The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-11
A NATIONAL PROBLEM
THE NEGRO QUESTION TREATED
 ASSUCH BYDR. LEFT GILBERT.

the Only Way In Which it Can b,
 SoIved-The ImpossiblIity of Setting
 the Race by Itself
 "A Great National Problem was the
 subject of Dr. Glbert's discourse at
 Trinity M E. church yesterday morn
 ing. The problem dealt with was one
 which is being constantly brought up
 from week to week in some form or
 other-the negro question. pr. Gilbert s
 treatment of the subject was no novel
 one, but it was convincing. He dem-
 onstrated very clearly that the negro
 problem is not to be solved by the emil
 grafton of the colored race to Africa,
 even if such course were possible, but by education. He pointed out that the
 colored people, as slaves, were bar
 barians; but now they are far removed
 from such, and that the whole of their 1 bettered condition is due to education.
 The speaker said that in making
 a plea for the greater education of the
 black man, he did not wish to make
 any comparison between the black, the l yellow nor the red. He related of a |
 ious to help the negro until he went
 south and saw him in all his filth, ig
 norance and lazlness. Then his good
 intentions vanished with the overthrow 1 of some long cherished ideals; and he no longer helped nor cared for the well | fare of the black man. He was also re- l minded very much, he said, of some
 people he knew who had been fired with
 a zeal for the retaining of the Indian,
 as a result of reading Coopers novels
 They, too, had their ideals shattered on
 close inspection and immediately al- lowed all their efforts in the red mans behalf to lag and their disgust to over-
 come their interest. He said that the
 same idea was probably uppermost in
 the minds of some in regard to the Fili-
 pno and the Cuban; and to his mind
 1t was very illogical.
 If the three peoples were as they are sometimes pictured, or as we like to re- gard them after having read some book,
 there would be little need of helping
 them. But they are not, and if they are to continue to live with us in the same country we must not allow any fanciful ideas in regard to them to blind us as to their real condition; their condition must be bettered. These peo- pie have hearts and minds and intel lects. It is said that no dependence can be placed upon them, yet during the war many of them stayed on their mas ters plantations and protected the property and children to the best of their ability and as faithfully as they could. When their freedom was given them thousands of them refused to leave their old masters and stayed on with them until they died. Those that accepted the liberty given them did not know what to do with it, and it is be- cause of this ignorance that to-day their condition is as it is. In the south to-day the efforts of philanthropists are confined chiefly to providing homes and suitable abiding places for the blacks. Some of them were so ignorant as to what to do with themselves that they didn't even provide homes for their families. They preferred to spend their time in idleness so as to be more on terms of equality with their former masters. The negro of the south to-day is irresponsible. Of one of their num- Der who was educated and became a preacher it is related that he was afraid to talk to his congregations in | the way he would have liked to. As soon as he began to address them in the | old time manner to exhort them in true | prayer meeting style, they gave them selves up to such religious abandon l ment as made him sit down in disgust. The negro must be taught that the true form of worship is not that in which one goes into convusions.
 pr. Gilbert here took up the question | of the negro's drunkenness. He said ! that the effect of drink becomes quick ly apparent upon the negro for the req son that they were never accustomed to the use of intoxicating liquors until af- ter the civil war. He said that the ter rble effect of liquor is even worse in Africa than in this country, And" he asks, what impeachment more terri \ ble can be brought against a nation than to send missionaries down to Afri- can in one ship and rum in another." Of the labor question concerning the negro the speaker said that the main thing to teach the negro in this connec- jon is the dignity of labor.
 The subject of morality of the color d race received considerable attention rom the preacher. He said that if one we're to read the accounts written by southern women in the northern papers ,n this subject it would be thought that here was not chaste colored man or woman in the south. "As a matter of act' he said, "but five per cent of the outhern race are immoral, although he evil deeds of these are visited upon he heads of the rest of the race. The black mans status as a voter in the outh was even more fully treated by Dr. Gilbert He said that this question s las been the great bone of contention | 'etWeen north and south since the end | ng of the civil war. Tt was thought ( t first" he said, "by the northern peo- 6 le that the franchise must be given to ( he negro at once, or the whole thing | or which we fought must be lost. It [ vas thought that his enfranchisement t ;ould prove the means of hts educa- ! ion. I think now that everyone in V oth north and south realizes that the V ranting of suffrage to the negro was l he worst thing that was ever done in l his connection. We wouldn't to-day r rant it to the Fillipinos, I think. The c egro speedily showed that he was but n
 tool in the hands of the demagogue he system established among them by he northern politicians, or carpet-bag- t CTS is familiar to us all l think Small il