Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1903-02-20
A CLEAN OF HOPE.

threatens, from time to time. 10
become an element of national
disturbance. The Southern States
are settling, or endeavoriug to
settle it on lines satisfactory 10
themselves, but will their settle
ment bs acceptable to the nation?
In quite all the former slave
holding states the fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments to the con-
stltution have been studiously
circumvented, and the negro has
been disenfranchised by laws
skillfully and especially devised
for that purpose. He is given
to understand he must submit to
this, or the rope, the bludgeon,
the shotgun will destroy him.
He is thus absolutely shut out
from all participation in the gov
ernment and denied a voice in
framing the laws under which he
must live, or of indicating his
preference for men who shall
frame and enact such laws. In
his own country, on his native
heath, he is but an alien deni-
zen.
This is bad enough, and full
OF injustice, but it might be pa
tiently borne, as it doubtless
would be, not only by the negro
himself, but by the people OF the
North.
While the laws give his life
and property scant protection and
afford him little encouragement
to put forth efforts for his own
betterment, yet deeper wrongs
are inflicted upon him.
There is no question that the
negro, especially in the cotton
growing states, is being ruthless
ly, mercilessly forced into an in
dustrial condition little if any
different from that of absolute
peonage. Industrial equality with
the whites is as far beyond his
reach as either political or social
equality. He is an unrequited
menial whom every white man
may wrong and Cypress. He
finds no legal redress, no public
sentiment to which he may ap-
peal for aid or even sympathy.
His condition is hopeless.
We may speculate upon the
ultimate consequences of this
treatment, not only as they effect
the negro, but the white man as
WE'LL,
Driven to desperation, he may
revolt and rise in insurrection.
He will not do this, assuredly
not by general and simultaneous
action. He may turn upon his
oppressors in some localities, but
it he should he would be quickly
destroyed. AS a race, the negro
is too ignorant, too timid, too
weak, to wage a prolonged and
bitter fight for any purpose.
Individually he will be paup-
erized or become criminal. But
the whites cannot endure this,
for it would become too burden
some upon them to support large
numbers Of paupers and to ap.
prehend and exterminate equal
numbers of desperate criminals.
This consideration may change
or modify the treatment of the
negroes, but it will come tardily, |
for the moral sentiment of the
best men of the South is blunted |
and that Of the masses consumed
by the fires of a most bitter race
hatred. So long as this spirit of
hatred dominates the South the
negro will find no redress for his
wrongs, 10 ame1ioration of his
condition.
We have ever held that negro
suffrage was wrong-a wrong to
both races. We believed the
southern whites best understood
the negro, and that his treatment
might be safely left to them. We
yet believe it should have been.
The southern people are generous
and humane, but easily aroused
to vindictive feeling and action.
We of the North hoped the
negro would be accorded equal
Ity before the law and industrial
freedom, as with us. We are
disappointed. We have expect
ed too much, both of the whites
and the negro. For more than
:wo centuries the former had re-
yarded the latter as menials, as
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