The age-herald., 1900-05-09

slaves In the southern states of America at the moment of their emancipation. Their faithful care of the white women and chill dren left in their power while the able bodied men were in the Confederate army, testifies to this unmistakably. The moment of emancipation was a critical period in the history of the southern negro. He had not been taught to provide for the morrow. Liberty brought responsibilities for which ne was utterly unequal and false teachings just now might do him inealcuable in- jury
 Abraham Lincoln knew the negro, who had never learned to take care of himself, was not competent to aid in taking care of the state. And so MT Lincolns plan of reconstruction was to bring back the se- ceded states into the union with only such voters as were qualified under the laws of the several states. MT. Lincoln had pre- pared and read in his cabinet the proclama- ton for the rehabilitation of North Caro- lima, which was the basis of President Johnson's plan. This is testified to by Sec retary Mccullough and General Grant If Lincoln had lived, he would have been able to carry out his plan. Johnson failed be- cause he had no tact and no influence
 Uniyer-aI Suffrage
 From the spring of 1865 till the passage of the reconstruction act Of March ?, 1867, the issue between President Johnson and congress was universal suffrage. This issue was fought out in the congressional elec- tons held in the fall of 1See and it is mel ancholy to remember how those elections were influenced by occurrences in the south during the preceding eighteen months. The kuklux outrages were magni- ned and multiplied n.Any times over but they were indefensible, and lost us many friends.
 The laws passed in 1865 and 1866 by dif-
 
 called together by President Johnson on the subject of vagrancy and apprenticeshin were enacted by men who knew that strin- gent regulations would be necessary to pre- vent idleness They were in the line of the laws on the statute books of Rhode Island ana Maine though perhaps some of them were harsh. However this may have been they were construed by the northern people as being without Justification and helped the extremists to win their fatal victory.
 NeFer was there such a bunder as in tie theory that suffrage would help edu- cate the negro. What the negro wanted apoVe all things was to know how to take Iaie 9 oi iimself, so that he might develop lie needed sympathy and tutelage and this he would have had especially from bis oid master, on terms that would have been advantageous to both, but he was taught that he had no friends except among those Who wanted his vote. It was the carpet- pagger who drew the color line The ne- gro voted as he was told, because as he thought word was sent him from Wash ington,. and many of them believed, di- rectly from Abraham Lincoln.
 Leads rs Became Politicians
 Their natural leaders became politicians and so false ideas of the duty and destiny of the negro were inculcated When we consider the feelings of the young negro Cnnt white man, let us remember the false teachings and the bitter and unsuccessful struggles for power from which he has his Ideas. It is because of this same bitter feeling that the present generation of white men dislike the negro. w. H. Coun- ci, an Alabama negro, in an able article in the Forum said: When the veterans who followed Lee to Appomattox shall be gathered to their graves the negro will have lost his best friends
 T have thought 1t my duty to lay be- fore you the most discouraging features of the situation, so that they may be fairly grappled with; but there is more encour- aging view and you will consider 1t. Is not the negro distinctly and clearly improv- ing in the counties where the white men predominate? Is not negro criminology largely due to poverty, want of educa- ton and home training? Is not the system of industrial education as taught at Tus- kegee by that remarkable man, Booker Washington, a key to the situation? And are there not so many instances of negroes becoming faithful and orderly citizens as to lead us to the conclusion that much of the evil we now see is the result of mis- education, and that in the establishment of more harmonious relations between the races and better training for the negro, We are to look for the solution of this problem?