The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1901-11-28
THE PROBLEM.

| date, IN commenting upon Tue de'
feat of the Hardwick disfranchise.
ment bill in the legislature, com.
placently asserts that the whites
and negroes are on better terms IL
this state than anywhere else ii
the country, that the negroes OF
Georgia "arc, as a class, the best
element of negro population to be
found anywhere" and that this
! race, with few exceptions have
long since ceased to take interest
III politics, state or national, " and
it therefore concludes that the de-
feat of the Hardwick bill was an
act of wisdom.
The latter part of this PROPOSE.
ton is q matter of opinion, none
is expressed here, but the other
parts of the Journals statement
are open to serious doubts. If the
races in this state are like breth-
rem dwelling together in unity,
why is it that the Journals news
columns contain nearly every day
accounts of serious disturbances
between the whites and blacks of
Georgia, more, apparently, than
are reported for any other south
ern state? In the last few days
one assault upon white woman,
another attempted assault, two or
three murders and several at
tempts, have been perpetrated by
negroes upon white persons. Two
of the murders were of men who
were killed for no other reason
than that they were white, and two
white men badly wounded by ne
groes received their injuries for the
same cause or want of cause. An
examination of the Journals news
items for week or ten days past
will show these statements to be
true.
The opponents of lynch law di-
late upon the better deterrent eff
fects of legal executions for rape,
over lynchings therefor. How do
they explain that Notwithstanding
this crime was recently committed
in our county by a negro against a
white woman and che criminal was
legally executed therefor, the act
was, under similar conditions as to
race, repeated shortly afterwards
in Cherokee county, then in Bar
tow and now in Whitfield all near
to this county, and in which the
criminals knew of the fate award
ed to the Cobb county criminal?
The Whitfield wretch has just been
sentenced to death by Judge Fite
after he, as we'll as the Others
named, have had a fair legal trial.
A fact to be noted in all these
cases, except the Cobb county one,
is that all the criminals have been
residents of the places where their
crimes have been committed, were
working" negroes, and had been
considered reliable. The negro who
made the attempt recently in
South Georgia was raised" by
the white man whose wife was the
attempted victim. The same is
true of the Missouri fend who
afterwards murdered his victim
and is still at large.
Another fact connected with the
Barlow criminal is that he was an
educated" negro. This upon the
testimony of Mrs. FELTON,. All
these facts completely upset one
of Booker Washington's favorite
assertions that it IS only the igno-
rant, vagabond, non-property
holding class of the negro race that
is greatly addicted to crime.
There seems to be an inherent
weakness i'll the character of this
race above which they will never
be able to rise as a race, (if the
experience of the past can be taken
as an index which will forever
debar them from association on
the same plane with the white
man. The prison statistics of the
whole United States, north as well
as south, prove their proneness to
crafty their appetites through
crime, which no amount of educa-
ton (Which they enjoy in the
north) will ever eradicate. Gov
ernor Gambler says that lynching
is decreasing in Georgia but the
things cannot long continue as
they are, and the question may
we'll be asked,
What is to be done with the
negro?