The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-08-13
The SOUTHERN PROBLEM.

A new stage in the controversy between
Miss Wells aud the Southern newspapers is
reached by the publication OF a thou9btful
paper in the last mum Der of the Methodist
Episcopal Reuieto by Frederick Douglass,
ex-Minisier to Hayti. 1t will be remem-
bered that Miss Wells arraigned the South
on the charge that negroes were frequently
murdered by mobs on improved charges
that they had been guilty OF atrocious as
saults on females. The Southern news
papers met the charge with general de-
NAL. They asserted that in the lynching
cases to which Miss Wells referred the
victims had met a deserved fate and that
it was necessary 10 make examples for the
protection of the women of the South. Mr..
Douglass strikes back with the retort that
whatever the facts were. "a fierce and
frenZed mob ought not to be deemed a
competent witness against any man ac-
cused of any crime whatever, and that III
no case should such a body Of furious men
be suffered to be witness. judge, jury and
executioner." Mr.. Douglass points out
that during the four years when all the
able-bod men at the South were in the
army their families were in the power of
in the whole South ever complained of
maltreatment. He utterly disbelieves in
the excuses given for the Iynchings and de-
csres that the latter are mere ebnlliti0ns
of the old lawless spirit 20 which slavery
gave rise.
The controversy will do good inasmuch
as it will rouse the lava biding men Of the
South to set their faces against lawless VIC
lence. Whatever crimes villains may COM
nit they are entitled to be tried for them
according to the laws of the land; TO set
aside those laws and to supersede their
ministers with mobS iDtamed by passion
is a practice that must be Subversive of
social order and fatal to progress. This is
being thoroughly realized in parts of the
South, especially in States like Texas.
which in the old days acquired bad emf
nence in disorder. and now is perhaps the
only State in the Union in which the law
agains: carrying concealed weapons is rig
idly and inexorably carried out.
Mr.. Douglass is too broad man not to
see that the question of nsgro-lynchings is
with the general problem Of
the future of the negro at the South. He
fully realizes that emancipation has been
in a measure a failure. He draws pitful
picture of the emancipated slave. He
rents land from his old master at an eXor-
bitant rent and mortgages his crop to Sc
cure the rent. He borrows meat and
bread from the master to feed his family
while the crop is growing. Hence be has
nOthing, can keep nothing, can sell moth
ing without his landlords consent. He is
fastened to the land by hooks of steel. If
he tries to go away be is arrested. He is
paid for his crop in store orders and sell
dom has any money. Thus, in fact, he is
a slave though he is called freeman. His
distressing condition does net lure Mr..
Douglass into indorsing wild schemes for
the disfranchisement of the negroes or for
their expatriation. He seems to have no
remedy fitted for the case. but says vague
ly that all will be right, and providence
will solve the problem if the nation tries a
policy of justice.
1t is sometimes wearisome TO wait for
the grinding of the mills Of the gods.
Economical errors generally cure them
selves in less time through the operation
of natural causes. Societies in which
slavery exists in a disguise of freedom
usually harbor in their heart the seeds Of
dissolution. Either the disguised slave
falls back on natural law, and appeals to
force to recover his rights, or injustice
proves improbable and is abandoned as
an economical blunder. A time must come
when so artificial and unjust system will
break down, and then the planter will be
confronted with the alternative Of adopt
ing a system in which his labor shall be
free, and his laborers contented. or of
abandoning his plantation. Given fertile
tract of land. and a supply of able-hodied
labor to work it, the owner must be very
obtuse il he cannot combine the two so as
TO extract yield from the land without fric-
ton among the laborers. The landowners
of the South will surely be able to solve