The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-16
SENSE AND NoNsrNsr.

Rev. Hills. who has received a great deal of free advertising lately. broke loose again at Providence, R. l., a few days ago, and his address was a singular mixture of absurdity, irreverence and false teaching with an occasional grain of com non sense and good advice mixed Tn. He said:
 Now, when out of 100000 there are found 2 multitude of degenerates. made animals, black fiends, prejudice ascribes animalism to all the black race White men forget that degenerates of white Saxon blood commit in the North the are burned at the stake. Superficial men say the black man cannot take care of himself. Why, for a hundred years, the slaves of the South have taken care of themselves and their masters and mis- tresses. as well, and produced as much additional wealth to make these planters the sons of luxury and leisure and travel. With sorrow we confess that our white race Is only sprinkled with civilization. Scratch the surface of many of our public men and you come to a savage. The simple fact is that we are still colonial and provincial. instead of cosmopolitan and citizens of the universe.
 Now, In the. first place, the assertion that negroes in the South were made degenerates by slavery Is utterly false, and MT. Hills knows it. or he is too ignorant of palpable facts to assume the duties of teacher. Any student of the past could tell him that he negroes of the South are today immeasurably superior to their ancestors who were brought here from Africa, and any man who acquaints himself with facts can tell him that our Southern negroes are an almost infinite degree above the present natives of Africa. The negroes were degenerates before they were brought to America. They are yet degenerates in their native homes. Whatever of ad- vance they have made In recent years, came to them through the money and ef- forts of their former masters to educate them since emancipation. All sensible and we'll informed people know this. if he doesn't.
 Mr. IIillis only tells part of the truth when he alludes to white men at the North who commit the same crimes for which black degenerates are burned at
 
 entirely fair ne would have told his hear CTS that in various sections of the North colored people are maltreated, driven from their homes or lynched by mobs for far less offences than those for which Southern men never pardon a negro. That he didn't see proper to communicate to his Providence audience.
 And MT. Hills is guilty of a false sug gestion when he intimates. as he does | above, that the negroes of the South are entitled to the credit of taking care of the them, as if the white men were children or imbeciles' and the colored men were their guardians. If he had even a super ficial knowledge of the past he would know that the negroes would have starved to death, but for the care and supervisi on of their masters, and If he would study present conditions little he would know that the negroes who can manage their own affairs, even after nearly forty years of freedom. without help from the whites, are exceptions to the general rule. But to show that MT. Hills can talk sense when he will, we take two sentences from his advice to the colored people Let them put the arm and intellect into wood and stone and iron and compass all trades" he tells them. and adds: Let them forswear politics and practice in- dustry, economy and thrift, and let them 1 bes discouraged never.'' That is good advice and 1t is a great pity that he does not indulge in more such sensible talk and not make blathering ass of himself, as he sometimes does.