The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-12-08
THE NEGRO QUESTION.

i The letter of President Roosevelt in
Charleston, S. c., against the appoint
ment of negro to the position of col
! lector of the port, is not only charac-
teristic of the man but indicative of
the position the Republican party must
occupy if it would be OF the highest
service to the country. In the last
named respect it rebukes the movement
/ in the Republican organization of GER
tain southern States, towards an alli-
ance with the whites against the blacks.
The President says plainly that while
he will always endeavor to regard the
| legitimate feelings and wishes of the
people of each locality, he cannot con-
sent to take the position that the door
| of hope, the door of opportunity, is to
how worthy purely upon the grounds
of race and color We may add to
this that the South itself can as little
afford to do it as the President; indeed,
the Executive, as a politician, might
make votes by courtesy to white preju-
dices, but the South, as a social and
| Industrial body, must build up the ne
gro or see him become, by the sheer in
crease of his mass, a more dangerous
problem TO deal with as the years go
by. That is to say, if nine millions of
| n har to 90
| how will a white population, which is
not increa sing in their ratio, manage
| eighteen millions?
| The negro is in the South to stay and
the latter because of his wage scale
and his adaptability to the peculiar vo-
cations of the soil. He cannot be sent
! to Liberia; he cannot be induced to
move either north or south. He is an
American and as such does not care
| to live in an alien country; he is of
rsemi-tropical blood and cannot thrive
in a cold country. Moreover the South
accepts him as fixture and needs him
to do it's hard work. He is going to
stay where he is and increase until,
perhaps, his numbers will be greater
than those of the whites. The question
/ therefore is, shall he be trained for good
! citizenship or left to grow and gain
strength and potency in bad citizen
ship?
He cannot be made a good citizen if
the rights of citizenship are denied him.
He is taxed, he is subject to military
i duty, he is equal to the white man be-
fore the law; he naturally feels that
! if he makes himself the equal of the
}, white man mentally and morally, he
has a, right to participate with him in
/ the higher duties and rewards of citi-
zenship But here white prejudice steps
IN and tells him he shall go no further.
He may have a ladder of ambition but
it must be short one Nothing could
| be better calculated than this to drive
| him back to barbarism. 1t is like tell
ing certain number of college students
that, no matter how hard they may
they cannot hope for 9 degree. In that
case they will not strive at all. They
, viii get out of the college and become
enemies of the institution So with the
negro. If higher citizenship is denied
| him, with all it implies, he will lapse
: into lower citizenship, and it is in that
| relation that he becomes a burden upon
: and a menace to white society The
South has expelled him from Congress,
: from State offices, from politics gen
5 orally and the result is seen in it's in
creasing peril from the black mass.
Shall the Federal power join in and de-
bar him from such service as he may
be fitted to render the public interests
of the United States? President Roose-
welt says no, and every true and un-
' prejudiced friend of the southern people
: says no.
2 Let US paraphrase the words of Abra-
5 ham Lincoln and say that the South
cannot exist half slave and half free.
There is, in the immense and growing
: negro population, the potential elements
of great evil and great good There is
the material for a more dreadful up
heaVal than the French revolution,
which was the work of mob 100 900