The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1899-07-29
RACE PROBLEM SOUTH
Discussed by Governor Gambler Of
Georgia,
URGES RESTRICTED SUFFRAGE.


Atlanta. July Ex-Governor Allen d.
Gambler, since the Bainbridge series Of
lynchings. has been asked by news
papers in various parts of the country
to give his opinions on the race ques-
sion in the south. and I'm reply TO one
Of them the governor has fully and
freely expressed his views as to the
cause of the conflicts and the remedy
therefor The governor believes the
present day cause Of the uprisings is
the intermeddling with the relations OF
the whites and blacks in the south by
fools and fanatics" who know moth
Ing about the situation, but think the
whole trouble dates from the day Of
emancipation. Governor Gambler be-
lieves a restricted suffrage will remedy
the evil; that the ballot be given only
the intelligent negro. AS to the dis
position to be made Of the large per-
centage of illiterate negroes the gov
ernor makes no suggestion.
The governor begins his paper by
referring to the emancipation, con-
trasting the treatment of negroes by
the white people of the south before
the war to that Of the carpet bag
gers" Immediately after. He says:
Before the ballot was thrust into
the hands of the negro, unprepared for
It and utterly ignorant OF its sanctity
and of the responsibilities of citizen
ship, Notwithstanding he was slave,
he was happy and well contented to
occupy that subordinate place in so
ciety to which his nature and his con-
dition assigned him.
But after his emancipation came his
enfranchisement, and with his enfran-
chisement came a horde of carpet bag
gers. penniless adyenturers, without
principles or patriotism, who took
charge of him when his former master
and protector, with whom he had lived
for generations on the most friendly
and often even on affectionate terms,
was decitizenized.
These carpet baggers, calling them
selves Republicans, but really only
| band OF marauders, held together by the
cohesive power of public plunder,
swarmed all over the south like the
locusts in Egypt of old and falsely
| taught the negroes that the southern
white men were solely responsible for
| their enslavement and were their
worst and only enemies.
These evil teachings had but little
permanent effect upon the grown up
| negroes, but upon the children, the
! generation which has grown to man
| hood since that time, the effect has
| been most baneful. These were the
prime causes of the alienation Of the
| negroes.
"a more immediate cause is the per-
petual intermeddling with the rela-
| tions of the race in the south by fanat-
ics and fools who know nothing about
the situation. They write incendiary
| letters to turbulent negroes all over
the south, advising them to arm them
selves with Winchester rifles, and for
every guilty rapist who pays the pen
atty of his crime to shoot down the
! first two white men they meet"
! Governor Gambler says the intermed-
dlers of the north do not represent a
respectable minority, and that the law
less and criminal negroes in the south
constitute less. He continues:
"a few abandoned, reckless, Grim
lnal negroes are responsible for all the
rapes and lynchings that have occur
red and their influence on those
around them is deplorably bad and far
reaching.
"Still, it is true that rape the crime
which nine times out of ten is the
cause, immediate or remote, of lynch
ing, is as much deplored by the better
class of negroes as by the better class
of white men. But as because some
negroes commit rape the whole race
suffers, so because some white men
lynch rapists all the white people OF
the south are abused.
NU,nk -
pharisaical fanatics who have most to
say about 'Apaches,' southern bar
barians,' etc., always stress the atrocity
of the lynching, and have never yet
heard of one of them saying or doing
anything to discourage the crime
which provoked it.
Indeed, in some cases, instead OF
4 tdenouncing the crime they have as
sailed the character of the victim OF
the brute's lust, which not only en-
courages bad negroes, but exasperates
the friends of southern womanhood.
"The ballot was put in the hand OF
the southern negro when he was ut
terIy unprepared for 1t. He regarded
lit as only an article Of merchandise
to be bartered away to the man who
would pay him the most for it, whether
n uIlnk Vi WHISKY VI d uOlldi VI bWO
INSCRIPTIONS men OF all parties con
tend for this vote and hug the negro
) around the polls and drink whisky
with him. He is forgotten after elec
! tion, and like a spoiled child becomes
/ lresentful and vindictive."
In speaking of the remedy Governor
, Gambler says:
: "In Georgia for a generation thert
e has been scarcely a negro between
Z and 1S years of age who has not hat
: access to a free school. AS a conse
quence illiteracy has decreased amoHi
them from S5 per cent in 1870 to A
per cent in 1899, and yet It Is a start
; ling fact that crime among them ha
increased in about the same proper
ton that illiteracy has decreased.
"There is, however, another sort o
education which can in time great.
relieve the situation. This is mora
: education, which must be acquired a
n the family hearthstone and in tn
churches and Sunday schools, and b.
The daily contact of the inferior rae
with the superior for years.
1--WE need a remedy immediate in II
, effects, and this remedy can only b
# found in a qualified suffrage. TIL
IS ballot must only be entrusted to tn
5, virtuous and intelligent. Now man
a, men vote who are intelligent, but ar
le not virtuous and many more vote VIII
81 are virtuous, but not intelligent. Re-
N strict the suffrage to those having bot