The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-12-05
BILL ARP'S LETTER
His Northern Friends Send Him
a Good Text.
CLIPPING From A NEWPORT PATER
BIZ is Getting Strong Again and Walks
70 Town for the First Time In
Three Long Months.
CLIPPING From A NEWPORT PATEF

Aolu up on the negro ana let MN 90 /
dead has sent me a clipping from a
Newport paper and says: Here is a |
good text Tor your next letter. 1t reads |
as follows:
Newport, October 14.-At meet !
Ing Of the school committee today |
George Bills and wife objected to hay
ing their son taught by a colored teach
er and said that II their son was not
admitted to another school where the
teacher was white they would keep
him at home. The committee refused
TO change him and ordered the boy to
be arrested as a truant. The father
filed a plea of not guilty and the case
will go to the higher court and be
tested"
They have compulsory education
& there. 1t seems that this teacher is
the daughter OF a preacher, who is the
American consul at St. Thomas. He is
a loyal republican and there is politics
in It, and the lily whites are In the mi
norlty. She may be one of the 400 that
Watterson is troubled about, and so
will turn over the text to him.
The same mail that brought me the
text brought letter from my grand
son, who is in the employ of the West
(, slnghouse Company, of Pittsburg, and is
n electric engineer and is now put
ling down a plant at Utica, n. Y. He
writes that his contractor had a num-
Der of white men employed, but as la
Dor was scarce ne picked up an idle
negro and told him to go to work.
!. The white men rebelled violently
y / against this and threatened to quit,
and so the negro had to be sent off.
When | was last in Mississippi the
barber who shaved me said he came
down from Illinois on account Of mis-
health and was amazed to find white
folks down here patronize negro bar
bers, and that If one dared to open a
shop In any town In Illinois he would
n. be mobbed and run out of the place.
SJike BanQuo's ghost, this race prob
I. diem will not down. II has as many
phases rs there are times and places.
Shortly after the war the yankee
school marms hurried down here to
educate the negro, but they soon tired
Of 1t and went back. Now a negro wo-
man has gone up there to teach their
white children. That Is all right. We
don't care. AS Cobe says: TITS all op-
tionary with me-" Now l will let the
negro go dead for awhile. 1t will take
many years yet to settle the problem
but it viii be settled. The two races
work together very harmoniously in
our town and county, and we are re
ecnciled to the situation.
q wish that every community had as
many blessings as we enjoy. Nc
strikes, no murders nor outrages, nc
cyclones nor foods nor famine, no pes
thence, no fires. We have good schools
good churches, good preachers anC
good humble congregations. Every
church. has a nice comfortable home
for the preacher and there is one more
FLOR the presiding elder. We have
good sociable community, with nj
stuck-up families. Not even San
Jones folks put on any airs over tn
rest of us. | visited them on Sunda,
eve and was treated with the most COZ
dial hospitality. Their home is pa
ace and their garden and grounds
h'ttle paradise
~ l am getting strong again and wall
led to town last week 4or the first tim
gF in three months. When l came HON
nv wife shook her fist at me and said
81 believe you will outlive rae yet.
From the tone Of her voice l though
maybe she was mad about it.
We have nearly completed the fines
. court house in the state. 1t is in fu
~ lew from the window where l writ
nd I never get tired Of looking at tn
beautiful dome that shines like silv'
in the sun. "A thing Of beauty is jc
forever"
Our garden is now adorned wit
beautiful roses, and l cut them ever
morning and my wife allows me
send them to the pretty girls-no,
v mean to the ancient mothers in OF
neighborhood. My wife is peculii
about that. At night have to help
pretty lassie with her arithmetic al
algebra and Latin. l get stalled som
times. but we generally get throul
all right. We have telephone, al
NV daughter. who lives mile ava
has one. So when her daughter ge
stalled she telephones here and o
lassie tells her over the phone how
dol It, Sometimes it takes many Z
pres. multiplying and dividing, ct