Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-10-22
VOICES OF THE PRESS.
The Future oil the Negro.
Ueslie's Weekly.)

| There is no more difficult problem IL
the politics and industry of. this country
| than the future of the negro. The lndiar
is gradually abolishing himself; the vel
| low races are not numerous enough to be-
| a factor, and the immigrants from Cir.
cassian lands are generally digested ant
| assimilated by the general population
| But the negro is of himself apart. He
| cannot be dgested or assimilated; he
| must ever remain a black race. The fact
| that the negro population. owing to the
large mortality due to ignorance or neg
| ligence of the laws of health. is not in
creasing as rapidly as the white. has led
some people to say that time will elimi-
| nate the negro problem by constantly re-
ducing his percentage in 1.-THE population.
but this view misses the important fact
| that the negro breeds rapidly. and the
spread of compulsory sanitation will in
evitably increase his ratio. The idea of
moving the race back to Africa is pure
folly. and from every point of view the
conclusion is absolute that the negro is
not only here. but he is here to stay and
to increase and multiply.
Frederick Douglass used to. tell his race
that the only way they could gain equal
ity with the white folks was to De equal
to the white folks. Bookec Washington
is preaching and practicing the same
truth. AS united as the hand. yet as sep
arate as the fingers. is his figure of
speech to show the right relation of the
races. Unquestionably there is a DISPOSE
ton to do all that is possible for the ne
gro, but those who have been studying
the misunderstanding intelligent ne
groes themselves-wOuld like to be more
hopeful than the facts admit. The very
worst sign is that the negro seems to be
losing the occupations which he formerly
monopolized. Barbering shoe polishing
waiting, washing, embarrassing and kali
sominng. driving, serving. are a few of
hn hi 10 hrvf t,o1y, fy,l1
which white competition is making its
way. And worse than that fact is the
further fact that in most instances the
negro is unable to hold his own against
white competition. OF course, there are
many exceptions to the general rule and
individual negroes have made splendid
successes-for instance. the artist whose
painting was recently bought for the
Louvre-but the real truth is that the
great mass of negroes are not much, if
any. further from the drudgery basis
than they were twenty or thirty years
ago. The increase in crime among them
has been most deplorable. One of the
grand juries in border state complained
within the past month that. while the ne
gro population was only one-fifth of the
whole population of the state, the negroes
numbered over fifty per cent of the in
mates of the penal Institutions.
1t is not too much to say that politics
is responsible to very large degree for
the failure of the negro to advance on
broader and better lines. The white pol
iticians who live on the negro vote are
practically without exception. utterly I'M
principled and menda cious. They lie to
the negro increasingly. and do all in their
power to keep his citizenship down to a
small cash basis. This sort of democrat
ization is increasing at rate which is
alarming. But this will certainly reach
it's climax, and then there will come n
better state of things. The only way is
to hope on and work on, knowing that a
race cannot be educated in a day.