San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-01-06
NOT A QUESTION OF DRUNK,

Negro Question" Among these
the Journals of all classes appear with
their remedies. The religious and
the secular, the scientific and the in
dustrial, the agricultural and the
manufacturing the reviews and the
monthlies, the d allies and the week
lies, the democratic and the republic
CANAL have taken a hand at the
bellows. The st. Louis Republic is
certainly entitled to the credit of ORR
ginality, for it of all the others finds
the trouble to exist in bad case Of
drunk. The Republic certainly
should get the leather medal for. its
discovery, and is entitled to such re-
cognition as its elongated ears entities
it to secure. Surely no other journal
IN America would deliberately an
nounce as its conclusion, that "the
negro question resol YES into the abil-
ity of the negro to keep sober"
Even so strong an admirer of the RE
public as the Fort Worth Gazette dis
sents from this view and asks:
us not the st. Louis republic max
| ing itself wee hit ridiculous in say
ing 1.-THE negro question" has resolved
itself into question of the ability of
the negro to keep sober? People who
live among the negroes doe not find
| that to be "the question: If that
were all the question would be easy
settlement. Such discussion of the
subject is not calculated to promote
it's solution, but rather to confuse it.
The negro needs to be taught self
| hood, and that will not be done as
long as the Republican party treats
| HIM as "a ward of the nation,n and
teaches him to look to the party as
black man rather than to himself as
man for advancement and happi-
| ness"
These words of the, Gazette are
timely and very far reaching. The
LIGHT finds in them a very different
meaning from that given them in the
Gazette exegesis, however. The ne
gro needs to be taught selfhood says
the Gazette. But how, There is
but one standard of manhood in a re-
) public such as ours. All ideas of
privilege, power, prestige, place and..all
else center in citizenship. The test
of true citizenship is the liberty of
exercising equally with others
the rights and privileges that
are associated in mems minds with
the fact of full citizenship. The col
Ored man cannot be taught selfhoOd so
long as his citizen rights are denied
him, so long as his voice in the max
ing of the laws that govern him and
in the selection of the men who adj
minister those laws, is silenced.
Rhetoric is cheap, but facts come
| dear. Experience is not IOW-priced
| teacher, and the cOlored man learns
| lust how much value his white neigh
| Dor places on negro seltnOod when
| he denies the expression of it i'll the
| only way that can mean anything to
| him as a citizen. A very convenient
refuge for the democrat who sees the
| cOlOred voter denied his suffrage
rights all over the south TO take, is
| that suggested by the Gazette, but it
| is mighty insecure. The republican
party does not treat him as a ward of
| the nation, but as man deprived of his
rights by those who have seized his pO-
| litical inheritance and are adminiater-
ing it in their own interests, which
| interests the republican party are
| bound in justice to protect. So far
| from desiring to continue the negro
as a national ward the republican par
| ty has sought his education, encour-
| aged his acting and thinking for him
self, and conferred upon him the
| right of suffrage as necessary to his
| Mobilization as man and his prOtec-
| ton as a citizen Given these powers
| of protection the republican party
| faced the colOred man toward man
| hood and selfhood, and hoped all
| things for him. The democratic par
| ty has despoiled the colored man of
that privilege, it has subverted his
rights; it has denied his voice in the
| selection of legislators and admins
traitors for his government; and, not
only so, has administered his political
estate, having usurped the represen-
| tation which the national authority
| conferred upon him. The sole method
| of teaching the cOlOred man selfhOOd,
the quality of being himself, is to re-
| habilitate him with the powers Cf
J which he has been unlawfully dis
possessed, and give him to himself.
| When this is done the colOred man
will be found abundantly able to take
| care OF himself. All he asks is to REL
resent himself, be represented by
| such as he fully chooses to repre-
sent him, and not be misrepresented
| bv thoca whom he has not chosen To