DENOUNCED GLORIOUS EMBLEM AS A CONTEMPTIBLE RAG AT THE STATE NEGRO
CONVENTION.
MACON, GA., Feb. 16.—In an address before the five hundred delegates
attending the convention of negroes in this city to discuss racial
problems, Bishop H. M. Turner declared the American Flag to be a dirty
and contemptible rag. He further said that hell was an improvement on the
United States when the negro was involved.
In closing he said:
“I have heard of both white and black men perpetrating rape
upon innocent, angelic women, but no negro in this country has
been tried by the courts and found guilty of the heinous crime
of rape in fifteen years.
“I know that bloody-handed and drunken mobs have said so, but
what Christian people would accept what they say? Yet there
are millions of men who pretend to be moral and claim to be
sensible in this country, who go to these drunken mobs to get
information relative to the conduct of colored men.”
How it came to pass is a question which human wisdom may not solve, but
in the earliest dawn of history we find the races of men separated by
color and by characteristics, very much as they are at this time.
In spite of all the comings and goings, the migrations and conquests,
the discoveries and colonizations, the world is pretty nearly the same
old world, so far as the distinct races of men are concerned. The Jew is
still the Jew, the Gentile still the Gentile. All the currents of the
ages have not washed the yellow man white, nor turned the red man yellow,
nor the black man red. The hot sun of the tropics pours down upon the
heads of the sons of men as fervidly as in the days of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob, but it has not been able to kink the hair, flatten the nose,
blubber the lips or blacken the hide of a single man, woman or child of
the Aryan race. The Chinaman, racially, is what he was in the time of
Confucius; the Hindoo is yet the dark man whom Khrishna sought to lead to
the higher life.
In Africa, the home of the negro, there has been a monotonous repetition
of the same old facts which historians learned from monumental
inscriptions and indestructible tablets thousands upon thousands of years
old.
The African negro has always been a distinct type, an inferior type,
a savage type, a non-progressive type. Left to himself, he wore no
clothing, built no houses, had no commerce, systematized no production
of any sort and never had the faintest conception of doing anything to
improve himself or his condition. He killed for the day the game he
needed for the day. For the future, he made as little provision as the
Indian and the Esquimau.
Beyond the herding of cattle he had no instinct for accumulation. His
normal state was that of warfare against some other black tribe. His
religion was the grossest superstition. He offered up to his heathen gods
the sacrifice of the negro child; and when his appetite for four-legged
animals was sated, he changed his diet by cooking and eating another
negro.
Where the sexual relations of the men and women were not promiscuous,
they were polygamous. Strictly speaking, there was no such thing as
morals known among them. Property rights which certain men had, or
claimed, in certain women might be respected, but the conception of
virtue was not reached.
They never evolved an alphabet. They never advanced beyond the crudest,
rudest, most brutal tribe-life.
They had chiefs, or kings; and these kings exercised, despotically, the
power of life and death over their ignorant subjects.
They had conjurers and witch doctors, and it was one of the time-honored
customs that the witch doctors should “smell out,” for death, the
wretched creatures whom the king wanted to kill, or whom the witch
doctors themselves wished to put out of the way.
Thousands upon thousands of years ago, negro warriors sold their negro
captives into slavery. Negro husbands would offer their wives and
daughters to foreign travelers. Negro fathers would sell their children.
In some of the oldest monumental inscriptions of the human race, the
negro appears as the chained slave of foreign masters.
Anybody on earth who wanted to buy him could do it. His king was ready to
sell him; his father was ready to sell him. The Egyptian, the Greek, the
Roman owned black slaves as far back as the records go; and the historian
Gibbon did no more than express the universal experience and opinion of
the ages when he wrote that the negro was a distinctly inferior race.
[Illustration: “His normal state was that of warfare against some other
black tribe.”]
Of all the negroes that have ever lived Tchaka was the greatest. He ruled
in Africa, in the eighteenth century.
He was a man of immense natural power. His ambition was boundless, his
soul untroubled by fear or scruple. Absolute master of a strong tribe, he
hurled it against other tribes, one after another, until he had conquered
and devastated an imperial territory. In his march to dominion, it is
estimated that he caused the slaughter of a million human beings, all of
whom were his brothers in black. But he never built a city; never put a
ship on the sea; never made two blades of grass grow where one had grown
before. He founded no institutions of any kind. He was densely ignorant
and superstitious himself, and he had no conception of anything higher or
better.
To kill, to conquer, to feast, to indulge bestial lust, to inspire
terror, to exploit and mercilessly abuse the abject servility of the
negroes over whom he ruled were his “pleasures of living.”
It was believed that he caused the death of his own mother; it is _known_
that when he buried her he buried fourteen young negro girls with
her—_buried them alive_!
It is _known_ that, during the “period of mourning” which followed, he
caused the death of some thousands of maddened and helpless negroes. It
is also known that his sisters got his brothers to assassinate him. Then
one of these brothers murdered the other, and so became king of that
happy land.
In Africa where the negro is still to be seen in his natural state, you
can still buy negroes from negroes. Husbands will yet sell wives, fathers
will yet barter daughters and sons. The buying and selling of negroes
goes on now just as it did in the days of the Pharaohs. There is not
so much of it as there used to be—to the regret, doubtless, of African
chiefs who have negroes they would like to sell.
[Illustration: One of the San Domingo Nobility.]
Not long ago there was a story which went the usual rounds. An English
traveler was about to set out from a certain coast town of Africa upon
a journey into the interior. He expected to be gone for several months.
In fitting himself out with camp equipage, he bought a negro girl to
carry along—to serve as his mistress. Her father sold her, and the
only surprise that was caused by the transaction was the amount paid.
The Englishman gave about one hundred dollars for the girl and it was
generally considered an extravagant figure. As to the girl, she seemed
proud to have been selected, and gratified at having been sold so high.
When the Englishman had finished his trip, he probably sold her at a
discount to some other white man who desired a complete camp outfit.
* * * * *
Excepting those portions of Africa wherein the white man has set his
foot and impressed his will, the negro is at this day the same lustful,
brutal, besotted cannibal and voodoo slave that he was thousands of years
ago.
In Jamaica, the white man has to steer for him, and control him.
He did not even know what to do with bananas till Col. Baker, a white
man, came along and taught him.
In Liberia, he has gone back to heathenism and savagery, because the
white man’s strong hand is not there to guide and control.
In San Domingo, he had—as a starting point—one of the fairest
civilizations the world has known. Aided by the yellow fever, the black
man drove out the white; and now he has gone back into chaos, voodooism,
cannibalism and imbecility.
In the United States, negroes can run a bank, for they can see white men
running banks all around them and they are quick at imitation.
How is it in San Domingo, where the black man rules the white?
Apparently there is not a bank in San Domingo. If there is, it cannot be
trusted. Why do I say this?
Because that portion of the San Domingan custom-house receipts which was
to be paid to the creditors of the negro republic had to be deposited in
a New York bank for safe-keeping.
In the United States, the negroes can run colleges, manufacturing
establishments, automobile street-car lines, newspapers and magazines.
Why? Because they see how the whites run colleges, manufactories, and
automobiles, newspapers and magazines.
In San Domingo there is no Tuskeegee, Hampton or Howard. In San Domingo
there are no flourishing manufactories created and operated by negroes;
and no up-to-date automobile street-car lines, such as the negroes
started in Nashville, Tennessee.
The negroes of San Domingo ought to have a commerce—one of the most
profitable in the world; but they haven’t. Their navy is a myth,
and their army a joke. One revolution chases after another with such
confusing rapidity that when our Senate meets to debate the ratification
of the San Domingan treaty which Roosevelt had arranged, the “President”
with whom Roosevelt had made the treaty is a fugitive, whose “Cabinet”
has compelled him to take to the woods.
There used to be an “Order of Nobility” in San Domingo, with its Marquis
of Lemonade and its Duke of Marmalade; but as these eminent Noblemen have
failed to show up in the later turmoils I fear their titles have become
extinct, or that the “Order of Nobility” has been abolished.
Which is a pity. It would have been something worth living for to have
seen the Duke of Marmalade paying a visit to this country, receiving the
adoring attentions which New York’s “Swell Set” pay to all “noblemen”
whomsoever.
* * * * *
Nowhere else in the universe is the negro treated so well as in the
United States.
He was once a slave, but his own people sold him. Either he was a captive
in war who would have been slain, broiled and eaten, if the English or
Dutch sailor had not come along and offered to buy him; or he was in the
power of his chief, his father or his brother, and was by them offered
for a price.
Some of the blacks who were brought to this country may have been
kidnapped, but, as a rule, there was no need for kidnapping. Negroes
could be bought for a song all along the Coast and all through the
interior of Africa. The most successful “kidnapper” was New England rum.
Yes, it is a literal historical fact that the negro was sold into slavery
by his own people, just as Joseph was sold by his brethren.
In the long run what was the consequence to the negro?
He was changed from a savage into a semi-civilized man.
In his native land he had been an ignorant serf whose life depended upon
the temper of a despotic brute—his chief.
He exchanged a slavery for a slavery; and the slavery to which he was
brought lifted him from a brute into a man.
We taught him how to work; we taught him how to read; we taught him how
to think; we taught him how to live.
To free him from the bondage into which his own brethren had sold him,
a million white men rose in arms. There were four years of terrible,
horrible strife; half a million white men fell in battle; six billions
of dollars were devoured in the flames of Civil War; and over all that
period of strife, and over the host which finally triumphed, waved the
flag which the freed negro—freed at such frightful cost—now safely
denounces as a dirty and contemptible rag!
When the “Brothers’ War” was over and while the former owner of the
slaves was prostrate, those who had fought that the black man might be
free, clothed him in the garments of citizenship, giving him the ballot,
giving him office, giving him power, at the same time that tens of
thousands of white men were outlawed.
“Show to the world that you are capable of government,” said the white
philanthropist to the blacks; and the result was a hideous carnival of
mismanagement, incompetency and gross rascality which at last made even
the professional white philanthropist sick and ashamed.
Taking out of the hands of the blacks the political power which he had
shown himself unfit to wield, the whites have ever since occupied toward
him the attitude of a guardian over a ward, manifesting for him a helpful
sympathy, aiding his advancement with substantial contributions, leading
him upward and onward by precept, example and wholesome control.
Schools were established for him. Churches were built for him. White men
and white women devoted their lives to lifting the black man, the black
woman, the black child into the nobler, purer paths. White men taxed
themselves to put an end to the negro’s ignorance and superstition. The
white man opened his purse to endow colleges for the negro’s special
benefit. The white man opened the door of opportunity to the black, and
gave him a chance in every field of human endeavor.
[Illustration: “We taught him how to work; we taught him how to read; we
taught him how to think; we taught him how to live.”]
Not for one month could the negro prosper in the United States, if the
white man became his enemy.
In one month, we could by concert of action, so smite the negro that his
mushroom growth would wither like the severed gourd-vine. The maddest
thing, the most suicidal thing that the black man could do would be to
arouse the enmity of the whites.
When that day comes, if it shall ever come, the white man will not any
more stop to count the cost of annihilating, or of driving out the
blacks, than Spain halted to count the cost of smiting and driving out
the Moor.
* * * * *
In the United States the negro is seen at his best, because of the
constant example, guidance and control of the whites.
Nowhere else on the planet has the negro the religious establishment
which he has copied from us, with our earnest help.
Nowhere else has he the educational system which he has patterned after
ours, aided at every step by us.
Nowhere else has he the banks, manufactures, newspapers, magazines,
modernized farms, elegant professional offices which he has fashioned
upon our models, amid our plaudits of approval and encouragement.
By the hundreds, by the thousands, the negro has been admitted to
positions of honor and trust. He has been in the Senate; he has been in
the House of Representatives; he has been in the State Legislatures; he
has served on juries; he is in the army; he is on the police force.
In the proud, aristocratic city of Charleston doth not the redoubtable
Dr. Crum, a negro, sit at the Receipt of Customs, drawing a fatter
salary than was ever enjoyed by Matthew, the Apostle of Christ?
[Illustration: “To free him from bondage half a million white men fell in
battle.”]
There are no Dr. Crums in Africa or Liberia. And in San Domingo it is
the white man who sits at the receipt of customs—nobody being willing to
trust the negro with his own money.
Hath not our Roosevelt declared that when Judson Lyons, Register of the
Treasury, goes out, another negro shall take his place? _Thus it shall
continue to happen that Uncle Sam’s paper money will not be good in law
until a negro has set his name to it._
Once upon a time, a white man, in the United States, gave a negro school
a million dollars in a lump. Doctor Booker Washington got the money. I
wonder how long the learned Doctor would have to live in Africa, Liberia,
or San Domingo before he could get a million dollars with which to
operate a school.
Really, it sometimes occurs to me that if such negroes as Bishop Turner
are honest in their denunciations of the United States, they would pack
up their belongings and go right back to dear old Africa, the home of the
race. Nothing on earth prevents their doing so.
Rather than go to hell _I_ would go to Africa; and if I believed I was
living in a land which was worse than hell, I would even try San Domingo,
for a change.
* * * * *
What _bosh_, nonsense and self-assertive insolence is embodied in Bishop
Turner’s denunciation of the Flag and of the Government!
Poor, down-trodden negro!
What a doleful howl he sets up when he is asked to ride in a separate
car; and when he is told that separate churches, separate schools,
separate hotels, and separate social life is best for both races. How he
raves and froths at the mouth when we tell him that for his own sake, as
well as ours, we who have, with desperate difficulty and hardship and
sacrifice, built up our civilization, cannot afford to allow it to fall
into the power of the inferior race. We have seen what they did with
this same Civilization in San Domingo when the French Revolution, most
unwisely, entrusted it to the blacks.
Reconstruction days taught us that the San Domingan experience would
be repeated here, if the negro rule continued. To save ourselves from
such a calamity, _and to save the negro from himself_, we put back into
the hands of the whites that civilization which had been the outcome of
centuries of effort on the part of the whites.
And when the Negro Convention of today has not met to howl but to
brag, what a beautiful, brilliant picture their orators can paint, as
they proclaim the progress and prosperity of the negro. What wonderful
statistics they use to prove that the negro has advanced in knowledge
more rapidly than the whites of Russia, of Hungary, of Italy and of
Spain! What a glittering array of accumulated millions do they claim, in
lands, chattels and hereditaments! With what vociferous gusto do they
“point with pride” to their farms, their stores, their banks, their
newspapers, their magazines! To listen to them when they have assembled
to jubilate instead of to howl, you would suppose that, so far as the
negro was concerned, the horn of plenty was full, the land flowing
with milk and honey. Even Bishop Turner, with an amazingly unconscious
inconsistency, fills his letter of so-called denial with boastings of
the handsome homes in which the negroes live, the furniture which the
white man just ought to go and see, the “library” which would delight the
scholar, the piano music and the organ melodies which, in negro homes,
soothe the ear and charm the sense.
Let us admit that every bit of this bragging and boasting is founded upon
solid fact. Then, in the name of common sense, let me inquire: “_Where,
oh, where, is the negro race doing all these marvelous things?_”
In what country, under what flag, is he piling up these millions of
money? Under what government is he outstripping the Russian, the
Spaniard, the Austrian? Where is it that he has bought so many farms,
established so many banks, built such fine houses, secured such
attractive furniture, and gotten an organ for ’Liza Jane and a piano for
Susan Ann?
Is it in Africa? No. In Liberia? _No._ In San Domingo? No.
The negro is doing the splendid things to which he “points with pride”
_in that country whose flag is a dirty rag, in that land which is worse
than hell_!
Poor, down-trodden negro!
He makes an idle wager in Baltimore that he will kiss a white girl, in a
white hotel; and he walks up to her in the public dining room, puts his
hands upon her and kisses her!
In Chicago, he sits down in a white restaurant, and beckons a white
woman waitress to come and wait upon him; and when she refuses, he goes
straight to a magistrate, swears out a warrant, has the girl arrested,
and sends her to prison!
Poor down-trodden negro! In New York City, and perhaps in other cities,
negro men hold white women in a state of slavery, _to minister to their
lusts_; and the political power of these negroes is so great that the
lawful authorities have been utterly unable to free these white slaves
from the bestial degradation in which they are held by their black
masters.
In Washington City—but that would require a chapter to itself. If there
is a Paradise on this earth, a Garden of Eden filled with ceaseless joy
for the non-producing, insolent, self-assertive blacks, it is our Capital
City of Washington, where more than two thousand negro men and women draw
Government pay in federal offices.
Oh, that Bishop Turner had described to the Macon Convention one of
those “Receptions” at the mansion of Judson Lyons, Register of the
Treasury—such as Judson often held. Oh, that the Bishop had told the
Convention how many of Judson’s colored guests came in automobiles,
which were left lining the sidewalk and obstructing the street. Oh, that
the Bishop had described to the Convention the similarity between the
negro “Reception” at the mansion of the Register of the Treasury and the
white reception of the President of the United States!
[Illustration: “Poor down-trodden negro!... he is sometimes compelled to
take dinner with John Wanamaker and lunch with Theodore Roosevelt.”]
Poor, down-trodden negro! In this land which is worse than hell, it
actually happens that he is sometimes compelled to take dinner with John
Wanamaker, and to lunch with Theodore Roosevelt!
* * * * *
The amazement within me grows as I dwell upon the black man’s woes, and
I marvel that Doctor Washington, Judson Lyons, Bishop Turner “and others
among ’em” do not pack right up and go straight back to dear old Africa.
* * * * *
And to think that the man who declared this country to be worse than
hell is a “negro preacher.” I had supposed that if there was any human
being who found the United States an ideal abode, it was the “negro
preacher.” He is the one incumbent whom I had been led to believe had a
mighty rich thing in salary, and a still richer thing in “_perqueesits_.”
If I had been asked to go out and find the man who could unreservedly
indorse the proposition that life _is_ worth living, I should have struck
a bee line for the nearest negro preacher.
Of course, if I had been unable to find _him_, my next choice would have
been the negro school-teacher.
The army of negro preachers is a shining host, waving palms of victory,
and apparently happy; the army of negro school-teachers is another
shining host, waving palms of victory, and apparently happy.
The white man’s money, directly and indirectly, supplies the sinews of
war to both these shining hosts—a fact which it did not suit the purpose
of Bishop Turner to mention in the convention which had met to howl, and
which, consequently, was bound to howl.
In Africa, in Liberia, in San Domingo, negro preachers have not
flourished, increased, or put their hands upon so many good things as
they have done in poor, little, old North America. And the shining hosts
of negro school-teachers, flush with the white man’s money, do not wave
any palms of victory beyond the limits of the country which is worse than
hell, the country whose flag is a dirty, contemptible rag “where the
negro is involved.”
* * * * *
Take out of your pocket a five-dollar or one-dollar treasury note, or
certificate, and look at the name signed to give it validity.
“_Judson W. Lyons, Register of the Treasury._”
Do you find it?
Well, that name has been a legal necessity to every treasury note issued
by the Federal Government during the last eight years.
Judson W. Lyons is a negro.
For the last eight years he has been holding the high, responsible and
well-paid office of Register of the Treasury of the United States.
Nevertheless, this Judson W. Lyons went down to Macon, Georgia, to attend
a convention of negroes, and in this convention he heard Bishop H. M.
Turner, a negro, denounce the flag of his country as “A CONTEMPTIBLE AND
DIRTY RAG;” and Judson did not open his mouth to protest.
He also heard this ungrateful Bishop declare that—“_Hell is an
improvement on the United States when the negro is involved_.”
Still, Judson W. Lyons sat there in apparent acquiescence—he an officer
of the Government!
Now when you are told that every blessed son and son-in-law of Bishop H.
M. Turner was appointed to office under President Cleveland, and when you
bear in mind that Judson Lyons has so long been in the enjoyment of a
Federal office which pays him $8,000 per year, you can form a fair idea
of a radical defect in negro character. It is _Ingratitude_.
Bishop Turner has been treated with the utmost consideration by the
whites. He enjoys a larger income than he could hope to draw as witch
doctor in Africa, or as voodoo man in San Domingo. He lives on the fat of
the land, grows juicy himself, and yet runs no risk of being hot-potted
by hungry brethren—as he would in his native land of Africa. He dresses
in a manner which would have stunned King Tchaka; and to see him take his
ecclesiastical ease in a Pullman car is a sight for the sore-eyed.
_What is the Bishop angry about?_
Apparently for the reason that “drunken mobs” in the North, South, East
and West diabolically persist in accusing the negro of committing rape.
The Bishop says that the negro is innocent. Being innocent, he is
necessarily as innocent as a new-born babe. The Bishop declares that “no
negro has been tried by the courts and found guilty of this crime of rape
in fifteen years.”
This statement makes the other twin for Booker Washington’s assertion
that “not more than six” graduates of negro colleges have ever gone
wrong. A more precious pair of Siamese-twin lies have not been put in
type since the decease of the late lamented Baron Munchausen.
My opinion is that Bishop Turner, if he continues to cultivate the evil
spirit which broke loose in the Macon Convention, will some day know,
by experience, whether hell IS an improvement over the United States;
but, before that time comes, I would suggest that he step down to San
Domingo and soak himself in the luxuries of that region for awhile, as a
preparation for the other place.
[Illustration: “In New York a negro is at the head of the white slave
traffic.”]
_Note._—Public opinion expressed itself so hotly concerning his attack
on the flag that Bishop Turner felt driven into a perfunctory and
involved denial; but having read this so-called denial I am convinced
that the bishop did use substantially the words reported, because of
the significant fact that his so-called denial contains language quite
as offensive, quite as insulting, as that which he surlily pretends to
disclaim. Had this been the first time that Bishop Turner had denounced
the Government that has done so much for his race, had it been the
first time he had outrageously vilified the people among whom he lives,
there might be room for doubt concerning the Macon speech. But Bishop
Turner has for years been speaking and writing in precisely the vein
which appears in the reports that went out from Macon. He has become
conspicuous as a chronic assailant of the whites. Therefore I have not
the slightest doubt that he used at Macon in substance, if not in the
very words, the reports as telegraphed all over the country.
_An Indignant Wisconsin Editor_
Mr. John L. Sturtevant, whose card informs the interested universe that
he, the said John L., is editor of _The Waupaca Post_, of Waupaca, Wis.,
flew into a passion when he read the February number of this Magazine.
The why and the wherefore of his sudden rage are best explained in a
red-hot letter which I now give in full, just as it came sizzling from
the frying pan:
Feb. 17, 1906.
_Thomas E. Watson, New York._
DEAR SIR: In the February number of your magazine, on page 400,
under the caption “Best on Earth” you state: “The big Milwaukee
First National Bank burst and the people lost $1,450,000.” The
statement is absolutely false. F. G. Bigelow, president of the
bank, appropriated that amount from the bank’s funds to his own
use, but the bank did not burst nor did the “people,” in the
sense in which you use the word, lose one cent. The loss fell
upon the stockholders and was fully paid from the surplus which
the bank had accumulated during an honorable and successful
career. Your magazine is full of just such reckless and
libelous statements as this, which make thoughtful readers look
with distrust upon the few truths it contains. Intentionally,
or otherwise, you constantly do grave injury to many people and
the pity of it is your readers who do not think or reason are
led along the paths of populism, socialism and anarchy.
Sincerely yours,