The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1893-03-02
A BAD PICTURE.
Wilmington Messenger. ]

newspapers, the transcript, IN one OF
his letters Of two or three weeks ago,
turned on some very undesirable light
TO some people, concerning the con-
dition of the large negro population in
Washington City and the District OF
Columbia. He puts the negroes at
80, 900, and if his account IS to be
trusted, they have done but little for
themselves and others with all the
advantage of good surroundings, and
the patronage of the Republican party.
The sum of his account is that they
are poor, prey to vice, lazy and
largely criminal. The women are
represented as being quite as bad as
the men. As it is Republican state
mcnt in negrophilist New England
paper we see no good reason for doubt
ing the correctness Of the statements.
We find the following comment in the
Atlanta Constitution on the condition
as revealed of the negroes in the
National Capital. The Constitution
says that "the proportion of crime
among these people is enormous. AT
one time there were II murderers in
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. Emancipa
ton, says this Boston papers cores
pendent, has turned the most peace
able and law-abiding people in the
world into the most criminal race in
this or any other country, and it has,
moreover, made them race of idlers.
The only idea of civilization that a
negro has is to learn how to read and
write. In Washington the Jail is filled
mainly from the ranks of these
| educated negroes. Their leaders
preach the doctrine of resistance to
law, and some of them last year
declared that for every negro shot by
a policeman a white man should be
killed. Three policemen were killed
by negroes last year, and highway
robbery is on the increase
This is a terrible revelation. Right
under the superlative noses of Repub-
lican Presidents the 800 negroes of
the favored District of Columbia have
drifted away back into open lawless-
ness and defiance of all decency,
and have made themselves a continual
menace to society and civilization, and
have shown themselves incapable
under the most favorable opportunities
of raising themselves in the scale of
morality, refinement and decency,
| aided by education and countenanced
| by politicians as allies. The Boston
| paper makes startling admission
| that with them education is a dead
failure, making them worse criminals
and even more dangerous.
Years ago the son of a famous
Northern Abolitionist in the past was
in this city and called to see us twice.
He told us he had visited every
penitentiary in the entire South, and
| the main object was to ascertain what
proportion of the prisoners confined
were young and with some education.
He said, to his astonishment, he found
IN every penitentiary that an actual
majority OF the criminals were young,
reared since slavery ceased, and
could read and write. He found that
education had not prevented crime
among the negroes who have come on
since the war.
We have confidence in education.
1t is not a moral Regeneration as taught
in New England. 1t is not a catholi-
con. But properly pursued it will
improve character, give higher ideals
and nobler conceptions of >life and
duty, will make better and more use.
full citizens and give advantages to
those possessing it over the Ignorant
But it will not implant high moral
principles. The most successful
scoundrels of the world have been well
educated and some of them superbly
| SO.
To elevate a race you must cult
vate, train, discipline the mind, the
morals, the hand. The intellect
educated highly and the soul dwarfed
will only give potency to whatever is
evil in man. Discipline his intellect
and fill it with knowledge while trying
to lead him TO higher plane of moral
living in which truth, horror, virtue,
purity all prevail and combine as so
many great factors in building char
acter. Teaching negroes or whites
the three RS will not make men
higher in the moral scale. Learning
has no transforming, regenerating
power. The round man, the COM
plete man, the noble man is one who
has had his intellect cultured, his soul
changed and touched by the Divine
finger, and his hand made deft by
technical training. Leave out the
discipline of the heart and you have a
| nrociIoI Ion ciIol oL