The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-05-10
THK NEWS AND OBSERVER THURSDAY MORNING, MAY TO- 1900

courage of their convictions on inns SUB
ieet? DO you tell me that education viii
be the cure-al for this state OF Things?
7 Weld to no man in my estimate of the
supreme Importance of popular education.
although I know that in the country
where it has developed first, even by a
compulsory process. there has been and
is despotism, and military ariStocracy;
but the experience of nearly forty years
in these Southern States has demon
strated that any other than industrial
education for the negro simply means, in
the homely phrase of Uncle Remus, the
spelling of a field hand if not the crea-
tion of a social misfit or something
worse. | do not hesitate to express the
opinion that while / would not apply the
test to white men, if it can be done by
any constitutional method, it would he
much wiser to require a property qualitl-
cation than an educational one for the
negro voter but, until some better way
out of our troubles is provided, the one
adopted in Louisiana and proposed in
North Carolina, seems to give the only
hope Of relief Relief we must nave, as
is admitted by all except the tanatlcal
enemies of the South and its people. we
do not want to get it by fraud or force,
and it was cruel wrong to place US IN
a position where we were compelled 10
resort to one or the other OF lhem TOT
self-protection. 1t was not only cruel 10
the Southern people, but was injurious 10
the best interests of the Whole country,
because in addition to barring out lmml-
grafton and obstructing progress, and
otherwise affecting material growth 1t
has prevented a display OF that honest
difference of opinion on all questions po-
litical, which would otherwise have found
expression to the advancement OF the
public good, and has narrowed the view
of our people to the one overshadoWlng
issue which, like the sword Of Damocles.
has hung suspended above us.
mo people have ever had to wrestle
with such a multiform problem for so
long time, and l believe in my soul
that no other people would nave so pa
tiently and so honorably dealt with 1t as
they have. 1t must strike the future his
torian as both astounding and Infinitely
creditable to the Southern people that
for a third of century, though poorer
than ever before, they taxed themselves
literally for the education of the chill
dren of the negroes. provided them with
asylums for their afflicted, employed them
almost exclusively as artisans and Ia
borers. sympathized with them in their
sorrows, and helped them in their trou-
bless and yet every year in that whole
period saw these same negroes go to the
polls with unfailing regularity, and vote
as a unit and as a race. against their
every interest, against good government,
NT hnt -hl1t 10
Southern whites still continued to employ
them and aid them as before. 1t is With
out parallel in human history.
I'm the light of such record. and the
results of unqualified negro suffrage, no
man can justly say that an effort to re-
strict that suffrage, whether the restric-
ton applies to others or not. is unrighte-
Gus or oppressive. 1t will not do to say
that if the illiterate, negro is disfran-
chised the iliterate white man should
also be deprived of his vote. very
large proportion of illiterate white men
have an intelligent understanding of what
they are voting for, and of the merits of
candidates for office.
Leaving heredity out of view entirely
(and it ought always to be kept in mind
they have been accustomed all their lives
to near political discussions These
things cannot truthfully be said of one
illiterate negro in five hundred. Doc
trinaires and moralists may theorze and
dcgmatiZe forever but they can not con-
vince an Anglo-SaXon that negroes ought
TO participate in the government of white
men, and a statesman will always recog-
nize this insuperable fact in dealing with
in q
What the negro needs is not political
power, but the help and sympathy of the
white people among whom he lives, ana
which they have always stood ready TO
give. but which he has done his best TO
nullfy. 1t was not his natural inclina-
ton but the result of false and vicious
training since his emancipation. He not
only needs this help and sympathy, put
will perish without it. He will never,
however receive it as he has done until
he abandons the idea of political power.
White supremacy is absolutely essential
TO his welfare because it means the sal
walton of those things upon which his
every interest depends. 1t is madness in
him, and cruelty in those who advise him
to resist it, There is in every civilized
community q force superior TO any VIII
ten statute--the force of an overwheim-
ing public opinion-and when this pubic
opinion is based, as in this case, upon
race pride supplemented by the lessons
of three thousand years of history, it is
beyond the reach of any legislation To
alter. or reverse. For this reason, and
for this reason only, the Fifteenth Amend
ment to the United States Constitution IS
a dead letter, and ought no longer TO re-
main part of the fundamental law IF
the country. 1t cannot benait the negro,
and acts as q solvent to the 5ond OF IRA
ternal reunion which would otherwise be
Intangible.
Il am very aware, Mr.. Chairman, that
in giving expression TO these views upon
the subject which | was invited 10 as
cuss | have simply repeated in very
concise form an oft-repeated tale 1
understand perfectly that no one is re-
sponsibe for them but myself, tut there
can be little doubt that they are in the
main but a reflection Of the opinions OF
vast majority of the Southern people.
with whom at last rests the solution CT
the race problem in all its aspects"
Colonel John Temple Graves, of At
lanta, who followed Mayor Waddell, was
given an ovation by he audience. ii &