The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-01-04
Necessity for Educating
 the Poor White" Children.

Editor The Advertiser:
 Permit me to summarize, and to alter into pnraseology of my own, an article In tns current number of Review of Re- article suggests
 William E. Benson 1t tells, whose face iilumes Cor effulgesl the page. an Ala paina negro the soh of slave, grad uate Of college, came home in 1896 to convince seventy more negroes that edu- eaton was good thing, that the noun tain could come to Mahomet, that there was way to change yourself under your skin, although the epiderains and it's pe- culiarities were unalterable. These dusky likely fellows cut down trees given them by a southern gentleman, and while they fasnioned them into lumber for Patrons Hall, Q young negro Glee Club sang $500 into the school treasury" The Amer lean Missionary Society heard the news negro's smile and a negro's song is transcontinental in ar-reachingness-and Bill Benson went North and begged for money with all that native talent, doubt less, which was observed and narrated by Baker. Livingstone's son-in-law, who travelled so extensively in Africa and traced the people and the Nile to their sourccs-for. Baker says the negro. on his rauye heath, has two dominant ra- oial iastincts, begging and stealing; and that hc uses them interchangeably, one for the other when "the other falls. At present this Alabama negro school has
 
 Now, if Booker Washington and other good darkeys can, with their natural beg ging talents. raised to highest and Ma poleonic power, go North and get enough money to educate the balance of their race out of their stealing propensities, there will result not only regeneration for the blacks. but advantage for the whites whose hen roosts will thereafter be safe. whose cows and calves will graze secure, whose hogs and pigs will "save their bacon" for their real owners, whose cornfields unrified by night providers will yield autumn harvests to proper barns, whose peas, beans and cotton will In be- ing picked not be pilfered, and whose en- tire farming and housekeeping will cease to bleed as now they do, at every pore.
 In the Kowaliga school which this ne- gro, Bill. has builded. agriculture is em- phasized in the curriculum, and mo jack leg teacher Is engaged" but teachers skill ed in instruction of grammar grades, versed in practical farming lessons, and in knowledge of the care Of live stock and in manual training for boys and girls The State gives $500 year, the American Missionary Association $4OO, the balance is tuition fees, and the fees of black or tan colored eloquence paid by Northern ad- mirers. Furthermore, these two colored Bensons have founded land company, whose object is homebuilding and the de- velopment of the negro farmer. All honor to Benson, junior and senior, they are fine darkeys sure! I'd make my
 
 kitchen any day. and I'd go out myself and stand on my back porch and question them an hour or more. exactly as 1 used to do when my good negro cook let me know that her mothers preacher had come to town and the big ebony face smiled thanks while he took off his hat at the foot of the steps to say "Thanky Marster" ere he stepped in to discuss the dinner and old times with my happy ser want.
 But-what are we thinking about when we let these Ishmaels. these sons of the bondwonan. grasp the opportunities of the hour, build industrial schools, form land companies, beg money till the North ern heart and pocket gape wide, while we do so little for the Saxon children in our | midst distinct race of whites abso- lutely apart from ourselves though shar- CTS of our destiny, leaner and hungrier and just as dirty as the negroes, and in | some instances almost as immoral though | never as thievish, poor to pltlfulness, ig- norant to shamefulness, Idle to the point of cruelty to their childEen-whRt are we thinking about while Hagar's sons are | possessing themselves of Dixie land and | mortgaging Yankee Doodle's purse and mind.
 especially since every time I've begged ! I've failed. First. l asked some Ala | bamians-they had nothing to spare to a school I told them of, whose roof was | leaking. whose walls were bare, whose PkGndLul lHCh OL IOOll was Ghiph0GOJ anu | whose teachers salaries were inadequate and corruptly adjusted. Next, l took | my pen in hand, but wrote with less than ] darky skill to one in Yankee land say | ing in effect: Send down and help us. ' | A part of the reply was a newspaper clip ping about that magnificent negro, Book l CT Washington, describing an ovation to him when he was the most remarkable man at a meeting in a great northern town for raising funds for a colored in- | dustrlal school. When Robert Ogden was | on the platform and ex-President Cleve- | land was present and was vocal with | eulogium on this Ethiop whose father l changed the skin of the mothers son. and who today is doing more for his mothers race than any other man of whom l know, Northern or Southern far | or near, is doing for his race.
 Educate the negro by all meansi-7 But !-!-?-?
 Before I suffocate, let me ask how long shall the poor white children wait how long shall they remain untutored naked-minded, helpless while we de velope our physical resources" estab- fish banks and factories and reach out