The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1902-09-02
rUE QUESTION OF WHITE
SUPPORT FOR NEGRO SCHOOLS
Argument that 1t Would Be lnexpedient to Divide
the School Fund Between the Races in
Proportion to Taxes Paid.

iHS III the south the most vicious and
corrupt government that this country bac
seen; yet | believe that the white peop1e
u no southern State, coming to their
own again. attempted to withdraw aid
iloni negro schools. To abandon now, in
oul udy oi greater strength and pros
Perlty, the policy that we have main
tanned through all these years of trial
and tempest, would widen the breach be-
tween the races, would break the most
potent tie by which we may properly
guide and influence the negro and wou1d
endanger the Southern policy of suffrae %
restriction which we regard as hest for
both races.
The negroes are a child race" as
Or. FELIX Adler says, and both races
would Su1er II the guiding hand of the
white man were removed from the edu-
catlonal work Of this child race. The
negro would suffer because of his in
ABILITY to choose wise leaders,; the white
man would suffer because of the impro-
per training of this people whose destiny
is to be somehow interviewer with that
OF the South, whether or not we shut
our eyes to this fact. AS it is now the
white people pay the taxes: they control
the government. Supporting and manag-
ing the negro schools, 1t is in our power
to adapt the negro's education to his
needs, and select the worthicst and safest
black men to direct the education and
influence the principles of the young ne
groeS. OF all the methods of leading
the negro in right paths, of all the meth
DDS of promoting right relations between
the races, this is the most practicable
and powerful. If we nave not heretofore
improved the opportunity, the fault is our
own; we have intelligence enough for
the task, and the machinery is at our
command.
On the other hand, were we to with
draw aid from negro schools, we should
at the same time withdraw control over
them: and in our stead would come per-
maps new and unworthy leaders, allied
with misguided, long-range ~philanthro-
pists. For the negro schools would not
be closed if the Southern white should
refuse to aid them longer. They would
be maintained by offended blacks and by
negro sympathiZerS in all parts of the
country. So far from promoting peace,
as they may now be made to do, it is
not hard to believe that the negro
schools, supported by such a combination
of clements, would become instruments
of strife and disorder throughout the
South. For the spirit OF the new era
WIN ooS " LllS AtSIo 1Ou Il HOW
under no obligations to the Southern
white man for your education. You are
now to be educated, not by his aid. but
in spite of him, and his influence should
count for nothing in your schools. Your
real friends are in the North; keep your
self in sympathy with them rather than
with the people among whom you are to
live and work.
The real result of the suggested change
in the division of the school fund would
be, not fewer educated negroes, but
fewer negroes educated under proper in
luences, and a vastly larger number ed
ucated beyond the control of the South
ern white man and in an atmosphere call
culated to produce constant friction be-
tween the races and between the sections.
In yet another and hardly less i'm
portant way would this proposed change
lnjuriously affect the South. 1t would
seriously endanger the new suffrage regu-
lations of the Southern States. 1t would
result in a hostile Northern attitude to-
ward them, possibly in unfavorable ac-
ton by Congress and the Supreme court,
So long as the Southern whites show
their friendship for the negro by pro-
viding liberal school facilities for the
race whose illiterates they disfranchise,
SO long may our grandfather clauses
and understanding clauses pass unas-
sailed. But if the less conservative ele-
ment of the Southern people should ever
succeed in forcing the abandonment OF
negro education, it would be regarded as
having 4 direct bearing on our educa-
tional suffrage qualifications, and as
proof too striking to be longer disre-
garded of an intention to violate the
Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitu-
ton. What wayfaring man cannot see
that this agitation by the more violent
element of our population may cause the
new and untried structure so painfully
wrought out by the South to sway and
totter and collapse?
Aside from the matter of injury to the
school system, therefore, it is easy &c
meet on their own ground the advocates
of the proposed change, for there Is
enough to show that the Black Peril OF
the South would gain new t%errors, moi
lose old ones, by turning over the educa-
ton of the negroes to fanatics ant
foreigners, and knocking out the mos
substantial prop by which our suffrage
regulations are upheld. This is clearly
a case in which it is ''better to beal
these ills we have than fly to others tina
we know not of"
II VII ~ ''S O"'
saw that | have not taken high grount
in this article. Let me repeat, there
fore. that | have discussed only the eX
Dedicncy of the question under conSld
Grafton. Thu Outlook, adding to It's othe-
merits that of fairness to the South, ma
won perhaps a larger circulation among
Southern leaders of thought man an.
other National journal of like character
and my object has been to set De1or'
these leaders some perils of this ola pu
ever-threatening scheme, perils that a
vet have gone practically unnotlced D.
the larger number of Southern editor
and Southern educators.
Kept His Trunk, Lost Her Daughter
i, (cpecial to News and Observer