The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-02-22
a SENSIBLE ADDRESS.

President G. T. Winston. Of the North
Carolina A. & NJ. College at Raleigh,
made an address somewhere recently
entitled Industrial Education for white
and Black in the South" 1t is a timely
study Of a topic that Is alike fruitful
and important. He urges for the ne
groes industrial training. He says they
should be melted to efforts to learn and
qualify themselves for usefulness The
whole field of skilled labor il still open
to them in the south. But. unless they
gone. Mental working. wood working.
textile industries. manufactures Of all
sorts now offer negroes as well as whites
abundant opportunities for the exer-
cises of skilled labor He urges also
that they may be encouraged as much
as possible to agriculture. for in this oc-
cupation they can most easily procure
homes and be Independent of race fric-
ton, prejudice and oppression. 1 am
inclined to believe that the negro is not
far enough from nature to live in
cities and towns" The Messenger be-
lieves that the farms are their true
places for their abor an waiting. They
do better in that sphere than in the
towns and cities. The rich men of the
negro race are mainly farmers, we
think. They make good field hands and
are better citizens and more contented
in rural life than elsewhere. OF course,
there are some who do well in towns.
The strictly ''colored man" gets along
we'll enough.
DR.. Winston warns against the devo-
tion of negroes to politics. 1t has
greatly injured them. their white neigh
bors, and the state. OF course, the
white trough readers and teat suckers
have got the inside Of the cocoanut and
all the chesnuts. The negroes ought to
know that the very best friends of the
| past and present are the very white men
they have ~antagonized in politics for
thirty-five years and injured by put
ting in office such trifiing. unreliable
white trash"
DIR. Winston has earnest and warn
ing words in the last column of his ad-
dress. We car only cop a few SEN
fences, and he sees clearly that the
future OF the negro race is to a great
extent involved in the conduct Of the
whites and their exert1ons in their be-
half. We cite these words:
1.-THE friendly relations so long exist
ing so long between the negroes and
the whites in the southern states should
be restored. 1t is frightful to consider
how u~nrestrained the present genera
ton of negroes is growing up. Their
parents have neither the knowledge nor
the character to train them properly.
The schools and the churches are un-
equal to the task. The negro needs the
help of the white race to do this work.
1t cannot be done through a few mission
aries or even through millions of dol
lars freely given to schools and col
leges. There still fingers a per-
sonal friendship between the old ne
groes and the old whites. bound togeth-
er by the memories. affections and hab-
it's of slave days. But between the new
generation of each ace there is little
personal sympathy, h%elpfulness or af-
lection. The result is that different
standards of morality for the two
races are established in almost every
community. Public sentiment perhaps,
the most powerful ins~trumentality for
promoting morality. is thus entirely
lost on the negro. 1t vas not so for
merly. L lave known negro girls who
were required by their mistress to OBJ
serve the same rules and habits Of c.ean-
illness, of discreet hours. Of religious
worship, of correct language. of decor
Gus and of Bible study as were
%enjoined upon the mistress daughters.