The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-11-01
BROADLY ILLUMINATING

DdLlDOOZIci ~
In Washington a newspaper called the
Defender. is edited by a negro named
II. c.. c.. Astwood. He has held pub
lie office and at time was minister
to Haiti. In his last issue he begins
an editorial in this wise:
THE white such as The
Philadelphia Record, The New York
Journal, The North American, and 9TH
er papers who ridicule the journals CT
the south, will not employ a colored
man upon their staffs or In n other
important place in their offices, be they
ever so competent. The white business
houses of the north, the factories, Ind
Industrial plants will not employ color
ed men or women in any of their de-
partments bov the mental, and yet
they rail at the south, where slavery
existed for 200 years, for fighting politi-
cal and social equality. The north is
responsible for 1t all"
He calls upon the railers and blowers
to stop their hypocricy,' which has
been INDUCED through nearly an hun
dred years. The descendants of the
captains of h old New England slave
ships are great at sympathy and adj
vice, at blowing horns and splitting
venom. The Washington Post says Of
this view of a negro editor that he
tells the simple truth, n if all
the other negro leaders" living north
of Washington-and in Washington as
well-could be persuaded to speak in a
similar vein of honesty, his theorem
would need no further demonstration.
The fact of the matter is that northern
doctrinaries preach the negro full OF
vain aspiration, of which the fruit is
discomfort, while the southern people
offer him no Illusions, although they
give true friendship, sympathy, L
material help. 1t is not difficult to say
where the negro should look for his
real friends"
Let it be remembered that The Post
is owned and edited by northern men
c., there is a negro paper called The
Messenger. 1t blames Booker Wash
ington for his folly. 1t truly remarks:
1.-THE harm tina has been accomplish
ed springs from the race ~prejudices
and animosities which ave been eX-
cited. The public feeling of the south
toward the negro was never better tnan
it has been within the last two or three
years, and it may be remarked In pass
ing that Mr.. Washington himself has
been a conspicuous instrument in the
development of his condition of things.
This man has been accepted by the
white people no less than by the ne
groes as the chief exponent of he re-
lations which should exist between the
two races. 1t is a question whether the
injury done his influence with the
whites of the south by the White louise
dinner will not overbalance any credit
that he nay acquire from 1t for himself
and with his own people"
1t honors Roosevelt for what he did
but censures Booker. 1t shows proper
intelligence and self-respect in saying
that "a sel~f-respecting negro a as
any other gentleman should never he
willing to go where he is admitted
purely upon sufferance-if, we say, Mr..
Washington had declined to accept the
presidents invitation because of those
things he would I'VE achieved for him
self and for his race a victory in pub
lie opinion beside which the present
notoriety given him would have been
but a small and inconsiderate thing"
Turn now to the north for a moment
to Pennsylvania, the c~orruptest state
politically possibly in the entire union.
1t processes to love Sambo, and some
times takes him with marked affection
to its great palpitating bosom. Let us
behold that great state through the
eyes of a southern man living at Pitts
burg, Pa. He writes to The Richmond
Dispatch on the Goth of October, send
ing an editorial from The Pittsburg
Dispatch. The correspondent tells
what he has beheld with his own eyes.
He writes:
"Of course you will never understand
the feeling which exists between the
people of the north and the negro. It
is no uncommon sight to see white and
black eating. drinking, and loafiing to-
gether. Often have I seen them with
arms linked walking the streets. 1t is
understood that the negro is as good
as the best white man up here. If you
will allow me, I would suggest that
such influence as can be eXerted to
compel the negro to come up north and
mingle and marry into these first fami.
lies be exerted."
There should be a great exodus of the
negro from the south to the state OF
Pennsylvania. Probably m~iscegination
can be carried on bravely. Not long
g a buxom young white woman mar
ried an old negro some sixty years old.
1t can be done. Let the negroes who
are just we'll nigh dying for amalga-
nation pack their goods and make FOR
Pennsylvania, the n green spot in
the wide oasis of racial prejudice aud
barriers.
The Pittsburg Dispatch, badly smit-
ten with negrophobia, raves after this
pleasant manner, we copying but a
part of what the low fellow writes:
"But when the southern negropho-
bia not only undertakes to say whom
President Roosevelt shall not receive
IN his private hospitality, but also en-
acts the prohibition against a man
whose character, attachments, and
public usefulness far outshine any OF
the negro haters, h utter ~unreasona-