The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-02-15
rHrrR EYES OPEN.

ing or relating to the races in the South and their relation to each other. The feeling of negrophilism has been so ram pant in the North and has so dominated the great majority of the newspapers that when we find one of them getting Its eyes open and admitting that its own section has not always been right and that the South has not always been wrong 1t is worth making note of.
 The New Bedford (Mass) Standard has a lengthy editorial commenting on the re- cent New York speech of'Secretary Root, with some of which we might take issue. but the greater part of it shows that 1t is beginning to see things as they really are. This is one example:
 One of these mistakes was that the suf- frBge was not safeguarded on the lines which older communities have found 1t wise that safeguards should be erected. There were negroes who were fit to vote by virtue of their intelligence and their character, and there were negroes who were not fit to vote. In the enthusiasm of a beginning all such distinctions were swept aside Tho South was in that con- dition where educational and property qualification were judicious-and not only 5udicious but necessary. The plain lessons of experience in other communi- ties were disregarded. and good. bad. and indifferent were dumped into one common pile of voters. It was no time for such action, and of course nothing satisfac- tory could be expected from it.
 This was all plain enough to our own people and would have been plain to those of the North if they had taken the time or the pains to inform themselves. Even on the day that emancipation took effect there were here and there in the South a few negroes who were qualified to vote and to whom the privilege of suffrage | could have been given without Injury to | the electorate and without causing any real antagonism in the South. However,
 much the old-tims slaveholder might have
 objected to going to the ballot box with
 his former slave, when he saw that the
 colored vote was so small as to be practi-
 cally ineffective, he would have acdui-
 esced, as he did In some of the other un-
 palatable results of defeat.
 | But this the North and the Government
 either failed to see. or else sectional mal-
 ice and the arrogance of triumph pre-
 vented them from doing what should have | been done Instead, the entire mass of | ignorant and wholly unprincipled voters
 was hurled at the people of the South,
 with all the evils and dangers which l Southern people could not avoid seeing,
 and the result was necessarily disastrous
 to both races. It was as if a physician,
 having a bottle of unpalatable medicine | to give to a patient, should insist on his | taking 1t all at once, instead of admins | tering it in small doses.
 That is just what the North did. We | of the South might have taken the bitter | draught of negro suffrage in small doses
 without revolt. It might have been un-
 pleasant, but we would have assimilated | it and have been none the worse for 1t in | the end. Then we would have been I spared the horrors of reconstruction, the | greater evils of ballot-box manipulation, for all of which the Northern people and
 the Federal Government were responsi- ble in the sight of Heaven.
 | And The Standard now sees this. Af- ] ter showing that no real effort was made
 to train and prepare the negroes for the
 new duties and responsibilities devolving
 on them. that paper continues:
 The third mistake was partly a crime | It resulted chiefly from the attempt which
 was made to turn the negro vote into a
 party power, and eventuated in the hor- | TOTS of the so-called carpet-bag era, the | responsibility of which is generally charg- | ed to the black man, but which by good l rights belongs to the white man. If the
 period of reconstruction proves that the | black man is not fit to be trusted with the responsibilities of government 1t
 proves also that the white man is equally
 unfit. This was no case of blind leaders l of the blind; 1t was of corrupt leaders of | the blind. and that both fell into a ditch | IS the fault not so much of the led as of | the leaders. All the riot of robbery and | Of corruption and of Tnisgovernment to which that era gave rise Is chiefly the fault of the so-called superior race which
 misused its opportunities and which
 proved false to its trust.
 And, after thus practically admitting
 that the North was guilty of a blunder
 which was worse than a crime, The
 Standard tries. in a half f-hearted way. to convince itself that the Yankee and the | IooNetHiHent dTe yet pound Tn some man.
 ner to prepare the negro for universal
 suffrage and to see that he gets 1t. II
 admits as Mir. Root admits, that the
 general negro suffrage experiment was a
 failure, but thinks there may yet be a
 way to correct the mistakes of the past.
 We'll, there is a way. The South has
 taken 1t and other sections may as vel
 acquiesce. for it will be adhered to. That
 way lies in the practical elimination of the
 negro as present political factor. and z provision for him to come into the electo
 rate gradually, as he is fitted for it ant
 as he should have come into 1t at thu
 start. There Is no other way open anC
 there will be none. Not again in tn,
 South will the spectacle be seen of al
 overwhelming cloud of darkness and ig
 norance enveloplng the ballot-box. No
 again will unprincipled manipulators mar
 shal their black cohorts and with then
 defeat the will of the intelligent whit
 people of the South-no more forever
 There may be those who still think tha
 the negroes will again be enfranchiset
 en masse. but they may as well dismiss
 any such anticipations.
 And while on this subject, and german to it. Is an editorial in The Kansas Cit. , Journal, also commenting on the speecl of Secretary Root. and one of it's com