The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-07-18
AN uNW1sE pRoCEFpINa.

O., Readers of the newspapers have from time to time seen something of the pro- posed movement of the better class of negroes at Indianapolis to drive out the worthless and vicious members of their race and thus rid the city of that class of negroes. Commenting on this matter The Indiana polls World, the organ of the negro race, says:
 It Is very easy to determine who the shiftless, worthless negroes are, for they are found almost altogether in the h. diana Avenue district. Agents Of the negro business league will make inquiry concerning them and those who Will not work will be reported to the authorities with a request that they be driven out of town. This scheme of ridding the city of worthless negroes Is both practicable and sensible.
 So far, so good. We will agree with The World, that the idle, worthless and vicious negroes can be spotted, and 1t may be that they can be driven out of the city, though we know of no law. human course towards any class of citizens. Ad- hitting, however. that the plan will work, ] what next? Where are these outcasts | to go? If they are expelled from Indian | apolis must they not, necessarily, locate | in some other community? Is the process
 to be repeated ad infinitum, until the wretched creatures are utterly exter- minated?
 These are not idle questions, but there Is another phase of the subject which should. not be lost sight of. and that is | the right of any city or community to unload it's undesirable characters on others. If the authorities of Indianapolis could spot all the thieves. housebreakers and other criminals, would they think it right to drive them out of that city to locate and prey on others? We see no difference in the principle involved. It is conceded that there are in Indianapolis a number of negroes who are worse than is not conceded that the city has right 10 unload them on another city, or to send them out as wanderers, a menace to any community they enter.
 And there is still another side to it. If Indianapolis has right to adopt the course indicated, any other city has the same r.ght In Montgomery there are many industrious, orderly and reputable colorcd people. They are credit to their race and a creditable part of our citizenship. On the other hand there are numbers of beth sexes who are idle,
 vicious. absolute and altogether disrepu- l table It is the same in every city in the South, but if all these cities adopt
 the Indianapolis method and drive out all
 the useless population, where, in Heavens S
 name, would be the end? They would
 form themselves into bands, for negroes
 are as gregarious as black birds, and
 these bands would prove such a menace
 to any community visited that the people ! would be forced, in self-defence, to rise
 up and exterminate them. Any one with
 ordinary intelligence can see and appreci- ate the evils and the horrors which would be the inevitable result of following the 1 Indianapolis methods throughout the
 South. yet Montgomery has the same moral and legal right to pursue such a | policy as the Indiana city has.
 Now, we get a great deal of advice from our Northern brethren, much of | which is out of place and impertinent, and | much other is absurd. but we get 1t. and
 they ought not to object to receiving d little from this end of tAe liAe. And we