The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-20
WE DO NOT MIND FAIR DISCUS.


 V SION.
 It is a little iengthyi for quotation. but we copy this editorial from The New Bedford Standard:
 Naturally the injunctions to the people of the North 10 keep their hands of the negro problem and to stop their mouths to its discussion increase and multiply. We are told, day by day, that all this understand the question better than anybody else." Granting that they do. as may be a matter of some doubt. 1t Is useless to attempt the stif1ing process. People who are interested in this subject will talk about it. whether they are com petent or not, and no advice to silence has the least chance of being followed. Besides. there Is a far wider reason why the subject is discussed in sections remote from the presence of the tangible problem It is that the day of sectional provinciali- ty Is over. The time has gone by when any State, or county, or village can say to the rest of the country that it's do- nestle affairs are nobody's concern ex- cept its own. This country is not a mere aggregation of isolated communities. It Is a combination of people so interdepen- dent that no community can assume any line of action without affecting in some degree a hundred others. And when the question Is of so great importance as that of the present and future status of the negro. there is no such thing as restrict. ing the debate to any circumscribed locality. We might as well talk about restricting the shining of the sun to the vicinity of Washington, D. C.. The thing Is an impossibility.
 With genuine Yankee conceit The Stan dard is disposed to doubt whether we know any more about the negro question than the Northern people do, which is an admission that we decline to agree to. We will admit that the New Englanders know more about catching cod-hsh, or even whales, than we do down here, but when it comes to Aries sable sons and daughters we insist that we have better knowledge of them than is possible for any one who has not lived amohg them in the Sunny South.
 Now, The Standard must not assume that we of the South have any desire to prevent our New England friends from | talking about the negro, or about any | thing else. We know them too well to imagine or desire that they should be restricted in the use of their somewhat
 amplified vocabularies. What we do | object to is the fact that some Northern l newspapers and speakers and writers dis
 cuss the race question in a way that
 makes 1t infinitely more diffic 1t and en-
 barrassing for those who are most vita:'y | concerned in it. There are a number of | of Northern newspapers which are l thoroughly fair tn their discussion Of all
 racial matters in the South, but there are ! others which are neither fair. honest nor truthful. The comments of the latter are always hurtful. and though we have no right to tell them to abstain from speak | ing of affairs down here we can be ex- cused if we tell all such that they will do we'll to. xhind their own business. We have heretofore had some difficulty in making ourselves understood by the esteemed Standard wnich may be because | of lack of an unlimited capacity for say ing things. but we wish 1t to understand that we of the South do not object to a fair discussion of the race question, but | we do seriously object to the Hills brand of blatherskite ramping.