The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-04-10
You Cannot Solve 1t by
Political Agitation.
Continued from Page one.)

Continued from Page One.)
a. the Solid South. 1t is, let me entrcat
YOU TO believe, a specious justification.
# is the fault of the Republican party,
not OF the white people of the Southern
States. that the South is solidly Demo-
cratic. From the death of Lincoln to the
advent of Mckinley, the Republican
party, threw out no friendly signal TO
the whites of the South, made no effort
to establish itself in the South an any
sound, enduring basis. 1t was known
to the South only through its Recon
stTuction measures, mainly repressive and
hostile and it's hostile, and its local
agents. generally extreme, too often un-
clean, employing the negro vote as a
simple asset in Congress, in Republican
national conventions, and in the field of
the Federal patronage. In most of the
Southern States there seemed deliberate
plan to trim the Republican minority
among the whites down to the point of
just about filling the Federal offices pre-
cisely as in the old ante -deluvian days
of pristine Democracy and under the
lead of that past grandmother of politi-
al NH+tdHts ttH. DtuIdIuli It" butltl
the Democratic party of New England
was trimmed and regulated. No thought
was given the predictions, the pre-
JUDGES, the interests of the great body
of the while population. 1t was years
after the war before such men as Mere
dith Gentry were permitted to vote,
whilst their former slaves were march
ed in droyes to the balIot-box by politi-
cal adventurers sure to misgoVern when
Entrusted with power. Even these things
might have passed out OF mind except
that, whenever the chance has arisen, |
the old agitation has been revived by !
the menace of Force bills to regulate |
elections by Federal statute, and meas |
ures to reduce the Southern represen- |
tation in Congress; all. under the shadow |
by reason of the shadow-cast by the |
unconsenting, unoffending black man |
athwart the whole track OF American |
politics from Maine to Texas This |
brings me to the only apparent cause |
of present disturbance-the bee in our
bonnet-the fly in our ointment-the |
everlasting, ever-present negro ques-
ton
THE BLACK PROBLEM.
| grew up to regard the institution of
African slavery as monstrous evil |
With gray jacket on my back | abated |
no part of my adherence of it. The war |
over, | fully realized that the negro |
could not be suspended, like Mahomet's |
coffin in the neither air, neither fish, |
flesh nor fowl; that he must be made |
freeman in fact, as he was in name; that |
he must be habilitated to his new be- |
longings, and | promptly accepted the |
three last amendments to the Constitu- |
tion as the treaty of peace between the |
North and the South and went to work |
in good faith to help carry them out. l |
fought to remove the old black laws
from the statute book in Kentucky. |
fought the Ku-KIux Khan from start to
finish / fought in all possible ways to
give the black man an opportunity to
achieve The hopes which, in common
with many other of his friends | had
formed of him.
After thirty years Of observation, ex
perience and observation-disclosures directed
from sympathetic point of view am
forced to agree with the Secretary of /
War that negro suffrage is a failure. 1t
is failure because the Southern blacks
are not equal to it 1t is a failure be-
cause the Southern whites will not
have it.
II, making a hot answer to this, some
over-zealous, and, as / must think some
mistaken partisan should say we have
the power, we have the numbers, and
we will compel the whites of the South,
my answer shall be, "you did, and be-
hold what came of it, And then, II
my warm blooded friend should throw
UP his hands in despair and with kind !
of digust turn YEARLY away l should
continue-"may you not have been from
the first upon the wrong track? Is there
not another outlet to these perplexities,
another solution of this problem? After
ell. is not your disquietude based upon
the idea that there are one set of moral |
conditions at the North and another set
at the South. TO which the whole racial
trouble is referable? Believe me, there
is no such difference Remove every |
white Democrat today living in the South
and replace him with a Northern Repub-
lican, and twelve months hence the con
ditions viii be the same may be worse,
since the Northern Republican would not
be likely to have either the patience or
the personal sympathy and knowledge,
possessed by the native Southerner."
THE ONLY SOLUTION.
Gentlemen. l appeal to You as Repub-
licans, and through you l appeal to the
Republicans of the United States. to
have done with the conceit that, unless
you stand by the black man, that, unless
you continue him as an issue in partisan
politics. injustice will be done him. IN
the lettering of his condition, and in the
acquisition Of property, staring with
nothing, he has made wondrous progress
the last five and thirty years; and, re-
latively. greater progress at the South
than at the Nerth. He could not have
done this without the sympathy and CO.
operation of the Southern whites. lie
has made little progress in the arts of !
government either North or South.
because of the agitation which has kept
him in a state of perpetual excitement,
with no healthful public opinion TO