory.
Respect for the liberties of a people is'not easily wrested
from a proud'nation which believes in its ability to confront
the world in arms, and until it is convinced of its own
vulnerability and the utility of our defensive power, it will
continue to ignore our claims.
It is idle to presume that a nation can be invulnerable
with an eighth of its population in a chronic state of dis¬
content, nor is the situation less pregnant with peril when
it is recalled that at a critical period in its history the race
lent 200,000 men to the national defence, of whom it is
said by competent authority that " Braver or better
soldiers never wore the federal military uniform."
In seeking democratic affiliation we are conscious of
popular prejudice and conflicting theories as to the means
of accomplishing race amelioration; but it is to be remem¬
bered that the aim of Democracy is the achievement of the
greatest good for the largest numbers; to that end, any
scheme which magnified the importance of the race to the
exclusion of the greater national policies will be discredited
by the voice of public opinion. We are forced to relinquish
the non-essentials that we may the better lay hold of the
essential features of our government. The negro is only
in evidence as such, because men seek to abridge his rights,
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to curtail his power and to minimize his share in the credit
for success. Negro Democracy is of itself a paradox which
we suffer in the absence of a closer union, which will in
time obliterate racial distinction in enthusiastic rivalry for
the good of the Republic.
In New York City we have already accomplished perma¬
nent results aside from emoluments in the fact that the
political affiliations of men are no longer indicated by the
complexions of their skin or the irregularity of their
features. We can well recall the time when the youngest
of us knew it to be otherwise. We were not given credit
for independent thought and an atrocious public sentiment
debarred us from the privilege of independent action.
Thus we went about among our fellow men neglected, if not
despised. Our mission was to register and subscribe to
the decrees of our masters, but it is the mission of what is
known as negro democracay to obliterate the traditions of
our political enthraliment, to cultivate civic pride, to
lessen friction among our fellows, to educate the masses in
constructive statesmanship, encourage them to assume and
discharge the weightier duties of citizenship, broaden their
horizon, so that we can realize that we are part of a
universal whole with conscious pride in our present
opportunities and a confident assurance of a permanent
place in every department of human activity throughout
our common country.
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