The Savannah morning news., 1901-02-18
A NEGRO on THE NEGRO.

One of the severest arrangements of the
negro race-one of the strongest argu-
ments in favor of such DISTINGUISHING acts
as have been passed by Mississippi, Louis
lana and one or two other states, and OF
the repeal of the fifteenth amendment to
the constitution of the United States-that
has made it's appearance lately, is from
the pen of a negro. He is William Hanni-
bal Thomas, and his book The American
Negro" is fresh from the press. The
book is decidedly pessimistic in tone. In
it words are not minced, and ideas are
not clouded with verbosity. The negro
race is severely arraigned for its Short
comings; and these shortcomings are set
forth in language that burns. 1t may
have been the purpose of the author to
cauterize the sores he found.
For thirty years Thomas has been study
ing his race. Twenty-seven years as
teacher impressed him with the fact that
the negro is merely initiative. and not Gre
ative, and three years as lawyer showed
him 1.-The absolute untrustworthiness OF
self-mterested negro statement" Ne.
groes, he says, have a very meagre con-
ception of the import of words. and are
influenced more by sound than sense Of
their use. To quote him:
For Illustration we may take the word
virtue whose exact and complete signih-
canoe no negro COMPREHENSIVE fails
therefore, to graft its import into the fiber
of his being. With him il is a vocal
sound, and not significant symbol rep
The same is true of words like truth,
honor, and integrity These are meaning
less expressions; and because the negro
can not connect words with ideas. and
ideas with realities. he lies with avidious
readiness, and in all moods and degrees
of enormity, without undergoing the
slightest remorse. and often without any
apparent sense of prevarication. He lies
to please, to evade, to conceal, to excuse
to assert. to command. He Hes to be
heard, and he will not be silent, though
he has no truth to utter. He lies not to
be outdone in speech and glibness-to
crafty his vanity, to satisfy his ambition
and win applause from credulous and
illiteTate hearers. But the main cause
of negro-lying conversation is a fluent
use Of words, uttered without any regard
to truth or facts,
He denies that the people OF the race
have any solid affection or sympathy
for one another. Their speech is fun of
tender sentiment and vocal rectitude, yet
it is all charlatanism. Nor has the negro
| any deep and lasting religious feeling.
OF the negro preachers he says:
Under existing conditions. the negro
priesthood Is largely recruited from a pre-
tentious class who enter the ministry for
| social recognition. for official preferment.
for idle maintenance and unearned sun
port and who. by deliberately stunning
contact with intelligence rarely become
conscious of their own shortcomings They
are filled with conceit, and prate with
glib assurance and authority about the
| most abstruse subjects under the vain
| impression that they possess an amazing
feeundity OF learning--although the pauci-
~ of their knowledge is transparent 10
| others As past masters in the art
of assimilation they evince wonderful
skill. and in the acquisition of Scriptural
phraseology, they can read off Biblical
texts with such dizziness as to deceive
even the elect with their show of sane
tity-which only proves that speech AMI
! action are distinct things. No people
can speak more knowingly of Christian
obligations and none are less observant
of their duties.
Nor does the author finch from his self
imposed task of arragnment when he
! comes to a consideration of that charac.
teristc which has been the cause of the
growth of lynch iaw. He says:
All who know the negro recognize thai
the chief ana overpowering element i'm his
makeup is an imperious sexual impulse,
which, aroused at the slightest incentive
al In he
Of physical qualification. We may say
now that this element Of negro character
constitutes abe main Indictment to the
degenerecy of the race, and is the chief
hindrance to its social uplifting.
There is enough of truth in the fore.
going to make it very pointed and pun,
gent; ana it is truth of the sort that is
usually overlooked or purposely disre-
garded by most leaders of the race and
practically all of the badly informed
Northern reformers and phianthropists
vino interest themselves in the race ques-
ton. Nevertheless it should not be lost
sight of that il H. within the memory OF
persons now in middle life when the negro
ia America was a slave. a chattel with
out incentive to a higher morality and
without opportunity for education or the
accumulation of property. There are
many sins of omission and commission 10
be charged against the race; at the same
line II should. IN common justice. be cred
rcd with progress iu very considerable
Iegrec, IL may be- doubted if. ia The his-
ory of the world. there H. au instance
% any other race making such progress
Within iess than forty years of DIS emer-
,euce from slavery. When this has been
saii. however. a. remains thLt The negro