The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1893-01-18
THE NEW YORK SUN AND THE NEGRO.

The New York Sun is one of the few
newspapers of the North that understand
the true state Of affairs in the South
and the negro's true relation to those
affairs. and it has the candor to state it
exactly as it is, and to warn the country
Of the danger to our institutions in the
wild theories of the Lodges, the Hoars.
the Dawes. etc. Nevertheless. even the
Sun is liable to be misled in matters that
concern the negro. a negro man named
Price who is president of a negro College
at Salisbury. North Carolina, delivered
an address last week before the Nine
teenth Century Club OF New York city,
on THE Future of the Negro in the
South" The address was conservative
in tone, and. on the whole, as far as we
saw reports of it. candid and fair. But
Price, as was naturally to be expected,
used a little "couleur de rose in tinting
his picture, and this tinting has caught
the Sun. That journal believes that the
negro is making an var which is
far in excess Of the actual advance. In
NNtAf C0A N-AAl ~ N0NtcNC 'NN
him are most discouraging.
The negro has been a freeman now
nearly thirty years, living in a community
that gives him a perfectly equal and fair
show in every respect whatever II the
disputed matter Of politics is left out Of
the question. What tangible results do
we see? The figures that we append are
taken from the official records of the
Auditor OF the State of Virginia, which
are open to the Sun or to any one else.
The net revenue paid by 635, 900 negroes
into the Treasury of the State of Virginia
$l0S. 565 "a, OF which one-half was the
capitation tax of one dollar per head.
So that the sum of about $4,000 was all
that was paid by negroes upon all forms
Of property. in a general revenue from
taxation of s.. 940. 1851, though they con-
stitute two-ffths Of the population of the
state. These figures prove conclusively
that they are not saving in order to ac-
cumulate property.
What then do they cost the State? We
paid in the same year for public free |
for negroes 1924, 364.l5, for a lunatic |
asylum for them $50, 900, and for the ex-
penses OF criminal trials of negroes S2O4.-
0lS.99. So that the State Of Virginia spent
in the year 1891 $6OS, 3S2.14 on her negro
population. and received from them I'm
revenue only SlOS. 565.54. and substantially
the same thing takes place every year.
We make these statements in no spirit
Of antagonism 20 or even Of ~disappoint-
ment With our negro population. We are
no sense surprised that the confident
predictions of those Southcrncrs who
Anew the negro thorol ghly should be
rather than the dreams and fam
of those New EnglaLders who ideal
zed the negro, and who in f,.rtherance Of
heir Misunderstanding the teachings Of
CENTURIES and the results Of experience.
stubborn truth with the lc-
fCIs OF a fanatics brain. To-day as
Ormerly those who know the negro best
hose who are most patient with his
n most appreciative of
lis merits. are those who knew and
owed him in the days OF slavery-an in
titntion greatly more injurious TO the
vhite than to the black race, placing
ieavier shackles on the master than on
he slave. The whites have been liberated
ven more than the negroes. i
The whites Of the South have svsry