The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-04-15
SOUTH CAN BEST SOLVE NEGRO
 QUESTION, SAYS MR. CLEVELAND
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 to make us doubt the justice of charging this denial of social equality to prejudice, as we usually understand the word. Per haps it is born of something so much deeper and more imperlous than preju- dice as to amount to a racial instinct. Whatever 1t is, let us remember that 1t has condoned the negro's share in the humiliation and the spoliation of the white men of the south during the satur- nalia of reconstruction days, and has al- lowed a kindly feeling for the negro to survive the time when the south was deluged by a perilous flood of indiscrimi- nate, unintelligent and blighting negro suffrage. Whatever 1t Is, let us try to be tolerant and considerate of the feelings and even the prejudice of racial instinct of our white fellow-countrymen of the south, who. in the solution of the negro problem, must, amid their own surround ings, bear the heat of the day and stag ger under the weight of the white man burden.
 There are, however, considerations re- lated to this feature of the negro ques- tion which may be regarded as more in keeping with the objects and purposes of this occasion
 Folly to Ignore the South.
 As friends of the negro, fully believing in the possibility of his improvement and advancement, and sincerely and conh- dently laboring to that end, 1t is folly for us to ignore the importance of the un- grudging cooperation on the part of the white people of the south in this work. Labor as we will, those who do the lifting of the weight must be those who stand next to it. This cooperation cannot be forced; nor can 1t be gained by grat- uitously running counter to firmly fixed and tenaciously held southern ideas, or even prejudices We are not brought to the point of doing or overlooking evil that good may come when we proceed upon the theory that before reaching the stage where we may be directly and practically confronted with the question of the negro's full enjoyment of civic advant- ages or even of all his political privileges, there are immediately before us and around us questions demanding our inn mediate care and that in dealing effect ively with these. we can confidently rely upon the encouragement and assistance of every thoughtful and patroitic citi- zen of the land-wherever he may live and whatever may be his ideas or pre- affections concerning the more remote phases of the negro problem.
 Quotes Booker Washington.
 "These questions that are so immedi- ately pressing have to do with the prac- tical education of the negro, especially with fitting him to compete with his white neighbors in gaining a decent, re- spectable and remunerative livelihood. Booker T. Washington, in speaking of the conditions and needs of his race has wisely said
 "It is at the bottom of life we must begin and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities
 Tn summing up the whole matter there is one thing of which we can be abso- lutely and unreservedly certain. When we aid Tuskegee institute and agencies like it. striving for the mental and man. ual education of the negro at the south, we are in every point of view rendering him the best possible service Whatever may be his ultimate destiny. we are thus helping to fit him for filling his place and bearing it's responsibilities. We are sow ing well in the soil at the bottom of life the seeds of the black mans devel- opment and usefulness. These seeds will not die, but will sprout and grow, and if it be within the wise purpose of God, the hardened surface of no outward sem timent or prejudice can prevent the burst ing forth of the blade and plant of the ne- groes appointed opportunity into the bright sunlight of a cloudless day"