The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-08-31

{ corrupt government that TINS country ma
seen; yet l believe that the white peopl,
OF no Southern State, coming TO thei
own again, attempted to withdraw ait
| from negro schools. To abandon now, il
| our day of greater strength and pros
perity, the policy that we have main
tanned through all these years of tria
and tempest, would widen the breach be
| tween the races, would break the mos
potent tie by which we may properl.
guide and influence the negro and woul(
endanger the Southern policy of suffrag,
restriction which We regard as best fo
both races.
The negroes are a child race, a!
Dr.. Felix Adler says, and both race!
would suffer if the guiding hand of tn,
white man We're removed from the edu
catlonal work of this child race The
negro would suffer because of his in
ability to choose wise leaders; the whit,
man would suffer because of the impro
per training of this people whose destiny
is to be somehow interviewer with tina
of the South, whether or not we shu
our eyes to this fact. AS it is now the
white people pay the taxes; they contro
the government. Supporting and manag.
.u6 the ASSlO SCHOOlS, IL Is III our power
to adapt the negros education to his
needs, and select the worthiest and safest
black men to direct the education and
influence the principles of the young me-
groes OF all the methods of leading
the negro in right paths, of all the meth
DDS of promoting right relations between
the races, this is the most practicable
and powerful. If We have not heretofore
improved the opportunity, the fault is ouI
own; We have intelligence enough fol
the task, and the machinery is at our
command.
On the other hand, were We to with
draw aid from negro schools, we should
at the same time withdraw control over
them; and in our stead would come per-
haps new and unworthy leaders, allied
with misguided, long-range philanthro-
pists. For the negro schools would not
be closed if the Southern white should
refuse to aid them longer. They would
be maintained by offended blacks and by
negro sympathiZers in all parts of the
country. So far from promoting peace,
as they may now be made to do, it is
not hard to believe that the negro
schools, supported by such a 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
under 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. Your
real friends are in the North; keep your
a in = Nv
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
De, not fewer educated negroes, but
fewer negroes educated under proper in
huences, and a vastly larger number ed
ucated beyond the control of the South
ern white man and in an atmosphere cal
culated to produce constant friction be-
tween the races and between the sections.
In yet another and hardly less i'm
portant way would this proposed change
inJuriously affect the South 1t would
seriously endanger the new suffrage regu-
lations of the Southern States. 1t would
result in hostile Northern attitude to-
ward them, possibly in unfavorable ac-
ton by Congress and the Supreme court.
SO long as the Southern whites show
their friendship for the negro by pro-
viding liberal 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 conservative eIe-
ment of the Southern people should ever
succeed in forcing the abandonment of
negro education III wnnl5 ho dad
having a direct bearing on our educa-
uonal suffrage qualifications, and as
proof too striking to be longer disre-
garded of an intention to violate the
Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitu-
ton. What wayfaring man cannot see
that this agitation by the more violent
element of our population may cause the
new and untried structure so painfully
wrought out by the South to sway and
totter and collapse?
Aside from the matter of injury to the
school system, therefore, it is easy to
meet on their own ground the advocates
OF the proposed change, for there is
enough to show that the Black Peril of
the South would gain new terrors, not
lose old ones, by turning over the educa-
ton OF the negroes to fanatics and
foreigners, and knocking out the most
substantial prop by which our suffrage
regulations are upheld. This is clearly
case in which it is better to bear
those ills we have than fly to others that
we know not of"
1t will be very easy for some one to
say that | have not taken high ground
IN this article. Let me repeat, there
lore, that | have discussed only the ex-
pediency of the question under consid-
Grafton. The Outlook, adding to it's other
merits that of fairness to the South, has
won perhaps a larger circulation among
southern leaders of thought than any
other National journal of like character,
and my object has been to set before
these leaders some perils of this old but
notwithstanding scheme, perils that as
YET nave gone practically unnoticed by
the larger number of Southern editors
and Southern educators.