The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-26
EDUCATION NECESSARY
PRESBYTERIAN RESOLVE TO
 RAISE FUND FOR BLACKS.
Assembly at Los Angeles Pledges $3OO,0OO to Further the Work. Sessions of the Lexing-
 ton Assembly.

Los Angeles, Cal, May 2.-Heports or the standing Committee on Freedmen, the | special Committee on Education, on Young Peoples Societies and on Presby- terian Building and on the breaking of ground for an additional building at De- cidental College, made up the program of the Presbyterian General Assembly to-
 day. The discussion of the reports sub
 mitted by the special committees brought a wider range of debate than any or
 those thus far submitted to the General Assembly. The Freedmen's Committee
 report gave opportunity for the colored commissioners to be heard and there were ringing speeches from these reports of the South.
 The report of the Freedmen's Commit tee was read by pr. c. P. Chesseman. Chairman
 pr. Chesseman in commenting upon the report said:
 There has come before this assembly this year a problem demanding our in terest and requiring our best thought . the present condition of the freedmte
 Who sold the black man into slavery bup the whites? This is history. and as q result, we have a moral responsibility to meet. This race is here to stay. They have a right to stay. We gave them their freedom. We must give them edu- cation. Now I want to say that we must resolve to rut $3O00OO to this end. We ought to have a million, but what is the use of resolving if we do not act? It is our duty. Something is wrong when the richest churches in the land give a mere, pittance to this work while they give larger sume to other objects.'
 pr. E. P. Cowan, Secretary of the Board of Freemen, said:
 There are in this land of ours more than 100000 freedmen. A noted English man wrote book some time ago in which he demonstrated to his own satisfaction that he negro in America was bound to disappear. On the contrary, the negroes have increased from IS to 8 per cent They are thus here to stay and will stay in the States in which they were born.
 "They will not emigrate largely and they not only have doubled in numbers in the last forty years but they have quadrupled in influence. So many have become educated that they have added to the social status of the mass of uned- uacated. These will learn something Is it not better that they would learn the finer things of life instead of slaling their thirst for education In the muddy streams of superstition and vice?"
 Half a dozen Or more of the colored commissioners were given five minutes in which to urge Ale church to lend its aid in the education of the colored people of the South, arguing that education was the only solution of the race problem that now confronted this government.
 ''In 1866" said one colored brother. 'there were four millions of us; now there are ten millions. You have to ed- ucate us as a matter of self protection"
 The report of the committee was finally adopted.
 Dr. James Yereance of New York of the Committee on Sabbath Observance, offered a resolution on the subject of Sum day travel by commissioners and precipi- | tated lively debate from those commis- | sioners who had been obliged to travel on Sunday on their way to the assembly because, as they declared, the railroad had failed to keep their contracts. Com missioner Yereance also introduced a res- olution expressing the assembly's pro- found regret that the managers of the St. Louis Exposition had seen fit to per- ,, init Sunday work on the exposition buiId- ings.
 The resolutions were adopted