The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-07-02
DANGEROUS IGNORANCE.


Correspondence i'm Washington Post.
I had an opportunity to go out into the
country beyond Indianola and TO make
the acquaintance of the rural negro at
work. He is not a particularly desirable
friend and he has learned by bitter expert
epce that few white men his friends.
His conversation Is strictly biblical in
way. because he says but little beyond
YES boss" and mo, boss" The negroes
in the field do not look downtrodden nor
particularly abused On the whole they
were dressed for their work about as well
the average farm laborer in the North.
The presence of women in the cotton fields
adds picturesqueness to the country which
one misses in the North, because the COL
ored women relieve the blackness OF their
faces by the radiance of their attire, and
there Is none so poor as not TO have an eff
fective turban or a brilliant apron.
The most casual contact with the negroes
in the fields, however, demonstrates his
immense inferiority to the farm laborer
of New York or Illinois. He is not of the
same class at all and. aside from all polit-
ical speculation and from questions of alb
stract right and wrong. Il must be admit
ted that the Southern plantation negro
must necessarily be treated in a different
way politically and socially from the farm
laborer of the North. The negro in tie
natured a peasant as the sun ever shone
upon. He is almost childishly happy and
can youch for the fact that he does not
much care to vote. He makes an excellent
laborer under supervision. but If left to
himself will idle the day away with tran
quill complacency. He is densely, hopeless
ly, predominanty ignorant. The census fig
ures as TO the negro in the South do not
begin to explain the real situation.
According to the official returns about
cne-third of the negroes in this county
cannot read or write. AS a matter of ac-
tual fact, however, IL is manifest that the
actual per cent of ignorant negroes is
much larger. In making their returns 10
the census enumerators many negro fami-
lies were all put down as able to read and
write. whereas, in many cases. the only
one thus accomplished in whole family
would be a little child. whose gifts in that
line would probably not be more striking
than those witnessed in the lowest grade of
a city grammar school. The iiliteracy of
the most densely ignorant whites who
come 10 the North from Europe as i'm
migrants. The negroes have ignorance
all their own entirely aside from their in
ability 10 read or write. IL is the ignorance
of childhood. of unadulterated barbarsm
but not of savagery.
They are happy and placid. and, / hon.
estly believe. are the best common labor
climate. Few of them know how old they
are; they cannot remember things a few
years back; their notions of the govern
ment are OF the yaguest possible character,
they make contracts with the white men
without the slightest conception of their
meaning. and they break those contracts
whenever IL Is TO their advantage 10 do So
The ignorance of the field negro Is almost
incomprehensible TO the average Northern
man. They are not vicious. and are I'M
moral rather than immoral There Is no
doubt OF their susceptibility TO education
and refinement. They are human In every