The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-07-05
A Mad CHARGE AGAINST
THE SOUTH IS REFUTED.
This Sections Virile Force and the Inteec-
tuial independence of It's Women Never
More in Evidence Than Now,
PAGES FACILE PEN WOUNDS HIMSELF

pressive mistake and wrong; in quietly
| bearing what is inevitable, but always
| expostulating against it; and, especially
| in the power to bring triumph at last to
| the right. The South's force and char
acter have shattered some of the nation S
castles of false reconstruction and it, as
the editor believes, the "solid South is
about Ito yield" she is about to yield
to herself and to her ''old- time" deter
mination never to submit to the govern
ment OF an ignorant, an incompetent, and
an alien race. No where, unless in Hol-
land, can be found parallel to the force
shown in the reorganization of industrial
pursuits; in the patient working out of
race problems under hard conditions; in
re- habilitating demolished institutions of
learning; in giving, according to Marion
l.. Dawson forty million dollars a year
for education one-thirtieth of it con-
tributed by negroes, nearly one-half of it
given to negroes" With one hand build
ing up waste places, with the other hand
parrying blows of prejudice, ruinous to
the nation as to the South, and fighting
| the way to just share in National gov
eminent. 1t required solid South" to
achieve those things, and the whole atti-
| tude has been no loss to the nation, ;"
| but a distinct gain. Having obtained so
| largely the recognition of this fact, the
South will continue her aid to the nation
! by sending to New York and other cities
| her sons endowed by this forceful mother
with the means which they may use in
| establishing literary magazines, to serve
| the country And she will expect in re-
turn only sympathy with her sorrows and
| truthful acknowledgment of her forceful
| character.
8. Having denied and, | think, dis
| proved that there has been any loss to
| the Nation of the CID time Southern force
and character" it may be regarded as
useless to pay any attention to the al
legged cause of a merely fictitious effect.
But just here lies the authors grossest
misrepresentation of himself and conse-
quently, his greatest need of setting him.
self right Assuming an effect, he dogma
tizes as to a three-fold cause: % Poll
ticians,' (2) preachers" go (as herded
by the preachers), good women
Now shall not undertake to speak
for politicians odd time Southern
force and character" have been wise and
powerful in combining ministers to an
to deny or affirm any political tenets. 1t
is enough for me in passing to show that
this editor, in the very editorial. is in
the role of a politician, and that, while
Sc sweepingly condemning others, he may
well finch under his own severity upon
himself.
And from this decentralization his
own parenthetical exception "(be it said
n q of
tolerance)" can not save him. For this
article excludes him from the class
which his exception describes and repre-
sents him as not even knowing what
breadth and tolerance mean
man of breadth and tolerance" if
true to himself, has great respect for the
opinions of other men. He weighs his
words when he speaks of the religious
"creeds" of Jews, Gentiles or Mohamme-
dams. He would rather hide another's
hurt and heal it, than expose it or ag-
gravate it.. If true to himself, the man
of breadth and tolerance" is most eau
tious in condemnng by professions. avo-
cations, or. sexes.
lie knows that even the Scholars gown
has not folds ample enough to hide ex-
banded narrowness when it breaks forth
with you lawyers" you. preachers, +"
you Doctors you politicians" or even
in extreme cases of mingled worst taste
and arrogance. you herded good women. !"
1t is certain that if our editor be "a
man of breadth and tolerance" for his
own sake this part of the editorial needs
to be Withdrawn. 1t puts him beyond the
pale of his own exception, and leaves
him self-condemned politician. For
ct ortt 70 int
To this last statement there is one ap-
parent exception in the language which
the writer applies to preachers" in con-
nection with politicians. Against this |
may surely offer some words of indg-
nant, but not resentful, expostulation
AS a Christian pastor, l have seen many
of the horrors of poverty" / know that
'epidemics' are, for l have stood between
the living and the dead during two of
them, for months a time wherein 5000
people died of yellow fever. Galveston
fresh and thrilling experience gives me
vivid conception of a "tornado's" power.
| have mingled with people of the sand
hills, with mountaineers who saw no
books and could not have read hem if
they had owned them and have taught
classes in negro Sabbath schools: and
know the woe of illteracy" and meas
ure it by my love of study and reading
Yet | am seriously told by d man whom
none but himself would exclude from the
number of men who have breadth and
tolerance" that preachers" have
wrought more injury to the land they love
than poverty, epidemics, iliiteracy. tor
nadoes, and even bloody war. 1T is
they who are TO blame" for an effect
which, as | have shown, is the authors
own assumption. The loss to the Ma
ton OF the old time Southern force and
character is laid upon these guilty
preachers" And why? Because "a
they have been the conservators of out
worn opinions and creeds and (2) they
have suppressed intellectual independence
and they herd good women by the most
stagnant waters OF theology
For the very madness of self-contra-
diction and of inconclusive bitterness this
passage surrasses any that l have ever
read
it represents the preachers as being
al once almost superhuman in strength
and infinite in despicable weakness. They
can bring to pass results exceeding those
OF the most formidable agencies of the Al
mighty At the same time they are