The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-05-18
PAYYMa THI YENALTY.

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 s3 % fSsS n VII md you cut.- shs& ~ kn dm&ny csnt,tsies ago. has id7t nonSsof i6 force. and essn in tenn ssrai affairs It's lppiication is not ua. usual. An incident at Fort Scott, Kansas, furnishes a case in point IL began about five years ago, when white woman mar ricd Ia negro. Last week the black hus- band was sent to the psnitentiary for grand larceny and the womah went bA- fore the Probate Court and agreed to give up possession of her four-year-oid boy.
 who.is to be sent to an orphan asylum.
 Those are tho bare facts. but what is back of them can be gnersed at from some Of the remarks made to the Judge by the woman. She hlames the former
 Probate Judge who performed the eere-
 mony which linked her life to that of a
 colored brute. and among other things
 whip and dashed me for even asking him to marry me to nigger. but instead of doing that he performed the ceremony. It was his fault married nigser. He Fcould have stopped 1t and he ought to have stopped it."
 Those words show the bitterness of the woraan's humiliation. but she should not put all the blame on the officer. She is represented as a. modest and sensible woman, and while we may pity her fate and sympathize with her in her degrada- tion. some portion of the fault must rest on her own shoulders. Possibly she had no one to guide, or restrain her. but she should have known that she was violat-. ing the laws of ;decency and of nature and was crossing the line fixed by the Almighty Himself. She had probably heard equality of the races preached till she thought t was a bravsg and praiseworthy act to unite herself with a beastiy black. and thus; elevate him to the level with her own race
 The outcome of her sacrifice was just what must follow in all such cases as
 naturally and inevitably as night follows
 the day. No decent white woman can
 elevate a negro to her own level. AS we'll might dove essay to. elevate q teast. The woman who tries the experi- ment can degrade herself to the level of the negro, but she can never elevate him to her own plane. In States where the negro Is understood, such marriages are forbidden and the laws against them are for the good of both races and for society l at large. Down here we know that such unions injure the negro husband and ruin the white wife. and that the sins of the Iparentsswtli attach to the children.
 | And tie genuineness of the womanis
 repentance, the bitterness of her degra-
 dation and the extent of her disgust are shown in her willingness to give up her only child. and, as she sorrowfully ex-
 pressed it, ''spend the remainder of her | days as decent woman" She doubtless l felt that she could never look on the | child without being reminded of his fa- ther.. She could not give him a mothers
 love or regard him with a mothers pride.
 His presence would be a constant remind CT of the darkest page in her iife's his- tory. and she preferred that he be raised among strangers rather than have always
 before her a reminder of her own weak ness and her own humiliation.
 When the apostle said. Be ye not un- | equally yoked." he was referring to re- ligious or spiritual matters. but it ap- piiss with equal forcer in our social lives.
 We -hhldsthat God never intended for the
 Caucasian woman and the African nan
 to be yoked together in matrimony. and
 such marriages are unnatural and desc
 cration of the holy institution. This | Kansas woman may be deserving of some
 blame. but most assuredly she Is entitled
 to pity. She sinned. suffered and re-
 pented.