The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-10-31

truIStc performances OF men. ana YET the
taxes paid for the common schools do
not unfortunately carry with them the
power of closing the doors to the negro
because of his mere fraction of cOntri-
button. Had he earned the money to
pay for these thirty years of schooling.
there might be more reason in this
clamor for "citizenship," and the moral
training of such earning would, | be-
lieye, put such citizenship as synony-
nous with something higher than office.
The basis of rounded citizenship is self
help and self-reliance, and until the ne
gro have attained unto these qualities,
which, by the bye, are qualities of nature
and manhood rather than of education,
let him keep his screams about "cti-
zenship" to himself and pursue his
career of the mental for which only his
tendencies thus show him to be fitted.
And yet we seem to be obliviOus to the
fact that we are under no obligation as
citizen to citizen to educate this migrate
ful creature.
In presidential years, forsooth, we are
prone to hush up this 'cOlor-liue" issue,
so immersed are all in the so-called
greater questions of the nation. But
there can be none greater than the or
dering OF our State government, and
when the "off-elections" come, we find
the negro comes forward with the surly
strut implied in the "call'' above quoted.
Then we realize the status of the So
called negro problem" Is it becoming
SOLVED? Or only oratoricaly, post
prandialy solved before New England
ers? There seems to me to be only one
way out OF the long black neck of woods
ahead of the South. If, perforce we
must minister to the intellect" of the
negro through the common schools, as
per the constitution, we need not min
lister to his body. Here come these 120,-
000 nourished and clothed with the
food and wear received at the hands of
Democrats, asking for citizenship" alias
/ OFFICE" opposed to the interests of those
I who keep them alive, and warm and
give them shelter. Why do we not come
TO see the preposterousness of our folly
and apply the remedy as it has been
applied in at least two Southern States ?
They are already at the doors of our
cotton factories, as in Atlanta, clamoring
for work NO should be the word
sent back to them, and yet in reply to
this we hear: demand will have the
labor that is cheaper if it be equally skill
full Against this economic law, how
ever, comes result that is peculiar to
our own conditions. and which, there
fore, should modify the law. Another re-
plies that the negro only can stand the
heat of the cotton fields. DO the Eng
lish send negroes TO fight battles in India
or to form hollow squares before
<hartoum? Are not Texas and
Florida pressing out negro labor and sub
titnting it with white labor, thereby hav-
ing leaped to the front OF Southern
States in the rate of increase Of wealth
Mr.. Mulhall, the eminent statistician, in
the North American Review of July,
1877, gives the following facts:
Average wealth per inhabitant is much
higher in Texas and Florida than in the
, other Southern States which comedies
with the fact that they are the only
States OF the South where the foreign
population is considerable, showing what
influence European settlers have in the
increase of wealth. The other eleven
States in 1890 possessed Z 433 million dol
lars. with an aggregate population Of
15,S00,000 souls, equal to $40 per head,
or half the average that correspondent
to the inhabitants of Texas and
Florida. The increase of wealth
per inhabitant in forty years has been
very great in Texas and Florida, but
not so in the other States as shown in
/ the census returns"
In the forty years from 1850 to 1890
| Texas has increased in wealth from So
to 2,106 million dollars, an annual av-
erage of S47.S0 per head as compared
wisA $14.50 per head the average Of
the entire South which is raised, of
course, by the high average of Texas.
IF Texas and Florida were excluded"
continues the writer, "the average ac-
emulation in the rest of the Southern
States would be found not to have ex-
/ ceeded $1,000 per inhabitant yearly,
while the average for the whole Union
was $3.50
Thus Texas exceeds the average of
! the Union by $3.50, while the other
Southern States fall short Of this aver
age by about $24.0O. Against the one
third of negro population, which the
whole South has, and North Carolina
more, Texas has % per cent; it has "45
per cent more railways, ITO per cent
more banks than the other States of the
South, and each of its hands employed
in farming produces nearly three times
as much"
These figures may well startle us, but
we may take some comfort in the cause.
During a trip few years ago. from one
end of Texas to the other, from Calves
ton to Fort Worth, stopping in number
OF towns, found myself asking, "Where
is the negro?" "We don't have to have
him; we prefer white labor was the
reply. When they are employed, they
are thus brought TO sharp sense of the
value of such employment as well as the
meaning involved in it. Not long ago
in a cable dispatch from Germany, the
question of immigration being up there in
public way, elected the suggestion that
the Germans would better keep their
aces away from the South and compe-
tition and association with the negro la
)or. Thus are these immigrants daily
olindfolded at Castle Garden to what
ought to be their real points of destina-
ion. These obstacles, both for the ma