The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-02-20
THE CRAZY vrRa1N1AN.

The grand old Commonwealth of Vir- ginia is to be congratulated on the fact that it is no longer the home of John s. Wise. When. twenty years ago, he joined the Republican Party, It was a good rid dance for Democracy, and when he re- moved to New York 1t was a good rid dance to Virginia. His speech in Bos- ton on the occasion of Lincoln's birth day was almost plain invitation to race war, whether he so intended 1t or not, and if such a war should come it would large- ly be due to such men as Wise and the negro. Hayes, who is a close competitor. No wonder the Virginia papers are re- joicing that he Is no longer a resident of that State.
 In striking contrast to the almost in- sane vaporings of Wise are the words of another former Virginian. Judge Roger A. Pryor, now of New York. In a recent letter to The New York Sun he declares that. since nowhere in tho world, not even in the abolition States of the North, mas the negro. though armed with suf- frage, so much as approached political and physical equality with the white man. is not racial inferiority, morally and intellectually. the cause of this uni versal and irreparable degradation" and addsi
 Today in the South the negro Is pro- tected in the enjoyment of every Ina tural right" which he has not forfeited by crime. and he will continue to be so protected until the madness of his pseudo friends precipitates a conflict which can end only in his destruction.
 These are words of truth and sober ness, and 1t would be we'll if the Wises and Hayes, white and black, would take them to heart and act on them. If the negroes in the South lose any of the rights or privileges for which they are fitted and to which they are by nature entitled, 1t will all be due to intemperate speakers, writers and agitators of both races especially the white people in sec tons of the country where they have no real knowledge of the conditions exist ing in the South.
 And while on this subject we call atten- tion to recent utterance by a thoroughly sensible aod level-headed negro, J. P. Dickerson, editor of The Norfolk (Va.) News and Advertiser, who proposes, if possible, to put a copy of his paper into the hands of every negro in the country ject of white supremacy, he says:
 By virtue of numbers and intelligence. and the work of the centuries. public opinion in America Is white in complex lon, and Caucasian by instinct and tra- dition, and its social and commercial, and battle lines, are stiffened by the greatest breed that ever drew the breath of life the Angio-Sax This is the public opinion against which some of the negro leaders and newspapers advocate oppo- sttion. We feel that they are only storing up confusion for themselves and humilia- tion for their race.
 What a striking contrast between these words and the dangerous ebullitions of Wise. Hayes and others! Facts are stubborn things says Le Sage, and the man who undertakes to change the order of nature and to reverse the sentiment and habit of ages must come to grief in the end. And we cannot better conclude this article than by another quotation from the Virginia editor when he declares that the negro has not come down from any ancient or lofty estate among the races of mankind, but partly through his own efforts, and more especially through the help of Anglo-saxon civilization, he has attained the blessings wherewith he is now endowed, which consideration should indeed give him pause when he aspires to the places and the things for which he Is not fitted"