The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1891-10-08

/ 6SeASA Va AoSs~St 80 ~ niuSl
be productive of great good.
But where there is disease, there
must be cause, and it would be idle
to discover that cause without point
ing out remedy. l shall endeavor
| to do both.
The cause of the disease is lack OF
education the remedy for it, better
| educational facilities.
Most of our Southern legislatures
are not unwilling to spend money for
almost any purpose which may be sug-
gested, but the moment the subject of
public education is broached, the
purse-strings are quickly drawn tight,
aud the great red seal Of the State is
put over the commonwealth money
bags. This is called economy.
Economy! What nonsense!
1t is the most culpable sort of short
sightedness to refuse to appropriate
money for educational purposes. No
money is extravagantly spent, which
is judiciously applied to the elevation
of the standard of public school edu-
cation.
promised to speak to you plainly
here to-day, and l shall keep my word.
You all know, as we'll as 1 do, that the
argument advanced in nearly every
Southern State against the school-tax,
is that you will be helping to educate
/! the negro's children.
OF course you will and why should
you not, pray? The correct theory is
that property should provide educa-
tional facilities, inasmuch as property
finds its greatest protection in, and
derives its principal protection from an
enlightened populace.
Give all of your people in this State
reasonably good educations, and the
appreciation in the value of property
before the close of this Exposition
would be almost startling. l think
every one will admit the correctness
of this statement.
Now, if it be true, why should we
desire to keep any portion of our pop
lation in Ignorance?
say to you, my friends, in all earn
estness, and with all appreciation of
the importance of the statement, that
the negro is with US to stay, and the
sooner we come to realization of that
fact, the better.
And further, wish to express it as
my honest conviction that if this were
not so, the future OF the South at large,
especially for the next thirty or forty
years, would appear to me to be very
gloomy. Any great negro exodus
means untold loss to our people.
The negro is docile, and gives bet
ter grade of field labor for a given
amount of money, than any other ma
tionality. In many portions of the
South, even in my own State, agricul-
ture is next to impossible without the
negro. He wants to live with US, and
continue to ride along with us to
wealth and prosperity, and we must
make it possible for him to do so. Gil
matically, this is his only proper home
in North America, but we are fast ap-
preaching the Twentieth century, and
we must not shut our eyes to the fact
that no sensible being is now willing
to have his children grow up without
some education. Therefore, let the
negroes have it as we'll as your own
children. Give lots of it to both Of
them, and you will merit the welldone
OF the civilized world, and your own
offspring will receive the direct bene-
fits of this liberal policy.
On the other hand, the negro must
bear in mind that his place in the
political economy of the South is
clearly defined.
He must not hope to rule her. He
is incompetent to do so. He has once
tried the experiment, and will himself
admit that it was terribly disastrous
one for the South, coming, too, as it
did, close upon the devastation and
desolation of the greatest civil war the
world has ever known.
The South has not entirely re ecovered
from the effects of the scandalous days
of reconstruction, when keen-witted
knaves from all parts of the country
hocked hither, lusting for wealth, and
finding the ignorance of the negroes
and their gratitude for supposed SER
vice, sympathetic strings to play upon,
bound the weeping, heart-broken,
PROSTATE South with the letters Of race
prejudice, and, vampire like, sucked
her very blood away. until she was
the mere shadow of her former self.
But the end to all this had to come.
You can never whip Southerner. You
may beat him into insensibility, but
as our gallant old Mart Gary once
said, "He's sure to come again, as
soon as he gets his BREATH
And the time did come-with US in
South Carolina in '76-and Radical
ism was swept from the South. The
blood Of many of our relatives and
friends washed out the last OF the stains
left by the plunderers, and no such con-
dition as existed prior to 1876 can
ever possibly he brought about here
again under any combination OF Cir
stances. Our chivalry would all have
to be obliterated.
But the negro realizes all this, and
it is therefore needless to recall the
memories of those stormy days.
At the same time, as l have already
said before, we owe him educational
facilities, and we should give them,
and with good grace, too. That he
can avail himself Of them will be am
ply evidenced by the showing which
will be made here in his department
1t may appear to you, my friends,
that have dealt at too great length
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