The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-04-24
SOUTH PROPOSES FEuDAL1sM.

A Deliberate Attempt to Foist Social System on the Nation.
 The position taken is not only that the inferiority of the negro shall be irl- sisted on, but that there shall be no recognition of those negroes who escape the fatality and become intellectually and morally equipped for citizenship. Not only shall the negro be debarred from any recognition of his manhood by the South itself, but in his case merit and manhood shall not be recognized by others. He must not only hold no state office; he must be debarred from federal otiice-totally, and forever The presi- dent of the United States must sym pathize with and, participate in these prejudices, and the whole people must acquiesce. The North must aid in sup pressing every ambition of black man to rise above menial position.
 At this point the problem ceases to be local and southern; it is national ized. We are forbidden to treat an in telligent, decent, educated black man as we would treat an intelligent. de- cent, educated. white manor even as NCl op WE Woulu tllEdL d uLioly uC~ bauched white man. The negro must remain menial, although our equal in all those respects which constitute manhood and intelligent citizenship. Bluntly we tell our southern brothers that we will not be parties to any such arrangement. It is to renew, in anoth- CT form, the demands made in slavery times, that we engage in negro chasing.
 In other words. we find a system of feudalism about to be fastened upon the nation, instead of slavery--a social principle but one degree ahead of hu- man bondage. In fact, in some rer spects this feudalism is worse than slavery: for the latter brought the two races together in such way as to ameliorate the condition of the inferior
 Feudalism, on the contrary, simply subjects the vast mass of the working population and keeps them in a perpet- ual class to which betterment is forbid den. Meanwhile the superior race, the dominating lords, accustom themselves to manners and to logic that unfit them for cooperation in a federal republic
 Precisely what is to come of this negro problem we do not undertake to fore cast; but this is one thing we are fully assured of, that the negro must be giv- en the rights of common humanity, the right to better himself, socially and economically. The wise men of the south, the nobler element, must take hold sof this question with determina- ton. %".
 With the establishment of great feudal system and the perpetuation of an incubus of ignorance and brute force every citizen has something to do. The future of America must be given, not to backward looking, but to forward looking; not to the revival of medieval social conditions, but to those larger conditions signified by the gol- den rule. We do not intend to create as a fixed social factor menial class, north or south, or to perpetuate con- dition of compulsory poverty and hate. The negro question will have to be set tied on this basis. Let the southern people exercise humanity and put into practice the common principles of so- cial economy. They must get along with the negro; they cannot get on with brutalized and impoverished ne- gro. They must open the road of bet torment to every man. black or white, who will become fitted for advance. ment and repute. The real problem is always, not whether" any one is our equal, but whether we ourselves are equal to the task of enlightened altru- ism and Christian civilization.-Inde nendent