The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-08-28

anywhere as self-respectiug and sell
sustaining skilled laborer
The G o b has in these columns set
forth the chief contentious of Prof. STRAIT
on through the effect OF which he has
been led to the conviction that education
viii not settle the great question Of the
races, which, from recent occurrences one
may well believe, promises in the future
to assume as grave phases even as it id
in the past, when it succeeded as the
chief influence in piunging this nation
into fratricidal strife.
The plea Of Prof. Washington is In the
main one for additional charity in dealing
with the negro 1t is but thirty-fve years
since the restraints Of slavery were re-
moved from him and he became invested
with all the dangerous responsibilities Of
freedom. He has, his advocate believes,
done more than well, better, perhaps, than
the representative Of any other race could
have done under Ike conditions. Tested
by his frief experience with the respon-
sibilities of citizenship, Prof Washington
thinks that the negro has made wonder
full advancement--a advancement which
bespeaks a future of great uprightness
and usefulness as member of American
society. He points to the increase in prop
erty ownership among the negroes and
the comparative freedom from crime
which has distinguished them in their new
relationship toward society:
1t is hardly unjust or unwarranted to
say, as the result of the most careful
reading Of Prof WashiRgton's plea for
his race. that he goes very little farther
than that education, and especially indus
trial education, has wrought much good
among the negroes of the South. and viii,
no doubt, do still more good in the fu-
ture. But to establish his thesis that
education Will solve the race question
in the United States, he does not No man
infinitely ADLER than he could ever hope
to do it.
The white professor and student Of
the Southern negro, Straton, points out
are predisposed to develop, in an exas-
gerated degree the ''trifing' tendency
Of the negro, and that it is really the ex-
slaves who in the past thirty years or so
have accumulated any additional prop
cry which goes down on the public rec
ords as belonging to negroes in the South.
Most of the property owned by the ne
groes," says the report of the school
commissioner of Georgia for 1888, was
acquired prior to 1885, Very little has
been added to the tax books since. The
younger class, or the educated class, does
not seem to be adding much to the prop
erty holding OF the race" He calls at
tention to the fact that the closer the ne
groes approach to white methods of life.
the more they are scattered and live In
immediate touch with white civilization,
the worse they become; while on the
other hand. the more they live to them
selves and the nearer they remain to the
simple life which formally characterized
them the better they are.
the cause of his race has little to set up
against the force Of such contentious
He points to the success Of the negro in
freedom in the island of Jamaica, but
in doing SO he does little more than en-
phaslze one Of the contentious of Prof
Straton. He makes strong plea for
the negro who lives IN the city, declaring
The black professor and advocate of
that the race must not be judged by Its
worst elements, but by its best; but he
still remains far away from anything like
a conclusive argument tending TO estab-
hsh his contention, that the education of
the negro in any or all directions will
render him other than he is today, a
greatly disturbing element in the social
plan Of the United States and one which
his white brother will sooner or later
get rid Of. as he might any other foreign
substance which he found incapable of
assimilation.