Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1901-05-01
ABOUT
HONEST ABOUT
NEGROES, NoRTHERNERs LIE"


Or. Parkhurst, recently returned
from an extended visit to the South, is
telling some pertinent truth about the
race question, which, coming from this
impartial source, it is hoped will open
the eyes of some who have been blinded
by prejudice. AS the honest view OF
an honest Northerner, DR.. Parkhurst's
words should command close attention.
"0ne of the results yielded by this tour
~ the South" said Dr. Parkhurst, lis
that we learned to look upon matters
more in the way in which the Southern
mind regards them. The Southerner
does not like the negro, and is fearful
of what may be the eventual conse-
0uence of having so large negro ele-
ment in the population. He does not
like the negro any better than the aver
age Nertherner does. The Southern
white man dislikes the negro and owns
IN to it. The white man in the Nor
dislikes the negro, and lies about it."
This is a too sweeping assertion,
hut II fits those Republican politicians
who have for a generation made pollt-
ical capital by falseheod and misrepre-
sentation of the South and oy waving
the bloody shirt. To properly char
aclerize these wno have tnrliol!y turned
sectional strife to political account and
have prospered by tanning the fame OF
fraternal hatred, there are no words of
condemnation and contempt too strong.
They are on a level with the ghoul who
follows armies to plumber the dead and
the incendiary who applies the torch for
purposes of robbery.
DR.. Parkhurst has studied the race
question at close quarters. He has seen
the negro as the South sees him. And
he does not hesitate honestly to tell
what ne has seen. The closer one
comes to the actual situation says DR..
Parkhurst, 1.-The more one must feel that
the less the negro talks about his civic
rights under the Constitution, particu-
larry the right of suffrage, the better it
will be for him and the sooner he will
attain to all the rights that justly be-
long to him. The undiscriminating act
by which the negroes had conferred up
on them the right to vote was one OF
those plumbers that it is not easy to es-
cape from after once it is committed,
but which it would seem we ought TO
have had Northern craftsmanship suf-
ficiently intelligent to prevent.
THE counsel therefore that both the
Northern and the Southern friends of
the negro are giving him is to keep
quiet. He should learn to work, learn
to love to work, especially to acquire a
respect for agriculture, to get as much
as he can into his now empty head, and
he may confidently expect that in due
time he will be rated at exactly what he
is worth, and that he will be allowed
the exercise of all the tights and privi-
leges that he is fit for
These words of the New York divine
are not only full of justice but are lum-
nous with common sense. His appre-
ciatisn of the immensely of the problem
with which the South is struggling and
his manly sympathy in it's terrible
trials of the past generation are testified
In these kindly and fraternal words:
THE racial question is to the Southern
mind the sensitive nerve of the entire sit
uation. 1t is hard enough for them now to
get along with the negroes, and every
thing that the North does for the negro