The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-12-10

nntrefaction. to be easily torn apart
John Mortimer Murphy IN Popular
Science News.
THE NEGRO AND THE NEW SOUTH.
(CoI. T. W. Higginson in Boston Globe. }
Those among northern citizens wha
most mourn the present condition Oh
affairs in the Carolinas are not those VINO
have hitherto favored and defeated them
The reason is plain. Every suoh outrage
as those recently occurring in these two
states play into the hands of those who
desire force bills; indeed, give them a
new excuse for being. Those on the 9TH
er hand who resisted them, at the risk of
their own popularity, and who were
thanked at the time by southern states
men or being willing to trust the new
South, these are the persons who now
feel most deeply the new outrages both
as a wrong and as terrible political
blunder. OF these persons the writer is
one.
When I asked one of my black corporals
in South Carolina, after tbs civil war,
what he expected to do with himself, he
said promptly: 'sI.se gwine to Libery. !"
When / asked him why, he said: IL Sc
made up my mind. eunnel, dat desc yere
saceSh neber gwine for be cibilized i n my
time" infer that he found them mOreciv-
llized than he expected, since he has new
er gone to Liberia; but the late events
surely throw curious light GA his re-
ark. 1t is not being civilized for the
a.,1 fst1 loaI nf c0cipf,V IN
announce their purpose of taking from
their humber feliow-citizens the one
point they hold in common, their vote.
/ The southern white man has enormous
advantages over the black, even though
the latter be more numerous The mind
that has education, the will that has or.
| ganizing power, the pocket-bOoks which
are we'll tilled-these things count for
more than majorities. The majority OF
black voters at the South are dependent
| Tor emp lovment on the whites. Inc
blacks look to them for advice; they are far
interior to them in organization ana ex-
perience. 1t is absurd to say that the
white voters cannot outvote even larger
number or blacks. Why, then, should
they think 1T needful to deprive them OF
their votes at the point of the bayonet.
1t Is common to say that the south I'M
derstands the blacks best These late
events prove the contrary. LII Carolln1ans
suppose, as some accounts state that the
black women mean to poison them, why
was it not done during the Civil war,
when the excitement was far greater?
Nothing was more remarkable at that
time. after the organization of colored
troops. than the utter abSence of any
spirit of vengeance among them. When
L entered jacksonville in 1868, one of my
Florida soldiers pointed out to me the
spot where his own brother had been
hanged for helping slaves to escape. and
he gave no hint of any wish to avenge
him. We at the North do not know just
what it was which the editor of negro
paper was charged with saying about the
white women Of the South--hls press be-
ing afterward destroyed and the building
burned-but do we not know that il every
southern newspaper which sometimes
speaks disrespectfully of the virtue Of
colored women were burned out, line of
smoke would arise from Maryland to New
Orleans? If every southern white man
were lynched who had attempted the vir-
tue of colored girl, the world would ring
with the outrages. The head of a large
southern institution which supplies
southern colored schools with colored
teachers, once told me that one of the
greatest obstacles to the usefulness of her
pupils was the inability Of many southern
men, even of some school committeeman,
to treat with any respect the virtue OF
even Cn6 D6Sb-6Q ucstUt3Q CUlUTcu Woiltdls
/ had for two years under my command,
during the civil war, from 800 to 1900 black
soldiers, largely from what WAS considered
the most degraded portion of the South,
the Sea islands of South Carolina. Dur
ing all that time had but one charge
brought against any soldier for insulting
any woman. ulaok or white, and in this
one case the charge was Withdrawn after
ward by the person who made it, / ut
terly refuse to believe that race of which
this can be said needs any shotgun or
anything but fairness and justice in deal
ing with it. The professional negro poll
tieian of the Carolinas may be as bad as
the corresponding class at the North, but
what the average negro cares most for is
not politics. but to earn his humble liv-
ing and keep his family together. The
dread felt for the negro at the South is
not different in kind frorl the dread felt
so years ago in respect to the Irish voters
at the North. So long as the North ex-
pressed this dread by riots and the burn
ing OF buildings it did not diminish, but
every step in the way Of justice toward
the Irish race has been repaid by affec.
ton and loyalty. No other method will
suffice in dealing with the negro.