Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-01-03
less you concede right here that the people
I speak for are as honest, as sensible and

solve the problem that touches them at
| every vital point. If you insist that they
are ruffians, blindly striving with bludgeon
and shotgun to plumber and Cypress race,
then l shall sacrifice my self-respect and
tax your patience in vain. But admit that
| they are men of common sense and common
| honesty, wisely modifying an environment
which they cannot wholly disregard, guild
ing and controlling as best they can the
vicious and irresponsible of either race
retrieving in patience what they lose in
passion-and conscious all the time that
wrong means ruin-admit this and we may
reach an understanding tonight.
The President of the United States in his
late message to Congress, discussing the
this problem, asks: care they at work
upon it? What solution do they offer =?
| When will the black man cast free bal
| lot? When will he have the civil rights
that are his?" / shall not here protest
against partisan cry that for the first
time in our history in time Of peace has
stamped with the great seal of our govern
ment the stigma upon the people of great
and loyal section, though l gratefully re-
member that the great dead soldier who
held the helm of state for the eight storm;
lest years OF reconstruction never found
need for such step; and there is no per-
| sOnal sacrifice l would not make to remove
this cruel and unjust imputation on my
people from the archives of my country
| But, sir, backed by record on every page
earnest and respectful answer to the ques-
lions that are asked. | bespeak your pa
| thence, while with rigorous plainness Of
speech, seeking your Judgment rather than
your applause, [ proceed step by step.
| We give to the world this year crop of
100000 bales of cotton, worth $3.50, 100000,
and its cash equivalent in grain, grasses
and fruit. This enormous crop could not
| have come from the hands OF Sullen and
discontinued labor. 1t comes from peace
full fields, in which laughter and gossip
rises above the hum of industry and CON
is claimed that this ignorant labor is de-
frauded of its just hire. | present the tax
books of Georgia, which show that the ne
gro, 25 years ago slave, has in Georgia
alone $40, 100000 Of assessed property, worth
twice that much. Does not that record
honor him and vindicate his neighbors?
What people penniless, illiterate, has done
so we'll? For every free American agitator,
stirring the strife in which alone he pros
pers, can show you 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 mes
sage their State sends them from the
schoolhouse door, And the schoolhouse
itself bears testimony. The South since
1865 has spent $122,000,00 900 in education,
and this year is pledged to $37 ,00O 900 more
for State and city schools although the
blacks, paying one-thirtieth of the taxes,
| get nearly one-half of the fund. Go into
| our fields and see whites and blacks work.
ing side by side; on our buildings in the
same squad; in our shops at the same forge.
| Often the blacks crowd the whites from
work on lower wages by their greater need
on simpler habits, and yet are permitted
| because we want to bar them from no ave-
nue. in which their feet are fitted to tread.
They could not there be elected orators
of white universities as they have been
here, but they do enter there a hundred
useful trades that are closed against them
here. We hold it better and wiser to tend
| the weeds in the garden than to water the
| exotic in the window. In the South there
are negro lawyers, teachers, editors, dent
lists, doctors, preachers. multiplying with
the increasing ability of their race to sup
port them In villages and towns they
have their military companies equipped
| from the armories of the State, their church
es and societies built and supported large
| ly by their white neighbors. What is the
| testimony of the courts? In penal legislation
we have steadily reduced felonies to mis-
| demeanors, and have led the world in nit
| igating punishment for crime, that we
! might save, as far as possible, this depend
| ent race from its own weakness. III our
| penitentiary record go per cent. OF the pros
| ecutors are negroes, and in every court the
| that white men may Judge his case In the
! North one negro in every 1875 is in Jail; in
the South, only one in 446. In the North
| the percentage of the negro prisoners is six
| times as great as that of native whites; in
| the South only four times as great, If pre-
iudice wrongs him in the Southern courts,
the record shows it to be deeper in North
ern courts. | assert here, and a bar as in
telligent and upright as the bar of Massa-
chusetts will solemnly indorse my asser-
ton, that in the Southern courts, from
highest to lowest, pleading for life, liber-
ty OF property, the negro has distinct adj
vantage because he is negro, apt to be
overreached, oppressed, and that this adj
vantage reaches from the juror in making
his verdict to the judge in measuring his
sentence.
Now, MI President, can it be seriously
maintained that we are terrorizing the
people from whose willing hands comes
every year one billion dollars of farm
crops? Or have we robbed people who
twenty-five years from unrewarded slavery
have amaSsed in one State $4,000, 900 OF
property? OF that we intend to Cypress the
people we are arming every day? Or de-
ceiVe them when we are educating them to
the utmost limit of our ability? Or outlaw
them when we work side by side with
them? Or re-enslave them under legal
| forms, when for their benefit we have even
imprudently narrowed the limit OF felOnieS
fellow countrymen, as you yourselves may
sometimes have to appeal at the bar of
human Judgment for justice and for right,
give to my people tonight the fair and un-
answerable conclusion OF these incontesta-
BILE facts.
Continuing, the speaker said: When
will the blacks cast free ballot? When
ignorance anywhere is not dominated by
the will OF the intelligent. When the la
borer anywhere casts vote unhindered by
his boss. When the vote of the poor any,
where is not influenced by the power of the
rich. When the strong and the steadfast
do not everywhere control the suffrage of
the weak and shiftless-then, and not until
then, will the ballot of the negro be free.
The white people of the South are banded,
Mr.. President, not in prejudice against the
blacks, not in sectional estrangement, not
in the hope of political domination, but in
deep and abiding necessity.
The negro vote can never control in the
South, and it would be we'll if partisans at
the North would understand this. / have
seen the white people OF State set about
by the black hosts until their fate seemed
them together, would rise, as Elisha rose
in beleaguered Samaria and touching their
eyes with faith, bid them look abroad to
see the very air filled with the chariots of
Israel and the horsemen thereof" If there
is any human force that cannot be with
gence and responsibility OF free commu-
nifty. Against it numbers and corruption
cannot prevail. 1t cannot be forbidden in
the law OF diverted by force. 1t is the in
alienable right of every free community
the just and righteous :safegard against an
sir, that we rely in the South. Not the
cowardly menace of mask OF shotgun, but
the peaceful majesty Of intelligence and
responsibility, laassed and unified for the
protection Of its homes and the preserv,a-
tion of it's liberty. That, sir, is our reli-
ance and our hope, and against it all the
powers of earth shall not prevail.
1t was just as certain that Virginia would
come back to the unchallenged control of
her white race-tbat before the moral and
material power Of her people, once more
last desperate leader was left alone, vainly
striving to rally his disordered hosts-as
that night should fade in the kinal!liing
bnf theys Viii Hot avail feSu may surren2
der your own liberties to federal election
law, you may submit, iii fear of necessity
that NAV not exist that the very form of