The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-04-19
LESSONS TAUGHT BY THE SOUTHERN AND GEN
ERAL EDUCATIONAL BOARDS.

her scant credit. She has given him
schools that the North has refused him
and done many other things towards his
future that the North never thought Of"
Quoting a remark by Henry Ward
Beecher, to the effect that we should
make the negro worthy first and then
give him suffrage" DR.. Abbott said:
I'VE made the mistake of giving him
suffrage first and the unfortunate negro
has had to suffer ever since. What the
negro wants is education. 1t all depends
uron education whether the negro will be
shaekle to our feet or wings to our
body"
g. Only last week an attempt was made
in the Union League to commit that old
time Republican club to the aid Of certain
agitators who are trying to overturn the
limited suffrage constitutional amend
ments. Some of the ablest and most
influential members of the club were
earnestly in favor Of Joining hands
in this sectional fight on the South.
After the debate had gone on for
some time, Mr.. Robert c. Ogden,
tion Board, made a short speech which
killed the proposition. He told the mem
bers of the League that he was IN a
position to know much OF Southern SEN
timent and of what the South was doing.
He urged the club to leave this matter
to the Southern people and told them that
good. They listened to Mr., Ogden's wise
counsel and dropped the matter. If Mr..
and mingled with representative South
ern men, he would not have been able to
save the Union League from a bunder
equal to a crime. In fact, but for the
education Mr.. Ogden has received through
his efforts to advance education he would
have been as ignorant of true conditions
in the South as the men who advocated
joining hands with the political agita-
tor to destroy the purified suffrage of
the South.
4. The press is learning-all except the
hide bound rural New York Republican
press. The New York Herald's editorials
Upon the appointment OF Crum and Cleve-
lands speech show that that great news
paper has studied the Southern question
with good results. 1t Is not given TO
long editorials or to attempting to make
public sentiment except upon matters it
regards as of great moment. In its crit
icism of the Crum appointment it mani
tested breadth and knowledge that are
obtained only by long study and true
appreciation of all phases of Southern
conditions. 1t Is wise in It's treatment
of Mr.. Cleveland's speech. We quote q
portion Of the editorial:
'Mr. Cleveland in effect holds that it is
a condition, not a theory, which imme-
diately confronts u.s. and confined himself
to the immediate phase OF the situation.
Mr.. James Bryce, in his lecture on 1.-The
Relations Of the Advanced and Backward
Races of Mankind" speaks of "the tre-
mendous problem" presented in the
Southern States, suggests that similar
ones will arise in South Africa and the
Philippines and inquiries what should be
the duty and the policy of a dominant
race where it cannot fuse with back
ward race. Careful readers are unable
to discover that he presents any final
solution of the problem or that his sug-
gestions are calculated to meet anything
more than the immediate difficulties pre-
scented. In like manner Mr.. Cleveland
says:
1--WE are not brought to the point
Of doing or overlooking evil that good
may come when we proceed upon the
theory that, before reaching the stage
where we may be directly and prac-
tically confronted with the question
of the negro's full enjoyment of civic
advantages, or even OF all his polit-
ical advantages, there are imme-
dately before us and around us ques-
lions demanding our immediate care,
and that, in dealing effectively with
these, we can confidently rely upon
the encoura cement and assistance OF
every thoughtful and patriotic citizen
of the land-wherever he may live and
whatever may be his ideas or predi-
lections concerning the more remote
phases of the negro problem"
There is the right ring, too, in the dec
VI Lyman ADDOII JndC IL Is
national problem, not a sectional one,
that the North and the South combined
to bring the negro here, and that we must
not go into the South in holier-than-
thou spirit. Neither force nor phari- |
seeism ever converted a race" said Dr..
Abbott. Suffrage must wait for eduCa-
Generalization is primary, political
rights are secondary. We have tried the
experiment Of giving to the negro suf-
frage first and education afterward, and |
bitterly has the country suffered from |
our blunder" 1t is well enough to re-
member that when South Carolina IN |
1889 prohibited the importation OF slaves |
from Africa, they were imported by New
York and shipped South as American |
slaves, and that when the climate and |
not the superior humanity, of the North |
ern States banished the slaves. they were |
not freed, but sold to the South. There |
need be no phariseeism in dealing with |
the present stage of the problem"
The chief object OF the Education |
Boards is not to give money, though in |
TrrY9I Ill plettr-