The only thing that makes me afraid is what you call the race problem
here in America. Its a hard thing to contend with. The colored people
should have been educated first, and then gradually emancipated. It was
a mistake to set them free untutored and helpless.--Cardinal Logue in
the _N. Y. Evening Journal_.
* * * * *
Probably the new census will show that there are ten millions of
Negroes in the United States to-day; that more than one-tenth of our
total population is colored. Statesmen, educators and economists
realize that this mighty force must be reckoned with soberly; that it
must be guided aright or else the consequences to the nation will be
catastrophic.--_Troy Press._
* * * * *
What is the Democratic oligarchy doing in educating the white masses
in the South to-day? For example, let us investigate the conditions
in Alabama. There were, at the taking of the census of 1900, 731,599
children of from five to twenty years of age, inclusive, in this state.
The total school enrollment in Alabama, as shown in the report of the
department of education for 1906-7, was 386,478.
Of those enrolled, and this does not imply average attendance, there
were 258,998 white children. There were, therefore, 133,618 white
children who did not even so much as enroll, inasmuch as there were
392,616 white children of school age in Alabama in 1900. Of the 338,980
Negro children of school age there was an enrollment of 127,480,
leaving just 111,500 Negro children without the experience of a school
enrollment.--Joseph Manning in the _Original Rights Magazine_.
* * * * *
The Negro who is trained to work with his hands, to become industrious,
to own property and to acquire a “stake in the country,” has
been presented with an insurance policy against vagrancy and its
product--crime.--_Atlanta Constitution._
* * * * *
A colored man said in regard to the Baltimore segregation ordinance:
“This ordinance will keep the colored citizens in the alleys and put
the race back where it was 40 years ago. The streets that have been
conceded to the colored people have been Biddle Street, Druid Hill
Avenue, Etting Street, Division Street and Argyle Avenue. How can you
get 100,000 intelligent colored citizens into this small area?”
Mr. Jacob M. Levy, representing the Socialist party, spoke next, saying
the party protested against any measure that would prohibit a man of
any race or color from changing his environment. He said:
“Believing as we do that the whole human family is one brotherhood,
without distinction of race, color or creed, and that all of them
contribute their share to the sum total of our development and
civilization, we are unalterably opposed to any measure that may
deprive the least of them of the same privileges and opportunities
granted to others. On the face of this ordinance is stamped iniquity,
injustice, hypocrisy and special privilege to the few. Property rights
are placed above human rights. We stand for human rights first.
“Although I own property on Druid Hill Avenue end on Lombard Street,
the former occupied by colored people, I would rather see my property
become absolutely valueless than to see human rights placed below the
interests of property.”
Mr. Charles Kemper, secretary of the Socialist party in Baltimore,
followed Mr. Levy. He declared the ordinance to be ridiculous and said
the whole question was not a racial one, but one of property.
“The colored man has been paid such a low wage that he has for years
been unable to live as well as he wished,” he said. “Now that he has
become able to improve his living conditions, do you propose to prevent
him? The last clause of the ordinance gives the whole measure the lie.
It does not prohibit the buying of property by white or black. Do you
think you can prevent a man from living in the house that belongs to
him?”--_Baltimore Sun_, report of hearings on segregation ordinance.
* * * * *
To the Editor of _The Evening Sun_:
On behalf of our glorious sons and sires, on behalf of our virtuous
wives and daughters, on behalf of that dominant and peerless race
nurtured and reared upon the sacred soil of “Maryland, my Maryland,” I
protest, in the name of white supremacy and white manhood, against the
false and dishonoring sentiment “that it is no humiliation nor disgrace
to live next door to a Negro!”--_Baltimore Sun._
* * * * *
The concentration of Negroes in back alleys and elsewhere in the choice
residential districts has been the result of innumerable causes,
the poverty following the war, the long years of depression and the
great age of the town, but now that we are engaged in magnificent
public enterprises for the beautification of the city, such as the
construction of the Boulevard, it behooves us to take thought for
the reclamation of entire residential sections. The segregation of
the races is quite as desirable in Charleston as in Baltimore. The
latter fights to prevent the encroachment of the one race on the
other. Our fight should be to correct what is already an evil of long
standing.--_Charleston_ (S. C.) _News and Courier_.
* * * * *
If a Negro went into a white restaurant in our town and sat at a table
and ordered a meal our citizens would want to lynch him, or he would be
arrested and a heavy fine imposed upon him. The same should be done to
a white person that would go into a Negro restaurant and sit at a table
and eat a meal. Last Sunday night while returning home from the depot
after the excursion train left we saw two white men and women sitting
at a table in a Negro restaurant on Suwannee street and eating supper
and seemed to be just as contented as if they were in a first-class
white restaurant.--_White Springs (Fla.) Messenger._
* * * * *
There was just one thing lacking at yesterday’s session of the
National Negro Business League, when those present were told what was
expected of them if they hoped to do credit to their race and to their
country. A few members of the 25th Infantry in uniform to represent
the dismissed battalion, the fate of which received the attention of
Congress some time ago, would have furnished a welcome touch of color
and reminded the delegates that a grateful nation never forgets. It
would have given point also to the following passage in the address (by
Mr. Roosevelt):
“I am the last man in the world to slur over the injustice that good
Negroes are often subjected to, but I feel that the really substantial
way to remedy that injustice is so to carry yourselves that the white
man will be compelled to recognize in his colored neighbor a good and
honest worker, an effective citizen and a self-respecting man.”
However, judging from the good temper which pervaded the gathering,
and the rapture with which the excellent platitudes were received,
it is clear that a short memory is one of the useful and comfortable
endowments of the Negro race.--_N. Y. Sun._
* * * * *
“I gather from your article in the June _Crown_ that you think the
negro to be as good as the white man. Am I right? I think you are doing
great harm in encouraging the negro in his pretensions. He is all right
as long as he keeps in his place. But he is not the equal of the white
man and he never will be, and we will take care that he stays where he
belongs. We will use force if need be, law or no law. I want to say
that I cannot support a publication that encourages the negro.
---- ---- ----”
* * * * *