The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-06-15
THE QUESTION OF INTERFERENCE
AND EDUCATION.

perfect health. 1t begins slowly to
realize that in depriving thousands
of the best citizens Of the south of the
right of suffrage while clothing some
800, 900 or more negroes, disqualified
and ignorant, of the right to vote that
all went wrong. 1t thought it could
punish the south and thus take some
revenge for fighting it so long and
magnificently and t~errifically, and do
this ithou in the least injuring the
north. But it was a blind, infatuated
movement, and while it brought great
Affections and vast losses upon the
southern whites it also reacted upon
the north and made it loser too.
There is an awakening in some de-
gree as to the real conditions and the
precise facts. The negro question con-
Germs all sections because it acts upon
all sections. 1t affects the north as to
labor and profits and suffrage. 1t is
more thar local. The north has been
troubled with labor riots n by Chi
cago anarchists. 1t ought to be able
to sympathize with the south when 1T
has race troubles or other, disturb
ances. There is a foreign element
that is lawless, just as there is a egr
element that is lawless. Then there is
a large class of ~forefgn-born men who
make excellent citizens as there are
many meritorious, worthy, respectable
negroes who toll and obey the laws
and walk circumspectly.
1t is all right for the white men Of
North Carolina to strive to elevate the
negroes, to give the children schooling,
to aid in every possible way to fit the
negroes for the duties and responsible
tiles of true citizenship. Citizenship
under the American system means a
great deal. To be a citizen in a proper
high sense in a great republic really
means no little. The south does not
favor fanatical displays on the part
of the north in dealing with the ques-
ton of negro suffrage. 1t was a ire
mendous blunder when first bestowed
and it is a tremendous curse as it has
been exercised for more than thirty
years. The south seeks to regulate
suffrage, and to deal with social ills at
it's own door without impertinent and
aggressive interference from outside,
whether it be from gushing white SEN
timentalists who riot in their own stu
pidity and self-assertion, Or such crazy
fools consumed by vanity like that fell
low Tom Fortune. To educate and to
fit the blacks for good citizenship is a
difficult task but one of the duties and
'benevolences due from the master race
to an inferior race.
The north has not 1nterfered with
slavery in the south without injury.
You do not find the south ever pre-
Stunning to interfere in the domestic and
political affairs of New England or
California and Oregon, of New York
or Michigan. The south understands
good breeding and good sense and the
meaning of political education too we'll
to be Paul Prys upon the north, or to
busy itself over the civilization and in
terests of a particular state or section
@'up there"
If New England had as many Chi
1SSS tO-udy III plOpOAI "
as the south has negroes, and the
Chinese could vote under the act Of
the north as the negroes can vote in
the Carolinas, how long would they
stand the outrage? Let all the Chinese
vote with one notorious set Of de-
PRAYED set of demagogues who con-
trolled them perfectly so as to keep
the said white rascals in office. how
long would New England STAN it?
They would talk treason just as
they did from 1906 to 1915. New York
and he other Middle states would get
into full sympathy and then h a
rumpus there would be.
Let the south alone to deal with its
domestic and social and political evils
that have been forced upon it by the
north.
There is n thing only that the
north can do with propriety and de-
.cency relative to negro suffrage, and
thai is t. undo what was done and re-
peal h fifteenth amendment. 1t Is
understood now by rejecting, observ-
ing educators and philanthropists in
the north, and particularly, in the
south, that a great deal of the moneys
sent from the north to educate the ne
groes has been misapplied. That is to
say, the sort of education that was
needed by the negroes was not i'm
Darted, and hundreds and thousands
received the smattering hat disquali-
fed rather han equipped for the seri-
Gus business of life. Bill Arp observed
ten or twenty years g that the edu-
cation given the negro spoiled an ex-
cel,ent field hand to make him an Use
less 1oafer.
The late Bishop A.-G. D.
d., of Georgia, an able lailhlu' Wise
Methodist minister, was a great en-
-thusiast in behalf of the negro and IN
sisted that it was the duty OF the
north that liberated him and a