The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-02-27
SATURDAY FEB. s7, 1904.
BISHOP BROWN OF ARKANSAS

BlSHOE BHOWN OE AHAANSAS.
 Bishop Brown of Arkansas is a man of courage. Not long since in a public ad dress he defended the lynching of negroes In the South. This produced a storm of indignation at the North.
 We are not defenders of the practice of lynching and yet we have watched with some interest the outburst against Bishop Brown. He is a Northern man and was never South of the Ohio river until 1898. Ills father was a Union soldier and was killed in the war that accomplished the negro's emancipation. The Bishop, we suppose carried prejudices in favor of, rather than against, the negro, when he removed to Arkansas and took up his new charge.
 We have said he has courage. He was unwilling to fire at long range and last week he spoke on the negro in the Dio- cesan House at Boston. His audience was composed mainly of Episcopal clergymen among whom were several of the negro race. He told them that the Southern black man. though increasing in numbers 90 rapidly, is not improving morally and Intellectually; that on the contrary he has undoubtedly deteriorated in these re- spects since he was freed. The typical negro in the black belts of the South to- day, he said, is morally and intellectually inferior to the negro of ante-bellum days. The Bishop could not have known him in ante-bellum days. We wonder, though, how many of our planters who have known him under both regimes would gainsay the Bishops statement. Our own opinion is that slavery elevated the me- gro; that his race had opportunities here that they have never before had to bet- ter themselves and win an easy, happy existence. Their immediate contact with a higher civilization did them immeasur- able good in lifting them to a higher plane of existence. We think too. his experience as freedman has not been , sufficiently long to warrant dogmatic opinions as to the hopefulness or honelAss- ness of raising him yet higher in the scale of life. It seems to us we ought to and must in our own interest, give him every opportunity to show whether he can advance under modern industrial condi- tions. If he goes backward. he will inevi tably pull us certain distance with him If he goes forward, he will put us still further forward.
 Bishop Brown does not subscribe even to this mild philanthropy. Speaking gen. orally, he said in Boston, the temporal and moral condition of the Southern ne- s, oly have slowly reached the conclusion that the negro race as a whole is almost hope lessly degraded. I am convinced that no one who has not been in the black belt of the South, can have any real concep- ton of the physical, intellectual and spir- itual state of thls most unfortunate peo- pie" We insist they are most fortu- nate people, But how were the Bishop opinions received?
 q am sorry that Mir. Brown Is a Bishop of our Church." said the Rev. Etenezer Thompson of Woburn in the discussion that followed. This is most terrible attack on an inoffensive people. I have never heard anything like it since the days of slavery"
 Father Field of St, Augustine's Church ! was equally wroth. If the negro is ut terly degraded as Bishop Brown says, where could we find Bishops among , them7"
 'I want to say" responded Bishop Brown, that I am alone in the South on that question. All the other Bishops say the reason they don't agree with me .s that they do not know a single colored man who ls fit to be Bishop"
 Bishop Brown of Arkansas proved at Boston that he has "spunk."