The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-09-19
BILL ARP'S LETTER
Barlow Man Writes Of Che Recent
Negro Congress in Atlanta,
DISCUSSES fNRARMONIOUy FEATURES
Edueation In Morals, Manners and IN.
dustry Taught by Former White
Masters Better Than Book
knowledge Of Today.

or course / was very much interest.
ed In the great negro convention. SO
was every thoughtful man north and
south, but there were some features
about it that did not harmonic with
the viewJ and memories Of the old
masters The oft.repeated assertion
that forty years ago the negro emery.
ed from bondage and ban barlsm Is a
mistake. It IS worse, for It Is SANDER.
One orator said that they had been in
q savage state for one hundred years
another said two hundred and fifty
years-and their progress since free.
dom came was wonderful Some Of
our young people of this age and gen
GRAFTON may carelessly believe that,
for they have heen taught It from the
north, where 1t Is universally believed.
Booker Washington may believe It, for
he Is In his middle age. But even
Eyal Howell and | and ali other veter-
ans, whether white or blask, know
that 1t is not so. don't want the old
time negroes slandered. The orator
Nigh. as we'll have said $3.50 years
ago, for their ancestors were all in
Africa then-nOne of the grown up ne
groes who were set free had been in
bondage more than fifty or sixty years
and none were savages or barbarians
They compared we'll with the illiterate
white people, and in fact felt above
them and spoke Of them as poor white
trash. The close association for two
or three generations Of these slaves
with their white masters and their
families educated most Of them In
good morals and manners and indus
try, which is a better education than
books, and the truth is they were when
freedom came infinitely superior to the
race as it now is. The progress that
Booker Washington and his associates
boast Of is an alarming retrograde and
degeneracy. When freedom came
there was not an outrage in all the
southern land nor was there a convict
or a changing nor negro prison. but
now there are 4,400 convicts Gnd tho
number increases faster than the pop
ulation. No-there is no upward gra-
dation in their morals The higher
education that these negro colleges
are giving to the few have no good
effect upon the many, and, according
to Mr.. Washington's own statement,
he is alarmed because most Of his
graduates aspire to be leaders and
teachers and bosses. They are pam
pered negro aristocracy and widely
scattered as they are, they have not
reformed the race in morals or In hon
esty or an observance Of the marriage
relations. can assert with truth
that at least one-third Of the negro
children in and around Gainesville
are bastards. There are riue within
a stones throw of our house-and yet
their mothers are very good servants
and make good cooks, chambermaids
and washerWomen. They lose no caste
or social position or church member
ship by reason of their unchaste and
unlawful cohabitation, and the chill
dren of these women are growing up
without moral training and are as no
torious young thieves as the Arabs of
the desert The white people have
got so accustomed to their petty thiev-
ing that they do no prosecute them.
Mr.. Washington made another mis-
take when he said that the number of
lRonvicts increased because they were
= 90 poor to employ counsel. 1t is we'll
known to the bar and to those who at
tend ,de courts that the Judge always
appoints competent counsel, and he
leans to the negro and protects him
as far as he can consistently with his
duty. l know that our judge does.
About a year or more ago hetried three
negroes for crime in a neighboring
county. They were easily convicted
for they were guilty. He fined each of
them $25 and the cost and sentenced
them to one years sentence in the
changing, but told them he would
held up the sentence for a year, and
If they could get any responsible white
kman to take them in charge and let
Them work out their 1nes and bring
hem back to the court at the next
term and give a good account Of them,
he would not send them to the chain
gang at all The negroes found good
men without leaving the court house,
and they did work out their fines and
behaved wei, and their employers
made a good report Of shem and they
were honorably discharged How much
better that was than the Changing
with all Of its bad associations and