The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-09-06
TRANSPORTATION OF NEGROES
IMPOSSIBLE AND CHIMERICAL
The Negro Problem it's Permanent Solution Can be
Effected Only in the Spirit of Broadcast
Humanity.

the negro laborer and his white employer
at the South would now oppose the whole
scheme of colonization.
1t is a waste of time and energy to
lay plans to do an impracticable thing or
to do a practicable thing in an imprae-
tlcabe way. Separation on account of the
vastness of the undertaking and the oppo-
sition likely to be offered by both races,
seems in its entirety utterly impossible
and chimerical.
Yet while the evil cannot be abolished
entirely, it can yet be lessened, restricted,
and that, too, on lines in conformity with
Southern policy from the beginning. The
whole negro race cannot be coloniZed, but
the worst criminal element of it can be
transported. This will not only inure to
the good of the whites, but even more to
the negroes themselves. For what race
would not be benefited by wedding out
and separating its worst and most vic
ious element. 1 believe that the best ele
ment among the negroes would heartily
approve of this measure.
Even this measure would encounter
great difficulties, but it seems infinitely
more possible than general separation.
AS rule the potential rapist among the
negroes belong to clearly specialized
type, easily recognized by the observant
He is of the lowest order of intelligence
The offspring of criminal parents, a Grim
inal himself from the start, gradually as
cending from small misdeeds to great,
until opportunity offering he perpetrates
the highest crime of all The transporta-'
ton of this type as soon as the hopeless
criminal bias is discovered would do far
more than all the lynchings to abolish
this insufferable evil.
AS a more immediate and probably prac-
teal remedy we would resort to stringent
vagrancy laws, stringently enforced. These
laws would work good to both races. 1t
is the idle mind that engenders evil and
the idle hand that carries it out.
Great restrictions should be placed on
the sale of intoxicants to negroes. The
sale of cocaine and other debasive drugs
must be prohibited under penalty severe
enough to effectually deter. In this in
stance, as in countless others, the white
man places within the reach of this weak
minded race the means to debauchery
which it is powerless to resist.
1t has long been clear to my mind that
some method of State tutelage is neces-
sary to save us from the negro and to save
him from himself. What the extent of
that tutelage shall be only the wisest and
most humane among us must decide.
No unnecessary hardship, no injustice
must be inflicted on this unfortunate ward
of ours for ward he is. While the South
is not directly responsible for the mex
| piable wrong of wrestling him from the en-
vironments to which nature had adjusted
his whole being, and dropping him here
amid alien and hostile surroundings, she
| is vet accomplce after the fact. 1t is our
fault, not his, that he is here to perpex
and alarm us. We, not he, made HIM a
problem.
For our own selfish ends he was brought
here and made to toll that we might profit
by it. Upon the whole he has been tract
| able and inoffensive to degree. 1t is the
most grevious injustice to condemn a
whole race because scattering members
of it commit heineus crimes Nor should
the racial feeling which prompts him to
sympathize with even the criminal OF his
blood be held too strong against him. He
is ignorant, helpless. He feels that the
world is not his friend nor the worlds
law. Looking dlmly up his past he sees
/ distorted. magnified the harsh treatment
which his race has received from the white
one since malignant fate threw them
together.
! We must vindicate our position as the
superior race by looking at the racial
question from higher standpoint than he
can. by viewing it broadly and as dispas-
sionately as possible.
ANY plan for settling this Banquo-Gke
question. which never will down, must
have in view the good of this race, which
the world has made it's parlah.
IF Fate has Nemesis it will surely over.
/ take and curse the American people II
they fail in their duty at this momentous
juncture.
The mere pecuniary cost Of any means
looking to the solution of the race prob
/ lem must not be considered We must
call to our aid the broadest statesman
ship and joining to it practical phllan
1 thropy. deliberately, solemnly deal with
/ this question or such parts OF it as we
must or can. In this communication
have only sought to make some sugges
tions for practical men of affairs to con
slider.
AS general segregation seems clearly I'M
practicable, the wedding out OF the GRIM
inal type of the negro race would seen
not only the most practical safeguard 1ol
ourselves and the best means OF eleVatihe
the negro race itself. Let some OF oul
| newly acquired islands be used to colonlz'
these criminals. 1t would of course b'
: necessary to separate the sexes, tor among
{ them would necessarily be some women
but further than that they need not d.
subjected to great hardship, but lnstea'
e aided to better their lot and themselve
4 as they could or would. This question
has long since ceased to be a sectional one
/ 1t is not only national problem but tn
e weightiest one that our race has had t.
G deal with since history began Can it an
h swer the sphynx that stands in its patl
t or not?
) o. w. BLACKNALL.
" Blakenhall, Kittrell, N. c.