The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-09-13

nen IN industrial intelligence, thrift and /
wealth. We shall count upon the infiu- |
ence and stimulus of their own high-mind- !
ed leaders. These leaders see with heaven
directed wisdom that it is not the ballot
which gives strength, but rather strength
which brings the ballot. Negro conven-
tons of late are much more full of encour-
agement than is your catchism. The car
petbag government of blacks, however
great their majorities, fell when the bayo-
nets of Northern white men were with
drawn The plain reason was that the
black men lately in slavery and having
ages of aeons of Africa instead of Western
Europe behind their slavery, were in
ferior in the skill industry, intelligence,
selfrestraint, which makes the strength
of white men. Black men are however,
acquiring thrift, intelligence well ordered
industry, property: and with these they
will acquire strength in their relations
with all men, white and black. If the
| progress must be long-so has white
progress been long. The black man can
| not justly repine if to compel the aver
| age white man to respect the abilities
and virtues of his race, it shall take as
| long it took to convert the typical
| Anglo-Saxon hand who titled the soil a
thousand years ago IN practical slavery,
| to become the typical American or English
mechanic or farmer of the Twentieth cen
| fury. Nor ought he to repine if it shall
| take much longer. AS strength and abili-
| ~ come to black men, industrial success
will come to them-and in this industrial
republic that success will command the
| Difference of whIue men The dollar of
the black man will come in time-and no
| long time-to have the power of a white
mans dollar. With patience and tact
| white men will, l believe, at the South as
at the North. come to wish that the black
man whom he respects for thrift or ability
or property shall vote and to take care
| that his voting is not INSTRUCTED
/ So it is that we may count upon the
white man-upon his enlightened self-in-
| terest. And we may more safely count
upon him if he recognize the fact that
whether he will or not, this problem is to
be solved by the dominant race at the
South. With its control of the solution
/ nothing but civil war can interfere; and
over this we shall not have civil war
Lately 1 ventured in Alabama-and what
j l said was most Hospitality received-to
present this truth. / pointed out the
|, tUOTUOuS WHICH the GulI states
had in the industrial progress of the ne
i gro. One-half or more of their labor is
negro labor. The productivity OF those
States, their progress in wealth, the sue
cess of the white man in using their ma
tural resources, the white mans fortune
and power-all these must in large part
, dpend upon the industrial productivity
of the negro. That productivity will in
the long run, with blacks as with whites,
depend upon the confidence of the laboring
, masses in the justice of their neighbors
: and of the law under which they live. 1t
will depend upon the laborer's hopeiulness
. and buoyancy, and the energy and resoute
, self-denial they create in him. And the
/. laborers hopeful buoyancy depends upon
his belief that, if he do well he viii be
, important and respected. This instinct
, exists in both races. So it is that the
. interest of the Southern white man, his
, avn industrial success, the peace and Sc
: curity of his country and his home. all
are inevitably wrapt up in his treatment
of the negro The white man viii. in
fact ordered as the world is he must
assure to the negro as the latter pro
crosses in thrift and ability and self-com.
! mand, a larger recognition. This will, ]
trust and believe, come to mean a
strictly intelligent administration of prop
: erty and intelligent qualifications for suf-
. frage, like those prescribed by the new
q Alabama constitution. The black man
> with property or able to demonstrate his
! intelligence will vote and will be aided
o by dominant white sentiment to compe
= the acceptance of his vote.
, So it is that we may count in the solu
ton of the negro suffrage question upon
the inspired labors of the Southern and
r. Northern men, men white and men black
: who for the present preach to the South
ern negroes industrial progress.
These seem long remedies; and they are
o long But they are sure remedies; and
: there are no other. The ballot has never
yet effectively gone to bodies of men who
have not without the ballot, already de
monstrated their strength material and
f moral OF this the suffrage agitations in
1 England offer sufficient proof. So it was
9 demonstrated when the white minority in
. South Carolina took from the black ma
jority a quarter of a century ago the
n political powers asserted for them by the
entire power of the nation.
:. l venture to ignore the plan to reduce
Southern representation. 1t would not
enfranchise a single black man: it would
: practically extinguish the hopes of the
blacks; it would be futile to any good
end; it would be a dangerous source OF
o sectional irritation and jealousy. 1t would
! separate black interests from white-a
o separation calamitous to both, while they
o live together, but far more calamitous
to the weaker race; separation fatal in
8 deed, to the beneficent and hopeful flu
\ ture now opening to the American negro
EDWARD NJ. SHEPARD.
! Lake George, n. Y, Aug &C.