The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-05-17
RACE
Discussed at the Southern Industrial
Convention.

NentlOn at us meeting IN huntsville,
Ala, six months ago, and the interest
created was such as to produce wide |
comment and a general demand hat the
discussion along the same line should be
continued at future meetings of the
body. Speeches were made by leaders
of the colored race, Prof. w. H. Council,
principal Of the agricultural and me-
chanical college at Normal, Ala, and
H. T. Healing, editor Of the A. M. e.
Church Review of Philadelphia, pre-
sided.
On the part of the whites, the subject
was discussed by W. A Cole of Waco,
Tex. The subject of compulsory arbi-
tration was discussed.
Others papers were read by j. W.
Faxon, assistant cashier of the First
National bank of this city; Gen. John T.
Wilder, pension agent for the southern
district, and N. F. Thompson, secretary
of the southern industrial convention.
General discussion followed.
Mrs. Duncan ofthe international board
of Koung Woman's Christian Associa-
ton will address the convention tonight
on the future of the Industrial work of
hat board in connection with its south
ern work.
In his address President Council said
in part:
Il the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread is the Magma Charta of labor
which no man has the right to wiring
from another. Men may differ in politics
and religion, but all men in all ages
have stood upon this broad and liberal
platform laid down by the father of US
ALL The negro SHARES this nigh priv
ilege in common with all other men. He
has a right to air, water and a crust of
bread if he is willing to work for them.
Men may refuse to sit at the same hotel
| table with me, to ride in the same car,
or sleep in the same room, or occupy
seats in the same church, school or
amusement hall. These are rights
which reside in the taste and choice of
the individual. But no man has a right,
moral or legal, to interfere with my
honest efforts to earn shelter, food and
raiment. No class of people have a
higher claim to arm a living in the
south than the negro. He has the right
by Divine He holds the right
by $50 years of training in the school
of slavery. He holds it by loyalty and
devotion to the south. I believe that he
will ever hold it by his own competency
and by the loyalty and devotion of the
south to the negro, who has produced
the Black Nanny, one OF the brightest
stars in the armament of southern glory.
The south has never been backward in
inviting the negro to participate in all
her industrial activities. He has been
welcomed everywhere work is carried
on except in the political convention,
which has more of a degrading than an
elevating effect upon the American citl-
zen. The south is earnest, persistent
and liberal in throwing wide open to the
negro the doors of the church, the school
room and the workshop. These are the
three greatest civilizing influences of
the human race.
Although the negro has met and
settled many questions in the public
mind and conscience. still there con-
fronts him at this time the gravest
question he has ever met, eQualing that
of freedom itself. 1t is, to him, the
vital question of the hour, and upon it
hangs his entire future in this country.
1t is the question of food, raiment and
shelter.
After all of the training in all of the
s-I---+,54I -aIAa1z chn1 these fhn1GandS
of young people go fortht to be tyrannlzed
and enslaved by the power of riga
zation based upon everything else put
competency. law and Christian prin-
ciple? Or will some new prophet arise
and say that this training was wrong
and that the negro should be taught
something else? Where is he end?
Shall these thousands. of young people,
who under the sanction and patronage
OF our laws are learning all The. trades
of the mi be told that the color
; of their skin is a bar to employment
S25,O 900. 600 by northern charity, $4,000,
= 900 b. southern sympathy, 500, 0OO,O OO
by southern legal e~nactments, to negro
, education in the south in the last 81
years. For what? To educate negro
> boys and girls to be paupers? Or to
make them hard working citizens
Shall the unfriendly b union canoe
the ph-ilanthropic and patriotic inten-
tions of charity n legislation?
"Unles the south regulates by law
the OperatiOnS OF labor unions ana Ia
Dor organizations, as we'll as marks oui
a lust course for capital, the best
labor in the world will be ultimately
( driven out of her markets; and when
> the south permits this, her pest ano
most loyal friends will be gone. WheI
the white man brings foreign labor tC
displace his true and tried friend, the
l negro, then will communism drive the
: white mans coach, nihillsm COOK anc
serve his food, agrarlan1Sm plOW ms
: fields. and the red flag of anarchy hoai
, over every southern industry. TheS
may bring on civil strife more deadly
, than many foreign wars. Unassimllatee
foreigners have no right by the law o.
Cod or man to d~iSplace, by unlaWfu
I methods, long standing labor. Can TIT
! negro and can the white south alIore
= to run wild over the suffrage question
or can both sit Supine1y down Wnlls
. these unfriendly forces wind the1l
f loathsome and deadly coils around on
/ free institutions and throttle every ele
ment Of justice and liberty In them?
7 will the south with its eyes via
omen and warning from all sides per
nit the introduction and growth upol
+ it's industrial institutions of organize
tons opposed to it's best interests? l
must direct it's labor element, as Well a
q place around capital proper limitations
: or 1t must suffer. 1t must enact law, 0
take disorder. It must by proper meth
k DDS of assimilation permanently an
+ wisely ingraft heterogeneous pOpuld
ton flooding it's territory. This pOpu
lation is entirely exotic to it's manner
and customs, ignorant Of its sacred ira
ditions, and disloyal to it's interests
: Failing to control it. the south must b
1 trOdden beneath the feet of ~brObding
nagian communism, more blasting an
bIighting than the barbarian horde
which stamp the best light out of tn
highest civilizations Of Greece an
= Rome. I am proud to say that the hear
of negro labor throbs in union wit
a every sacred tradition. with every loya
- impulse and with every industrial inter
> est in the south. Disorder has no scru
= pies. It takes liberty for license t
commit brutal deeds. The mob spirit to
often found in labor unions may beeom
- emboldened by the rush of the south t
unwiseIy welcome every kin of ne1
8. -a.a-- IL -whiah- il m.