The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-11-29

AGAINST NEGRO SUFFRAGE
Negro is q Mixture Of Child
aud Animal.
RESULTS OF LYNcH-LAw TRACED
Demo ralizaiion and Other Conooque-
ences of Such Practices Worse on
Whites Than Punishment to Me-
groes--Restrict Suffrage.


Weekly. and it's author is Julian Haw-
thorne, New Englander by birth and
education. and capable writer He
makes it evident that ne does not un-
derstand the negro question, and he cX.
aggerates both sides Of the question, while
he offers no practical remedy, but he tells
some wholesome. and unwholcsomc.
truths and the article is worth considera
ton:
| never could understand why the old
abolitiouists used to declare with one sid
| of their mouths that slavery was the most
debasing and degrading TO the victim OF
all imaginable things, while with the ott=
or side they were eXtolling the negro as
sort of mpeccabe saint Of demi-god. 1t
seemed to me that there was lapse in
the continuity OF their logic
Some people are so constituted that they
cannot help thinking there must be some
thing good and lovely in worm or a
beetle simply because it is trod upon.
But fail to see how n bugs or mans
moral nature can be changed for the bet
ter by being crushed and wr0nged. The
uses of adversely may no doubt be sweet,
provided you have the stuff in you to
make it so. but in the majority Of cases
YOU have not and it makes you ugly and
vile.
For my own part could get along very
well without ever seeing negro again.
! I wish there were none outside of Africa
and look forward with no agreeable am
ticipation to their multiplying on this con-
| tinent. But wishes are vain; the negro
| is here and nobody can devise or foresce
40 a II % III yta4qa tgI1 mo me
| getting rid Of him. 1t was the Dutch
| believe, who first brought him here. bu'
we took their tip and cannot eyade the
| responsibility for him. 1t may be true
! that he was just as much slave in his
| own country as he has been in this and
that there were fewer mitigating circum-
stances for them there th2n here We are
guilty concerning him just the same. and
our plain duty in the premises is 20 make
! the best Of him in every sense Of tie
/ phase We should arrange our house 90
accommodate him and do what we may
| to render him worthy and desirable
| denizcn thereof. If we neglect TO- do this
IT we abuse him and scls2aa hspl-then
| we are ourselves guilty OF his crimes We
are guilty, and the guilder we are the
more the negro himself will voluntarily
punish us liz I murder q man and hide
/ him under my bed the stencil from him
will presently breed me pestilence' to say
nothing Of the probability Of its bringing
the constable down on me. If we treat
our negroes like wild beasts, wild beasts
they wild duly become and act out their
wild beast nature. No example Of cause
and effect can be more inevitable than
that
The capital mistake we made in the
business was in giving the negroes the
right to vote 1t was an iniquitous meas
ure; though the Northern men who made
it the law may imagine that only the
South could suffer by it, they we're hugo
IL mistaken in that idea 1t is the old
fable Of the belly and the members; this
country is one, and whatever hurts or
disgraces one part Of us, hurts and dis
graces us all. We may really concede
that negroes can be educated and improy
ed up to a certain point and that now and
then a negro appears who can more than
hold his own with the average white man;
but the fact remains that nature has not
made that race our equals and that any
law we may pass aiming to nevertheless
put them in the position of equals, is a
crime. and breeds misery and disaster to
them and to US.
The worst Of bad law is not in its di
rect. but in it's indirect effects. That is,
disobeyed or evaded. True, in this case
the negroes, debarred or corrupted from
| the polls, are disgruntled or demoralized
an enyenomed into the bargain. The
| feeling between the two races was none
too amicable at best, but the law delib-
crately inhames it. The maker of an
impossible law is the creator of an arti-
| fetal crime. And thereby he becomes
| particeps criminis, to say the best Of
| him.
The situation of the negro down South
| is then as follows: TO begin with, he is
| lazy and shiftless and ayerse to work.
| He is, therefore, already a clog on a com
munity which requires honest diligence
on the part of all its members to keep its
end up. In the second place, the ballot
privileges engenders active enmity be-
tween him and the white The black
| finds himself pariah-both despised and
| hated; this OF itself is enough to make
man wicked and he is additionally ex-
asperated by the knowledge that the law
is on his side. Upon a man Of the negros
nature, the sinister effects are exagger-
ated.
| The negro is a mixture of the child and
| the animal. AS q child he is indolent,
amiable, foolish, irresponsible; as an ami
NAL he is sensual, constituencies, inca
pable of self-restraint. Education may
abate his propensities; wrong and perse-
cution will develop and intesify them.
| The whites of the South have wronged
and prosecuted him, being almost driven
to do so, as we have seen, by the opera
ton Of an unjust law. They treat him
| like a beast, but something much worse
and more dangerous. The southerners
are to blame for it, Of course; but they
are not to blame for the condition which
melted them; and the negro, to my think
ing is the only blameless element in the
whole business. You might as well rep
rehend a wolf for chasing sheep, or a
tiger for eating coolies, as a negro (being
what he is and has been harried into be-
coming) for the hideous outrages which
he perpretrates upon the women and chill
dren in the South.
| r. rv,n+, Ia, ohfoaAaI that Co,rth-