The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1903-09-16
THE RACE PROBLEM.
SOME INTERESTING VIEWS EXPRESSED
BY MAJOR WASH GIBBS.
Time and Conservatism Required Z
Work Out the Problem.

Major w. D. Gibbs, of Yazoo
county, who was on . visit TO
Texas, wrote a letter to the editor
of the Yazoo City Evening News,
between the first and second State
primaries, from which the follow
ing extracts are copied. Though
the campaign is over they contain
much food for thought: @
OF course Vardaman is Q Demo-
crat. All white men in Missis-
sippi, who are not Republicans are
Democrats if they vote the ticket;
but when l read his views and con-
trast them with those of Lamar,
George, WalthalI, Barksdale and
those who followed them and es-
tablished the white line when Var
daman was too young to lead, !
am reminded of circumstance
r Q late d in Baldwin's Flush
Times,'
There was once quite an arbi-
trary Judge presiding oyer the
court in Jasper county, Miss, and
he brooked no contradiction.
Upon one occasion Joe Heyfron-
a bright Irish lawyer was arguing
case and after a ruling against
him he arose to read from book.
The Judge ordered him to sit down
and reprimanded him for impugn-
ing his decision. Heyfron replied:
"Far be it from me to impugn the
decision of Your Honor, [ only
wanted to show Your Honor chow
profoundly ignorant Sir William
Blackstone was on the subject.
If Vardaman's panacea is a cure
for the race issue, or even an an
odyne, then the men who estab-
Iished white supremacy and have
made it stick and whose policy will
make it stick for all time, even if
the negroes should learn Greek
and Latin, we're and are PRO
foundry ignorant of the needs
and sentiments of the people of the
State of Mississippi, and of the
principles of Democracy. Every
body knows there is and has been
for over 200 years race issue,
in some stage of development in
the South. The presence Of the
negro made it. Jefferson, Clay
and other statesmen saw it, but
could not avoid it or remove it.
Major Vardaman can hardly sue
coed where they failed. Sticking
it with pins won't help things.
1t is the white line = united
white line-that is oul salvation,
politically in Mississippi. The
two dollar poll tax and other
clauses in the constitution only
make matters little easier. The
negro race is quiet and well dis
remarkably so-consider-
ing its centuries of enslavement
and it's backing by the dominant
section-cases of individual crimes
should not be charged to the race.
The present state of good feeling
should not be impaired for politi-
cal ambitions and when a mans
friends say he is a better friend of
the whites than another because
he ''cusses" the negro the most,
they excite derision.
The cotton made by the negro,
our-fifths of the crop in Missis-
sippi, pays four-fifths of the tax
alton, and negro labor pays taxes
for negro schools and part of the
white schools, too. Labor always
pays all of the taxes practically,
though not nominally. When the
white people of Mississippi are
willing for the negro to vote he
will do so, and his financial and
literary requirements cut 70
figure.
| hope Yazoe will take its usual
sensible position. The county has
never asked Governors, Radical or
Democratic, to settle it's race ques-
tions for it and it has always
favored liberal policy towards
| the negroes (outside of suffrapel
in accordance with the best tradi-
tons of.the "Old South. It has
never made war on the ''pot hooks
and spelling books of the plea
ninnies. 1t is not what Vardaman
or Critz, could or could not do,
but it is a question of going back
on the past record of the party in
the state - and disturbing the
minds of the negroes to whom we
have claimed to be friends, but to
whom Vardaman's avowed policy
is distinctly inimical and irritating
and without justification, under
present circumstances.
It will take the law, time, our
grandchildren, and the whole
people Of the United States to set
tie the race question, and it can
only be settled by the gradual
separation of the races and the Ill
innate. removal of the negroes on
their own impulse to South and
| Gantro Y,onYina ondsW oct MAY.