The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-06-29
HIS POINTS PUT STRONGLY
NEGRO PROBLEM AT BOTTOM OF
ALLEGED BACKWARDNESS.
COMPARED WITH NEW ENGLAND
IF We Have Become More Democratic
from a Former Aristocracy, New
England Has Almost Lost Its
Dom e cracv in Capitalization.
Demo cracy in Capitalization.


Morehead City, n. c., June 2S-(Spe-
ciaI.)-I wrote Saturday of the address
of Maj. E. J. Hale on an Educated
Electorate In it he made reply to
the speech of Mr.. Walter III. Page at
the Greensboro Normal School. His adj
dress showed that he had given the sub
iect much consideration, and the teach
ers listened attentively to his reply.
MAI. HALES ADDRESS.
had curious experience once which
I shall relate to you because | can there
by so well introduce and illustrate my
subject / sat down to meet with the
most powerful monarch in the world
the late Shah of Persia. He was a real
monarch, and his fifteen millions of sub
jects were his absolutely to do with as
he pleased. He was the legislature, the
judiciary and the executive all in one.
Or, as some one has described it, the
Persian monarchy is a despotism limited
only by assassination. L nave seen many
men who have tried to convince others
that they thought themselves the great
est persons alive, but this man believed 1t
in his heart. He possessed greater pow
err than any human on earth.
| think it may be said as funda-
mental principle that no one ever knows
in a proper sense, anything until he
is brought face to face with it. SO in
general way we who are in the third
or fourth generation of political free
dom, are incapable of realizing what
we have swung away from-those orien-
tai conditions to which the whole human
| race was formerly subjected. How sell
dom does it occur to any of us that the
same power possessed by the Shah of
| Persia resided in the electorate, which
| Blackstone has defined as the ultimate
despotism which resides in every form OF
| government.
| 1t is a trite saying that ancient history
| is the biography of kings. What trans
cendant change is implied in shifting the
seat of power from the king to the peo-
| pie. What strange new forms must
history undergo. Did power leap at a
| bound from a monarch to mob? No
| it has not yet reached this latter stage
|
| ing, rather than mere intellectual activ-
| ity, control the change. These things
seem so plain to a student of history that
| it is past comprehension how an intel,
| ligent man can shut his eyes to the OBJ.
vious conditions which they impose. Yet
we have lately seen a highly gifted man.
| son Of our dear old mother, holding uI
| to scorn and ridicule because in discard
| o1 rsf art
| hundred aud twenty years ago, she
did not skip the intermediate steps which
| common prudence would dictate and
plunge at once into the unknown sea- OF
| democracy. We all recognize the dis
| tinction which Mr.. Page has achieved
in the world of letters and in the great
| world, and for that reason we are the
more surprised that he should have takeT
in his recent address in this State, such
| a shOrt-sighted view of what was bur
one of the indispensable steps in the evo
luton of democracy. What Mr.. Page
has said bears so completely upon my
subject that | must ask your indulgence
| land his pardon) for using his speech as
the complement to my story on the Shall
of Persia. Having recorded my admira
ton of his ability and learning, l may
|
his Greensboro address exhibited a very
| extraordinary lapsus from the level Of
| his accomplishments; and / can only &C
count for it on the supposition that he ha!
| imbibed in his views, perhaps, an unwar
ranted prejudice of which his larger ex
perience has not sufficed to divest him
He has stated some we'll known facts con
corning North Carolina, but his deduc
tons and implications are as far from
being right as those with which Mrs
Beecher Stowe, by a similar process il
her famous book, brought on the wa
with its hideous check to the orderl!
progress of Anglo Saxon civilization.
There may be here and there ill-clat
women, wrinkled in youth, who contem
plate their lowly lots with dull content
ment; but thank God that I have neve
seen in North Carolina as have in New
York, women and little children in rags
whose bare feet trod the snow that sup
pliel pleasure way for their "betters,
and from whose wretched countenance
the extremitive misery had long sine
driven all sign of contentment, dull o
otherwise.
So again we are reminded by our criti
that we are poor. We cannot in the ma
ture of things, be as rich as those who's
wealth has been secured at our expense
But, however distressing our condition
may have been during the period sine
the war, / aver that the people of Nortl
Carolina were in those days the hap
piest, the best bred, and the most virtu
Gus people I have ever seen or read OF
Now were we so poor as moe nimble fig
urers have made out. / have seen in m,
State before the war many man VIII
was as happy as lord, whose total pos
sessions as rated in the census, wouldn'
Ipay rental for middle-class house in Bos
ton or New York. Yet he had flocks am
herds, grassy lawns, fertile fields, spark
ling streams and woodland glades; ricl
milk and butter, warm clothes and roar
ing fires, and better than all, small, bu
well-selected library from which he stock
ed his brain with sound knowledge of tn
duties of an American freeman. Every
thing that was worn or eaten on his plac
was made there-he never had occasiol
to reckon values and money.
| nh