Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1894-09-19
THE OTHER SIDE.
A Colored Mans Defense of the South
Views of MI. C. c. AstwOOd.

Views of Mr.. c. c. AstwoOd.
Mr.. 9. G. Astwood, colored, late con-
sui of the United States to San Do
mingo, and at present chairman of the
executive committee of the Negro Ma
tional Democratic League, replies very
forcibly in a recent interview in the
Brooklyn Standard Union to the Sian
derous charges made against the Soath
by Ida Wells and partisan Northern
Journals. In the course of this inter
view Mr.. Astwood says:
81 cannot find, upon the closest in
vestigation. that the condition of the
colnred people of the South is any
worse. nor even as bad. as it is in the
North If any material progress has
been made by the race at all. it is N
the South. where the pondman, who
was set free about thirty years ago
has been able to acquire nearly IS %,
900 C03 worthy of property. AMI he has
proyi essed along the lines of caNi
nerce, Industry and ei;nration. ,qusl
al by 40 people in history.
As TO ~ uching, | want to assert hon
estly and boldly, as cOlored man,
that l deprecate it, and 80 do the good
white people # the South. But l am
not prepared to believe that the de
cent colored people of the South will
assume the responsibility for the dia-
bolical and outrageous actions OF the
depraved element of our people, who
prey upon the virtue of women and
commit covert acts which bring upon
them the lawless element of the white
class and cause lynching.
Il emphasize it, that lava biding
coored citizens, moral and upright in
their habits, are not lynched at all in
the South. And Christian men and
women are as absolutely safe as they
are in the North. | deny the state
ment that the virtue OF decent colored
women in the South is outraged by
white men, as Miss Wells would have
it appear. l judge from observation
that this is a fact to a great extent in
the North. The best specimens of
negro womanhood and manhood, from
standpoint of virtue, is found in the
South, and am sure if we could at
once remove the causes for lynching
there would be no lynching. The
cause grows out of the unfortunate
condition of the ignorance and deprav
ity of both whites and blacks. This
cannot be removed by legislation, poll
tics, nor the remedy which Miss Wells
and her friends would apply, nor by
any appeal to the unjust tribunals of
foreign nations, whose oppression of
negroes and other subjects is greater
than the oppression to which the negro
is subjected in this country. England.
for instance, is nation least prepared
to pass upon such a question.
at is well for Miss Wells to go to
sympathetic England. where no color
ed people dwell at all, and tell the
philanthropic men and women of that
great country o: the awful condition
of the negro. how he is oppressed and
lynched in the United States, while q
short trip among the GOLFERS OF Eng
land and the peasantry of Ireland.
their degradation and misery, would
have unnerved her for her brave task.
Then come to the West Indies, the ne
gro colonies of Great Britain, freed
nearly sixty years ago. under very
much better circumstances than those
which surrounded the American negro
when freed, begin at Barbados, Dem
arara. come down to the Windward
Islands, terminate the trip at the Low
CT Bahamas, and investigate the con
dition of the disfranchlsed and pro-
| ".
Wells don't tell me that the American
negro is living in paradise in com
parison with the condition she would
find, then I don't know what 1 am
talking about.
But she might say. that these PEG
pie are not lynched.' l answer no.
they are not; nor do they commit the
crimes for which the colored are lynch
ed in the South, but if they did, they
would be. The British law is so rigid
that petty larceny and like crimes are
so severely punished that high crimes
are seldom committed.
1.-The colony in which was born
and educated, where the blacks num-
Der more than one hundred to one
white, no murder has been committed
within a century, nor have l ever
heard of a woman being outraged.
The negroes of the British West Indies
are disfranchised, they have no voice
in politics and they really receive but
little official recognition. The United
States, on the contrary, and without
British example, have sent abroad for
eign ministers and consuis of the negro
race, and in the South the negroes
have received the highest political
positions. X This crusade sim
ply means an agitation for personal
ambitions to create a furoJ e. and, after
making more trouble for the Southern
negro, to die off as all other efforts of
the kind.
II repeat that the Indictment against
the South has been overdrawn, and SO
severely so that 1 would rather accept
the condition to condone lynching for
female outrage than to accept the
e
crimes. Men who are interested in
the welfare of the race, rather than go
to England, should go down South, oc-
cupy the pulpit, the stump and the
schoolhouses, and appeal to the sent.
ment of our colored brethren and ask
them to desist from crimes that do not
only bring upon them dire vengeance,
but a blot upon the entire race. l ami
sure that every Governor, every COM
munity, every law-abiding citizen of
the Southland would welcome such a
crusade, and it would do more to stop
lynchings than a thousand years of
Miss Wellss crusading. These demon
strations embolden the wrong-doer
and intensity the rage of the outraged
husband and father against us. 1t
places us in the position of defending
hyenas in human form because they
are black, and establishing a pri ciple
that white women have no tights
which black brute is bound Il, re
spect. =
Il stand ready to maintain that our
position in the South is better than it
is in the North from every material
standpoint, and that if left alone we
will secure rights in a few years that
have not been secured by the North
ern negro in decades. If the condition |
was so terribly bad, we have men and
women of the South with the ability, |
the courage and the patriotism to I'M
dertake the crusade, who are the peers |
OF those engaged in the uncalled for |
and unnatural exposition"
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