The age-herald., 1901-04-07
Raes sdncatNON M Nsw eoNstStutN0N.
BY JOHN WlTHERsPooN DUBosE

ination in law as between the races occu- pant Under this theory what becomes Of the prolonged practice of confiscation or the school taxes of the whites for the enjoyment of the black schcols1 II we are going to make an organic law we have first to settle in our minds a cor rect knowledge of the factors of the so- cial community which we propose to or ranize What relation does the act of stuffing negro children with textbooks bear to the act of turning out upon the world a class of white children deprived of effective education upon the resources of white tax payers, in order to provide for the stufhng of the negroes? Observa- ton Is sufficient to prove that parents are not infrequently the most unfit to rear in virtue their own offspring. Un- der present laws In Alabama the State persists in surrounding the negroes with in our bounds with white people half ed- ucatsd upon what is left of school funds collected from white tax payers, and which, If not cruelty diverted. would be ample to educate the whites up to the de- gree and condition of culture normal to the race of tax payers. The negro is in- jured beyond estimate by this policy. The whites invent every benefaction of soci- ety, and lend to the negroes every use of 1t they enjoy. Shall we disqualify the in- ventor7
  gro from the disastrous misconception Of the Fourteenth Amendment The hither- to fragrant discrimination by State gov ernment in the matter of division Of the school fund between the races. as against the whites must cease before the negro can be justly governed. He is now vic- tim-not a beneficiary.
 Alabama maintains various systems of class and race discrimination. Among these may be honorably mentioned Mrs. Johnston's movement to protect and edu- cate vagrant white boys. The Bryce Lu- natic Asylum has been enlarged by the addition of the Mount Vernon grant where negroes are to be confined and trained, If lunatics. Negroes were once educated on the plantations of Alabama in every feat ure of education save letters, and edu- cated masters controlled them. Let us take our cue from the experience of our ancestors. The planters of the earlier re- gime were practical men of great ener- gy. They were not the Indian Ra3ah. lolling in the lap of luxury, and living to- day because they must die tomorrow. The cotton planter organized the first labor system, in point of time, the world ever saw, and the system that was best or ganized. Among other incidents was the training of the young negroes. Each plantation had in its economy what was termed the "cnld6 squad. The whole lot of youngsters, well fed and well clad, from 12 to IA or 1b years. were sent to the field under an elderly negro of good judg- ment and resolute character, usually a woman. There they were trained every day in the use of the becoming arts of industry and the fact of sobriety, using wedding hoe, trained to pick cotton, dis tribute compost and other suitable arts of toll. Possibly the race may be now ar rived at the use of the alphabet. It is to be hoped progress to that degree is as- sured for 1t. It is not debatabie that the alphabet the race must use, if any, is not African. but English.
 Alabama has never failed to treat the negro problem as wisely as Congress would at each recurring opportunity per init. After Appomattox the planters came home and, without delay, resumed the business of cotton planting where they had left off four years before. The first step in each instance was to establish a co-partnership in the business with the freedmen. Into this co-partnership Con- gress immediately put its foot with a special tax of $l6 a bale on the product of the field. For three crops, 1863, 1S56 and 1867. this outrageous discriminating tax upon cotton producers took effect. Tn the very initial of the attempt in Alabama to