The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-08-01
SPEAKS out.
Georgia's Governor on the
South's Race Problem.
RESTRICTED SUFFRAGE A REMEDY.

RESTRICTED SUFFRAGE A REMEDY.
Responsibility for Present Conditions In
tho south Laid to Intermeddling of
Fanatics, According to tho Governor.
and to "Carpetbaggers" and Politicians.
ATLANTA, Ca, July Ex-Governor
Allan d. Gambler has since the Balm
bridge series of lynchings, been asked
by newspapers in various parts of the
country to give his opinion Of the race
question in the south and in 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.
Governor Gambler believes restrict
ed suffrage will remedy the evils, that
the ballot should be given only to the
intelligent negro. AS to the disposition
to be made Of the large percentage OF
illiterate negroes the governor makes no
suggestion. The governor begins his
paper by referring to emancipation,
contrasting the treatment Of negroes BY
the white people of the south before the
war with that of the sscarpetbaggers'
Immediately after. He says:
Before the ballot was thrust INTO the
hands of the negro, unprepared for ~ ana
utterly ignorant Of its sanctity, of the re-
sponsibilities of citizenship, notwithstand-
ing he was slave he was happy and we'll
contented to occupy that subordinate
place in society to which his nature and
his condition assigned him.
But after his emancipation and enfran-
chisement the carpet baggers calling
themselves Republicans, but really only .
band of marauders, held together by the
cohesive power Of public plumber, swarmed
all over the south like the hosts in Egypt
of old. and falsely taught the negroes that
the southern white men were solely 70
sponsible for their enslavement and were
their worst and only enemies and that
therefore it was their duty and their In
terest to vote against them and their
party and oppose everything they were IN
favor of, favor everything they were OPP
posed TON % word, to hate them.
A more intimate cause Is the perpetual
intermeddling with the relations Of the
races in the south by fanatics and fools
who know nothing about the situation.
They call meetings and discuss Imaginary
wrongs of the southern negro which do
not exist and denounce the southern
white people for crimes they have not
committed; they publish in the news
papers grossly exaggerated accounts OF
such crimes az are committed against the
negro in the south and omit any notice of
the crime against the white woman which
provoked the retaliation; they write In
cendiary letters to turbulent negroes all
over the south, advising them to arm
themselves with Winchester rifles and for
every guilty rapist who pays the penalty
to shoot down the first two white men.
Still. it is true that rape, the crime
which in nine cases out Of ten Is the cause
Of Immediate OF remote lynching, 10 a.
much deplored by the better class Of ne
groes 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 ravishers, all the whites
of the south are abused
In speaking of the remedy, Governor
Gambler says:
In Georgia for generation there has
been scarcely negro between and u
years of age who has not had access to q
| free school As q consequence Nfteracy
has decreased among them from IS per
cent in 1870 to 40 per cont In 1888, and yet
it is a startling fact that crime among
them has increased in about the same pro
portion that illiteracy has decreased.
There is, however, another sort Of edu-
cation which can In time greatly relieve
the situation. This is q moral education,
| which must be acquired at che family
hearthstone and in the churches and Sum
day schools and by the daily contact of
the inferior race with the superior for
years and even for generations.