Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-04-29
VNNI Z. CON- E..

VNNI {. coz FL.
In discussing the recent lynching in
the South several colored ministers and
bishops have expressed themselves on
the subject in very, perhaps pardon
ably, bitter tones. Bishop Alexander
Walters, of the African NJ E. Church
OF Jersey City, thus delivered himself:
I've are censured as a race for not
exhibiting many qualities and are consid-
cred impudent nisgers if we presume to
assert our manhood. We are truly Ge-
tween the upper and the neither milestone.
have come TO the conclusion tat moth
ing bat resistance On the part of the
Atro-Amer. cans themselves will stop
president Mckinley and the Federal
government have SHOWN themselves i'm
potent TO convict the murderers of Federal
officials. Tne Governors O. certain States
in the South nave acknow. edged their ma
blhty to protect me co ored citizens. In
the name or tn Ai-1.S -ty SOD, what are
we 10 do but fight and u-e?"
Bishop Walters's bitter comment is
hardly justified. He is wrong in stat
ing that negroes who conduct them
selves in manly way in the South are
not well and considerably treated by
the whites. Indeed, time has proven
that the Southern white man is the
Southern negro's best friend. Having
to live with him the Southern white
people have done ali they can to ele-
vate and educate him.
The greatest element of disturbance
between the Southern whites and the
Southern negroes has been the mis-
chievous introduction of politics into
the South by scheming Northern poll
ticians with a view CT splitting that
section politically. The Southern
whites will never submit to negro dom
ination politically or otherwise and it
to stir up political strife between them
as Northern politicians have done for
their own selfish and dishonest pur-
poses under guise of giving the negro
his constitutional rights" 1t is safe
to say that had these scheming North
ern political tricksters-wno neither
understand the negro nor care the snap
of their fingers for his welfare-kept
their meddlesome hands off the
South would be much nearer a solu-
ton of its race problem than it is to-
day. AS for Bishop Walters's rather
whining comment that there is no pro-
lection for the Southern negro from the
Southern whites and his silly state
ment that there is nothing left for them
but to fight and die" it is quite as
nonsensical as it is incendiary. There
is no danger to be apprehended in the
South by any negro who behaves him
self. Even the ordinary run of petty
negro offenders in that section are not
treated more harshly than the same
class of white offenders 1t is only in
cases of crimes by negro brutes against
the home and the honor of Southern
white women that the vengeance and
rage of Southern white men break ali
bounds and lynching is resorted to.
Northern whites would deal with this
damnable crime precisely as their
Southern brothers do.
Bishop Walters may be pardoned for
the bitterness of his comments, for he
does not live in the South and he does
not know, but his language is not wise
nor just nor is it calculated to lessen
the friction between the races.
In this connection it is gratifying to
know that all the educated colored men
do not take his narrow view of the
question. For example, Prof Booker
Washington, founder and principal of
the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial
Institute in Alabama, who has lived
right in the heart of this racial prob
lem, so to speak. and has done a great
deal to uplift his race, makes these
eminently sensible and practical COM
ments on the recent Palmetto mob:
'As rule the men guilty of these out
! RACES are ignorant individuals who have
/ had no opportunity 10 secure an educa-
| tional or moral restraint. The solution is
| 10 be found in the thorough mental reig-
! ious and Industrial education of both races
| in the South 1t is an encouraging fact
| that of the hundreds of colored men who