Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1902-12-24
PHILIPPINES FOR NEGROES.
Senator Morgan Has Scheme to Utilize Our
New Possessions.

Senator John T. Morgan, of Ala
bama, has succeeded, after two years
of endesvor, in interesting the War
Department and incidentally Presi-
dent Roosevelt, in plan to use the
Philippine Islands in colonizing the
negroes of the United States, says a
Washington dispatch to the Atlanta
Journal.
The War Department has made
arrangements to test the practical
possibilities of the plan and the
President has sent special envoy,
I. Thomas Fortune, negro leader,
to the Philippine Islands to make in
vestigation and report on the condi-
tions there.
In his efforts to have the plan put
into execution, Senator Morgan has
held frequent consultations with
Secretary of War Root; has con-
suited Governor General Taft, and
in other ways urged his scheme on
the officials.
1t is the Alabama Senator's pur-
pose in the future to start legislation
in Congress for the movement to
colonize the negroes in the Philip
pines. He has not pushed this part
of this work because he believes the
time is not ripe yet for legislation
the farmers of the South, he says,
think they need the negro now, and
until conditions are more favorable,
he will withhold the proposed legis-
lation. He believes, however, that
the move now underway will result
eventually in millions of the negroes
emigrating to the Philippine Islands
and working out their own salvation
there.
This, he says, is the solution of the
grave negro question which now con-
fronts the American people.
Senator Morgan's plan is to incore
porate for the negroes, steamship
transportation companies; to give
them homesteads of about twenty
acres each in the island and to give
them the best possible commercial
advantages. The plan would not
deprive them of their protection
under the flag of the United States
it would not deprive them of citizen
ship, of which they are proud, and
it would enable thea to become
self-sustaining and prosperous race
Of people, because the land in. the
Philippine Islands is extremely rich
and fertile. The climate is exactly
suited to the negroes physical and
industrial character, he says. Under
this plan Senator Morgan believes
great numbers of the negroes, but
not all of them, of course, would go
to the islands.
In an interview on the subject to-
day he said for The journal:
"The principal reason for my atti-
tude in the Senate toward the Philip
pine Islands was my belief that they
would afford home for the negroes.
"When first came to Congress 1
introduced resolution to recognize
the Congo Free State as an inde~
pendent nation, merely to afford the
negroes of this country place to
which they might emigrate when
their numbers increased to an extent
that would make the emigration of
large Numbers of their race neces-
sary. The resolution passed the
Senate and House, and colonization
of the negro in Congo was well
under way when the United States
acquired the Philippines.
"The acquisition Of that territory
opened up new and vastly superior
country for them. The land is rich
and the climate better suited to
them, and there they would still be
under the flag, condition which
the negro likes exceedingly well.
81 took the matter up with Seore-
tary Root and wrote to Governor
General Taft for information and
ideas on the plan of colonizing our
negroes there. Both were favorably
impressed with the idea, and am
glad to know that it has at last been
started.
"When the movements make start
t will be like the crawfish hole in
the Mississippi levees--small at the
beginning, but large enough for the
river to run through the next morn