New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-09-21

am Southern woman. thirty-hve years old.
married and the mother of one child nave
lived In the South all my life. In what is known
the black belt" and 1 know the negro from
tradition and experience.
This latter statement. however. does not include
the cultivated negro, who. should say. bears
about the relation his that hybrid
conservatory plant does to the haTbaric thorn
upon which 1t originally grated His schol-
arship always reminds me OF what florists call the
forcing process" Caught up by the benehcent
influences of a civilization not his own. he Is
coached into higher grade OF existence than Is
natural him. And from the Southern point OF
view he becomes thoroughly contemplate. not only
because he has the ontagion of a mean, unheroic
discomfort In him. which makes him dangerous
frebrand rather than wise. self-sacrifcing
leader among his own people, but because he Is
nearly always a snob to the white man. desires TO
live In the house with him. sleep in his bed.
sit in his church. walk in his garden. Whatever
else 1T may do. education rarely makes him self
respecting o sef-sustaining socially. His elbows
need refining. he shows a rabid desire 70 thrust
himself In where he Is not wanted and thus proves
conclusivey that the forcing process in mental
training fails to destroy the elemental fact OF
iII-bred nature-its coarseness and ambitious vul-
garity. These are some of the reasons why the
ornamental types OF this race 50 carefully I'M
known in the South. There is less danger of
contamination from washerwornen. who are
less presumptuous. and less offensive.
The distinctions between whites and blacks are
drawn more closely In the South where we are
guided by experience rather than by theories or
sentiment In dealing with the negroes. L was
brought up plantation. where there were
nearly a hundred negroes. yet do not remember
ever to have sat in negro's cabin. nor since
have had house of my own have 1 ever seen
negro in IL Except in the kitchen of cOurse)
unless she was nursing a white child. II was then
only an instructive assertion OF superiority and
difference; but the separation between us is
based upon antipathy as well. White children no
longer wish to play with black ones. whereas In
those days were their inseparable companions
The fact Is doubt IL anybody but God can really
make a man. Our experiments IN that direction
only look well and talk grammaticany- They Go
not pan out in the end And in this connection
recall my fathers effort 70 make one. He began
with as handsome a black dust STRIPPING as one
ever finds In the South and for two years this lad
recited lessons him In the evenings He was
ar apt pupil and learned to write so nearly Ike
his preceptor that when he forged an order for a
suit Of clothes my father thought it best to pay
the bill and to settle with his protege privately
This he did In characteristic Southern fasnion-Wlth
the better part of buggy whip
Such Justice IL not unusual in the South even to
this day and 1t my fathers way OF dealing
with the blacks his place He never prosecuted
one of them and If the miscreant happened 70 be
the head of family he was made to work out a
suitable repentance IN the cotton fields Thus.
when Uncle Billy penned nine fat shoats under
his cabin and devoured four of them before MS
naming five and sent his half-grown son 20 work
OUT the value of the four martyred pigs. plus
thirty DAYS for moral enect-a vicar1Ous punish
ment so far as Uncle Billy was concerned- Dur
he argued to my father that the lesson might DC
| the young man good -,-
that this typical Southerner always voted every
negro man on his place. 1 do not know what
would have happened II one had failed TO vote Tor
the right man." Such conunsency eNeE
| arose The white primary has simphhed many
| problems in the South since then Beslces. the
negro has discovered that his citizensnip naS q
financial value and his vote Is now on the mar ket
| for sale to the highest bidder Never In the DAYS
of slavery was he bought and sold more rutniessly
than he to-day in the South to serve the poitea
| ends Of white - -
| To the idealist who inagines that the negro mas
| I'm him the making OF a virtuous citizen sucn
| state of affairs is bevond belief But IL Is We
| enough to bear in mind that in the South -tns
white mans relations TO the negro are not Ddseu
upor, ideals justice even with US II Is a qu
ton of characterization and determination on me
mart Of the flttest survive. though Wnoe ieca-
| iosue OF virtues perish in the struggle Al. our
evils grow out of this consciousness OF I'M
nsndtna danger and we ready 10 tempt or oe,
troy rather than endure even a nand 70 han
nolificaI conta nlination with the negro we pre-
- Se damned by our sins and not ny thelI-
Observation-Disclosures For this reason there Is more
livelihood of black supremacy nIIy year a s, S,h
Nv En- gland than there ever Will De In tne ooutl
protected and humored by the sent1nnenIahty %
Northern friends the negro VIII evehtudLS nsxJ
80 VII 10 migrate in that direction ana asa'
ht,..,r 81 the situation first relig1ously. aIteI
ward sociay and politically. as they are now saIo
., view being white at all is 50 everiastlngly
ba,ter than being "coIored that we are neVeL
jaiy 70 be betrayed into forgetting the race trust
| have keeping