The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1903-09-10
FOR A NEGRO REPUBLIC.

Is the latest dream of Mr.. John Tenn
pie Graves, and he believes it to be
the only feasible plan for solving the
negro problem of the south Mr.
Graves, in common with many other
students of the matter, believes that
the white and black races cannot live
together in peace and that the couu-
try's islands in the East afford an OPP
portunity for separating them forever.
In an address at the University of
Chicago the other day Mr.. Graves
made public his scheme and in de-
fence Of it he brought hopeless view
of the progress of the negro expert
ment at home. Said Mr.. Graves
The experiment of political equal
ity has had thirty eight years of trial.
backed by the power of the Federal
government, and by the sympathy of
the world. 1t has failed. From the
beginning to the hour that holds us,
it has failed. The races are wider
apart and more antagonistio than they
were in 1865. There is less of SYM
pathy, and more of tension than the
races have known since the terrible
days of reconstruction made chaos in
the south Four decades after his
emancipation the negro is in point Of
fact less a freeman and infinitely less
a citizen than he was in 1868. The
tumult of the times about us proclaims
the continued existence and the I'M
reconciled equations of the problem
that ne makes and in the common
judgment of mankind the legend
Coil ,- I'd 20, -.
above the tottering fabric of his civil
rights. A Chinese wall Of prejudice
shuts out the south on this question
from the sympathy of the American
people, and although fraternal plati-
tudes may cross it, and political affili-
ations may scale it, and commercial
interchange may run its electric wires
under and above it, and although but
recently military loyalty has seemed
to shatter it, this wall stands, in the
sight of God and of nations, and
hedges in the south as a separate and
peculiar people, hindered with misap-
prehension, held aloof in pref Ldice,
and fretted by, criticism which,
if sometimes founded in philanthropy,
is too often expressed in passion and
answered in bitterness. And so long
as the problem stands the old slave
States of the south, unwillingly, pro-
testingly, despairingly, and yet in
evitably, must be and will be the con-
tinuing gap in the magnificent line of
our national unity.
Discussing the subject Of the ballot
in the hands of the black man Mr..
Graves says:
!, 1t is a problem of moral decay. 1t
demoralizes politics. Wherever a
black supremacy is threatened through
a black majority the black ballot is
strangled without reserve i'll the black
hands that hold it against the safety
OF the State. This is wrong. 1t is
illegal. 1t is monstrous. But it is
true. Never, never, in thousand
years, will the negro, north or south,
be allowed to govern in this republic,
even where his majorities are plain.
We might as well fix that fact in our
minds to stay. No statute can eradi-
cate, no public opinion can remove, no
armed force can overthrow the in
herent invincible, indestructible,
and, il you will, the INSCRIPTIONS
capacity and determination of the
Anglo-Saxon race to rule.
Mr.. Graves then rehearses the IA
miliar story of the imprisonment of
the women of the south by fear, and
he defines the issues of the question
as unity of the republic, material de-
velopment, purity of politics, politi-
cal independence, respect for the bal
lot, reverence for the constitution,
the safety of our homes. the sanctity
of our women, the supremacy of law,
the sacredness Of justice, the integrity
of race, and the unity of the church.
Mr.. Graves would have reasonable
and considerate plan for carrying out
the work of separating the races. He
would gain the black mans consent
and then with government aid would
proceed slowly and with considera-
ton. So far as the great expense is
concerned Mr.. Graves suggests that
England has just agreed to eXpend
$500, 900, 600 in order to buy out Irish
landlords and heal painful sore in
the political life of the nation. AS to
the physical problem Mr.. Graves says
that if only the vessels that brought
foreigners to our shores from 1880 to
1885 had carried back to Africa as
many negroes as they brought immi-
grants to these shores not single
black man, woman or child would
have been left in the country in 1885.
Mr.. Graves argues against the
theory that the negro is indispensable
to the industrial life of the south and
says that the census proves this is no
longer true. He also holds that the
------------------------