The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1903-05-22
William Sadly Bemoans the
W Loss Of His GrindstOne.
BRINGS IN RACE PROBLEM
What Cleveland Would Have said Had
He Been an Old Citizen Of the
south-Tlred Of Hearing
About shaekles and
Slavery.

my rake and my axe? Did anybody
ever hear Of a negro stealing a grind
stone7 He stole It to sell. OF else he
thought II was a cheese. I'll bet there
arc twenty negroes in sight Of my
ouse who know all about that grind
stone, but they won't tell. That is a
race tralt-not to tell on one another.
Who steals my young pigeons before
we get up In the morning? We haven't
had a squad to eat In three months.
Mr.. Cleveland made a good speech
in New York on the race problem, and
so did Mr.. Parkhurst, but you cant
make a good citizen out Of a negro
Nithout he has a master or a boss on
whom he has to depend My opinion,
from observation, is that Tuskegee
can't do 1t, nor any other school. The
more education the loss inclination 20
work for a living. Where are the Tus-
kegee graduates? Just Laying around
or teaching school. l read in yester-
days paper where a negro school
teacher was caught in having made d
fake list Of his scholars and drew
Rmore money than he was entitled to.
= But neither Cleveland nor Parkhurst,
= nor any other northern man knows
enough about the negro to talk intelli-
gently about him. Nor does this gen.
Grafton of southern men know much
more. Nobody knows now but the
few old men who are left. Our editors
and newspaper men do not know. They
are all too young and most of them
come from stock that did not own ne
gSJes in the old slavery times. l do
)t assert this through conceit, but it
aims and astonishes me to hear north
ern speakers and some editors from
the south saying that since the negro
was set free he has made wonderful
progress. considering that for a thou
sand years he had been either a savage
or a slave. Mr.. Cleveland said there
is still a grieYous amount Of igno-
rance, a sad amount Of viciousness and
n a tremendous amount of laziness and
thriftlessness intermingled with their
authorship"
II Mr.. Cleveland had been an old cit
izen of the south he would have said:
Before freedom came the negro
was docile, moral, Industrious, and as
intelligent as thousands of the unedu.
Gated white people Of the south. Not
an outrage was committed by them
DURING the war from the Potomac TO
thb Rio Grande. There was not a con-
Wet camp nor a changing in all the
south. The marriage relation was
faithfully observed, and negro families
were contented and happy, for most of
them had kind masters and mistresses,
who would get up in the night and
minister to their sick. Bad negroes
bFd to be punished, of course, and so
al bad white children, but it seldom
had to be done. Talk about the
shackles and the chains Of slavery. 1t
Is all rot and imagination. Our chill
dren have a master until they are 81.
The negro had one all his life, and, as
DR.. Parkhurst said most Of them need.
one, and need one now, and 10 dc
(usands of white people. The fact
l. Where are but few people who have
not got one. l do not admit that
nave, but have a mistress, and that
is the same thing There is not a
clerk in store whether male or fe.
male, but is under the control Of some
body; not a conductor on a railroad
nor a sailor on ship, nor pupil in
the schools, nor a policeman in the
towns. Nins-tenths of the people in
cMilized countries are subordinate &c
Thea other tenth, and it looks like every
bog in these United States belong tC
Teddy Roosevelt, save a few besides
myself and some Mississippi bears.
The old-time slaves got a good, fail
education from contact with their mas
terra and their masters children, anC
thaY is where they had the advantage
Of the poor whites Most all of the
family servants could read, notwith
standing there was law forbiddlng
their being taught. Shackles and
chains! Where is my grindstone, and
my rgke and my axe? The negro, es
peS'4lly those of the copper coloret
tyne q don't mean mulattoes) are
natural born mechanics. We had in
Georgia more negto carpenters, black
smiths and shoemakers than there
were whites of the same trade. These
kind of mechanics are all over tht
state now, but they didn't come from