Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1899-11-01
Testimony Of a Minister who has Lived
In the South.

AtShHHuny vi a mtutSLtI WHO mas LIVED
In the South.
MR. EDITOR.-I In the CENSOR of Oct
goth, appeared an article from Spring
held, Missouri, under the caption of
Problems not Easy of Solution. Your
editorial comment thereon answers the
article quite fully, but there are some
things of such a nature as to me iustifies
more extended notice.
Allow me TO say, first, that no prob
lem is OF easy solution il we begin with
an untrue factor. And this, | think,
your correspondent does when he says.
The Negro is lazy, shiftless, and de-
testable, and education does him no
good Judge Mr.. Morton formed his
estimate of the Negro character from
what he has seen of them in Missouri
a state, by the way, that has done little
Tor b education of hel citizens, wheth-
er white or colored. | am certain Mr..
Merton would have formed q different
estimate of the Negro had he become
familiar with the educational work
done among them in some of the other
states Kentucky, Tennessee and Ala
bama, not to mention Mississippi, for
instance. mention these states because
l anu somewhat familiar with the educa-
tloaal work for the colored people there.
having lived some years in Tennessee.
and been obsel want of the work done
Tor the colored people and marked close
~ its effect upon them. know where
OF | speak when / say that the educated
colored men of those states will not suf-
fer In comparison with an equal number
of educated whites. That there are
thrlftless and lazy Negroes, | presume
no one will deny. Did Mr.. Morton ever
see any lazy white men in Missouri? If
he has not he will not have to go far
from Springfield, Missouri, to find them
unless the white people of that region
have greatly improved since / was there
about three years ago. Did Mr.. Morton
ever see or hear of lazy and shiftless
people in Wisconsin?
The whole drift of Mr.. Morton's arti-
Gle is in the spirit of the historical "Dred
Scott decision" which asserted that a
Negro has nc rights which a white man
is bound to respect" In keeping with
this Mr.. Morton suggests the deporta-
ton of the whole colored population of
the southern states to enable them tthe
southern states) to compete with their
northern sister states. This is another
problem not easy of solution" Would
he have another Chinese exclusion act
passed and made applicable only to
Negroes?
Mr. Morton probably does not know
that som OF the large property owners
and taxpayers of the south are colored
men. "Detestable Negroes For in
in Chattanooga n of the large
taxpayers is a colored man. In the
state of Mississippi a former slave of
Jefferson Davis owns more land than
any white man in the county. But II
may not treslass ON your space to cite
instances of Negro thrift and Negro
scholarship. | know personally colored
in the south that began life
about the time Mr.. Morton did, if / am
informed of his age, who are
possessed of fine classical education and
would be welcomed to any pulpit on the
continent if they were of as fair COM
plexlOn as Mr.. Morton. Every reading
knows that the advancement of the
colored race has been phenomenal. How
were they aided to education and thrift
1t came in the states I have mentioned
by non and women who left
happiness, comfort'and ease in northern
homes and incurred hardship and toll
climatic peril, obloquy and social
o~stracism, to lift a race degraded by
years of s~ervitude, that Mr.. Morton
thinks was better for them than liberty,
to a life of enlightened freedom. These
noble young men and women were sus-
tanned in their heroic work by the grace
of God and northern money. A Miss
a niece of Ex-President Hayes,
presided yer a school of some two hun
dred colored youth in the city of Knox
vile, Tennessee. A Mrs. Bennett, wife
of the president of Nashville university,
gave her life and met premature death
in her efforts to raise these people to a
condition of intelligence and virtue, and
succeeded to a degree that in some mea-
sure, at least, justified the noble sacri-
fees. / have cited these few cases to
show the contrast between these Ten
nessee teachers and III personally I'M
known friend from Missouri.
OF the loyalty of the southern white
people / do net Care 20 speak further
than to say TIA s25 for two weary
hours in a cgQfded opera hallin the city
of Chattanooga, and listened to of
the leading ministers pronounce a eulo-
gy on General Joseph E Johnson, on
Decoration day, the keynote of which
was clarifying the lost cause, and la
ment that it failed. And this sentiment
was cheered by every person in the house
except the writer and the son at his side.
Mr.. Morton thinks, no doubt, that the
wal was a wicked aggression upon the
south and that it is far better for a col
ored man to Re the property OF some low
white brute than to own himself. But
with a full knowledge of every phase of
southern life, we think it best for the
Negro to own himself. And where he
finds those intelligent Negroes who
think they would be better off, if some
one else owned them, we cannot ina
CINE. He will pardon us for saying what
we think, and that is that he found them
in a youthful imagination, that had it's
vertebrae dissolved by white southern
loquacity. r. M. COOLEY.
Victory, October 81, 1899.