Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-01-19
Mr. liarleld,s Leeture to t1e Colorea
People.


1t strikes us that the colored delega-
ton which visited General Garfield the
other day accomplished about as much
as was achieved by the celebrated move
ment of that French army which march
ed up a hill and then marched down
again. The delegation travelled from
Cleveland to Mentor and then back from
Mentor to Cleveland, without having Sc
cured a single pledge, promise or com.
mitment of any sort. The truth is, it is
as a general thing. much wiser plan to
visit a politician before rather than after
his election, if 1t is your mission to Sc
cure pledge General Garfield might
have been, perhaps, induced to say, dur
ing the canvass, that should he be elect
ed he would see to it that the colored ele-
ment in the population of the Union
should be proportionately represented in
the public offices of the General Govern
ment. But after the election he was mas
ter of the situation, and in point of fact,
his visitors were rather snubbed than
otherwise.
Although the distinguished colored
orator, who led off on the occasion to
which we have been referring, made
rather a rambling address. and went
over a great deal of old and irrelevant
matter, he got to the point at last, and
that point was simply an urgent request
that for the future the negroes should
have the preference over the white Re-
publicans in the distribution of Federal
patronage in the South. Mr.. Garfield
understood perfectly well that the dele
CATION had not visited Mentor merely TO
regale him with bloody-shirt Grafton.
Mr.. Garfield has heard many speeches
from that particular point of view in his
time, and if he were disposed there is no
man in the country who could be more
eloquent in that line than himself. The
head Of the Republican party must be
supposed to be familiar with the bulk
of past and current outrage literature,
and one can imagine with what diff
Guilty he suppressed yawn when Orator
Elliott opened out on that jejune
and threadbare theme. For all that, he
turned the tables on the delegation by
accepting their statement of the case and
st the same time suggesting remedies
which are perfectly practicable, with
out the substitution of black for white
appointees to Federal offices in the South.
He told them, in effect, that it was not
the time for him to indicate any action
which he might find it expedient to take
in his official capacity as President of
the United States. In other words, the
visit of the delegation was untimely and
intrusive; but he would say that he
agreed with Orator Elliott in regard to
the necessity for a general education
among the colored people. 1t was al
legged that in many parts of the
South majOrities were oppressed and
defeated by minorities; but if that
is so, Mr.. Garfield declares it must
be because the colored people are
untrained-that is, uneducated. BE
cause trained man is two or three in
one in comparison with an unframed
man, and outside of politics and outside
of parties, that suggestion is full brim-
full of significance; that the way to make
a majority always powerful over a mi
nority is to make its members as trained
and intelligent as the minority itself; that
brings equality of citizenship, and no
law can confer and maintain in the long
run a thing that is not upheld with q
ACdoOudOAO 0CSAOSS Va ClliQE6 duQ Ill6ill"
gence." Again he assured the delegation
that the black people could not expect to
be altogether in the hands of either the
national or State governments.
We fancy that Mr. Garfield's little
audience must have gone away sadder,
if not wiser, than when it came. They
came to ask for more political power,
and they got nothing but good advice.
Nay, more; it seems to us that, so far
from promising increased official patron
age to the colored race, Mr.. Garfield
pretty clearly intimated that that race is
as yet hardly fit for the possession of the
power which it does enjoy. 1t is an
indication of a great advance when
Republican politician declares, in a man
ner SO public, and on an occasion so con-
picuous, to number Of representative
colored men, that they must at last
abandon the idea of being taken care of;
that they must depend upon themselves,
and that only intelligence and culture
can make them really free.