The Tupelo journal., 1903-05-15
MORE ON THE NEGRO.
Bill Arp Wants to Know Where His
Grindstore Is.
Says a Negro Stole II to Sell or Else
Thought 1t Was N Che ese-Com-
mcnts on C1eveIand's New
York Speech.

Where is my grindstone? Where is
my rake and my ak? Did anybody
eve hear Of a negro stealing a grind
stone? He stole it to sell or else he
thought it was a cheese. I'll bet there
are 20 negroes in sight of my house
who know all about that grindstone,
but they won't tell. That is q race
trait-not to tell on one another. Who
steals my young pigeons before we get
up in the morning? We haven't had a
squad to eat in three months.
Mr.. Cleveland made a good speech
In New York on the race problem, and
SO did Mr.. Parkhurst, but you can't
make a good citizen out of a negro
without he has a master or a boss on
whom he has to depend. My opinion
from observation is that Tuskegee
can't do it nor any other school. The
more education, the less inclination to
work for a living. Where are the Tus-
kegee graduates? Just Laying around
or teaching school. / read in yester-
days paper where = negro school
teacher was caught in having made a
fake list of his scholars and drew more
money than he was entitled to. But
neither Cleveland nor Parkhurst nor
any other northern man knows enough
about the negro to talk intelligently
about him. Nor does this generation
of southern men know much more.
Nobody knows now but the few old
men who are left. Our editors and
newspaper men do not know. They
are all too young and most of them
came from stock that did not own~ne-
groes in the old slavery times. lido not
assert this through conceit. but it
pains and astonishes me to hearnorth-
ern speakers and some editors from
the south saying that since the negro
was set free he had made wonderful
progress, considering that for a thou
sand years he had been either a savage
or a slave. Mr.. Cleveland said there
is still a %grievous amount of ignorance,
a sad amount of viciousness and a ire
mendous amount of l~aziness and
thriftlessness intermingled with their
citizenship"
If Mr.. Cleveland had been an old cit
izen of the south he would have said:
Before freedom came the negro
was docile, moral. industrious and as
intelligent as thousands of the unedu-
Gated white people of the south. Not
an outrage was committed by them
during the war from the Potomac to
the Rio Grande. There was not a con-
vict camp % a chain gang in all the
south. The marriage relation was
faithfully observed, and negro families
were contented and happy, for most of
them had kind masters and mistresses,
who would get up in the night and min
lister to their sick. Bad negroes had to
be punished, of course, and so do bad
white children, but it seldom had to
be done. Talk about the shackles and
the chains of slavery. 1t is all rot
and Imagination. Our children have
a master until they are 81. The negro
had one all his life. and, as DR.. Park
hurst said, most of them needed one,
and need one now, and sodo thousands
of white people. The fact is there are
out lew peoplc WHO nave HoI Soe oHo'
l do not admit that | have, but | have a
mistress. and that is the same thing.
There is not a clerk in a store, whether
male or female, but is under the con-
troll of somebody; not a conductor on
a railroad nor a sailor on a ship nor a
pupil in the schools nor a policeman
in the towns. Nine-tenths of the peo-
pie in civilized countries are subor-
dinate to the other tenth, and it looks
like everybody in these United States
belongs to Teddy Roosevelt, save a few
besides myself and some Mississippi
bears.
The old-time slaves got a good, fair
education from contact with their
masters and their masters Id