not, the attempt to enforce such penalties as those prescribed
in the Glenn Bill, and which are aimed especially against the
Atlanta University, would arouse a whirlwind of wrath that even
the Southern whites in their stolid indifference to public
opinion could not withstand. No white children, except those
belonging to the professors in the University, have been taught
with the colored pupils. One of the professors writes to the
Springfield _Republican_ as follows: “I have taught twelve
years in the Atlanta University. The Glenn Bill will cut off my
four children and those of the other white teachers from their
best educational opportunity in Georgia—in fact, as matters now
stand, practically from their only opportunity.” As the funds
for founding this institution were given by Northern whites,
and as most of the money for sustaining it is derived from the
same source, it would seem wise to permit the Northern white
teachers some discretion in conducting the enterprise.
According to the census of 1880, Georgia had 446,683 persons
over ten years of age who could not read, and 128,934 whites
over ten who could not write. With such a discouraging mass of
ignorance, it would be supposed that the State would gladly
welcome any educational assistance. And yet, judging from this
Glenn Bill and the burning of the school at Quitman, the people
appear to be more anxious to increase than to lessen the amount
of ignorance in the State.
THE CHICAGO INTER-OCEAN.
So vicious a bill deserved a stupid and degrading defense, and
it got it. Mr. Glenn says that the bill is passed to prevent
the “evident desire of the negroes for marriage with the
whites.” Great heavens! And has it come to this? Is this all
that your “Southern refinement,” your “years of chivalrous
tradition,” and all the rest of the antiquated rot which you
dignify by the style and title of “Southern sentiment” has been
able to accomplish? Has race pride so thoroughly died out among
the young men and women of the South as to force the elders to
guard them, by threats of prisons and chain-gangs, from that
certain intermarriage of white and black which would follow
co-education? Debased, indeed, would be the condition of the
South if this were true.
But it is not true. In Chicago and in every other large city of
the North, white and colored children attend the same schools,
but white and colored do not marry each other. Nor would they
in the South, though the race feeling has been lowered as it
never was in the North, by frequent and undisguised concubinage
of the colored woman to the white man. Savannah shows more
children of white paternity from “mothers who were never wed”
than Chicago. If half the zeal were shown for the suppression
of illegitimate unions between the races of the South as for
that of the very few possible legitimate ones, both morality
and health would improve. But it is a waste of words to argue
upon Mr. Glenn’s proposition. He does not fear a general system
of intermarriage. It has happened nowhere. It never will happen
anywhere. If it did, it would be preferable to a general
practice of illegitimate commerce. * * *
The reports of the educational work and discipline of the
Atlanta University, by the State examiners, have invariably
been accompanied with the very highest commendation. The
comparison between the discipline of the Atlanta University
and that of the Athens University has been greatly to the
disparagement of the latter in almost every respect. This has
exasperated the authorities of the Athens University, and
set the newspapers of the State abusing the Commissioners
for making such invidious comparisons with the negro school.
Whereupon the committee were set to hedge, in order to
reinstate themselves in favor. It is at last discovered, what
has been open to everyone for a dozen years, that there were
in the Atlanta University perhaps half a dozen white children,
children of the professors, reciting in the classes along
with the 350 colored scholars. This fact was reported to
Governor Gordon forthwith. Governor Gordon makes haste to send
a special message to the Legislature. The young aspirant for
notoriety, Mr. Glenn, jumps at the chance for getting glory
from introducing his bill. The rapidity with which he got it
through and the unanimous white vote in the House, shows the
state of public sentiment. Next week the attempt will be made
to rush it through the Senate. And all this, not because of
the presence of the professors’ children, but in retaliation
for the impudence on the part of the professors and students
of Atlanta University in allowing colored youths to behave
and do so much better than pupils of the other race in Athens
University. These are the facts, facts which nobody in Georgia
will deny.
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
The infamous Glenn Education Bill, making it a crime to teach a
white child in a colored school or a colored child in a white
school, has passed the Lower House of the Georgia Legislature.
It goes without saying that it will pass the Senate and be
signed by the Governor. Practically the law will only operate
against Atlanta University, which has seven white scholars on
its roll, the children of professors in the institution who
cannot be educated elsewhere in the State without insult and
ostracism because they are the children of “nigger teachers.”
Little hope can be had that the law will be defeated. That it
will be executed with vindictive severity goes without saying
also, and, as the penalty of the chain-gang is the maximum, it
is not improbable that these white Christian teachers, if they
persist in their duty, will be fettered by the side of convicts
and subjected to the treatment which, upon the authority of its
own grand juries, has made the chain-gang system of Georgia a
reproach to common humanity and decency. And this is the New
South over which Grady bloviated so pathetically! Is there no
progress, no shame, in that section?
THE CHICAGO CONSERVATOR; (COLORED.)
The Glenn Bill has passed the House and awaits action equally
certain and deplorable in the Senate. The Governor will sign it
and thus consummate the most barbarous piece of legislation
known since the Fugitive Slave Law. There are those who have
perfect faith in the liberality, intelligence and justice
of the New South. To them the Glenn Bill is a revelation.
Having hailed the silver-tongued Grady as a leader of a higher
civilization, they are loth to believe that the very State he
represents is the first to stain its statutes with so unholy a
law.
But it is there, boastful, brazen, and hideous in deformity.
The wheels of progress are stopped and justice is appalled
while the New South brands the missionary a felon and
persecutes God’s noble men and women for daring to do right.
But the curse remains. Poisoned by prejudice, reeking with
injustice, dead to shame, and insensible to dishonor, the State
of Georgia will push on in its reckless course, indifferent
alike to reproof and counsel.
But it will not last long. The reign of injustice is sure to
fail. Though much suffering may be endured to-day, still the
time will come when Georgia will ask to blot from the book a
law so inhuman and vile. Under the circumstances the colored
race can do nothing to avert the evils of the iniquitous law.
It has suffered much in the past and can suffer still more in
the firm assurance that justice will ultimately assert itself
and right will finally triumph over wrong.
THE CONGREGATIONALIST.
The bill has been framed adroitly. By providing for the
colored race and for the white precisely the same educational
advantages, making no discrimination whatever, it is attempted
to evade those provisions of the national Constitution which
would be infringed by the least effort to deprive either
whites or blacks of any educational facilities supplied to the
other race. But the bill is so drawn that it neutralizes the
operation of this principle of equality. Whites and blacks
will not be on the equal footing plainly intended by the
Constitution unless they possess in law every privilege granted
them in the other States, among which is that of studying in
the same schools. Should this matter be carried to the United
States Supreme Court—as we have no doubt that it will be, if
necessary—there can be little question but that the bill will
be pronounced unconstitutional. However this may be, it is too
silly and unjust a measure ever to win the respect of judicious
and honorable people, in any part of our country.
It is not improbable, and is greatly to be hoped, that as soon
as the real nature of this bill becomes understood generally,
an opposition to it will spring up, perhaps even in Georgia,
which will put a quietus upon it once for all. If the bill
pass, Georgia certainly will have taken a long and significant
step back towards the dark ages, and business capital, as well
as modern ideas, will give such a State the cold shoulder for
years to come. Moreover, if any attempt should be made to
enforce the law contained in the bill, there will be such a
stir throughout the whole country as is not often witnessed.
THE CHICAGO ADVANCE.
Such a law and the execution of it is no new thing in that
State. Nor is the application of it to missionary workers
anything new in Georgia. Among the Cherokees in the northern
part of the State the American Board had a mission planted so
early as 1815, and this by 1831 had brought the people on to
a large degree of Christian civilization, so that they had
schools and churches and were living, as an old army officer
told our informant, in a more enlightened way than the white
“crackers” around them. But Georgia wanted their lands for the
toil of slaves. Of course a sham treaty was the first step.
The next was a law passed by the Legislature requiring all
white men residing on the Cherokee lands to take the oath of
allegiance to the State of Georgia, and get a license from
the Governor under penalty, if found there after the first of
March, 1831, of penitentiary imprisonment at hard labor, not
less than four years. The missionaries, well knowing that this
was in open conflict with their rights, under the constitution,
laws and treaties of the United States, remained at their post.
Rev. S. A. Worcester, D.D., and Dr. Butler, of the American
Board Mission, Rev. Mr. Trott, a Methodist Missionary, and a
Cherokee named Proctor, and seven others, mostly teachers, were
arrested. The latter was for two nights chained by the neck
to the wall of the house and by the ankle to Mr. Trott, and
was marched two days chained by the neck to a wagon; and Dr.
Butler was marched also with a chain about his neck, and part
of the time in pitch darkness, with the chain fastened to the
neck of a horse. After eleven days’ confinement in a filthy log
prison, Judge Clayton sentenced Worcester and Butler to four
years of hard labor in prison. To prison they were taken and
set at hard labor. A memorial was sent to Andrew Jackson. He
replied by Secretary-of-War Lewis Cass that the laws of Georgia
had rendered the laws of Congress “inoperative,” and he had no
power to interfere. Old Hickory, who could swear by the Eternal
that South Carolina should not nullify in a matter of tariff,
when slavery lifted its behest, had to succumb! The case
was then carried to the Supreme Court of the United States,
Chief Justice Marshall presiding, and rendering the decision
which reversed and annulled the State action, and ordered the
discharge of the prisoners. Here then came in Georgia’s great
act of nullification. It refused to obey, and Gen. Jackson
said, “Marshall may enforce his decision for himself.” Georgia
had her way, awaiting the army of Sherman.
For sixteen months those godly missionaries languished in
prison at hard labor. They refused to accept of pardon before
they were incarcerated, on condition that they would never
again reside in the Cherokee country. And when they came out
they went back there to live.
We mention these facts to show to the Governor and Legislature
of that State what manner of people are these, whom they
propose, in a repetition of history, to thrust into the same
filthy prison and chain-gang, which all the world is coming to
recognize as one of Georgia’s relics of barbarism.
THE CHRISTIAN UNION.
If this bill becomes a law, it will be possible to punish
a professor in the Atlanta University who chooses to teach
his own child in the class-room of the University, by making
him the associate of thieves and outlaws in the chain-gang
for a year. This is simply monstrous, and, in spite of
the practically unanimous vote of the lower branch of the
Legislature, we do not believe that the intelligent people
of Georgia favor any such infamous measure. If they do, then
the curse of ignorance and barbarism which once blighted and
limited the intellectual and the moral life of the South has
not yet been thrown off by that State. _The Christian Union_,
believing heartily in the Christian principle of putting
behind the things that are past, has used, and will use, all
its influence to soften sectional differences, to destroy
sectional hatred, and to make in fact as in name one nation
of a people who have shown by their unparalleled sacrifices
the vigor and the purity of their patriotism. Those who strive
to revive the bitter memories of the past, and to make issues
now settled capital for success, the _Christian Union_ has
opposed and will oppose to the utmost of its ability; regarding
all such men, whether Republicans or Democrats, as either too
ignorant to be followed or too selfish to be trusted. But the
adoption of such a measure as the bill now pending before the
Georgia Legislature will set back the movement toward unity
a decade, will put into the hands of selfish politicians
in the North the strongest possible weapons against the
South, and will discourage and cast down all intelligent and
sober-minded lovers of their country. The people of Georgia
have shown too much intelligence and good spirit to destroy
the influence which they are rapidly acquiring in national
affairs and to disgrace a record which, as a whole, has been
admirable; we cannot believe they will do it. The South does
not yet understand the inestimable service which the North
rendered it in its hour of defeat by at once setting in motion
educational agencies among the negroes. If now, in the face of
such a service as this, rendered in the utmost unselfishness
and sustained by the greatest generosity, the great State of
Georgia shall lend its name to such a piece of barbarism as
the Glenn Bill, it will be guilty of a piece of ingratitude
almost without parallel. We refuse to believe that this bill
represents the sentiment of the State.
THE NEW YORK OBSERVER.
We regard the Glenn bill as the most extraordinary
manifestation of race feeling which has been made in any part
of this country in many years. We are surprised at it because
we believed that the State of Georgia, as well as other
sections of the South, had long since passed the stage when
a law like this could be thought of seriously, either as a
necessity or as a matter of policy. The bill seems to us to be
entirely retrogressive in its action and in the highest degree
impolitic. It is an industrious attempt to make a mountain
out of a mole-hill. We observe that several Georgia papers,
the Atlanta _Constitution_ among the rest, favor the proposed
law on the ground that it obviates the danger arising from a
mixture of the races. Now, we are not in favor of a mixture of
the races, neither do we question the wisdom of the existing
law of Georgia, which provides separate schools for colored and
white children, but we do deprecate the attempt to incorporate
in the statutes of any State such a drastic and offensive
measure as the Glenn Bill. Even if such a danger existed as
that named in the _Constitution_ the proposed law would not
help the matter one iota. It will not have the slightest
influence on the question of social equality one way or the
other. So far as it affects the future of the race question a
more short-sighted, blundering, puerile piece of legislation
could not be conceived. The bill ought to be “smothered” out of
sight at once and forever.
THE CENTRAL CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.
This bill is a low grade of revenge, unworthy of the
legislators of a free people. The colored people are making
the greatest sacrifices to obtain education, and by the
generosity of their Northern friends, who have established a
number of first-class schools for them in the South, they are
making rapid advancement. They are making more rapid progress
relatively than the whites. And, strange to say, these efforts
to elevate their condition have created alarm, and the cry
of social equality has been raised. Intelligent people in
the South appear to be overwhelmed with the fear that if the
Negroes are accorded the equal rights to which citizenship
entitles them, that Southern white men and women will become so
eager to marry them that they must be prevented by law.
Certainly this suspicion is unworthy of the people who
harbor it. We know that in the old slavery times there
was a deplorable amount of inter-racial association and
licentiousness in the South. Nearly every plantation and
negro quarters furnished proof of it. But we believe that the
education of the negro will promote morality, and help to
remove the evil. At all events, in a Government like ours, in
which all citizens have equal rights, social standing cannot be
regulated by law.
THE NEW YORK CHRISTIAN INTELLIGENCER.
It is reported that the galleries and lobbies were filled
with a fashionable audience, interested in the passage of the
measure. It reminds one of pagan civilization, when Roman
ladies attended gladiatorial combats and mercilessly ordered
death to the vanquished. It is also reported that Mr. Glenn,
the originator of the bill, posed as the champion of this
measure, with a button-hole bouquet presented him by his
lady admirers. We bespeak for his efforts at fame the frail
character of the bouquet. Already it is said that efforts are
being made to pigeon-hole the bill in the Senate. The stupidity
of the bill is manifest in the argument of its author, that
co-education meant ultimate inter-marriage. If the adherents
of this bill were as solicitous of their brains as they are
of their blood, the matter of co-education would be rightly
settled. We are told that Mr. Glenn is a young man who covets
a reputation for statesmanship. We fear that this production of
his prejudice will blast his budding hopes. He seems to be one
born out of due time, about twenty-five years behind. The fifty
prominent members who were conveniently absent indicates a
conflict between principle and prejudice, or, if not principle,
at least good politics and prejudice.
THE ST. LOUIS EVANGELIST.
It is a measure designed to legalize the color line, and
notwithstanding the guarantees of the national constitution,
to re-construct the old _caste régime_ by a tentative process.
This burning question of the old prejudice ought to have been
settled so far as individual rights are concerned long ago, but
there seems to be an ill-concealed fear of the blacks and of
their future dominant influence in the State and in the Church.
Properly educated and fairly treated the negro will be quite
sure to maintain genuine respect for others of a lighter color.
The educational work will go on and with the gospel of Christ
be the means of giving prosperity and wholesome restraint to
both races. “The New South” cannot afford such an exhibition
of fear and prejudice even as a proposition to any one of its
State Legislatures. It will take a long time and the patient
exercise of prudence to adjust these matters righteously.
THE NEW YORK INDEPENDENT.
The colored people clearly saw through the brutality and
meanness of this law, and that it was aimed at their rights.
So every colored paper in Georgia denounces the law, and the
two colored members voted and spoke against it. They happen to
be illiterate men from the south of the State, and could not
speak effectively. One of them, however, did call attention to
the fact that it applies to not a few Sunday-schools which have
colored classes.
It is time for those who wish to keep the Negro down to wake
up; and they are doing so. They are none too soon. The Negro is
rising. Those who do not wish him to rise must now sit on the
safety valve; and that they will do. The unanimity with which
this bill passes the Georgia Legislature is appalling. It shows
that the white race there is given over to believe a lie, that
it may reap the consequences. We shall now not be surprised to
see this law followed by others, and enacted in other States,
and a war of races provoked. Heaven knows we deprecate it. We
pray for peace and liberty. The next thing may be to forbid
white men and women to teach in Atlanta and Clark University.
Why not? This is a crusade against Negro elevation, against
Negroes being allowed to be as good as white men or being
treated as well. But the end will come all right, even if it be
through peril. It may require great courage and patience for a
while. Our deep sympathy will go to those white teachers whose
children attend these institutions. Our prayers are with them
that they may be led in the Lord’s way. Just now the Devil’s
way is popular in Georgia; but the Lord is on the side of the
weaker battalions.
EXTRACTS FROM THE SOUTHERN PRESS.
THE AUGUSTA (GA.) CHRONICLE.
It is not new legislation to deprive the colored man of any
rights under the law. It is not either harsh or arbitrary
legislation. It is no interference with his personal or
political rights. The Glenn law merely provides for the
enforcement of the constitutional provision and statutory laws
governing the public school system of Georgia. That is all that
there is in the bill. Public sentiment justifies the enactment
and demands a rigid enforcement of the law against co-education
of the races.
Our stalwart friends bear false witness against the people of
Georgia, unintentionally, we hope, and we desire, if possible,
to remove the false impressions under which they labor. If
they respect the organic and statute laws of the State, if
they have any regard for the convictions and civilization and
settled policy of our people, which is irrevocable and firm
as the granite of our mountains, they cannot fail to see the
injustice done the State by their misrepresentation and abuse.
If our contemporaries proceed upon the higher-law theory and
have no regard for the constitutional, legal and moral rights
and customs of our people—if they have no regard for the right
of each State to legislate for and regulate its own domestic
affairs—they are advocating the claims of the socialists and
communists of the land, who assert that there is a law higher
than statutes and more imperative than the most sacred rights
of civilization.
There is no law, and there will be no law in Georgia against
the education of our brother in black, either in the primary
or intermediate department—either in the high schools or
colleges. There is a law against the co-education of the races,
and if there were no law to prohibit, our civilization would
prevent. The constitution of the State prevents co-education
of races. The Negroes do not want it. The whites will not have
it. It is the fixed policy of the State to do equal and exact
justice to the colored man. The people of Georgia will regulate
their own domestic affairs without being influenced by outside
misrepresentation, or deterred by foolish intimidation. Our
Legislature will enact such additional laws in reference to
the education of the colored and white races separately as it
may deem most conducive to the welfare of each, and secure
the enforcement of the same without any regard to the silly
ravings or foolish threats of men who know nothing about the
educational status of the Negro in Georgia, and the relations
that exist between the whites and blacks. Co-education of
the whites and blacks in the South is an impossibility, and
the reasons are so apparent that it is unnecessary either to
present or discuss them any further.
THE SAVANNAH (GA.) MORNING NEWS.