The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-03-08
TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 1904.
nrano porrr1cAr rauArrrY.

We think Mir. Williams of Mississippi, fin his controversy with Mir Scott of Kan sas, allowed himself to be placed in an awkward position when he failed to give a direct answer to the Republican's dues- tion. Do you consider every man pclltl- cally your equal your equal soeiallyf" It required some courage to say it, but he might well have replied. "I do not con sidor a political equal a social equal, and SO far as the negro Is concerned. do not consider him either a political or a social equal" He would then have voiced the true feeling of nearly every white man at the South, and we believe the feeling as well of the Northern whites. That the South entertains this opinion is shown not only by recent legislation in Mississippi. South Carolina. Louisiana, hlis just as plainly by what is proposed l. Maryland, and what has been done by way of limitations aimed at negro suffrage in Georgia. There is no use in trying to befuddle the North as to the intention of the new Southern constitp- -eFta%4s the negro clean out of our politics. He has been a constant source of strife. He has degraded himself and degraded us by hls intermeddling in affairs he has neither the instinct nor the reason to comprehend. There has never been a people anywhere that admitted an alien race to a full participation in its gov srnnent. The negro excludes the whites where he has the power, as in Hayti and San Domingo It is natural he should. 1t is just as natural that the whites with un. having the power. should refuse to share it with the blacks We see no req son to anticipate that they will ever again permit the negro to join in voting, except in communities or States, like Massachu- seEta where their numbers are few or relatively few. And there they will not be given office. It is best for the black man that the white has definitely taken up this position. The South is more or derly and prosperous and the negro shares in this good fortune to a degree unknown to him anywhere else. He Is emphaticaliy better off here than he has even been in Africap or than he is right now in any Northern State. It Is time to cease mincing words in this connection. We can never silence certain old maids in New England. and their congeners. certain sentimental Yankee clergymen, but Tn view of the work being accomplished at the South, we feel we have a right to appeal to the sane intelligence of the North to leave us alone. We are not ap- peaiing in vain. Men like Dr. Lyman Ab- bolt and President Eliot have publicly taken their stand alongside the so-called Bourbons of the South. They represent far better the thought of their section than the seeretAFies of any number of missionary societies founded on the Idea that the South is a barbarous and be- nighted section of the country. Apart, however, from any opinion entertained in any other quarter. the Southern people have travelled far enough away from slavery and the war slavery caused. to look at their surroundings calmly and to have fixed determination. No one now living need expect to see the negro member of the governing class in any Southern State. He has just the same chance to be a ruler here that he has at the North. And that is. none at all.