The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1890-01-09

| AkAOh VI LILO AlOEbA iLtSN6 CEOSScQ IL over 10
the south than when it was crimson with
the best blood of the republic, or even
when the Shareholder stood guard every
inch Of it's way?
There can be but one answer. Il is
the very problem we are now to consider.
The key that opens that problem will I'M
lock to the world the fairsst half Of this
| republic, and free the halted fest of
thousands whose eyes are already kind.
| ling with its beauty. Better than this,
it will open the hearts of brothers fof
thirty years eetranged, and clasp in last
ing oonradeship a million hands now
withheld in doubt Nothing, sir, but
| this problem and the suspicious it breeds
hinders clear understanding and a
perfect union. Nothing else stands be-
tween US; and such love as bound GeoY-
| GA and Massachusetts at Valley Forge
and Yorktown, chastened by the sacri-
fees at Manassas and Gettysburg, and
| lilumined with the coming of better work
and a nohler destiny than was ever
wrought with the sword or sought at the
| catnon's mouth.
II this d ~ not invite your patient
hearing to-night-hear one thing more
| My people--yOur brothers In the south
brothers "a blood, in destiny, in all that
Is best III our past and future-are 80 be-
set with this problem that their very ex-
lstence depends on its right solution.
Nor are they wholly to blame for it's
presence. The slave ships of the repub-
lie sailed from your ports--the slaves
worked in our fields. You will not de-
fend the traffic nor | the institution. But
| do hereby declare that In it's wise and
humane administration, in lifting the
slave to heights of which he had not
dreamed in his savage home, and giving
him happiness he has not yet found in
freedom-our fathers left their sons
saving and excellent heritage. In the
storm Of war this institution was lost. l
thank God as heartily as you do that hu-
man slavery is gone forever from the
American SOIL But the freedman re-
mains. With him a problem without
precedent or parallel. Note its appalling
conditions. Two utterly dissimilar races
on the same soil-with equal political
and civil rights almost equal In num-
bers, but terribly unequal in intelligence
and responsibility pledged against
fuslon ~~one for century in servitude to
the other, and freed at Last by a desolat-
ing Wharf.-The experiment sought by
neither, but approached by both with
NAOoCO cbA y OllC COuulDIOIlS. OQUGf
these, adverse at every point, we are re-
CURED to carry these two races in peace
and honor TO the end
Never, sir, has such task been given
to mortal stewardship. Never before in
this republic has the white race divided
on the rights of an alien race. The red
man was cut down as a weed, because
he hindered the way of the American
citizen. The yellow man was shut out
OF this republic because he is an alien
and inferior. The red man was owner
OF the land-the yellow man highly civ
lllzed and assimilable-but they hindered
both sections and are gone! But the
black man, affecting but one section, is
clothed with every privilege Of govern
ment and pinned to the soil, and my peo-
pie commanded to make good at any
hazard, and at any cost his full and equal
helrshlp of American privilege and pros
perlty. 1t matters not that every other
race has bsen routed or excluded with
out rhyme or reason. It matters not
that wherever the whites and blacks
have touched, in any era or
III any cline, there has been
irreconciable violence. 1t matters net
that no two races however similar, have
lived anywhere at any time, on the same
soil with equal rights in peace In spite
OF these things we are commanded to
make good this change Of American pol
ICY which has not perhaps changed Amer
lean prejudice-to make certain here
what has elsewhere been impossible be-
tween whites and blacks-and to reverse.
under the very worst conditions. the
universal verdict of racial history And
driven, sir, to this superhuman task with
an impatience that brooks no delay
rlgor that accepts no excuse--0nd s,ls-
plcion that discourages frankness and
sincerity, we do not shrink from this
trial. 1t is SO interviewer with our indus
trial fabric that we cannot disentangle il
if we would-so bound up in our honor
Able obligation to tho world. that we
would not if we could. Can we solve it?
The God who gave it into our hands, He
alone cen know. But this the weakest
and the wiSest of US do know;
we cannot solve d with less
than your tolerant and patient SYM
pathy-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 arms about US
and hear the beating of your approving
beam.
The rU~olute, oleaT-headed, broad
minded men of the south-the men
whose genius made glorious every page
of the first seventy years al American
courage and fortitude
you tested in five years Of the fiercest
war-whoss energy has made bricks
without straw and spread splendor amid
the ashes of their war wasted homes
these men wear this problem in their
hearts and their brains, by day and by
night. Thsy realize, as you can not
what this problem msans-whst they
owe to this kindly and dependent race
the measure of their debt to the world in
whose despite they defended and main
tanned slavery. And though their feet
are hinssred in it's underground, and
their march encountered with it's burdens
they have lest neither the patience from
WHOA Games clearAsss, nor the faith
from which comes courage Nor. sir.
when in passionate moments is disclosed
to them that vague and awful shadCw,
with its lurid abysses and it's crimsSn
stains, into which l pray God they may
never SO, are they struck with more of
apprehension than 10 needed to complete
tfleir conservation.
Such b. the temper Of my people. But
what of the problem ITSELF Mr.. Presi-