Morning journal and courier., 1888-05-03
mEsCEGENATION IN THE SOUTH.

Seen at Every Turn-some Glaring In-
 stances of the Evil in Atlanta-CoI
 cred Men Urging Union to Protect
 the Virtue of tho Women of Their
 Race-Shameful Offences Against the
 Moral Law Seen in the Sunny Land.
 ATLANTA, Ga., April IS. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 My text will be found in the tenth verse of the second chapter of Glenn's oPistie to the Georgians:
 'The fancy shudders in contemplation of the product of the two races thrown together at young and impossible ages, each imbi- ping the worst ideas of the other. The mis- cegenation of ideas may be as fatal as physi- cal miscegenatio0; and the intellectual hy- brid resulting from coeduoation of the races as much a monstrosity as the physical hybrid could be-"
 I think this passage from one of Represent tativs Glenn's speeches in the Georgia legis- lature last summer, in support of his bill of national fame, is one of the most amusing things which has come out in American poli- tics during the last century. One might spend weeks in seeking to unravel the exact meaning which Colonel Glenn locked up in the two sentences quoted; and he would never arrive at the truth, for the reason-as I apprehend-that Colonel Glenn had no tan gible, we'll defined thought. His speech was simply 8 procession of elittering generalities and beautiful nothings, headed for nowhere in particular.
 If there is any one thing which is true of the South, any one thing which we can sim gie out and charge to the South with abse- lute certainty that we are not making mis- take, it is the unlimited prevalence of mis- eegenation of every sort. We may doubt that slavery ever existed down here. We may doubt that Ku Klux gangs were ever or- ganized. We may doubt that the negro is the victim of any injustice in the South to- day. But we can never get away from the disgraeefu1 fact that an immoral familiarity between the two races has prevailed for many decades in the southern States-one for which the whites have been responsible. If I were dumb and incapacitated in other ways I could not escape inferring such g familiari- ty The hundreds of mulatto faces sncoun- tered on the streets every day would make that impossible. Even if I were also blind could not well help inferring that at least un- restricted "miscegenation of ideas" prevails; for if I never went out except to 6 certain city church on Sundays would there hear the African brogue, pure and simple, from the pulpit of the church in question. Evi- dently the relations between the races are so intimate that a prominent city minister, without knowing it, has, like many others high in authority whom might name, cop jed from the inferior race its very accent and peculiar intonation.
 The truth is that there is everything in the way of intimacy between the races here ex- cept such intimacy as would grow out of a recognition of the natural equality of the two races. In hundred ways the southern whites are more familiar with the blacks f fhoY, aat ha ha vh here admit this fact and indeed proclaim it from the housetop, without appreciating the full force of the admission. They Haunt this familiarity of relations before the world when they are defending their treatment of the "brother in black" but forget all about it when they come to deprecate ''intellectu- al" as well as physical hybridism" in sup port of Glenn bill.
 If, then, there is greater familiarity be- tween the whites of the South and the ne. groes than between the northern whites and the negroes how is it that we northerners can claim to have taken higher ground mor- ally than the southern people have done in dealing with the freedman problemt
 The answer is very plain and simple. The northerner recognizes the natural equality of blacks and whites. The southernsr associates freely with the blacks, but always as a supe- rior. The northerner may associate very lit tie with the black man, but he extends to him all his rights as a man. He throws wide open the doors of opportunity to the negre. He has seen so little of the African that he may even shrink from him little, just as he does from the Japanese and the Chinaman. But if he has anything to do with him at all, he is as ready to meet the negro in his parlor as in his kitchen, provi- ding the negro has those qualities the pos- session of which entities white man to all deference and courtesy. Mental and moral worth must always be the open sesame to confidence between whites and blacks, as well as between whites and whites.
 The northerner who is representative of the best northern sentiment does not admit ne- gro to his confidence or to his home simply because he is black. Only the fanatic does that.
 But the representative southerner, ready as he is to deal with the negro, insists upon meeting the negro in the kitchen, not in the paIlor. He is so permeated even at this late ] day with the spirit of the exaggerated feu- dalism which sprang up in the South, 80 l filled with Q worse than Oriental caste spirit, | that the freedman must still meet him just l as the slave did-as a menial. He shuts and 1 bolts and bars the doors of opportunity | against the negro. No matter how cultured | or refined, or wealthy or we'll dressed, or 1 good looking or nearly white the colored