The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-11-22
(Brooklyn Eagle

NDioohlyh LdSfS-<
| 1t is much easier to be severe in ones
| judgment of the white citizens Of VIII
mington, y. c., than to be just. An un-
| derstanding of the conditions there will
| aid in forming al opinion on the result.
Wilmington has a population OF 20. 900,
made up of II 300 blacks and 500
whites. Its mayor and several members
of its board Of aldermen were negroes.
The cOlored people are laborers in cot
ton mills and in turpentine distiller-
les. The whites are the employers.
| There was a newspaper in the city ed
| tied by a cOlored man. In a recent is
sue Of his paper this man published
/ an article in which he made ~scandalouS
| charges against the white women of
the south. This article, in connection
| with the determination of the whites
to win the election on Tuesday, pro-
voked the riot on Thursday. The
whites held a mass meeting and pass
| ed resolutions demanding that the edi-
| tor of the cOlOred ape leave the town
| and that the cOlOred officers of the city
| government resign. Some days be-
| fore election a similar mass meeting
| had been held to demand that the col
| ored republicans make no nominations
for the offices to be filled. The colored
| editor did not show the respect to the
demands of the whites which hey de-
4 ~ ". <h1NoiU iiIS q vi /
went to the printing office and wreck
ed it and burned the building. The
blacks retaliated, and in the riot which
resulted several negroes were killed
and three white men were wounded. On
Thursday night the board of aldermen
met in special session and the colored
republicans and populiSt members re-
signed and their places were filled by
white democrats. Then h cOlored
mayor resigned and ex-Congressmau
Waddell was chosen in his place. There
the case stand today.
Now, it is easy to say here in the
north that the coIored man should have
the same political privileges as the
white man. In those regions Of the
south, however, where the colOred pop
ulatiOn is in excess of the white and
where practically all Of the whites be-
long to one political party and all of the
blacks to another the white man who
thinks that the negroes should control
the government because they are in
the majority is difficult to find. The
southern whites believe in white SUI
premacy. We shall not say that they
are not justified in maintaining their
belief. In Louisiana and in Mississippi
they have discovered legal and orderly
methods for securing the election of
whites. They have provided that no
man may vote unless he has a receipt
showing that he has paid his poll tax
and unless he can read and explain to
the satisfaction of the election officers
a section of the constitution. These
rules d~isfranchise enough blacks to
make white control of the states rea-
sonably safe. If the people of North
Carolina had resOrted to similar meth
DDS of regulating the cOlored vote the
exercise Of violence in Wilmington
would not have disgraced the state.
We shall leave it for impracticals and
futilitarians to bewaiI the determina-
ton of the dominant race here to rule.
The colOred people themselves look up
to the whites as superior n if they
are not melted by white demagogues
they will not provoke the use of the
power which rests in the hands of the
dominant race. We in the north can
not solve the color problem for the
SOutherners. We shall be wise if we
can keep our hands off. The outrages
of the reconstruction era must not be
repeated under any p%reteXt. The re-
publican majority in congress should
hesitate a long time before acting on
the suggestion made in the heat of the
present excitement that it refuse to
permit John D. Bellamv, who was
elected in the Wilmington district on
Tuesday, to take his seat in the house.
| Bellamy was present at the meeting
which emande the Withdrawal of
the colored editor and he spoke in ia
vor Of the resolutions. If national re-
publicanism wishes to p~erpetuate the
race feud in Wilmington the unseating
of Bellamy would go far to accomplish
its desire. The wiser method is to per-
NIT the people in the south to settle
this question in their own way.