The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1903-01-30
TO TORCH AND SWORD
NEGRO MAKES APPEAL.
MASS MEETING OF NEGROES IN WASH
INGT0N HEAR RED THREATS
MADE BY LAWYER.
XIII and Burn Whites Is Counsel from Ne
gro-Virginia Lawyer Gives the Lie
to Booker WaShingtOn'S Decla-
ration that Education
Helps Negro.

BY Milt Saul to Atlanta Journal. I
Washington, Jan. 27.-Roosevelt's
pro negro policy is responsible for a
mass meeting of Washington ne.
groes last night, in tho course Of
which the sword and torch were ad-
vocated as means for the negro to
maintain his manhood.
| Among the speakers at the meet.
ing was H L. johnson, the Atlanta
negro lawyer. The meeting was un.
der the auspices of the Afro Ameri-
can council, of which Pledger is a
leading spirit.
The most sensational speech of the
meeting and the one which aroused
the audience to the highest pitch of
enthusiasm, was made by James H.
Hayes, the lawyer who has been re-
tained by Virginia to test the validity
of Virginia's disfranchisement laws.
In the course of his speech, he said:
"The time has come when the ne
gro must fight, not Theoretically, not
intellectually, but fight with his
hands. The disfranchisement of the
children of Israel in Egypt has been
followed letter for letter by the dis
franchisement in the South. A South
ern newspaper has threatened us
with klu. klux if the growth of Fed
eral appointments in the South con-
times. | make the prediction that
when the Southern people start to
klu-kluxing this time they will not
have as the objects of their oppres.
sion the same timid people they klu-
kluxed in the COS"
Negroes are leaving the State of
Virginia because of the treatment
they are receiving. What we want
to do is to start something and keep
it up until the white people stop
something. We don't intend to be
oppressed any longer. We don't in.
tend to be rushed.
II am afraid we are anarchistic-
that we are anarchistic-and 1 give
the warning that if this oppression
in the Soutl continues, the negro
must resort to the sword and to the
torch and to that the Southland will
become land of blood and desola
ton"
The speaker gave the lie direct to
Booker Washington's wide heralded
utterances on industrial education
for the negro. He used the follow
ing words:
"1t is claimed that the negro in
dustrial schools are the proper lines
OF effort for the race. Talk about
education and wealth and say that
they make votes for the negro. It's
a lie. Nc, they are destroying votes.
Every negro who puts on a clean
collar and tries to be man is de.
stroying vote. l believe God will
take care Of us.
just one word about the question
of the absorption of the races" the
speaker added significantly. "No
two people having the same religion
and speaking the same tongue, liv-
ing together, have ever been kept
apart. This is we'll known and 1T is
one of the reasons why the dominant
race is crushing out the strength of
the negro in the South"
Other speakers we're Rev. Geo.
Lee, Rev. j. Anderson Taylor, j. w.
Thompson, CT New York, treasurer
of the Africo American council; Cy-
rus Field Adams, secretary; II. l..
johnson, Of Atlanta; Bishop Walters,
of this city, and John @. Dancy, re-.
corder of deeds. They spoke ear
nestly, but in a less fiery vein than
Hayes.
| h