Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1874-10-02

\ DoourD RAcE.-I have never thought
until recently that the extinction Of the ne
groes in the south was question OF time
| had thought that they would show small
increase from year To year, or At least hold
their own. think 80 no longer. hut believe
that the census of lSSO Will show q startling
decrease ia the number of negroes in the
S0uth-a decrease which viii plainly point
To their ultimate extinction. 1t Will be
long time, bat only question Of time.
Northern people have little idea of tie
number Of negroes who meet violent deaths
in the south each year | am not speaking
Of things as they should be, but as they are.
# Is impossible for the southern whites and
blacks to live together under the enforced
terms OF the civil rights bill. One race OF
the other will have to 20 to the wall if that
measure becomes a law, aud Is enforced IN
the spirit in which it l. enacted. | say this
in sadness, and with deep sense Of shame
for our race, but candOr compels me to pen
the statement after a careful Investigation OF
the bearing of southern sentiment. Either
the law will have to be 4 dead letter or the
negroes will be dead negroes. | see no
middle ground. There will be no war of
races, but there will be local fracases, and
the negroes will fall one by one. In all my
experience in the south, never knew
fracas between the men of each race but what,
if any body was killed, it was negro. 1t
is almost invariably so.
And let me warn YOU against believing the
accounts you seean southern papers OF riots
and fights in which the negroes are involved.
Always these accounts blame the negroes
for beginning. The negroes never begin
difficulty in the sense in which the southern
accounts charge them. They are peace
able docile race, far, far more than our own.
\ negro will stand ten times more nal
treatment without resentment than Will
white uan, and especially southern white
man. The negro mobs" that We read of
in the southern papers are more often
myths than otherwise. The sense Of injury
would be powerful, indeed, that would in
duce the negroes to form mob and attack
the whites They never make an attack.
Whenever there Is fight the negroes are
upon the defensive, and whenever anybody
is killed, it is a negro or negroes They
feel their inleriority, and know they must
90 to the wall if bloody issue is made,
and making that is the last thing they will
do.
In the late Somerville (renn.) fight, We
are told that when the shooting commenced
the :. negroes rapidly left town, it was
thought. for reinforcements. Any one who
is acquainted with the negro character
knows very well that they left town"
not for reinforcements, but to prevent being
shot. The negroes do not want to fight the
whites they could hardly be brought up
20 the point of doing it. Neither do the
whites want to fight the negroes, bat they
will do it before they submit to :. Niger
equality as they call it. There are many
bad negroes, to be sure, but not near as
many as bad white men. FOrty-nine out of
every fifty negroes are, at heart, good.
They do not want tumult, or contention,
or race bitterness, or conflict They want
to live in peace with the whites, both for the
sake of peace itself and from knowledge
that race conflict means death to them.
How many times have heard these peace
able, quiet, well-meaning negroes lament in
the bitterness of their hearts the conduct of
the '' bad niggers,'' who would insist in
forcing themselves where not wanted, and
thus engcnder ill-feeling if not open violence
in which all suffer alike.-Southern Tourist,
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