The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-02-28
THE WHITE MANS BURDEN
Senator Tillman's View of It as He
Sees It in South Carolina

Montclair, N. J., Feb. 2S.-United
States Senator Benjamin r. Tillman of
South Carolina and the Rev. A. H.
Bradford of the First CONGREGATIONAL
church of this place talked before the
Outlook club here on 1.-The Race Cues
ton in the South" Senator Tillman,
after drawing a picture of the ruin and
desolation caused in his land by the
civil conflict. said:
THE white man is superior to the
colored man, and, God helping us, we
will maintain that superiority. Your
great soldier, Grant, sent to my country
in 1876 a regiment of ten companies to
maintain carpetbag government. These
troops had orders to compel a free vote
and a fair count. They did their duty
as they saw it. They maintained law
and order, although there were $500
blacks to $500 whites. What do you
reckon our majority was? Three thous-
and nine hundred. Can Tammany beat
that? Can Philadelphia beat it? We
heat these people by outvoting and out
counting them, and we admit it, We
can't repeal the fourteenth and fifteenth
1 told the senators this in Washington
and then L said: What are you going
to do about it?' In the north it is
question of white raScalS against white
rascals. In the south it is a contest be-
tween Anglo Saxon superiority and civ
ilization and degraded, corrupt and
corruptible people.
I'VE called a constitutional conVen-
ton and created a constitution under
which every man must be able to read
or write or pay taxes on $780, Under
that constitution 80 per cent of the
whites and 10 per cent of the blacks
vote The colored people are a happy
go-lucky, immoral, untruthful, unrelia-
BILE race There are exceptions and
bright ones, but L speak of the great
mass. They were unfit for the ballot
and are now, because they are lacking
in that moral fibre which gives them
sound judgment, and they can be led
c-1,,
simply recognize my superiority to the
black man and am willing to consent to
mis- life, liberty and happiness SO long
as he does not step on my feet.
Oaughter.) Take a pilgrimage to the
south. Settle in any part you may
please, and if you don't come north
convinced that my view is the right
one-why, then, I'll stand treat. I
have a negro on my plantation % years
old L would trust him with my wife
and child and he would die protecting
them, but he amt fit to vote. You can't
alter what God has made, and though
this or that negro may be a decent man
or an honest man, yet the tiger is loos-
ened in a white mans bosom without
regard to consequences when the two
races come in contact"
Speaking of the negro from the in
dustrial standpoint, Senator Tillman
said: \'He is by nature and by every
instinct of his soul a loafer. His one
purpose in life is to get something to
eat for today, with no thought of the
future. In consequence the southern
states lag behind the north because of
the lack of thrift in this 1aboring class.
But don't think that the negro does all
the work. The south produced II, O0O,-
| 900 bales of cotton last year and one
half of it was raised by white men, If
any commonwealth will give US one
good industrious white man for three
niggers We'll swop as long as they'll
keep up the exchange. We've got the
white mans burden down there"
In closing the sneaker said 1--WE are
educating them, but even if they can
learn we don't propose to have them
govern US. Wen use the shotgun if
necessary
DR.. Bradford, in reply, denied that we
| cant alter what God has made He
| said: That's what we are doing all
| the time He. read statistics and let
! ters from leading institutions of learn
| ing in the north showing that the negro
| was capable of taking a high inteIlec-
| tual stand