* * * * *
To those who have taken the trouble to study the moral, social,
intellectual and material progress of the colored people of this
country during the past four decades, the advancement must be
amazing.--_The Banker and Invester._
* * * * *
A white man succeeds a Negro as Collector of Internal Revenue for
Georgia. In making this appointment the President follows the policy
announced by him early in March, 1909, when he said that Negroes would
not be named for office “against the wishes of the whites.” In every
Southern State colored men are thus barred as completely as though
citizenship had never been conferred upon them.
In many Northern States the colored vote might easily put it out of the
power of the Republicans to elect Presidents at all. Ohio in particular
is so situated. That the local politicians recognize the value of
the colored contingent is shown by the platform adopted on July 27
last by the Republican State Convention, in which there was the usual
demand for the strict enforcement of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments, with the familiar phrases about equal rights and
opportunities.
There is no uncertainty in these matters except upon one point. We know
that so far as resolutions are concerned the great Republican heart is
still true to the colored man. We know that all Negroes look alike to
the Republican President and that he will have none of them. We are in
doubt only as to the ticket that the Northern black man will vote in
November, especially in Ohio.--_The N. Y. World._
* * * * *
Just because Johnson has succeeded in reaching the top in pugilism,
it does not alter the fact that he is a Negro and is not entitled to
prestige in the cleaner and better sport of automobile racing.--“Wild
Bob” Burman, driver of Buick cars.
* * * * *
The continued existence of the color prejudice that is peculiar to
the American people is one of the most singular features of our
national life. It is probably due to the lurking consciousness that
the white people of the United States owe a debt to the Negro race
that can never be repaid. None are so unforgiving as those who are
conscious that they have most to be forgiven. It takes more than
common magnanimity to cherish a friendly feeling toward those you have
wronged, and the American people have hardly attained to that point
of magnanimity yet. But we will get there in time, and learn to value
men for their own qualities and not on account of their color or their
pedigree.--_Brooklyn Times._
* * * * *
The recent heated political debates between leading white men of
Georgia has for the time being suspended. Party rules based upon race
lines will compel contestants to submit to the decision of a vote in
the primary that is only partisan to the extent of being anti-Negro.
No candidate, whatever his personal feeling toward his colored fellow
citizens, has dared to put in a word favorable to them. * * * Taxation
without representation was oppressive when the American Colonies
declared their purpose to be independent of the English crown, and it
is no less so when practiced by the descendants of the men who gave
it out to the world. Consider this matter soberly and wisely and then
act.--_Georgia Baptist_ (colored.)
* * * * *
One of the biggest tasks awaiting the energetic and intelligent action
of the American Socialists is our great Negro problem. It is by no
means disposed of by reference to our theoretical declaration for
human equality regardless of race, creed or color. The problem is
here, a momentous part of the general labor problem. For behind all
the antagonism to the Negro lurks the desire of capitalism to keep
the colored people down in a state of political helplessness so that
they may all the easier be exploited for the benefit of the profit
makers.--_The Call._
* * * * *
It is one thing to govern colored peoples. It is another to live with
them. The States has the harder problem, and the problem is not of its
own making. Until we have a Mr. Roosevelt of our own, we shall not
hasten to advise the States, and we shall be as careful in our censure
as in our advice.
But we must recognize, for it is of primary importance, this new
and violent spirit which is growing in America, under pressure of
the Negroes from within and the yellow races from without. This new
spirit--the result partly of jealousy, partly of contempt, partly of
mere physical repulsion--is crushing, if it has not already crushed,
the religious sentiment of the equality of men. How far will the spirit
spread? There are those who see in it the foreshadow of the great
conflict of the future, when, as they believe, the white races will
fight for their existence against the colored races coming up out of
the East.--_The World_ (England).
* * * * *
As is well known in South Carolina, the district funds are not divided
among the schools of the district in proportion to enrollment, but
every Negro child counts as much as a white child in securing funds
for the district. The Negro schools afford the best opportunity for
padding the rolls. In fact, a contract with Negro teachers is not
infrequently made in South Carolina in which the salary to be received
by the teacher is dependent on the number of children enrolled.--State
Supervisor of Rural Schools in the _Charleston_ (S. C.) _News and
Courier_.
* * * * *
Christian people, in general, at the South, are coming to recognize
that the white race cannot pursue a policy of repression toward the
Negroes without repressing and degrading their own race. They are
coming to realize that the only way for the whites to live with an
inferior race all about them, without being injured by the presence of
this different race, is to lift that race up as opportunity offers, by
the exercise of Christian helpfulness.
The trouble about holding another man down is that one cannot get up
to do anything else while he is engaged in the job.--_Raleigh_ (N. C.)
_Record_ (white).
* * * * *
It has been noted that the Negro has secured entrance into occupations
which had been closed to him. It is the opinion of many who have
given the matter attention that the large so-called colored class is
developing greater capacity and desire for skilful pursuits, and that
many individuals have made great personal advancement. To what extent
such conditions have been developed and what future hope there is
for the Negro in heretofore barred fields will be made subjects for
future inquiry and report in next year’s volume.--_Annual Report of
Pennsylvania Bureau of Industrial Statistics._
* * * * *
The _Times_ would be astonished if it could only know the division of
sentiment among Negroes of this State. Hundreds and hundreds of Negroes
“buck” at the lily white Republican ticket, and they have been waiting
to see what the regular Democrats would do on October 6, and should
the Democrats put out an acceptable and in the least conservative
man you will see a larger division of the Negro vote in the State of
Tennessee than ever before. Not all the Negroes now can be led into the
shambles by the ever-alluring “slush funds.”--Colored correspondent in
_Chattanooga Times_.
* * * * *
The white people of a state which does this are hurting themselves.
Self-government is the thing that educates men to be citizens, and
awakens loyalty to the state or nation. The state that takes away the
rights of half its citizens is turning that half into a group that will
eventually have no loyalty to the state--why should they have? But
education is getting down to all in this land. It will reach these. The
papers come to them and they can think. Some day they will organize
and then there will be what? Rebellion? No, for those who are not
citizens cannot rebel. But there will be clashes, demands of rights,
even by blood. And the state that takes away men’s votes on race lines
deserves all the consequences of race hatred this will inevitably
bring.--_Christian Work._
* * * * *
The part of him that was Western in his Southwestern origin, Clemens
kept to the end, but he was the most dissouthernized Southerner I
ever knew. No man more perfectly sensed, and more entirely abhorred,
slavery, and no one has ever poured such scorn upon the secondhand,
Walter-Scotticised, pseudo-chivalry of the Southern ideal. He held
himself responsible for the wrong which the white race had done the
black race in slavery, and he explained, in paying the way of a
Negro student through Yale, that he was doing it as his part of the
reparation due from every white man to every black man. He said he had
never seen this student--never wished to see him or know his name; it
was quite enough that he was a Negro.--W. D. Howells on “Mark Twain.”
* * * * *
The _World_ does not discuss the merits of this question, nor do we.
We even agree that many concessions must be made to the prejudices of
mankind, and that it may be true that any action that tends to create
irritation between the races is unwise. But at the same time the Negro
is a citizen, and it seems to us unfair to lay down a general rule
the effect of which is to exclude him from office, without any regard
whatever to his fitness. But the interesting thing about it all is that
this action is that of a Republican President, the President of a party
that has always professed great devotion to the Negro.--_Indianapolis
News._