The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-08-30
IS THE SOUTHERNER
HIMSELF TOBLAME2
Does Qualification of Booker
Bear Such Fruit?
NEW VIEW OF The MATTER
The Negro Moses May Lead His People Into a
New Land but its Milk Will b. Red
and is Honey Taste Of

To the Editor:-Your brave and manly
editorial on the dining OF Booker Wash
commentator of all thoughtful citizens
The excuse given by the hotel keeper is
as asinine as it is puerile. 1t is adding
studied insult to premeditated injury
The races are practically placed on an
equality when he asserts that the color
that predominates gets the dining room.
Last summer 1 was returning from At
lanta, and our train met at Hamlet the
southbound train carrying probably two
hundred negroes to negro convention
at Atlanta. Most of them rushed Tor
the dining room, but they were sent
around to a side room where breakfast
was prepared for them. There vas much
grumbling and several refused to eat
elsewhere than in the regular dining
room. But today the tables are changed
and why? Because papers conducted by
the white men of the South report every
act of the great Booker Washington, and
the chance for an advertisement was too
good to be lost.
| believe and have long believed that
the sober second thought of our time
and generation will affix OF Booker Wash
ington the stigma of being the greatest
and most appalling curse that ever be-
fell the negro or any other race.
The stupendous injury he is doing to-
day by implanting in the hearts OF thou
sands of his race, the seeds of an ambi-
10 tn
estimated. Behind and beyond his gilt
tering generalities, and meaningless plati-
tudes on industrial advancement, his fell
low negroes see the man himself. See
him saying to them, Hope on, hope
ever; where l have eaten you may eat
where l have been feted you may be, and
the exalted position l now hold is yours
II you have but the courage to grasp it,
And he winked the other eye.
Mr.. Editor, 1 have no reputation as a
political economist or sociologst, and
having none have therefore none to lose
So l venture the further assertion that
the most potent factor In all this unfor
tunate race agitation today is the South
err man himself.
You truly say ''the man who does any
thing to make the color line less cleal
and distinct, consciously or unconsciously
is an enemy to Southern civilization.
Well, that is just what the leading men
of the South have been doing for years
in placing Booker Washington on the
exalted pinnacle he now occupies: that i.
what boards of trade have been doing
In welcoming him with open arms; anC
that is what men singly and collectively
have been doing in hailing and acclaim
ing him as a new Moses who would leo
his people in new land of milk anC
honey. There is no doubt the land vii
be new, but the milk Will be red anC
the honey like unto gall.
But if the present appreciation ant
congratulation of the Southern man con
tinues, who will dare set his metes anC
bounds?
The question of the ultimate disposition
OF the negro race can now be justly called
problem, for it IS national in its scope
For its solution there are now as many
theories as the now famed leaves oil
Vallambrosa. But to my mind aftel
education and all the other forces fol
good now potent in the civilization o
today have been tried in vain, two meth
DDS, and only two will be found of any
avail, emasculation and segregation.
BY the former procedure on the guilty
party we would, l believe. Danish for
ever from our records the nameless crime
Its perpetrators would go forth with a
mark more miserable than that of Cain
They would be as ingalls, characterized
the mugwumps, beings abhorred by wo-
men and despised by men, They would
In truth be a column of contumely by
day, pillar of reproach by night. But
this Is but minor view of the subject In
its most comprehensive sense, it means
taking from the degraded of both sexes
the power to proereate their kind. II
means that we have within our power
by lawful means, a method that vii
abort the spawn of confirmed criminals
and the degenerate of both sexes. It is
a subject worthy our most earnest con
sideration 1t would be but logica
sequence of that law higher than al
other laws-the law of preservation
That the Southerner is better friend o.
the negro than the Northerner has beer
told over and over again. and it is true
But how much of this friendship is based
on the negro as we know him today, anC
how much does the memory of the fidel
our dealings with his descendants?
Introspect, calmly and deliberately, and
can you find a single virtue of the faith
fui old servitor transmitted to the negro
of today? Would you trust MIN with
your family and your property as OF
yore?
DR.. Paul Barringer Il think that is the
name) a member of the faculty of the
University of Virginia. in a recent article
claimed that the negro is retrograding
into savagery. If this is true. and many
believe it, what does the future hold. and
what is expected from US? For Roosevelt
and his ilk. we have no word of cen
sure; they know no better. He talks of
his Southern ancestry yet he is as igno-
rant OF Southern conditions as if he had
heen born In Kamskatka. The solution