Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1902-05-30
THE RACE QUESTION.
A Broad and UnassaIable Declaration
by a Massachusetts Congressman.


Frederick II. Gillett, representative in
! Congress from the Second Massachusetts,
district made a speech in the House on
! the race question a few days ago which
deserves wide reading as clear and
fearless expression of the best Northern
sentiment on this subject. The speech
was evidently suggested by the incident
of Booker Washington's dinner with
President Roosevelt at the White House,
but its immediate occasion was certain
observations made by Southern members
in debate. The fling had been made that
| Mr. Washington could not secure en-
tertainment at any respectable hotel in
Mr.. Giletts own city Of Springfield-a
charge which Mr.. Gillett showed to be
untrue and without foundation. Mr..
Gillett admitted the existence of a strong
prejudice, amounting to an inherent
physical repugnance against. the negro
in the North. no less than in the South,
but, he said, What ! blame in the
South is not this instructive repugnance,
but the attempt, by social ostraclsm. to
make everybody else take the same at
utude." Mr.. Gillett then continued:
I'VE do not blame you for not submit
ting to negro domination. We recognize,
too, that the negro recently emerged from
slavery, still bound by the habits of
centuries of savagery, cannot. as a race.
be your social companions We know.
too. that the first steps of anv race into
civilization exaggerate their worst duali-
ties, initiate vices rather than virtues
and that the first stage of Improvement
is a coarse self-asserton and a brutal
claim of equality, which is most disa-
greeable and eXasperating But We do
n1rtrl,f TO,
race in everlasting ignorance and deg
radiation because the intermediate stages
are disagreeable and inconvenient And
when one does emerge from his sur
roundings and proves himself the peer
of any of you in intelligence and refine
ment and high purpose. we think he
should be encouraged and rewarded
Il have no sympathy with that artificial
code of society which will entertain as an
equal and honored guest the man of
openly immoral life and vicious habits
and coarse nature, who boasts perhaDs
of fraud and perjury at elections. whose
hands are known to be stained with the
blood of barbarous lynchings and then
Will shut the door on a man of clean
person and pure life, of high purpose
and fine character and cultivated intelli-
gence, only because he is black There
is no other spot in the world where such
an antiquated, benighted. unreasonable.
unkind code prevails. and the distressing
conditions in the South do not excuse
II. Punish. If you will, by social ostra-
cism and contempt all uncleanness. all
immortality, all coarseness. all depravity
but do not pardon all these and establish
only one objectionable crime-color
That is what we object to in the South.
We do not blame you for having pre-
JUDGES. We appreciate your condition
but we do not believe that any man has
a right to ostracise other men for exer-
cising their own tastes; and If a man
can rise superior to prejudice and say
that some black man is entitled by his
eminent qualities to be the social equal of
himself. / honor such a man for his
magnanfmity The most popular COVER
nor Massachusetts ever had touched the
heart of our people when he said
1 know not what record of sin awaits
me in the other world, but this do know:
never was so mean as to despise man
because he was poor or because he was
ignorant. or because he was black
You would cultivate a worse meanness
than that by not only despising your
selves but by furnishing everyone who
would not agree with you in despising
the black. Such state of society can
not be permanent, whether it springs
from prejudice, from the bitter sting of
suffering, from a political aim at solid
South. 1t is irreconcilabe with reason;
1t flies in the teeth of the great sweep
of civilization and progress; il belongs
with the outgrown orders of nobility
and cannot stand the test of an age of
reason"