Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1889-12-21
GRADY's SPEECH AT BOSTON.

1 O0Qlu, OCIOiC TUT ABO0tUA <hOt (uahto
Thursday night, will attract wide
spread attention. Mr.. Grady is
wonderfully popular at the North
where his broad intelligence aud
kindly spirit are accepted at their
full value. Speaking of the race
question in the South, never,n said
the orator, has such a task been
given to human stewardship" Con
tinuing be said:
1T is so interviewer with our in
dustrial fabric that we cannot dis
entangle it il we would-so bonnd
up in our honorable obligation to
| the world that we would not ii we
could. Can we solve it q The God
who gave it into our hands, He
alone can know. But this the weak
est and wisest of us do know-we
cannot solve it with less than your
tolerant aud patient sympathy, with
less than the knowledge that the
blood that runs in your veins is our
blood, and that, when we have done
our best, whether the issue be lost or
won, We shall feel your strong aims
about us and hear the beating OF
your approving hearts.
1t must be admitted that Mr..
Grady is an eloquent special plead
er and presents the Sonth's side OF
the question with strong force.
Speaking of its products, he says:
awe give the world this year
crop OF 100000 bales of cotton,
worth s45O,OOO,OOO, and its cash
equivalent in grain, grasses and
fruit. This enormous crop could not
have come from the hands OF sullen
and disconnected labor. 1t comes
| from peaceful fields in which laugh
ter and gossip rise above the hum OF
industry and contentnent runs with
the singing plough. 1t is claimed
that this ignorant labor is tlefrauded
of its just hire.
81 present the tax books OF Geor.
gia, which show that the negro-25
years ago slave-ha in Georgia
alone S10,O00,O00 of assessed proper
| ty, worth twice that much. Does
not that record honor him and WIN
dictate his neighbors T! What people
-penniless, illiteIate-has done so
well I For every ree-American agi-
tator, stirring the strife in which
alone he prospers, | can show you a
thousand negroes. happy in their
cabin homes, tilling their own land
by day, and at night taking from
the lips OF their children the helpful
message their State sends them
from the school house door. Aud
the school house itself bears testi-
mony.
"The South since 1866 has spent
S122, 100000 in education, and this
year is pledged to S37,OO0,000 more
for State and City schools although
the blacks, paying 1-30th the taxes,
get nearly one-half of the fund.-
Mr.. Grady draws very different
portrait of colored life in the South
and especially of the treatment of
black men in the courts from that
given by George w. Gable. Yet
we will reproduce what he says:
$50 into our fields, and see whites
and blacks working side by side. On
our buildings is the same squad. In
our shops at the same forge. Often
the blacks crewd the whites from
work, of lower wages by their great.
er need or simpler habits, and yet
ARE permitted to, because we want
to bar them from no avenue in which
their feet are fitted to tread. They
could not there be elected orators OF
white universities, as they have been
here, bat they do enter there a hun.
dred nsefu, trades that are closed
against them here. We hold it bet
ter and wiser to tend the weeds in
the garden than to water the exotic
III the window.
I" In the South there are negro
lawyers, teachers, editors, dentists,
doctors, preachers, multiplying with
the increasing ;.bility of their race to
support them. In villages and towns
they have their military companies
equipped from the armories OF the
State, their churches and societies
built and supported largely by their
, neighbors. What is the testimony
of the courts 7 In penal legislation
} we have steadily reduced felonies tc
misdemeanors, aud have led the
world in mitigating punishment Tor
crime, that we may save as far as
possible this dependent race from irs
own weakness. In our penitentiary
record go per cent. of the prosecutors
are negroes, and every court the ne
gro criminal strikes the eolored lur
or, that white men may Judge bis
case. 10 the North one negro in
every 1S5 is in jail; in the South
only one in 446. In the North the
, percentage OF negro prisoners is sir
| times that of native whites; IN the
South only four times as great. /
9 prejudice wrongs him in the South
: ern courts the record shows it to bt