The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-03-23
Letters to The Editor.
"Let Us Alone" :"

LCt v <AAoAiS'
 Somehow we have abundant reason to think that the present Congress, inflated by popular endorsement, will seek to drag the tattered negro problem again to the front, as d hobby horse, for more spe- cious and sinister designs upon the South. This Is manifest in the Crumpacker meas ure. as well as the somewhat guarded expressions of the Republican leaders and some significant sentiments. which are nitering through their party organss It IS not with them question Of courage or principle; they can dare to do great deal more than ever, and to push experi- ental and expediency policies to the ut- most verge. The vital and important inl- petus will not be inspired by public polt- cy however, but party expediency, while the negro problem, like Aladdins s lamp, can serve any great or small purpose, by being groomed and polished anew. for the occasion.
 We are sagely told that expediency is the one incuDating vampire of the nfne- teenth century. which. centipcdal and hydra-headed dies hard. Its philosophy ignores all principle and precedent, and under the subtle manipulation of design ing politicians, can often infict injuries, which cannot be healed in a generation. When Uncle Sam coveted the fair do- main of America. he inaugurated the ex- pedient of forcible possession-an act, wrong in principle. unjust and tyrannous; when his pious Puritans and courtly Cav alters conceived a fancy for slaves, he adopted the expedient of going to Africa and buying them-an act. alike disgrace iul and iphuman and in defiance of all human liberty. When the trave traffic did not yield sufficient returns at the North, he adopted the expedient of grad ually dumping them upon the South and setting them free. And everything. in any and every way. affecting the negro, since that time. has been at the dictation of expediency. The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments the reconstruction horrors, waving the bloody shirt, Federal super vision of elections. civil rights. Congress sional investigations. attempted force forms. colonization schemes, repatriation and deportation schemes by scalawags and carpetbaggers. are one and all the Iruits or expediency CT misguided politi- taught after thirty-five years of bicker- ing, turmoil. agitation, legislation. sec
 ai ree.iha aii senaral disturbed racial conditions? Simply that he is bone of contention. between two political factions. who have not only retarded his moral growth and educational development, but inflated him with false ideas of his con- sequence in the social and political scale.
 The more matnred thought of those moved by philanthropic impulses is that this question is purely an. ethical one, which cannot be solved on physical, sec tional or other premises. As an ethical problem, it is deeply serious, involving moral responsibilities and duties, which can not be shirked, but it's processes will be sloW, and aggravatingly baked, so tor.
 In the light of these facts, demonstrat- ing so unrnistakably and conclusively the utter futility of drastic and sectional leg islation. 1t would seem that the sober thought of the nation, and even the elastic consciences of political leaders, much-abused. subject of the negro prob- lem alone. Even the cry of that race is, through the avowed protests of its most prominent leaders, 'let us alone"
 The Crumpacker resolution has much deeper significance than appears upon its face. It's specific demand for an investi- gation of the suffrage question, is the Trojan horse, that conceals far deeper and more sinister designs. It is easily recognized as a preliminary step toward another force bill and what is worse, it seems destined to pass, unless some dras- tic and even desperate expedient is inter- posed. When such recognized Democratic leaders as Henry Watterson, w. J. Bry- an, A. P. German and David B. Hill take the measure with such gravity and seri- ousness. the lethargy of public sentiment should be aroused and an energetic pro- test go up from every part of the land.
 
 against the South. We have become too tractable as a people; too easily influ- enced and forbearing with our political enemies; too credulous of their purposes and designs too willing to adopt appear ances for truth in all that pertains to the Federal government. This has given free play to the fine Italian hand" and, if nothing worse, has committed us to foreign policy, fraught with interminable, immeasurable and dangerous possibilities This new hydra headed force bill is an outgrowth of our political indifference, while its partisans will justify it's passage upon the small aggregate vote throughout the South. It will be further justified, in the eyes of the people of the extreme East, by the same spacious logic, which has served so long the political purposes of MT. Lodge and his partisans. in their previous efforts with sectional legislation. that Southern character and Southern civilization makes the Southern people distinguishable as a peculiar race" This sort of twaddle might do for those who still brood over the poetic miseries of Uncle Toms Cabin" because the ma jority of them have possibly never peeped over Mason and Dixon's line. It is such stuff that really forms a part of their school histories. when the common origin of our people and our civilization is known to every student. There are, and will always be. certain distinctive fea- lures between the two sections. But in the HeTeuitdHeTtS or race, history, lan- guage. polity. social organization, and, indeed. all that goes to determine the identity of a people. it's character and civilization. there can Ne no racial dis tinction" between aboltionist or slave holder. plantation cavalier or strait-laced Puritan. There may be an orthoeplc diff ference between those. who have lost the faculty of sounding the letter 1T" and those who inherited from the over-pious swashbucklers of Cromwell the habit of talking through the nose.
 It was thought that such thing as the Crumpacker resolution had become a dead issue: we had good reason to feel secure against such an unpleasant up- heaval again. But the same sinister mo- lives which inspired the French Com mune to gain and retain power. would seem to animate-not all--but most of the Republican leaders. Their timorous and wavering constituencies must he kept in the fold. and. even if the hands of time are turned back. they must accom- plish that result.
 Andrew James Miller.