Sharp County record., 1890-09-25
NEGRO INTELLIGENCE.
The Colored Race Can Expect No Relief
from the Republican Party


from the Republican Party
The influence of education on the ne
croes of the South is well illustrated in
a communication printed in the Prog
ress of Sandersyille, Ga. The writer,
R W, Stephens, having learned to
read and write, and to understand the
issues of the day as they affect him as a
citizen and as negro, appeals 10 other
NEGROES to examine them with equal
care so that they may learn the mean--
inc of their votes He emphasizes the
fact that in the past twenty years the
Republican party has been claiming
nroperty right in the negro vote; it has
used it to make the tariff taxes on his
labor higher, while at the same time
striving to make trouble between him
and his white neighbors, who, though
oppressed by the same policy which op-
nresses him, help him in every possible
way. Il implore you, my colored
friends and BRETHREN" he writes, ito
abandon the thought that you will ever
get any more from the Republican party
than YOU now have, and that is, high
tariff on every thing. | never voted a
Republican ticket and ! never expect
to, and | hope that the day will soon
dawn upon us when there is no such
thing as Republicanisn in my race,
The discovery made by this educated
negro is being made by others all.over
the South. As soon as a negro becomes
intelligent enough to be fit to vote, he
learns that all taxes are paid from the
earnings of labor, and he is thus en-
abled to understand what enormous
sums are yearly distracted from the
earnings of the Southern negroes by the
Plutocratic classes of the Northeast
The uneducated negro knows the mean
inc of chattel slavery, but it is only
through education that he can ever
learn that industrial slavery under laws
which take away his earnings and then
leave him to provide for himself is a
not less unjust bondage than that in
which he and his family were provided
for out of his earnings before profits
we're expected on his labor
The negroes of the South have paid
enough in tariff taxes from their earn
ings during twenty years of Republic
anism to buy themselves half dozen
times over, with enough remaining to
fill the South with schools, colleges and
universities for the higher education OF
every negro in the South who will
take it.
There is better time coming for the
negro in the United States-a time
when he will have justice; when his
earnings will not be taken from him by
Federal law; when he will be allowed
to keep what he has worked for and to
apply it to his own comfort and ad-
vancement The Republican party will
not be able to force "a race ISSUE on
the South, Mississippi, Louisiana and
South Carolina will adopt property and
educational qualifications which will
give Intelligent and thrifty negroes all
they can ask from State legislation.
When this is done, and when negroes
qualify themselves for the suffragd,
they will cease to be the chattels of the
Republican party and become citizens
of the States in which they reside-as
much Virginians, Tennessecans, Ken.
tuckans or Mississippians as any white
man who loves his State and its citizen.
ship because he knows its value. st
Louis Republic.