Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-03-02
Distributing the Negroes.

| ~ S'o liOoiSih toCidtoi ut-
clared. THE only solution Of this prob
lem. my friends, is for your people OF
the North to take your share of these
niggers il you love them well enough"
That sounds like an equitable solution
and an easy thing to do. but there are
reasons to believe that the negro prob
lem will never be solved that way. AS
the negro population is now divided,
the old slave states have about 100000
negroes while the North and West have
| about 100000 of them. If the negroes
were redistributed, giving each state
| its proportional share, there would be
the biggest moving day that the world
has ever seen. Some northern states
would have half a million people added
to their population, and some of the
states of the South would have their
present population cut down by half.
Perhaps Senator Tillman would not
like to see this done, since it would so
largely decrease the power of his sec
ton in the electoral college and in
Congress, and correspondingly increase
the influence of other sections.
But the negro problem, we repeat, is
not likely to be solved that way, even
providing such distribution would
prove solution. There is no sign
that the North and South want their
full quota Of colored people bad enough
to send for them, and there is no sign
that the negroes, in any considerable
numbers. desire to leave the states
where they are now most numerous.
Individually and in small groups the
negroes will probably continue to come
to the North and West, as they have
done ever since they were given free
dom, but such a movement will never
distribute them equally. If the negroes
do not like the South they are free to
boon they did not have before the
Civil War. The South denies them
suffrage and compels a social separa-
ton of the races. In the North they
have the ballot. but the social lines are
still sharply marked, and their field
of labor s more restricted there than in
the South. The negro who would sue
coed in the North is doubtless sure of
success in the South and is welcome to
~, 1,rl,;l
lazy and worthless in the South would
be only tramp or criminal in the
North The negro likes the climate of
the South better. and social oppres-
sion bears less heavily upon him when
he is with his fellows.
1t was thought that after tine war
there would be a great exodus of ne
groes to Africa. but it has never oc-
Cured. The idea of a negro state has
been advanced and promptly dropped.
But either an exodus to Africa or a
negro state is just as practical and
probable as distribution, forced or
voluntary, of the negro population over
the whole country. The great masses
of the negroes will remain in the south
east part CT the~country. The race can
never be wholly assimulated and it is
not likely that it will ever get the full
rights which the constitution guaran-
tees it. 1t is a problem which the |
South must solve, and much of the |
well-meant advice which it gets in the |
matter is a hindrance rather than a |
help in the solution. One gratifying |
thing is to be noted. Twenty years |
ago there was quite commotion |
among sociologists over the rapidity of |
the increase of colored population, be-
tween the count of 1870 and of 1880. 1t |
was feared that the negro was out |
populating the white element, and'l
that in time the whole South would |
become Africanized. Subsequent CEN
suses have quoted this alarm