The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-06-10
AEsUED ADVICE.


Ex-Uai.ed States Senator ingalls, in his
latest syndicate article discusses the race
problem and announces that twenty-five
years Of freedom have done 50 little tor
tee negro thss he advises him to go back
10 Africa This il absurd advice. bet it il
worthy Of Ingalls,. who never Was any
tnsng bat . bohemian In politics; who has
beea everything in turn and nothing long.
Any man OF ordinary intelligence and in
formation knows tina: human history does
millions Of people have Voluntarily ex-
pstriated themselves from the land of their
bsrth. The seven millions Of negroes Of
the South are AL natives Of the South |;
they are American citizens and cannot be
expatria.ed against their will, so of course
tariIy leave the South and 60 10 Africa
where they can escape the enm!ty and
persecution Of the aristocracy Of skin.
Ifa vote were taken today q. the South
81 per cent. OF her negro population would
refuse 10 leave the land Of their birth.
Like all primitive. childish people, the
negro Is strongly attached TO the land Of
his birth, where he has grown to man.
hood; where his dead are buried. You
could not possibly hire any considerable
namber of Southern blacks to 60 to Africa
aad stay there. A man Of considerable
culture and experience is not half 30
strongly bound TO the land Of his birth as
tie negro. the Indian or the ''poor white"
II took frigh;ful famine to make the Irish
peasantry leave their wretched land for
America; the French peasant, even under
tie grinding Ini!itarism Of his government,
clings 10 France: the intelligent, cultured.
reading. thinking man easily becomes q
cosmopoliie. The intelligent men of the
South emigrate and ind themselves thor
oagriy at home on the North Atlantic sea-
baasss. in the Middle West or on the Pa.
cifc coast. but the poor white" and the
negro both love the soil Of their birth and
will submit to great privation before they
will leave IT, The hard. nervous, knuriy.
restless Yankee will go anywhere and
make himself at home; so will the
French Canadian. but the negro Of the
South Is afiectionaie. imaginative. with
strongly developed local attachments to
soil and family, and it is utterly absurd to
assume that the negro problem will ever
be solved by any arpreciable number OF
negroes going back to Africa.
You cannot deport these seven millions
unless they wish to be deported and there
iE not the slightest evidence that they de-
sire deportation. You could not by moral
persuasion or club law get the negroes Of
the South to move to Africa tomorrow.
Why should they wish to go? The South
does not desire them to depart; they are
the only cheap labor she can get; why
should the South wish to see q negro
exodus to Africa? The South has never
preached this gospel Of returning to
Africa thee negro. and she has never
encouraged others to preach it. Since,
10 Africa and the South does not
wish him to depart, what an utterly alb
sard solution Of the negro problem is this
proposition Of Ingalls, that they shall all
20 back to Africa! The negro is in the
South to stay: there he will work out
his salvation or his destruction: there he
will root, hog, or die" He has done as
welt under Twenty-Five years Of emancipa-
ton AS could be fairly expected, in view of
his natural and his artificial or acquired
disabilities; no certainly has not de-
Perforated save in the large cities. In in
tsliigence, wealth. morality and thrift the
negro has greatly improved in twenty-five
years, in face Of many ugly obstacles to
his advancement.
The negro problem is sure TO be solved
ut the South: the survival of the fttest
Will he the ultimate result with the negro
rs with the Indian. Able Southern men
like ex-Gov. Lowry. OF Mississippi. take a
very hopeful! view of his condition and
expect him TO become eventually what the
enancipated negroes have become III the
Bahamas. industrious artisans and me-
chanics rs we'll as mine workers and tiliers
Of the soil. Whether the negro survives
his discipline or dies under il. as the
Indian is dying. we may be sure that
the negro problem at the South will lie
settled At the South and by the South.
There Will never oe q voluntary or inyol.
nn,ary deportation of s,o0o,ooo of native
horn American citizens 10 Africa. In.
gals idea Is as obsolete rs the Populis,
finance that he fooled with in the hope 10
eet back to the senate.