The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-05-16
A Bad Suggestion,


IF the southern outrsges on the colored
race continue, the negro will become a
chemist. Other men besides anarchists can
be goaded into making and throwing bombs. "
The foregoing is from speech that was de-
livered in Chicago few days ago by Fred>
erick Douglass, a negro who is looked upon
as the foremost of his race. Of the threat
implied it is needless to speak; and it is
hardly necessary to say the suggestion
will not be acted upon. 1t is very bad
neutrality-suspicious. bad for the negro,
for he knows full we'll that the day he be-
comes bomb thrower the trace problem"
will take on an aspect such as it has never
yet had.
Happily, however, there is not the slight
est danger of any such a condition of affairs
as Douglass hints at. The southern negro
is not such a fool as his educated ad wiser
supposes him 20 be- He is not disposed to
be martyr for the benefit of political
tricksters.
The southern negro, in whose behalf all
OF this hue aud cry has recently been raised
by political demagogues. is much better
satisfied with his legal and social status in
the south than those chronic soreheads
who are forever waving the bloody shirt are
with their own condition. And he is better
pleased than they could possibly please him
If they had him in Elyslan fields with the
wealth Of world to back governmental
venture.
The negro in the south has learned, and
knows absolutely. that he is as safe as any
white man. In all of these alleged OUT
RACES about which so much noise is
being made there has not been
one person lynched or whipped who
who was not connected with the crime with
which he was charged. And there never
will be such lynching in the south. So
long as the negro is an honest man and
good citizen he is as safe in the south as
though he were in the library of that most
bitter anti-south agitator, Judge Tourgee.
The MORNING NEWS has time and again
condemned mob violence in dealing with
blacks charged with the heinous crimes
which most frequently lead to lynching.
1t believes in upholding the majesty of the
law, operating in the proper channels, and
in the equal rights Of all citizens under the
law. At the same time, it can but see the
force of the argument that the same laws
administered in precisely the same manner
with respect to the two races, differing SO
vastly as they do, will not produce the same
results. The one race has been master and
ruler from time immemorial, and has
higher conception of its duties
to society. The other race less than thirty
years ago was thrust into citizenship
having comparatively little understand
ing of its obligations to society
Under such conditions it is only
natural that the blacks should furnish the
greater number of criminals, and it is hardly
less natural that it should be thought by
many to be necessary to restrain what is
evil in them by impressinR upon them the
fact that punishment, swift and certain,
follows certain attractions of the law.
But mob law is wrong. The court house
is the proper place to deal with those charged
with crime whether they are white or black.
And the blacks can quickly put an end to
lynch law by conducting themselves in ac-
cordance with the laws. They can never dc
it by becoming chemists