Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1889-03-27
WEDNESDAY. MARCH q, 1889.
~Bs Good and You wan Be Happy"

"Be Good and You wan Be Happy"
What else Is so cheap as advlcey Who Is
20 little capable Of giving COED advice az the
msn who employs the most OF bis time In
counselling his friends and ne'ghbors In re-
gard TO matters with which they are much
more familiar than ne IS? The average
northern editor, who disdains to receive
from his readers sdyice as to how he shall
conduct his paper, is always loaded to the
runwales with advice for bis southern fei-
low.citizsns. The maxim Of the common"
law that experts are the beat wItnesses-that
IA. that the persons who know the facts are
the best qualified 10 testify as to what the
facts sre--is treated with contempt, and the
men who know least on the subject employ
their time In advising the men who know
most as 70 what these latter ought to do.
The men who know nothingss to the nature
and the hsbits and pecuIhrities OF the me-
grses flattsr themselves that they are quail
fed TO instruct the men who have lived
among negroes all their lives.
Almost the entire northern Republican
psess may be set down as dispensers OF good
counsel to the southern people. To one OF
these wise Journals the Alexandria Gazette
well sxys that II It were published In COM
munity OF which negroes composed ma
forty or q large proportion OF the yeterJ, IL
would not talk as It does, for 1t would then
know what II was talking about. Or, to
state the case differently, a modcum OF the
go N.~ has
10 in its efforts to discover the secrets OF the
North Pole aud OF Central Africa would put
It In possession OF the "true story" OF tie
race question in the South.
The Philaaelpbia North American is one
Of the northern papers which have volun-
teered TO tell the southern people to be good
as a means OF being hsppy. 1t has, In its
opinion, solved the negro or southern pro-
bem. 1t grayely tells us that "the way TO
keep power in the hands OF the educated Is
10 educate the entire mass" and that when
such shall be the condition Of the South awe
shall hear no more about race sntagonlsms In
politics." What Qusckery. The educated
negroes are the very ones who are most pre-
sumptuous, most dissatisfied with their con-
dtion. aud most ready to give trouble TO
their white neigbbors. Here In Richmond
we have tried education for twenty years.
Here there are Thousands OF negro children
= IN the public schools, which are supported
almost entirely by the money OF the whites,
and yet there are out OF the SIX thousand or
more negro voters here not a hundred who
-, Loaf
} ia any way disposition TO allow their votes
10 be influenced 10y any Of the considerations
which determine how a white man's vote
shall be cast
To show that the North American Is ut
terly uniuiormed on the subject which it
undertakes to discuss we need quote only
tue following sentences:
"Outside OF merely social and conven-
tional life there can be no more a race pro-
blem 10 solve there than there is in the
North. IL Il nov az 10 ever has been in the
South-culture against Ignorance, and
against ignorance which culture has forced
upon the majority through political Chi
cane"
The race problem does not depend upon
education and the man knows nothing
worth telling who does not know that where
two races so distinct from one another as the
Caucasian and the Negro live together, both
races being In large numbers, there must ne
cessarily arse race problem which cannot
exist In a community composed altogether Of
Caucasians.
The North American Gays that In the South
tits "culture against ignorance" and vet
that paper always sides with ignorance, as
does its party, instead Of extending its sym
pathies 10 the cultured classes whose homes
and iresides are threatened with evils that
can never be feared where there are few or
no negroes. II Ia enough TO cause the south.
ern people to despair Of making the world
comprehend the "stuation" as 1t is, to find
such papers As the North American trying To
force qusck remedies down our Threats.