Morning journal and courier., 1888-05-03

man may be, he must receive tribute from | him. Even though in every other regard ex- cept color negro may be vastly the superi- or of a white, the former must do homage to ! the latter, since the standard of superiority | is the color of ones skin-a thing entirely | beyond the individuals control.
 1 This false principle involves the southerne1 l in all sorts of inconsistencies, but he does not mind that. The Atlanta lady, who | would not for moment be seen in the com- pany of colered person in the daytime, ! contentedly walks beside one in the evening when the darkness makes it necessary for her to have escort. The southern magnate who could not endure cultivated quadroon \ in the further end of the railway coach in which he rides will unquestioninely sit beside his jet black ignoramus of valet in ! tine same car. The very statesmen who pi- eusly declaim against 'miscegenstion of ideas' were suckled by colored mammies in many l eases and reared in unrestricted intercourse | with the pickaninies and colored hands ! employed on the plantations upon which | they were raised.
 But now, leaving "miscegenation of ideas" out of consideration (for the phrase ! stands for nothing), what shall we say of the | fear which the southerner is ever expressing \ of actual physical miscegenation.
 l It is the most hollow and insincere of all | the pretenees which are indulged by apolo- ! gists for the sentiment of the South. Il ! there is one thing which northerners and ! negroes alike ought to be continually de- ! manding of the southern whites, it is re- ! form in the matter of race amalgamatien. The negroes are demanding it. At the Ma E con convention of Georgia colored men a ! fortnight ago, one of the blanks in the plat ! form adoptedIurged that 'fnegro menband to- | gether everywhere for the protection of the virtue of the women of their race," even of those women who do not want their virtue protected. Could there be any more e1o- | quent witness to the need which exists for ! the abandonment by the southern people of the very thing against which they piously protest?
 That the miscegenation which prevails to- | day-and has always prevailed in the South lis not legal miseegenation enly aggra- | yates the case against the southern people. In the North apologists for the South l have stood up once or twice and said of | this immoral intimacy with the inferior ! race that the colored women were traps set I on every hand to wreck the virtue of the white men. Of course no one would make ! such an excuse as this in the South, and how anyone could look a northern audience in the l face and make it passes my comprehension. It is an admission that "the superior race" is I not able to resist the influence of the "inferi- | or" It is claim that the Superior race, J with centuries of education and discipline I and enlightenment behind it, is less to blame ! for this immoral intimacy than the despised, | illiterate, uninformed negroes who have | been taught for over & century that they | must do in everything just as the white man ! bids them!
 ! What are the facts?
 1 could fill columns with the statement of ! instances in which prominent Georgians are ! known to have mulatto children. Such, ! alas, is the strange and shockingly lax moral | sentiment in the South, that in many in- \ stances the parent permits his illegitimate t of rirrr f0 fal pnd ! points him out with pride to people not fa4 miliar with the facts, just as the English man in India, Japan or China acknowledges publicly his Eurasian sen or daughter. f More than this, the white family of the southerner often know all about his liaisons proofs of his inidelity into their midst, moi as equals to be sure, but as objects of theil pstroAizing interest and regard!
 | I. Out on Peaehtree, the leading residence l street of Atlanta, there are two elegant man. | sions standing opposite each other. In one lives man bearing a very distinguished | name surrounded by his white family. II ! the other, across the street, live the mother of the man and young colored man. Witt ! possibly one exception I think the family is the wealthiest in Atlanta. The young mulatto is generally recognized as the son 0 the man across the street. The father, curi ously enough in this case, has noshing to d. | with the young man, although tEs latte
 bears his name. The grandfather and grand mother received him long ago into thei home, educated him carefully and seemed te think everything of him in the peculiar southern way. When the grandfather diet ! last year very snug sum of money was lef him. He now lives a sort of hermit life il the great house on Peaehtree with his white grandfather.
 II. The handsome illegitimate son of Georgia legislator is now living in Atlant' ! with his colored mother, and educating him self without any assistance from his race proud father, who votes against any measur that may tend to bring about the deplorabl evils which result even from "miscegenatioI of ideas"
 ! III. prominent druggist of this city ii ! much moro honorable than either of the two fathers already mentioned, but his manner O.
 living affords another proof of my proposi
 tion that miscegenation in the South is not
 thing to be feared and guarded against, bu
 thing to be corrected, since it already ex
 ists on a lamentably large scale. He live ! with his colored wife and son a rathe
 prominent street. He is a devoted husband and father, all that any white man could b
 to his white wife and children. Even he is
 southerner, however. Georgia tolerates sucl cohabitation, but punishes the same thinj when legal ceremony has taken away it sinfulness, it's moral wrongfulness.
 ". The case of Representative Powell o
 Georgia, who dressed his colored daughter elegantly, educated them well and owned them in the most public way, is we'll known | V. An exceedingly pretty young mulatt girl of this city is received with pride int
 the home of her white grandmother. He father is a very prominent southern states
 man.
 | VI. A prominent Atlanta physician, nov l deceased, lived with mulatto and has chil
 dren living in this city now.
 VII. The case of Amanda Eubanks, col
 ored, who was left about five hundred thou
 sand dollars by her husband, who was white
 is quite familiar. The rich widow (for suel
 she is virtually, though she may not be legal ly) is living in splendid style in Augusta, Ga
 VIII In the case of Mir. Foster (white), O ] Augusta there was legal ceremony per formed in Boston after many years Of cohab I itation, the conscience of both parties a
 length demanding such solemnization O
 the interchangeable in the South.
 And so I might go on giving illustration
 of the same shameful offence against mora
 law. The truth is that miscegenation-prac
 tioal if not legal-is appallingly common il
 the South. Though the southern people ma. question, though they may not be ready ye to live up to their own theory of "equa
 though separate" accommodations for tn
 two races, yet they ought, in the name of de
 cency, of honor, of pure citizenship, to breal | up the present system of miscegenation. Th l people of the North and the better elemen
 among the negroes are protesting against thi 1 evil. The southern whites recognize it's enor
 mity and inveigh against it in such insincer
 Will not the southern whites come out an'
 honestly, vigorously oppose the evila
 A. L. s.