Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1893-01-26
The Negro at the Capital.
ATLANTA Constitution.

The Washington correspondent of the
Boston transcript is giving the readers
of that paper some very unwe)come facts
concerning the $4,000 negroes who reside
in the District of Columbia.
For years the negroes of Virginia and
Maryland have been tlocking to the Fede-
raj Capital. They own but little prop
erty, and most of them work only enough
to keep body and soul together. Espe-
cially is this true of the women, who are
far more thriftless and shiftless than the
men, and altogether more vicious. The
younger generation of negro women are
averse to domestic service, and it is
rare thing to find good cook among
them.
The proportion of crime among these
people is enormous At one time there
were eleven negro murderers in the
Washington jail, all of whom had been
brought up in freedom. Before the war
there were not eleven murders committed
by slaves in the whole United States in
year. Emancipation, says this Boston
papers correspondent, has turned the
most peaceable and law-abiding people
in the world into the most criminal race
in this or any other civilized country,
and it has, moreover. made them race
OF idlers The only idea of civilization
that negro has is to learn how to read
and write. In Washington the jail is
filed mainly from the ranks of these
educated negroes. The leaders preach
the doctrine of resistance to law, and
some of them last year declared that for
every negro shot By a policeman white
man should be killed. Three policemen
were killed by negroes last year. and
highway robbery is on the increase.
Surely, no such terrible Indictment OF
the negro race is to be found these days
in the Southern papers. 1t is in repu-
table Boston journal that we find these
statements, with the additional comment
that all the money spent for the educa-
ton of these people simply makes them
more criminal and more dangerous.
The average Southerner will not hesi-
tate to say that the correspondent OF the
TrQnscript has drawn too black a picture.
1t may be that the congestion of the
negro problem in Washington and dis
position to look to the government for
relief has had bad effect, but in the
South at large the negroes are far from
being hopelessly lazy and thoroughly
criminal. Perhaps their education has
been forced too rapidly, but in Georgia
and other Southern States they are mode
ratelv industrious and are becoming a
race of home-owners. Their progress is
slow, but still there is a distinct advance
every decade, and the situation is calcu-
lated to inspire hope.
II proper effort should be made to
induce the negro population OF Washing
ton to distribute itself in other towns
and in the rural districts, the result would
be beneficial all round. We commend
this view to the Northerners who are
allowing their disappointed expectations
concerning the negroes to bias their judg-
ment to an unjust extreme. If the negroes
are judiciously letalone, and left to work
out their own destiny, all will be well.
The whole trouble is caused by the med
ding of outsiders who know nothing
about this peculiar race. Too much pet
ting, too much forced education, are fatal.