The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-08-08
THEY ARE LEARNING.

The Milwaukee Free PresS IS SettlnB it's optics in a condition to see what was always visible to Southern people. In a recent editorial 1t says:
 There is probably no question that. taken as a whole, the negro race at the South kas made considerable advance ment but 1t Is so much letjs than was hoped for as to be cause for very deep disappointment. The negro problem is made greatly more difficult by the negro character which is not what 1t was sup posed to be. or what it was hoped. and seemingly with some reason, 1t would de- velop into
 Immediately after the close of the Civil War the Garrisons, the Stoves, the Phillipses and others of their kind literally boiled over with negro love. They were going to take the entire ne- gro race by the hand or the wool and with one mighty effort yank 1t from the depths of ignorance and barbartsm to the full light of modern civilization and culture. They affected to believe that 1t, was entirely owing to slavery that the negro occupied lower place in education and ability than the whites did. Some of these cranks even claimed that the negro was naturally superior to the white man, Judging. perhaps. from their own malformed intellectual development. The most cautious of them claimed that with ed ucation and opportunity the colored man would soon rise to the level Of the whites. Some few of these people were probably earnest and self-deceived; others were natural lunatics on that subject. and many. loaded with malice and hate. thought they saw means of hunfiliating and injur1ng the white people of the South.
 Well. these people yanked with a mighty and combined yank. but the dead weight failed to rise. Freedmen's Bureaus were established, Northern money came in showers and torrents, Yankee school teachers and school marms Hooked to the new field of la bor but the response was slight. The franchise was given to the colored man and ne-voted. under Yankee direction with as much intelligence as mon- lev gathers cocoanuts in his native r,,Ids The negro was sent to the halls of lesislatiop where he voted as or dared and sold himself with charming dociIitv. He was sent to Congress where he bowed to the image of Marse Abe and followed strictly the direc- lions of Republican bosses. He was given judicial office where his great tor,a was to do the wrong thing and get paid for it. More than one third of a century has elapsed and the negro, es race, oo- stinately refuse to be yanked or fan- keed up to the prescribed level In the main he is just where his would Dc elevators found him. Some Of them have really advanced and risen in the l scale of intelligence and knowledge 1 hut they are like the solitary wander ing comets pursuing their lonely way through the vast and boundless astra
 world. Individually some few are z credit to the long continued efforts tt elevate them. En masse, they are bu little removed from the starting point The money. time and labor spent il the vain effort to make an intellectua nrodigy of the negro might have mad oF him an industrious and useful citi zen if 1t had been properly directed.
 Ii is we'll that people in the North like nur Milwaukee contemnorarIs ar