The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-02-10
SOWING AND REAprNG..

frequently expressed by some of our thoroughly unsatisfactory behavior of the colored population in many Northern cities and communities. People up there who have so long insisted that negroes in the South are bad only because they l are badly treated have learned from close association and observation that they are also bad up there, and they try to ac- count for 1t by declaring that none but the worst negroes SC there from the South. The News says to the Phiiadel- phians that they have not received an extraordinary per centage of bad negroes. and adds:
 The good people of that city now have an opportunity 10 see what they can do toward preparing their negro population for citizenship. especially for the exercise exc | whether or not the negro voters vote in accordance with their convictions or are the instruments of ward heelers for de- bauching the ballot box. When they have settled that question they vii! be better prepared 10 instruct their Congress- men how 70 vote on .he Crumpacker o!ll.
 That is a good suggestion. but how does 1t strike them? The Philadelphia Record takes 1t this way:
 The shaft of The News hits home in Philadelphia. Because the negro Is ignor- l ant. easily persuaded and prone to vicious courses he has been ready instrumen. | In the hands ot Inscrupuious politica! leaders. He Is coddled and herded. and marched to the polls and voted without any reference to his duties O. his interests I ate l. condoned or lightly punished because of | his loyalty 70 his politica: masters. Na l are reaping the consequences in the harvest of robbery and assault that IS matter of daily chronicle,
 There !s passage ;n the Book 9: Books that reads ;his way: They have sowa the wind, and they shall reap the whirl- wind" For years most of the Northern newspapers have criticised OUT people with more CT less severity .or what they have been pleased to look on as mistreat- rnent of the colored people. taking sides with the latter against the whites. and intimating, or plainly saying. that 1; the negroes were treated as :he Northern people would treat ,hem they would be industrious. peaceable and law-ab!ding citizens. We have read such things times without number. sometimes w!;h disgust and at others with anger or amusement. as our humor happened to be. and have at times felt tolerant enough to believe that our friends up there really thought just what they said, ane that they were only ignorant, rot malicious 0. wilfully unjust.
 Is 1t any wonder that we should let human nature have its way at times and feel disposed 10 fire the 'I told you so'' argument al them? Ard yet, there Is strong probability that the people of Philadelphia and New York and other places will go to the other extreme and imbibe the impression shat all negroes are bad. That would be TO nearer the truth than was the belief that all of them are good. We who know them from Infancy to old age know that large majority os them were good .n almost every sense of the word and We know something else-that most os the meanness which is now so frequently de- veloped is caused partly by the pernicious teachings of Northern zealots and partly by the fact that the former slaves were suddenly and without preparation turned loose on themselves. If that is a proper expression, and forced to accept and face responsibilities for which they were not prepared either by habit or nature. And we tell The Record that the conduct os the negro in Philadelphia will be largely what the white people make 1t.
 And what The Record admits when 1t speaks of the negroes as voters and poll ticians Is precisely what prevailed in the South for many years. The negroes were first coddled and brothered by the "car- petbaggers" for their political influence, and when the conditions became intolera- ble the white men of the South took a hand and reso-ted to methods which may not always have been strictly detensibe in morals, but which were effectual. The results of those two extremes are yet with US in some respects. And We tell The Record that In our opinion the white people of that city and 0: others where the negro population is becoming numer- ous, will eventually find themselves com pelled to take from the colored man all political power and privileges. Ina: course will be forced on them and t VIII be the legitimate result o: their uHw!se and altogether mistaken course hereto fore. '"They have sown the wind, ard they shall reap the wh!r!w!nd." The harvest has begun already.