The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-12-03

be like asking for the resignation of Bas-
sett now" The answer is easy. A man
has a right to his own political views.
The News and Observer believes in tho
right of every man and think and vote
as he pleases. 1t has never criticized a
Trinity or Chapel Hill or Wake Forest
professor for his political views, much
less sought to secure his resignation from
the faculty. Men in all these institutions
in North Carolina favored recommendation
when the predominating sentiment, in
heated campaign, was for bi-metahsm. In
no instance did anybody advocate their
resignation. That would have been a
case parallel to the treatment of E. Ben
jamin Andrews. The News and Observer
would have denounced that course in
North Carolina as it denounced it in
Rhode Island.
President E. Benjamin Andrews held
different view from Rockefeller & Co.,
upon a financial question upon which the
people of the United States were nearly
evenly divided. In an article in the Cos
mopolitan President Roosevelt pointed out
that a large majority of the native born
American population voted for bimetalism
in 1896, and monometalism owed its victory
to the almost solid vote of the foreign
population in the Northwest.
DR.. Bassett's article, warp and wool,
was an indictment of the whole people OF
the South in their attitude toward the
negro. 1t declared that the negro ques-
ton in politics was introduced to give Of
fees to politicians. It's treatment of out
RACES and lynchings was an insult to the
South. 1t said, writing of the relation
between the white and negro population,
that there was no place for caste in the
South, and closed by saying that there
could be no solution of the race conflict
as long as one race insisted upon the
inferiority of the other. If the Southern
people in their attitude toward the negro
have been actuated by the motives attrib-
uted to them by DR.. Bassett, then they
are base and ignoble people. II
Southern leaders, ever since the ballot
was given to the negro, have dragged in
the race question-as charged by Dr. Bas
sett-for nothing but the ignoble purpose
to get offices, then they ought to be
execrated instead of honored. Instead Of
being worthy of monuments, Vance aud
Hampton and George and other men, who
saved the South from the horrors of negro
rule, ought to be dishonored in death.
There wasn't a sentence in DR.. Bassetts
article firm beginning to end that was not
incendiary and dangerous.
Nobody wishes to deny to Dr. Bassett
the right to freedom of speech. The
attempt to prove that Senator Simmons,
Rev. Dr. Ivey, Rev. John N. Cole, Rev.
F. A. Bishop, Col. John F. Bruton, Rev.
A. P. Tyer and Rev. n. M. Jurney, and
the one hundred thousand Methodists who
stand with them, wish to stife free speech
will not deceive any body. They are as
devoted to freedom of speech as those
trustees who voted to encourage license
misnamed liberty.
If Dr. Bassett had written an article
denying the doctrine OF the trinity, the
Methodist church could not retain him.
There are very good, very learned, very
able Unitarians who do not believe in
the divinity of Jesus Christ, but IL a
place To retain them would be to deny
the theology taught by Methodism. Trim
ity College was established by the Meth
odist church, primarily to train teachers
and preachers. 1t grew into a Methodist
college to train young men for usefulness
in life It's mission is to educate North
Carolina boys for life in North Carolina.
OF course it is glad to educate young
men from other States and to train boys
who may go elsewhere to make their
homes, but unless it educates North Caro-
lima boys to work in North Carolina its
mission will not be fulfilled. What ought
a North Carolina college to teacn q
North Carolina boy? Should he be taught
that his father and his people are
race of men guilty of the basest crimes
toward a weaker race, when he knows
that the contrary is true? Should he be
taught that the negro race has produced
a man greater than every man born IN the
South with one exception? Should he be
taught that the negro race is not inferior
to the white race? Should he be taught
that ''the negro will win equality
Should he be taught that the Southern
idea is false and wrong and that the
New England idea is right?
Dr. Bassett's teaching logically leads
to the very evils that the South has ever
stood against and must ever oppose. HIS
doctrine is destructive of the very c!Iad
civilization If he is right, the supremacy
of the white race will soon be overthrow.
His spirit in alien his words incendiary.
&c