The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-08-15
PROMINENT MEN DISCUSS ACTION
 OF WASHINGTON Cunningham and Stagg Talk of Wanamaker- Wash
 ington Dinner BLAME NEGRO EDUCATOR AND PREDICT RESULTS Think That Booker T. Has Destroyed All His Usefulness, Present, Past And Future-No Social
 Equality.

And Future-No Social Equality.
 Dr. R. M. Cunningham. lieuenant gov ernor of Alabama, and the Rev. Dr. J. W. Stagg. pastor of the First Presbyte- rian church, expressed last night an emphatic protest against the illustration of racial social equality as given in yes- teiday's press dispatches from sarato- ga relating that Booker T. Washington. the head of the negro school at Tuskegee, had been entertained in Saratoga by John Wanamaker, who was postmaster general in President Harrison's cabinet, and been permitted to escort MT Wana- makers daughter to dinner at the hotel.
 Both Governor Cunningham and Dr. Stagg said that such incidents would not only seriously impair but actually destroy the negro educators bowed for usefulness in the south.
 Cunningham Deplores It.
 Tn all seriousness" said Governor Gun ningham, q profoundly deplore incidents of this kind
 "It Is impossible for any intelligent man who resides in a section where whites and negroes live in large number side by side to find words that will condemn too emphatically such conduct on the part of the principal of the negro school at Tuskegee.
 Thinking persons throughout the south understand that the two races, differing as they do in character. blood, temper ament, and ideals, must develop sep arately in all social ways. The white race will never permit racial social equality. To do so would invite conditions in which the virtues of both races would be lost and the vices of each perpetuated. The whole southern country would in the logic of events, speedily sink to the level of West Indian civilization. It is idle in any thinking man to attempt to blind himself to, or to explain away, that aw- ful fact.
 Negro North and South.
 Though l might easily do 80, I am not disposed to criticise severely white Americans of the north who, like John Wanamaker see fit thus to lower the social bars that separate the whites and blacks wherever they come together in large number the wide world over. The peril to the north, where the negro is comparatively a curiosity, Is insignif- cant. To us here in the south, 1t is con stant, concrete and terrible.
 "Washington knows this-if he knows anything. His conduct in accepting these attentions from northern white people proves conclusively that he is an unwise leader of his race. It contradicts emphat- ical1y the policies he has preached and the professions he has made. Ii impairs his usefulness to his people-for while he may be immune from the injury that will follow, the credulous and ignorant, will suffer incidentally.
 If he had sat down and studied how he could most effectively array the whites against the blacks in the south he could not have hit upon plan that would have been so effective as the one he has adopted.
 The White Mans Resolve.
 "erhe white man of the south has resol- ved that the negro shall be protected In his rights of life, liberty, property and fair industrial opportunity. but that the lines of social demarcation between the two races shall be kept drawn ineffacea- bly, This resolve Is formed not in harsh ness to the black man but in justice to him. to the whites and to civilization.
 '',rhe sooner that leaders of the negro race recognize this and reckon It wise ly the better will 1t be for them, for their people and for the peace and pro- eress of the section in which they live'
 Dr. Stauo BIames Washington.
 Dr. Stagg said:
 .I blame Washington more than blame Wanamaker or Mrs. Warburton, Wana- makers daughter. Wanamaker has sense il, business matters. He knows how to make money But he has no sense touch ing the negro situation in the south
 sThere is no excuse whatsoever for Booker Washington. He knows the tenn per of the southern people in this matter of social equality. He knows as well as I do the abhorrenee of the white people of the south for every act that tends to social equality between the negroes and the whites.
 Tyina His Hands and Feet.
 sBooked Washington is fast tying his hands and feet-destroying all his use fulness as leader or ms race ''at ne might have had.
 "The old saving, whom the gods would destroy, they fist make mad was never more strilingly Illustrated than in the case of Booker Washington. In the half hour that Washington spent at the ta- ble with the Wanamakers' he undid all the good that he has ever done and nega- lives all that he might try to do within the years to come.
 "The harm that Washington does in accepting invitations to sit at the ta- bles of prominent white people is far reaching.
 Religious Effect.
 Not only does the example he sets arouse against him the bitterness of the uhife race in the south, but great in- stitutions are seriously affected. I refer to the two great branches of the Presby- terian church. Efforts are being made to unite the Northern and Southern presbvterians Wanamaker is an elder in inc Northern Presbyterian church. Such enisodes as this in which Wanamaker and Washington are conspicuous throw all nrospects of organic union back many years. Southern elders certainly will not feel like sitting side by side with north err elders who make social equals of negroes. But. as said at the start, Book CT Washington Is more to blame than Wanamaker, for he knows better"
 
 parifation at CoIored Church