The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-01-07

there is an influential and educated
class-survivors Of or SUCCESSORS to the
old time rabid abolitionist-who indulge
in long range half maudlin sentiment
over Sambo and joanna and pile NAL
edictions in ignorance upon the south.
neither knowing what 1t has done for
the negroes and what it is still earnest
~ seeking to 10. there will be govern
mental activity in behalf Of the negro
as a politician, and ne will be used as
a factor in elections by which the re-
publicans can keep their grip upon the
offices, and more or less control the
elections in the south.
We are gra4fied to know that not all
are blind and vindictive and persecut-
ing in the party: that there are broad
men, informed men. patriotic men. who
are not willing TO try to make the negro
race better by depressing and degrad-
ing the whites They do not believe it
the part of wisdom or justice TO put
the responsibilities and duties of free
government and administration OF laws
upon a race so criminal, SO AFFECT, so
dependent, SO liable to iniquity and
wrong doing and SO easily bossed and
used by designing and prating and
promising demagogues, some of them
as neal and vicious and corrupt as the
negro criminals who wear the garb of
the penEentiary.
The Providence (Rhode Island) Jour-
nal. tho LOADING IS .La.
state, and an able one, has this, and
it is a flash of wisdom and insight into
conditions from a state much given to
idolatry of another sort:
They seem to warrant one or two
conclusions of general importance.
One is that as the negro is, whether
from nature or environment or lack of
training, more criminal than the whites,
he requires closer attention from the
government and perhaps a different
kind Of treatment. Another is that his
criminality is due to less idleness or
want Of education than to impulse, and
that consequently he can be more eff
fectively controlled on the theory of
negro inferiority to the white race than
when mingling freely with the whites
on terms OF assumed equality. AT any
rate, he was less of an offender against
the Criminal Code in the old days than
he is now; and, Therefore, some are say
ing that he could be made a more or
derby citizen if there We're restored
something like the old interest taken by
the masters n miStresseS in the negro
boys and girls around them"
So long as the negro is a voter there
will be political debasement and danger
to the south. This is so plain to stud
ents of the history of the last thirty
five years and observers of passing
events, that there can be no cure of
passing ills and remedy for the vicious
| p~ropensities and criminal tendencies of
so many egroes except IN depriving
| hem Of the ballot and finding some
moral basis upon which to built char
acter. The cost of the criminals is a
stupendous burden and affiiction to the
honest, toiling taxpayers of both races.
The jury system must be radically
changed in the south if the negroes are
to be continued as jurymen. Crime in
annually, and with it the costs
of prosecution and punishment.
The remedy for the ballot, if the ne
gro is to be an %electOr, is in a strict ed
ucational test. Let no man vote who
can not read the state and federal con-
situations and write also.
The Philadelphia Record, published
in a hotbed of anti-slavery, and repub-
lican by a great majority, say in COM
menting upon the observations of the
leading organ of opinion in Rhode Is
land:
Even in New England, the hotbed
of an~ti-slavery agitation, there seems
to be a growing sense of discourage
ment as to the outcome of emancipa-
ton, n an acquiescence in the neces-
sity for a longer probationary period
before the negro may safely share the
unrestricted enjoyment of the right to
vote. We have evidently just begun
the task of Am~ericaniZing the African,
and are not by any means sure that We
are not progressing backward"
There is such dense ignorance in 1898,
all through the north, and particularly
in New England, as to the negro and
the true conditions existing in the
south, that the outlook is not hopeful
for a speedy and radical change, and
for the better, in any particular in so
far as the negro is concerned. Of all
people in the world who have the ad-
vantages Of education and are fairly in
telligent and with the money making
gift in high development, n who are
so voracious devourers of newspapers
and magazines, we verify believe the
| New E~nglanders take the AXE" They
do not know today muc more of the
| south and the negroes than they did in
$4,000 when it was a part of religion
to denounce slavery as a covenant
with hell and slave-oweners as mon
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