Birmingham age-herald., 1895-09-19

ful isle of Cuba queen of the Antilles, the l dim religious light of her hoary eathe- | dral falls softly OCT the sacred ashes of | the diseoverer Rich and rare in all her | products in coffee. sugar and tobacco, in | the pineapple, orange banana, the ma | hogony, ebony and palm. Her coast line 1 is indented with harhors. The altitude of | her plateaus and mountains tempers with l delicious coolness the soft breeZes of the 1 tropics, and she has ever been and is now | endued with the abounding sympathy of 1 the people of this land of freedom. May l not now paraphrase the language of Daniel Webster, spoken in the house of representatives of the brave Greeks when they were driving zunspeaka ble Turk from that land where the mountains look on Marathon and Marathon looks OH the sea- I win not say sir, that they will succeed-that rests with heaveh-but for myself, if 1 should hear tomorrow that their last phalanx had sunk beneath the Spanish sword, their last city had gone down into ashes and that naught re-
 mained but the wide melancholy waste where Cuba once was, I should reflect with the most heartfelt satisfaction that
 l have asked In the names of 70000,0O0 of free men that you would give them
 at least the cheering of one friendly voice. fs
 These are our sister republics. They have initiated the example our fore fathers gave. The great powers of Flu
 rope. and some not so great, have par celed out the continent of Africa. It is nearly all within the sphere of influence as it is called. of one or the other of the European nations. Almost the whole of Asia is under European control. Even now certain great powers threaten to df- vide the empire of China, and to assail 1 the insular kingdom of Japan, the genius of whose brilliant and heroic people has placed them in the first rank of the forces of civilization. 1t is the plain duty of | nation fO tO if that the sphere of influence of European nations shall not further extend to any foot of the soil of that continent discovered by Columbus. We owe it to the traditions of our glorious past and as well to the peoples who from us have caught the inspiration of popular government. We owe 1t to the countless millions of self respecting and freedom-loving people
 who are to inherit America when We are gathered to our fathers America for Americans should be the animating
 principle of every administration which wields from Washington the moral pow CT of the American people, Nor should we for this reason withhold the due need l of honor and admiration to those great | European powers which in their way | and on their own soil are contributing | to the advancement of mankind. To the Spanish crown We owe the discovery of | America. Side by side the Light Infantry under Hamilton the Corps de Elite of | the French army swarmed over the pali- SadeS at Yorktown The great Freder | ick, the last of the great kings, refused l passage through Prussian territory to | the Hessian mercenarieS hired to Sub- | jugate our fathers and devastate our l land.
 "Of Italy it may be said that her sons | have surpassed any other people in many | departments of human endeavor. In sculpture and architecture one may point | to Mch9el Angelo; in painting to Titan, aereriA md I2an n Sta n l Machiavelli, to Cavour and Mazini; in generalship to Napoleon and Massena; in | poetry to Tasso and Dante; in discovery | to Columbus. Nor should America en- | courage any feeling save that of amity and pride for England, after America the | strongest friend of civil and religious 1 liberty on earth-land of old and great 1 renown, where freedom broadens slowly 1 down from precedent to precendent.
 q here declare that the so-called race | question does not exist There are mill | lions of colored people who live and who l will live among many more millions Of | white people. Why shall any one forge l a race issue? Honest and decent men l will accord to the negro that just meas l ure of favor as a member of society the 1 laws afford him, and which his conduct ] deserves, and the long processes of time l will determine whether his presence is a | benefit or an injury to himself and to | the lana to WD1cn ne IS now dS warmly | attached as his white neighbOrS. No | process of reasoning, no fertility of con- 1 lecture will afford any other solution of | the so-called question. Why ag1tate 1t l then? Its unnecessary discussion has l withheld from the resources of these | states the fructifying hand of the indus | trious white men, whether farmer or l artisan, who, earning a bare support l elsewhere, could, in this genial cline | win an abundance of which he never l dreamed. 1t is, moreover, more cruel to l the negro than it is detrimental to the
 white men, for the prejudice it awakens l causes the idle. ignorant and lawless to l become the suspicious enemies of the | negro. It is, indeed, a source of alarm | to those industrious and respectable negroes whose intelligent labor and self l denying habits have supported their | families, educated their children and l added millions annually to the taxable 1 value of these states. There is one l thing since his emancipation the south 1 has ever guaranteed to the negro, that l is no matter what his trade or occupa-
 tion, the privilege of earning his living. | It is a common spectacle upon struc l lures of every character to behold num-
 bers of white and negro mechanics | working side by side. I have regretted l to learn that this is not true in the | northern states l was informed by the | president of a technological school from l Philadelphia,' a man of great intelligence
 and great benevolence, that they yearly | turned out numbers of coored youth | trained, skillful in the trades they had | mastered, but that if one of these men
 | should be employed as a skillful laborer l on any work, every member of the trade
 unions would quietly gather up his tools
 and quit the job. No such feeling has
 existed here. The opportunity for tech l nical education is the greatest bene- l faction his friends can bestow on the | negro. The skill of the graduate of an
 | industrial school is his capital. He has | been taught to appreciate the dignity of l labor. He is not striving for the unat- | tainable. He is a useful citizen from the l start. He begins his lifework on a solid | basis. How incomparably superior is
 | his condition to that of one of his race | who is trained for profession where 1 he must depend upon the patronage and | slender means of his own people, or of l one who has merely acquired a fatal | facility of speech. If it be said that the l argument would restrict the genius of | the Afro American orator (though why l Afro l do not know) let him bear in | mind that it took 300 years for the white l of In ri iup s-Dc