The new age. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1902-190?, 1902-09-20

whites should refuse to aid them long
er. They would be maintained by of
Tended blacks and by negro sympathiz-
ers in all parts of the country. SO
far from promoting peace, as they ma
now be made to do. il is not hard TO
believe that the negro schools, suppo
ed by such combination of elements
would become instruments of strife
and disorder throughout the south.
For the spirit of the new era would
say to the negro: you are now unde'
no obligations to the southern white
man for your education. You are now
to be educated not by his aid. but in
spite of him, and his influence should
count for nothing in your schools. You
real friends are in the north; keep
yourself in sympathy with them rather
than with the people among whom
you are to live and work"
The real result of the suggested
change in the division of the school
fund would be, not fewer educated
negroes, but fewer negroes educated
under proper influences. and a vastly
larger number educated beyond the
control of the southern white man
and in an atmosphere calculated 10
produce constant friction between the
races and between the sections.
In yet another and hardly less i'm
portant way would this proposed
change injuriously affect the south.
II would seriously endanger the new
suffrage relations of the southern
states. II would result in a hostile
northern attitude toward them. possib
" in unfavorable action by congress
and the supreme court. So long as
the southern whitec show their friend
ship for the negro by providing liber-
al school facilities for the race whose
illiterates they disfranchise, so long
may our grandfather clauses" and
understanding clauses" pass unas-
sailed. But if the less cotJervative
element of the southern people should
ever succeed in forcing the abandon
ment of negro education, it would be
regarded as having a direct bearing
on our educational suffrage qualifica-
| tions, and as proof too striking to be
longer disregarded of an intention to
violate the fifteenth amendment to the
constitution. What wayfaring man
cannot see that this agitation by the
| more violent element of our popula'
ton may cause the new and untried
structure so plainly wrought out
by the south to sway and totter and
| collapse
Aside from the matter of injury to
| the school system, therefore, 1t is easy
to meet on their own ground the ad
vocates of the proposed change, fol
there is enough to show that the
| Black Peril of the south would gair
new terrors. not lose old ones, by turn
ing over the education of the negroes
to fanatics and foreigners, and knock
ing out the most substantial prop by
which our suffrage regulations are
upheld. This is clearly a case il
which it is better to bear those ills
we have than fly to others that We
| know not Of"
! II will be very easy for some one
to say that | have not token higf
ground in this article. Let me repeat
therefore. that | have discussed onl,
the expediency of the question undel
consideration. The Outlook, adding
to its other merits that of fairness Il
the south. has won perhaps largel
circulation among southern leaders
of thought than any other nationa
journal of like character. and my oh
ject has been to set before these lead
ers some perils of this old but ever
threatening scheme. perils that as We
have gone practically unnoticed by
larger number of southern editors an
southern educators.