The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1901-07-04
Atlanta Constitution.

Atlanta Constitution.
The weather never gets too hot nor
subjects of public discussion too in
teresting that certain class of news
papers cannot find time TO discuss the
everlasting negro question.
Communities in which a negro can
not find employment and newspapers
in whose columns appear no sym
pathy for the poor whites in their own
section 60 into extremes when dis
cussing the fate OF the black man in
the South. whose distance lends en-
chantment to the view.
In the press dispatches of yesterday
we find the following item:
Muncie, Ind, June 19.-The Republic
Iron Company tonight closed down its
big nut and bolt works here because half
OF the employees struck yesterday when
superintendent Adams put colored
man to work among them in the finish
ing department.
Indiana is a Republican State. Some
of the strongest critics of Southern
treatment of the colored man live in
that State, yet here we have the evil
dence that the colored man, for whose
social and political welfare the Indi-
anan is so solicitious. will not be al
lowed to earn his daily bread within
the limits of that State.
Illinois has failed to punish the
murderers of the honest negroes seek
ing employment within her borders
three years ago, and there is scarcely
a town from the Western reserve to
the Superior in which the negro is
not told to move on when he is un-
happy enough to make his appear
ance.
The New York Press, for instance,
gives a prominent place to lcailet
issued by the Atlanta University. in
which the attempt is made to prove
that in this State the negroes pay
their own way through the public
schools. In other words. the leaflet
goes on: ''The negroes of the South
are supporting almost, if not quite
entirely, their own public school sys-
tenn" This stuff, published and read
throughout the North. is intended to
detract from the contributions made
by the South to the education of the
negro. Even admitting the claim
made, it is still true that in the South
the negro is permitted in peace and
quiet to earn his daily bread and to
make the money with which he can
pay some proportion of his school tax.
This is in contrast with the refusal of
the critics OF the South, both North
and West, to give employment to the
race about which they appear to care
so much
The Chicago Record Herald also
takes up the condition in the South
and tries to make it appear that there
is opposition to the education of the
negro. With this statement the
Record Herad enters into one of those
learned dissertations on the benefit of
education and the necessity Of the
South doing without distinction of
race what the North has done ''if it
hopes to progress" II the Record-
HeroH will take up the Pana and Vir-
den incidents and explain why it is
that negro is murdered in Illinois
for seeking honest work, it will then
be time enough to deliver double
loaded editorial lectures to the South
The negro is here and he is permit
ted to earn his living.
The negro might be in Illinois if he
had the same permission, but when
he finds his pathway beset with angry
mobs and shotguns there is very little
encouragement for him to 20 in that
direction
Hence the real race question" is
to make the North understand that
the negro has Just as much right to
seek and receive work in that section
as in the South. Humanity demands
this, and the negro in the North
should be satisfied with nothing less.