The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1899-06-01
NONSENSE ABOUT THE SOUTH.
None are so Wise as Those Who
Know Nothing About 1t.
Washington Post.)


The esteemed New York Sun is not
at it's best when it discusses Southern
matters. In a recent article. speak
ing of the lynchings and other brutal
tiles committed in different States
beyond the Potomac River, and spec
ulating as to whether these atrocities
will have the effect of expatriating
the negroes, the Sun declares that,
in the event Of a projected migration.
the Southern whites would rise up in
protest and even resort to violence
to defeat the movement. Negro labor.
the Sun asserts, is cheap labor, and
it's disappearance would disorganize
the whole industrial system of the
section. Further along in the same
article, the Sun says that the South
ern whites are doing everything they
can to drive the negroes out from
among them. What, with lynchings,
prosecutions. the imposition of politi-
cal disabilities, and so on, and so on,
life is made intolerable for the ne
groes, and but one result can be eX-
pected.
We pass over the absurd contradic
ton involved in these two irreconcil-
able propositions. OF course, if the
whites are trying to expel the negroes
from the South, they will not object
| when their efforts promise to be sue
| cessful. OF course, if the whites re-
gard them as Indispensable to their
Industrial system, they are not trying
to drive them out. The Sun clearly
does not understand the situation.
The fact is the negro is not indis-
pensable to the South, though the
high-class whites-relics and descend
ants of the old slaveowning aristoc-
racy-all prefer him. He is more
| conservative, more reliable, more ac-
ceptable in every way to the whites
of the kind we have mentioned. They
understand the negro, have confidence
in him, and bestow upon him their
affection and sympathies. There is no
instance on record where Southern
gentlemen tried to obstruct a negro
in his effort to acquire and retain
property. There is not an instance
in which a negro has been prosecuted
in the pursuit of any honest and legit-
innate avocation. On the contrary,
the great proprietors are not on y
willing but anxious to see their black
neighbors become free-holders, for in
that they recognize the solution of
the vexatious problems now disturb
ing their social and political order.
At the same time, it is true that the
industrial system of the South does
not depend upon the negro. 1t is a
well-known fact that at least three
tifths of the cotton crop-the sections
most important PRODUCTS planted,
cultivated, and harvested by white
labor. 1t is an equally well-known
fact that truck-farming, fruit grow
ing, and all the various ramifications
of diversified agriculture are yearly
growing in extent under the white
mans industry.
The simple truth of the matter is
that the atrocious crimes which have
furnished the pretext for lynchine
are committed by very small frac
ton of the negro population, and the
barbarities practiced upon the alleged
almost invariable rule, by the lowest
anu mOSC ulSreputaole CLASS OF WHITES
The negroes who are butchered and
tortured do not represent their race
any more than the whites who
butcher and torture them represent
their own. They are, both of them
insignificant quantities, and the
, country is making far too much o
them in these controversies. WheI
we see the sweatshops abolished in
our great Northern cities, the white
, caps exterminated in the Middle
Western States, the wife-beaters anc
torturers of helpless children every
, where, punished as they deserve, i
will be time to concentrate ou
altruistic solicitude on the South
We commend to our Northern con
temporaries the parable of the mott
r in the neighbours eye.