Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1903-07-31
WHAT OFTHE NEGRO?
Senators Tillman and Burton ssSolv-
ing'' the Race Problem.
In joint Debate at Madison, WIS.,,
the Views of North and
South. Were Eloquent
Iy Portrayed.


his wit and sarcasm against the legal
mind and western manners of Senator
j. r. Burton, of Kansas, last night in
joint debate on the negro question.
Senator Tillman said the people of the
north were as bad as those of the
south in their handling of the negroes.
when negro up here shows the
outcroppings of the instincts of his
inferior race said Mr. Tillman, "you
mob, string, lynch, burn and outrage
humanity with him. 1t makes a.
mighty big difference whose family is
struck, whose home is entered, whose
wife or daughter is the victim. You
men of the north are not slow to act
when your women are outraged and I
want to say you are men to, do it. If
you had as many 'niggers' as we do
in South Carolina you would feel as
do and your people would sustain your
'anti-nigger' senators as my people
sustain me-"
The fiery southern senator was I'M
popular at first with the audience of
5000 people, but at the close of the de-
bate he was applauded.
Senator Tillman said the negroes
owed all the progress they had made
In America to the fact that they were
once in bondage and that the south had
nourished them into whatever indus
try, virtue and intelligence they ever
attained; that the north went to war
to free the niggers'' first and to '.save
the union" afterward. The republican
party, he said, played the friend of the
black in order to get black votes. The
greatest disturbing element in the
problem was the fact that the people
of the north, affecting motives of char
ftys Christianity and humanitarianism,
were attempting to poke their great,
long, Yankee noses" into the business
of the southern states that were equal
to the problem that would not be in
danger of overwhelming them unless
the northern influence brought about
war of determination.
Senator .Tillman said the negroes
were recognized in the south when
they deserved it; and sometimes. when
they did. not, mentioning the recipients
OF United States executive appoint
ments. The southern senator asked
the audience to hold an after-meet-
ing to form negro emigration society
for the purpose of bringing to Wiscon-
share of the state of the nations ne
gro population. The after-meeting did
not develop.
Senator Burton agreed that the ne
gro has apparently grown more de-
graded and more criminal than before
the war, but said 1t was the fault of
the south, lack of schools and the
"euchreing" of the negroes out of their
constitutional rights by southern
whites. He said In education lay the
solution of the problem.
Senator Tillman agreed with Burton
In this, but said the south would take
up arms rather than allow the north
to force an impossible social or politi-
cal equality between the whites and
negroes in the southern states. He
says that the United States barred
Chinese from its gates because of the
inferiority of the Monaghan race and
the impossibility of Chinese ever be-
coming the social or political equals OF
Americans.
Senator Burton placed stress on the
great possibilities he said lay in the
negroes. Their capacity for develop
ment, he said. had been. proved in
every northern state, and not only in
the north, but in the very heart of the
south. At, Tuskegee, Ala, Booker T.
Washington, a black man, had demon
strated there for several years that the
negro, when given the advantages of
properly administered education, could
outstrip the whites in the moral and
Industrial world.
Senator Burton concluded as fol-,
lows:
Il would not support the negro in
idleness. | would not give him an edu-
cation; indeed, would not be in favor
of giving him anything, in the sense of
making a present; but 1 would help,
him to help himself and while he is
obtaining the education of the head
would have him earn it by the use OF
his brains. What is needed are more
Washingtons and Frizzells to point the
way We need. more captains of labor
in the education of the negro.
while we are helping him to help
himself out of the darkness of igno-
rance into the light of education OF
hand. heart and head, let US make
him know and feel that he is clothed
with the panoply of citizenship, which
is the proudest position that any man
can occupy in this world: and if for
the protection and purity of the ballot
it has become necessary to throw
around it the safeguards of property
or educational qualification, or both.
let us assure the black man that this
standard is no discrimination against
him, that it applies with equal exact.
ness and certainty to the white man
WELL
Box of Cigars and $1OO.