Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1903-08-13

Ias i have become convinced, that the
granting of suffrage to the negros
Immediately after the war was hor-
rible blunder.
Here and there one may find an
abundance of negroes who are emil
nently fitted to exercise the right of
suffrage. There are thousands of
them, and they are not all confined to
the college professors, or the philan-
thropists. The negro schools have
been, and still are, turning out a
class of educated black men and wo-
men who are born in America. who
are acquiring property interests, and
who have quite enough education to
enable them to make an intelligent
use of the ballot. Ii must be remem-
bered none the less that the great
mass of the negro population of the
south, embracing many millions of
men and women, is not wholly unfit
ted to exercise the right of suffrage
but if given the ballot at this stage in
their race history would undoubtedly
become a menace to the welfare of
the nation.
There is vast deal of difference
between Prof. Dubois, of Atlanta uni
versity and the half savage laborer in
the rice fields, or in the cotton isl
ands on the Atlantic coast. The diff
ficulty of the problem lies in the fact
that for every Booker Washington
there are about 100000 debased and
|debasing negroes. Roughly speaking
one-ninth of the population of the
United States is made up of negroes
of various degrees of blackness. In
the southern states they constitute
an actual majority of the population
i'm vast number of counties and con-
gressional districts.
The negro vote. if east solidly and
counted honestly would elect enough
United States senators, in all proba-
bility. to become n balance of power
in that body. They would elect a large
percentage of the members of the
house of representatives from the
southern states. The result would be
that all of the property interests of
the south would practically be dis
franchised. Even without the evils of
carpet bagism, it is easy to figure out
that within few years after the APP
plication of an unqualified manhood
suffrage for the negroes, they would
control the southern states politi-
cally socially and morally, and would
either destroy the cultured, wealthy
white class. or drive il northward.
THE existence of such busy com
mercial and international centres as
Atlanta and Birmingham is absolutely
dependent upon the brains. the en-
ergy, and the capital of the white
man. Withdraw these. and the cot
ton mill. the blast furnace, and even
| the fields of cotton. cane, and corn
would have to be abandoned. The ne
gro as a race in America is hundreds
of years ahead of his brother in
Africa. and that is much to his cred
it. but that does not alter the fact
that he is thousands of years behind
his white neighbor.
at is Il simple thing to stand in a
northern pulpit or sit in northern
office chair and speak or write about
equal rights. the genius of the Ameri-
can constitution, and the beauty of a
free ballot. but the political situation
in the south is not mater of theory,
but of fact. If it happens to come in
conflict with our American institu-
tions. so much the worse for the in
stitutions. Looked at from the stand
point of theory the existing political
situation in all of the southern states
is a cruel outrage and a manifest VIC,
lation of the basic principles of the
declaration of independence, but
when you look at the thing in the
light of social, commercial, and moral
conditions it is easy to see, as 1 have
seen, that to disturb present condi-
tions rashly, to listen to the voice OF
| ignorant northern demagogues, would
be disastrous. first to the white man
but ultimately and most completely
to the black man."