The Port Gibson reveille. [volume] (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1890-current, 1892-04-13


: makes il practice, when he has
a load of wood, to engage three or
: four to cut IT: possibly one may
: come when he agrees. Steady six
: days work Is almost unknown.
] There is much intemperance, and
: even among sober men no habits of
} saving. Land is not dear: tracts of
j bottom land on the coast once worth
fifteen dollars nm acre now 20 beg
ging Mt dollar and quarter; but
for the last twenty years the ne
groes have bought little or no land.
They have not gained much in
common-school education since 1870
they are not gathering property,
and, above all, the race seems NOR
ally to stand about where il did i'm
reconstruction times.
1T is hard, says a white lady
plaIntively, Ito get on with servants
who have no honesty and no virtue"
Even among the thriving and pros
porous country and village negroes,
the standards Of conduct are un-
speakable. Let one example suf-
flee. Two neighbOrs, both northern
ladies, in very intelligent town,
arrange for their two cooks TO live
in one little house. With those two
black women live their four iIlegit-
innate children. To dismiss the
servants is not worth while, because
there is every reason to expect that
that successors would be of the
same character. Among such srea-
lures are brought up the children of
whie families. The girls, by some
miracle, grow up rs flesh and pure
rs though there were no such con-
tamina ion; but il is demoralizing
TO the boys. The starting. point Of
seli-respect and admiration for
high character seems lacking among
the negroes. The preachers, who
are almost the only leaders, are
justly distrusted. Malone is said
TO have made it a principle 10 buy
up the preachers in Virginia. A
returned convict feels no sense of
disgrace among his own people.
The long continuance of slavery is
not wholly responsible for this deg
radiation; il is a defect in the char
acter OF the race. Yet upon this
partially civilized substralum rests
the economic development of the
state.
A iair type of the labor sys-
tenn is a scene witnessed ut a sta
tion the other day: in the FORE
ground four white men superintend-
ed the switching of some cars; in
the background anegro with mule
team furnished the raw material.
The baggagemaster touches the
trunk, the black porter lifts il.
Without negro labor the state would
starve.
In such a condition of mutual de-
pendence, one would expect at least
friendly relations between the races.
Outward good nature there is, but
almost no confidence. There are
graceful amenities between old
slaves and former owners, but the
races distrust and dislike each other.
The white man has little confidence
in the character of his black neigh
Dor, and the negro little regard for
the opinion Of his white neighbor.
Nowhere Is this absolute dlstrust
so manifest as in politics. The nc
gro vote is not suppressed-it is in
a minority in the state at large; but
in the black counties il is simply
not counted. The state legislature
elects most of the county officers.
The white people are literally i'm
terror lest somehow, by their divi-
sions, the negroes should get such
political power as they had in re-
times. 1--WE dare not
divide,r says a native of North
"we dare not divide even
on the question Of improving our
roads," The mechanism of politi-
cal development is stopped.
IL Is impossible TO say how far
slavery accounts for the deplorable
failure of the state 90 work out of
the present social and political
deadlock. The conviction borneIn
upon my own mind, against its pre-
is that the white race
is not doing its duty. The state is
poor: the little money spent on
schools is chiefly paid by whites,
and is fairly divided among white
and black children. But the pe0-
pie have no heart in negro educa-
lion; they are passively hostile to
the schools kept up by northern
philanthropy; they make little dis.
.inction between educated and liz
norant blacks. The remark made
10 me by a public man of great in
Ielligencc is vigorous, but not an
exaggerated, view of the temper Of
lie whites. 1--WE don't want the
negroes TO get educated or get rich,"
said he; "the more educated they
lre and the richer they are, tho
worse il IL for us. Ii il a big stick
IN their hands," In other words,
education suggests 10 the North
Carolina organization, combined
force, negro supremacy, SOME vague
kind ofsocial equality. The south
ern people are fond nf talking III
two civiIizations;" they seem to
set The negro out OF their moral
world; they feeln responsibility
II. a