The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1903-11-12
News and Observer.

News and Observer.
Under the above headline, Prof.
John Spencer Bassett, professor OF
History at Trinity College, Durham,
North Carolina, contributes the most
remarkable article of a decade to the
South atlantic Quarterly, of whsch
he is the editor.
OF late years the pulpit and the
chair of the college professor has too
often become the fomenter of strife
and the forum of absurdity. n
Such a freak is John Spencer Bassett
of Trinity College. He is a student
and writes we'll. Somebody once
asked Senator Joe Brown, OF Geor-
gia, what he thought of Senator
Ingalls, His reply was: 'Ingalls is a
right smart fellow, but he 'haint' got
no sense" That will be the estimate
of Prof. Bassett by those who iud dge
him solely by the article that he
prints as the first contribution in the
October number of the South Atlan-
tic Quarterly.
n =
In his remarkable article, remark
able chiefly for the warp and wool of
intolerance of the views entertained
by most Southern people, Prof. Bas-
sett makes some declarations that
will startle thoughtful and sensible
men everywhere. and that will out
rage the feelings of the dominant
sentiment of the South. That no in
Justice may be done him in what we
say, we print elsewhere the full text
OF his article.
We shall not in this article attempt
to discuss many of the offensive dec
larations and absurd statements of
Prof. Bassett. Every reader will an
swer them for himself His arraign-
ment of the Democratic leaders in the
South reads like the old time denun-
Citations of "Fire Alarm" Foraker
and is almost in the identical words
employed by the negro Republican
leaders in North Carolina in 1898
when the intolerable conditions call
ed forth the White Supremacy revo-
luton that restored good govern
ment and peace to North Carolina,
after the orgie of rule by negroes and
unworthy white men who put negro
officeholders over white men and
women. His calling the race ques-
tion 'cry" employed by the first
men of the South ''as a means of twin
ming votes" is an insult to every
Southern leader from Lamar, ben
Hill, Ransom and Vance in the seven
ties to Aycock, Simmons, Overman
and the other patriotic leaders OF
North Carolina of today. The fact
that Prof. Bassett does not know
that the race issue in Southern poll
tics is one created by the Republicans
and forced by them to the front,
shows his unfitness to write OF any
thing that concerns the political or
racial questions from the standpoint
of the Southern man.
Prof. Bassett sees general opposi-
tion to the negro" manifested in the
South "more strenuously than in
the North" and in proof cities four
things:
/. 'Restriction Of the negro vote. y
Suffrage was taken from the negro
not because of hostility to the negro
but as q necessity to secure peace
and good government. 1t is libel
on the South to say it alters it's con-
stitutions to iniure a weaker race.
Governor Aycock in a recent article
in a Northern magazine thus gives
the true reason for the adoption oi
the suffrage amendment in North
Carolina and the same reason gov.
erned in every Southern State:
"After the adoption of the Thir.
teenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments to the Constitution oi
the United States the Southern States
endeavored to secure good govern
ment out of the conditians which had
been forced upon them. Speaking o.
North Carolina [ know that an hon
est. persistent effort was made to OBJ
tain safe government without resort
ing to the elimination of negro suf
frage. The effort was failure. W.
sought in vain to make the theory O
universal suffrage work out goOC
government and private virtue. W.
found by actual trial that it couiC
not be done 1t could not be done
because, as Senator Cullom wisely
says in his report of the Hawaiian
Commissions: The American idea o
universal suffrage pre-supposes thai
the body of citizens who are to exer
else it in free and independent man
ner have, by inheritance or education
such knowledge and appreciation o
the responsibilities of free suffrag'
and of a full participation in th'
sovereignty of the country as to b.
able to maintain Republican form
of government The negroes of thi
State have not this knowledge eithe1
by Inheritance or education; as /
consequence they have been easil,
led to form combinations with ;
small minority of white men ant
bring to the State intolerable gov
ernment."
Why didn't Prof. Bassett give th'
true reason for the suffrage amend
ment as stated by our able Cover
nor, unless he wished to slander th
State?
2. The passage of Jim Crow Law
was not due to ''hatred of blacks,
as Prof. Bassett seems to think, bu
to a desire to secure on the cars tn
same separation that obtains il
schools, and churches, and it ha
worked well.
3. Increasing resort to lynching.
If there has been any increasing ere
sort to lynching" it has been mainl.
due to an increasing resort to tn
crime for which it is the penalty
Leading Southern men stand agains
lynching and Southern officials hav
risked their lives to save rapists iron
llynching. Why didn't Prof. Basset
give the record of brave Souther
officers if he wished to be fair?
4. "a general augmentation c
that sensitive disposition on the par
/ Of Soufhoruors IN take fra at fh