New-York tribune., 1903-06-30
cent Of its population. a relative increase in

|
| hut since emancipation he has been steadily
] nooving southwark, gradually segregat1ng hirn-
/ self into the lower Atlantic and Gun states
| South Carolina Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mis-
eiSeinn and Louisiana. In many counties of
| these states blacks outnumber whites three to
ono in many others two to one, while through
out the six xRtates, taken whole, negroes to-
| dav exceed the whites. In the states, however
| bordering these to the north and west WHITES
| have increased since the Rebellion l4O per cent
! while negroes have increased only so per cent
| Taking then, the six Atlantic and Gulf States
| we have 250.0o square miles of compact and
uniform territory, bounded on the east by the
Atlantic on the north by the thrty-fifth parallel
running straight through to the Mississippi, on
/ the west by Texas, and on the south by the
| Gulf In all that lard there is only city
| larger than Albany, only two larger than Utica.
! 1t is an AGRICULTURAL land, land of cotton and
sugarcane, land that has more negroes than all
| whites land that has more negroes than all
the rest of the United States, a land that the
negro has already possessed, that he will never
abandon. and that will always remain his per-
manent home in America.
Thus on the Atlantic and Gulf States pri-
mariy, and next on the other States of the old
South, will forever rest the State solution of the
negro problem. New York is excluded It has
no negro problem. 1t has no duties to perform.
Nor is there negro problem anywhere in the
East North West Their States have no
more to do with it than with the internal af-
fairs of Persia or Yucatan
NO NEGRO PROBLEM IN THE NORTH.
60 Such being the powers of the States and
such the States that alone can exercise them,
how have they discharged their duties? Con-
corning civil and social rights, I maintain they
have performed their full duty. Within their
borders mobs and individuals have perpetrated
gross outrages against negro citizens but none
more CHASTITY horrible than those Of Illinois
and Ohio. And the States of the West are
not primarily responsible, no more are the States
OF the South.
Concerning political rights. it is urged that
under the new constitutions the South is dis
franchsing the negro and excluding him from
office. If under the same constitution whites in
any State can vote and negroes equally quail
ified cannot, that, admit, is political wrong,
and for it there is no justification. / condone no
crime on suffrage. 1 Justify political fraud
whether perpetrated in New Orleans or Rich
mond, any more than in New York or San Fran
cisco. But "he that IS without sin among you
let him first cast a stone and they
which heard it, being convicted by their own
conscience. went out one by one" Does II lie
with the Empire State so often bowed down
with shame for the corruption of its great cities
TO cast the first stone? Can Philadelphia or Chi
cago show clean hands when they go before the
bar of public opinion TO indct the South for po-
litical crimes and misdemeanors? plead for
even handed justice. Would you indict twenty
million people for the crimes of a few? Would
you find a bill against fifteen States be
cause some may have unconstitutional pro-
visions? And by whose authority do you say
they are illegal? So far, every decision of the
Supreme Court has sustained them! By whose
warrant do you declare that the South is
illegally disfranchising the negro? am of
opinion that property and educational quail
ications in all their constitutions will be de-
clared valid while the grandfather clause Will
be pronounced void. But there is yet no such
decision. Suspend judgment l pray you, until
the Supreme Court shall have passed upon these
momentous problems and shall have decided
them. it will, with equal and impartial JUS
tice.
DEPLORABLE CONDITION OF THE NEGRO.
a. The States having exercised all these
powers and duties. what. you ask. remains of the
negro problem? Nothing, you say. Substan-
tally everything, 1 reply; and for the reason
that the protection of such rights is not the
vital factor in its solution Behold an anomalous
and Tha at m
chises millions of negroes, makes them citizens,
thrusts them upon the State, and yet four
million Of them are to-day so densely ignorant.
so criminally vicious, so indescribaby poor and
thriftless. that they neither comprehend their
rights nor have the capacity TO exercise or en-
JOY them. Listen TO the late secretary of the
Peabody Fund. true friend as the negro ever
had: Much has been done for the negro, and
yet a large proportion are as poor as ignorant,
as thriftlesss inProvidentt unfit for
sponsibilities and privileges Of citizenship and
suffrage. as were their ancestors at the close of
the great war. With preponderant majority
there is low level OF intelligence and morality
and under the influence of the grcssest super
stition.'
There IS your negro problem. For forty years
much has been DONE" as Dr. Curry admits, yet
there is your problem still: and it has only one
possible solution. Recreate that fostering mass
of humanity; transform it into men. What con-
stftutes a State? Not laws alone nor mere pro-
lection Of rights It is men, high minded men,
with powers as far above dull brutes endued
as beasts excel cold rocks and brambles
rude; who their duties know but know
their rights and knowing dare maintain. These
constitute a State" Let the States make the
negro into such men and the negro problem Will
disappear. But to-day he is q Frankenstein the
terror of fifteen commemorative. and if you do
not recreate him. mark my words, your Frank
ensteln will some day turn and rend not fifteen
States but the nation!
With blacks exceeding whites three to one in
many Atlantic and Gulf counties, two to in
many more. and outnumbering the whites in the
six States as a whole, why must not those States
speedily face the inquiry what will the blacks
do with them? "A spider in his natural size is
only spider said Edmund Burke. ugly and
loathsome, and his f1lmy net is only fit for tch-
Ing flies. But suppose a spider large s an
OK and that he spread cables about u.s. all the
wilds of Africa would not produce anything so
dreadful. You say no colored race has faced
the Anglo Saxon and lived and the Southern
whites the purest Anglo -SaXons in the Re
public; but remember this. never before has any
coored race faced Anglo-SaXons not only equal
in numbers but equal in rights and under a
sovereign government that has guaranteed and
is able and bound TO enforce, such rights. What,
l ask will the illiterate blacks do with the At
lantic and Gulf States? There is your spider
already grown large an OK. Beware lest he
spread cables about you. All the wilds of Africa
would not produce anything SO dreadful! There,
I repeat is your negro problem, and there is
only one relief from the appalling situation. The
negro is q citizen. Elevate him to the full
standard of American citizenship. And there is
only one possible means, education. Educated
citizens, these constitute a State; educated in
intelligence. industry, morals and religion And
how thus to educate the negro-that in its last
analysis is the negro problem.
SOUTH POOR AND NEGROES DESTITUTE.
(5) Can the Atlantic and Gulf States
aided educate the negro? 1 answer emphat-
ically. no. Can all the slave States do so?
OF opinion they cannot In this ultimate
analysis II is solely a question Of the financial
resources of the States affected, and with the
rich and powerful conmonwealths Of the Union
eliminated, the resources of the remaining
States. I maintain, entirely Inadequate In
1890. when the last available data COM
piled, the real and personal property of the fif-
teen old slave States was S13, $3.50 517 81, Of