Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1903-07-30
THE NEGRO PROBLEM
Senator Tillman and Senator Bur
ton Held a Joint Debate.
rILLMAy RAN DOWN THE BLACK RACE
Burton Placed Stress ON the Great Possi-
bilittes That Laid In the Negroes and
Would Help Them to Help
Themselves.

Madison, Wis, July 2S.rSenator B.
R. Tillman, Of South Carolina, matched
his wit and sarcasm against the legal
mind and western manners of Senator
J. R. Burton, Of Kansas, last night In
a Joint debate on the negro question.
Senator Tillman said the people OF the
north were as bad as those Of the
south in their handling Of the negroes.
"When a negro up here shows the
outcroppings of the instincts OF his
inferior race" said Mr.. Tillman, "you
mob, string, lynch, burn and outrage
humanity with him. 1t makes a
mighty big difference whose family Is
struck, whose home is entered, whose
wife or daughter is the victim. You
men Of the north are not slow to act
when your women are outraged and l
want to say you are men to do it. II
you had as many 'niggers' as we DO
in South Carolina you would feel as !
do and your people would sustain your
'anti-nigger' senators as my people
sustain me-"
The fiery southern senator was un-
popular at first with the audience OF
5000 people. but at the close Of the de-
bate he was applauded.
Senator Tillman said the negroes
owed all the progress they had made
in America to the fact that they were
once in bondage and that the south had
nourished them into whatever indus-
try, virtue and intelligence they ever
attained; that the north went to war
to free the niggers" first and to Save
the union" afterward. The republican
party, he said, played the friend Of the
black in order to get black votes. The
greatest disturbing element In the
problem was the fact that the people
of the north, affecting motives Of char
fly, Christianity and humanitarianism,
were attempting to poke their great,
long, Yankee noses" into the business
of the southern states that were equal
to the problem that would not be In
danger of overwhelming them unless
The northern influence brought about
war of determination.
Senator Tillman said the negroes
were recognized In the south when
they deserved 1t, and sometimes, when
they did not, mentioning the recipients
of United States executive appoint-
ments. The southern senator asked
the audience to hold an after-meet-
ing to form a negro emigration society
for the purpose of bringing to Wiscon-
sin 100000 negroes, the proportionate
share of the state of the nations ne
gro population. The after-meeting did
not develop.
Senator Burton agreed that the ne
gro has apparently grown more de-
graded and more criminal than before
the war, but said 1t was the fault OF
the south, lack of schools and the
-'euchreing" Of the negroes out Of their
constitutional rights by southern
whites. He said in education lay the
solution Of the problem.
Senator Tillman agreed with Burton
in this, but said the south would take
up arms rather than allow the north
to force an impossible social or politi-
cal equality between the whites and
negroes in the southern states. He
says that the United States barred
Chinese from its gates because of the
inferiority of the Mongoiian race and
the impossibility Of Chinese ever be-
coming the social or political equals OF
Americans. THE inferiority is greater
and the impossibility more impossible
with respect to the negroes and paTtic-
ularly the southern negroes" Mr.. Tnl-
man declared.
Senator Burton placed stress on the
great possibilities he said lay In the
neqroes. Their capacity for dayeloD-