The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-11-03
Bill APPS Letter.

new president and l have lost my faith.
Hope and despair are sometimes not far
apart. Last week | was sanguine, which
means hopeful, confident; and now ! am
sanguinary, which means fighting mad.
This world is all feeting show,
For mans delusion given;
And you can't always sometimes most
generally tell what is gong to hap
pen"
The smartest doctor can't diagnose
every case nor cure disease if the pa
tient does not want to be cured. MN idol
is shattered. l wish that Brann was
alive with his Iconoclast. May be he
could do justice to the situation and save
me the use of language. Bob ToombS
said that the fanaticism of our Northern
brethren about the negro fatigued his in
dignation, and just so now our contempt is
getting tired The day after / read it
couldn't realize it, nor did / believe 1T
was as bad as pictured, and SO | waited
for light-more light had an idea that
Booker Washington in some way hap
pened in about dinner time, and Mr..
Roosevelt, having more heart than head.
thoughtlessly asked him to sit down at
his table. | thought that maybe he SYM
IathiZed with the man who had done 50
much for his race and was tabooed every
where by white people and hotels and
churches and white folks, cars and operas
houses, and so his heart got the better
of his head and ne did 1t in haste and
would repent at his leisure. | thought it
Just one case, for the New York Press SAID
it was unique. Then I remembered that
Cleveland invited the dusky queen of the
Sandwich Islands to the White House and
maybe Roosevelt looked upon Booker
Washington as a kind of ambassador or
chief of a foreign race, and | kept on
thinking and hunting around for an ex-
PLANTATION or palliation until it was dis
covered that the case was not unique, Tor
he did like thing before at Albany while
he was governor, and that he sent MS
children TO school with negro children at
Oyster Bay. Then / gave it up. He mas
dishonored the State his mother came
from and desecrated the Presidents man
sion. 1t is no longer the White House.
but like the chameleon, takes any color
that comes. Now | suppose that MISS
Washington. who is at Wellesley College
will be q welcome visitor at the mansion
during her vacation, and maybe Roose-
velts son will fall in love with her and
marry her without having to elope. That
is the tendency of this new departure
this unique case. But a hopeful man, an
optimist should wait a few days ana
ruminate Time is a good doctor and
am net as mad this morning as | was last
week. | think maybe that it is not as
bad a case as | think it is BY nature
| am a good deal like my good old kind
hearted mother who gently took every
body's rart who was abused. One day
nv father came home very mad with
a man who had mistreated him and when
he related his grievance TO mother she
said maybe the man didn't mean it and
will make it all right after while Faith
er got irritated little with mother and
said Caroline, l believe you would de-
fend the old devil if he was here on
trial" And she said: We'll, have some
times thought that too much was laid on
him.
I still believe that Roosevelt is natural
ly a good bg-hearted man and he didn
think that his official position limited his
private and domestic rights. The White
House was his home-his castle and he
could ask. in or shut out whomsoever he
pleased. He was born and reared at the
north, where a foolish and fanatical SYM
pathy with the southern negro is almost
universal 1t monopolized the press and
the pulpit, though they knew no more
about the negro and his racial instincts
than we know about Bulgaria and the
Macedonian bandits. What a strange fell
ly is tht sympathy. It's tendency is to
spoil the most contended and happiest
race on earth. Sometimes / envy them
their merry nature. Booker Washington
seems in earnest in his efforts to elevate
and refine his people, but / doubt wheth
er he is really doing them any good To
labor is their nature and the higher edu-
cation units them for it, | suppose that
Tuskegee has turned out 1900 or 1900
graduates, but where are they and what
are they doing? We never hear of one
in this region and last year professor
from Tuscaloosa declared publicly in At
lanta that he had been to Tuskegee and
investigated and could hear of only about
a dozen out of / 200 who were at work.
The most of them come out mechanics
or farmers, but they have been trans
formed into gentlemen and are living off
of their kinfolks. A few have been sent to
Africa to start the cotton business, and
it is to be hoped that the others will go
there and stay. EDUCATION Is not what tire
negro stands most in need of. 1t is a re-
form in morals. 1t is the nprejudiccd
opinion of the most conservative obser
vers that they are the most thievsh, I'M
chaste race upon the face of the earth,
and they are infinitely worse now than
they were when in slavery. In 1870 there
were but 200 negro convicts in our peni-
Tertiary, and now there are 1000 in
Georgia, and the number increases as the
years roll on in spite of schools, colleges
and millions of northern money. The
good negroes are on the farms and un-
der the dominion of their landlords. 1t is
safe to say that 70 per cent of the ne
2roes about the towns and cities will
steal, and that 30 per cent of the negro
children are born out of lawful wedlock.
Two of our negro BARRIERS decamped TO
>BeSsemer last week-one has been keep
ing three wives and the other two, but
they left them and took two new ones
along with them. We have got so ac-
eustomed to this state of negro morals
that it excites no comment. Some white
men will rob banks and abduct children
and hold up trains and run blind Tigers
and moonshine whiskey, But nearly all
negro servants will take LITTLE things