The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1903-01-07
Il LIKE TO PUNCH
NORTHERNERS IN RIBS"
SENATOR BEN TILLMAN DELIVERS
. LIVELY LECTURE IN MACON.
Noted South CoroIinian Discusses Race
Problem. Has Not Been Caught by
the Booker Washington Fad.

the Booker Washington Fad.
Senator Benjamin r. Tillman lectur-
ed at the Academy of Music in Macon
Thursday night to large audience on
the ''Race Problem" He was intro
duced by Congressman Charles l..
Bartlett, who referred to him as man
who for many years, both in private
and public station, had conducted him
self so that he had the love of his
friends and the respect of his enemies.
The senator began by saying that he
was a close neighbor and had been
much interested in Georgia history:
and for these reasons was very glad to
be present before an audience of Geor-
gia people. He also made reference
to his having married a Georgia girl,
to whose influence, he said, together
with the precepts of his mother, he
owed whateveruhe had been able to
accomplish.
He said that he was no orator and
began his address in low conversa-
tional style. But he warmed up as he
went from point to point until he
reached his characteristic manner of
deliverauce, shaking his fist frequent
~ and walking with a slow. monarch
like tread across the stage. He said
that his discourse had been outlined
''mainly for northern consumption, y
but he thought that the race problem
was the most serious question con-
fronting the country today and that it
was therefore meet that the south
should discuss it in every phase.
He spoke of his trips north and said
that he had never addressed a north
ern audience but that he did not capt
ure at least half of the crowd by SIM
ply telling them the plain truth as he
saw it. In this respect, he said, he
had been favorably impressed by the
lreceptiveness and the fair-mind-
edness OF the northern people, and it
had "given him the essence of pleas
ure to stand before them, to drive
home facts, and to punch them in TIE
ribs"
ONLY REPRESENTATION
The speaker discussed at length the
manner in which South Carolina had
been able to throw off the yoke recon
struction government, under which it
groaned for eight years, "whlle the
hand of harpies swept down from the
north like pestilence to curse the
land" He justified the measures
which were then adopted by the south
to regain the control of the govern
ment from the negro by saying that
they were only obeying the instinct of
preservation. He thought also
that constitutional remedies 10 render
null and void the fifteenth amendment
was also iusti6able on the same
ground. The declar alton was made
that from all that he could discern the
race problem was growing more dan
gerous and threatening, especially in
its political aspect.
SAYS BOOKER is MISTAKEN.
Paying his respects to the Booker
Washington idea, he said that it of
fered no solution and that the princi-
pal consequence was that it turned
out hordes OF skilled negro workmen
to compete with the white man in the
south, and that in the north he would
be treated with less consideration, as
evidenced in the home state of
A braham Lincoln, where they were
met at the border with Gattling guns.
He said that education or no ednca-
ton, Whenever the negro came in COO
tact with the white man on equality
there would be ultimately an appeal to
the shot gun.