The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-04-14
SLOW TO LEARN AND CARELESS
TO HEED


twelve months. 1t is in no sense an
enemy of the better class, the well dis
posed, the law abiding, the industrious
negroes in Wilmington, in North Caro-
lima OF in the south generally. In their
proper sphere, it is their friend. 1t has
favored many important things for
their betterment. 1t has insisted thai
they should be compelled to pay more
of the taxes-specially the poll-tax and
school tax-and that the government of
the state should be entrusted to the
whites who are every way better quail
flied for such important responsibilities.
When wise men of the negro race
like Booker T. Washington and others
who nave caught his spirit and follow
ed his leading have come out squarely
as they have for wiser action On the
part of the negroes, and a better I'M
~derstanding with their white employers
and neighbors, the Messenger has hail
ed every movement with gladness, and
believed that it was suspicious.
The great mistake of making them
voters has been a curse to them and to
the states in the south. There are
newspapers that understand this. The
able Baltimore Sun of Tuesday dis
cussed the Race ISSUE" and at length.
1t said this, which is true:
But the negroes were invested with
the right to vote in order that they
might strengthen the republican party
Il enable it to continue it's hold upon
both houses Of congress. They were
welded into a compact body by the sin
lister teachings of white men, in most
cases unprincipled northern adventur-
ers, who made them believe hat the
southern white men was their sworn
enemy and would do them all manner
of harm If he was in power in the
south. By playing upon the fears of
the negroes and also by promises of
forty acres and a mule the blacks
were solidified against the southern
whites, and opposed them politically at
every point and upon every issue-and
this opposition has continued to the
present time"
Of course this was lamentable and
bound in the end to breed serious
trouble. The back of the camel is
broken by the last feather. President
Booker Washington is at the head of a
fine negro school in Alabama. He says
the negro vote has not been divided,
and because the negro has the idea that
he lis acting in a manly way" when he
opposes southern white men with his
vote. And this course has injured the
negro at every turn, while visiting
calamities upon the whites. The Sun
says pertinently, and the Sun is not an
extreme paper or hostile to the negro
race:
"Wherever the race issue has been
injected into politics, the negro has
been lorgely responsible for it. The
opposition to him as a controlling force
in state and city government is based
upon his ignorance, his temperament,
his lack of training, and the sad eXpe-
riences Of the past, which have de-
mOnstarted tn. t, with his unfitness for
administration, he is as corrupt as the
most venal whites. 1t is not because
he is black that the whites resent his
assertion of his rights under the con-
stitution, but because his comprehen-
sion is so limited hat he is an easy
tool in the hands of spoilsmen, and
votes absolutely according to his pre-
JUDGES and without regard to any con-
sideration except the fact that the ma
jority of the white people vote the
other way. Under such conditions the
negro is a menace to good government"
The men now living who lived at
homes in towns Or on plantations with
negroes before 1865, are surely the very
best friends they ever had or will ever
have. 1t is no wonder that so informed,
so intelligent a negro as Washington is
should understand this. Lately writ
ing to a colored man in our state he de-
clared that in his belief there are thou
sands of white democrats in North Car
DINA who are so per cent. better friends
TO the negro than Governor RUSSELL"
who is a republican and who was elect
ed principally by negro voters.
The Messenger year after year has
asserted what it knows to be true, that
the negroes have more liberty of action
accorded them in the south than is &C
corded the race any where in the great
north. The Sun must be once more
drawn upon for it's light and to show
that to curtail the rights of negroes in
the south is found only in northern set
Elements. The Sun y
That has been reserved for the
northern residents of Southern Pines.
where, according to the Springfield
(Mass.) Republican, there is an 'un-
written law which would prevent the
negro from acquiring property or resi-
dence there. Such a condition also ex-
lists in a colony of Union veterans in
Georgia, where the negro is not tolerat-
ed as a resident. This objection to the
presence Of the negro on the part OF