The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1901-04-19
THE NEGRO QUESTION.

LIE NECNO AOESI4OIf'
There is much food for thought for
those who advocate Universal man.
hood suffrage" in the testimony OF
Richard B. Wright who is a negro
and self-made man. He is the
president of the Georgia State Col
lege for Negroes and is affirm believer
of the hoe as far as the welfare of his
race is concerned. His testimony
before the Industrial Commission is
interesting and we take pleasure in
republishing portions of it. He said
in part:
"Away with dreams of political
Importance orpower; abandon social
aspirations; forget the idea of ac-
quiring superficial education and de-
vote yourselves to the application of
your natural ability to the industries
so closely athand."
"Politics has little significance to
the negro of the Southern country.
1t is a subject they care little for and
are content to permit Others to
handle. At the same time disfran-
chisement through educationalquah-
fcations witness regarded as bene-
fetal to the race. Its tendency is
first to create desire for education;
second, to inspire wish forpolitical
knowledge, not necessarily political
preferment. Denied the use of the
ballot until they were able to read
and write, they would instinctively
seek to acquire the right to the ballot
and would learn to care more for
suffrage than they have when it was
free without qualification to them.
1t would be, as he looked at it, a
prize. With education would come
the desire to more thoroughly under
stand political conditions. At the
same time he thought the negro is
more interested in benefting his ply
steal than his political condition. He
therefore regarded the movement in
the South for ballot reform as a
good means toward a desirable end
for blacks as we'll as for whites.
eff the United States had given each
of the negroes 40 acres of ground
after the war it would have been
much better for them than the bal
lot" Later he said this would, of
course, be impossible now, and he
did not pose as an advocate of any
such plan, but it might have been
done in several fthe Southern States
Immediately after the war. What
the negro in the South needs at pres
ent is education for the use of his
hands and the application of his
physical strength. On that basis will
be founded a social structure in which
he can find avenues ofapplication for
his mentality.
Witness gave a scientific review
of the condition of the negro
from the Civil War to the pres
emit time. words cannot picture the
full meaning of such a revolution, he
said, referring to the change imme-
dia tely following thewar. Freedom
placed the slave on the same political
basis with the master, "but it did
not give the freeman his mule and 40
acres" The slave found himself
clothed with the privilege not only
to hunt, fish and lounge around as
he had seen his master do, but to
talk politics and to vote as he had
been told his master had done.
"What is more natural than that the
negro in his attempt to enjoy these
privileges should have misused them?
He did not understand the struggle
that was going on over the recon-
struction of the States. The carpet
baggers and their white associates
were conducting this contest. That
he should have consented to be used
by the latter was his own alternative,
as his late masters were wholly I'M
prepared to treat with him on any
other terms than quasi-slavery."
Thus, for long time after the war,
witness held, the energy which should
have been devoted to the improve
ment of farm labor and the develop
ment of Southern resources was
frittered away in futile political
contest"