The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-11-01

to maintain Republican form of gov
eminent The negroes OF this State have
not this knowledge either by inheritance
| or education; as a consequence they have
| been easily led to form combinations with
a small minority of white men and bring
to the State intolerable government.
Why didn't Prof Bassett give the true
reason for the suffrage amendment as
stated by our able Governor, unless he
wished to SANDER the State?
2. The passage of Jim Grow law was
not due to hatred of blacks as Pref.
Bassett seems to think. but to a
desire to secure the cars the same
separation that obtains in school and
churches, and it has worked we'll.
| 3. Increasing resort to lynching" II
there has been any increasing resort TO
| lyrching' it has been mainly due to an
increasing resort" to the crime for
which it is the penalty. Leading Southern
men stand against lynching and Southern
officials have risked their lives to save
rapists from lynching. Why didn't Prof.
| OaSSelt give TIE TeCCEu W brave oOulneIE
officers if he wished to be fair?
| 4. "a general augmentation of that sea-
sitive disposition on the part of South
erners to take fire at the hint of negro
outrs se.' God forbid that the South or
the North should ever fail to take fire.
over the despoiling of womanhood. What
Prof. Bassett enumerates as an evidence
| of hostility is the browning glory Of
Southern manhood and Southern chivalry,
and he will find that it exists among chiv-
alrous men in Indiana and Illinois as well
as in North Carolina. The best sentiment
OF both sections favors the legal punish
ment for outrages, but can any man fail to
take fire" when that outrage comes to
him Or his neighborhood?
Prof. Bassett does not seem to approve
the carly legislation looking to complete
racial separation, though he does not hold
1t up as evidence of general opposition
to the negro" as he does the suffrage law.
Jim Crow law and the tendency to lynch
! tor rape. For US, We honor the men VINO
passed all such laws. regretting only that
all separation laws have not been more
rigidly enforced. The only hope for the
South is for complete social religious. edu-
catlonal separation-a separation leav-
ing to each race to work out its own
destiny, with the duty imposed upon tho
stronger race of helping the weaker race
IN THE WAYS 1T is NOW HELPING.
Prof. Bassett says he doubts whether a
Southern white farmer would admit that
the highest negro in America is superior
tc the Southern hired man who is white. .
In order to relieve Prof Bassettfs doubts,
We will say that no Southern white farm
er would make such an admission because
it would be untrue. The highest negro
has right to make place in his own
race and to be treated properly by the
white people, but every day "the South
ern hired man who is white" achieve.
social position to which no negro may as
pire. He is of a race superior to tho
| -.
Does Prof Bassett think otherwise?
Passing over the mistaken statement
that both the progress and repression of
the negro 'have brought down on him
the hostility of the whites, an indict-
ment of the Southern white people tina.
| has no warrant in their kindly treatment
! n fn tafn ,n,,+
that will give pause and secure for the
writer the indignant condemnation Ct
every white man who reads his words
Writing of Booker T. Washington, he
says:
NOW WASHINGTON IS A GREAT
! AND GOOD MAN, A CHRISTIAN
J STATESMAN, AND TAKE HIM AL IN
| ALL THE GREATEST MAN, SAVE
GENERAL LEE, BORN IN THE SOUTH
| IN A HUNDRED YEARS"
| When we first read this sentence, we could
not believe our eyes We re-read the words
and then paused to see if there was not
some mistake or some error in proof
reading. But, no, there it stands in its
| boldness, in its directness, in it's wanton
| and absurd negro dedication. No negro
philist at Oberlin, no man claiming to be
the reincarnation of Wendell Philips, no
| second Harriet Beecher Stowe in the great
| est creation of fiction out of nothingness
| could ever make an assertion so far from
the truth of history, past and present Is
| it possible that Prof. Bassett believes his
own statement? Is he ready to declare
in his saner moments of reflection that
| Booker r. Washington is "all in all The
| greatest man, save General Lee born II
| the South in an hundred years." It is
inconceiyablc that a man of Prot Bias
| sets education and study of history
could make such statement unless We
charitably believe he is under the spell of
negropholist hypnotism.
Let us consider minute the significance
| of this sweeping statement Booker T
Washington is ''the greatest man, save
General Lee, born in Ike South in =