The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-06-14

sian free. for the reason that he will be brought again in contact with this great racial idea for which all races have lived that have taken place in the world.
 The Chinese.
 Suppose the Japanese should go into China and wake up the Chinaman and say to him: We have come without any guns or battleships; we have come to teach you the most valuable thing in China is the Chinaman; that the pur- pose Of government Is to help man Then Tn an Instant the yellow plague Is gotten rid of.
 Napoleon dreaded them because he was a man of the sword Four hundred and | fifty million untrained people would give | q huge task for a sword. but four hum dred and fifty million of unlettered peo- | pie put in the ways of peace would make task for the loom and for the fac | tories and for the farm, that would | change the face of the earth. Forty | million bales of cotton raised in the | United States would be easily dis posed of as the eleven or twelve million bales now raised. This, l think may be termed the trend of history. Into this great racial movement the negro has never entered. He has contributed noth- ing to it's eonsummation.
 He is a dweller on the face of the earth, and the question Is more and more press ing. How shall the strong help the weak?' and If l mistake not. the great query of the ages Is, How shall the white man help the black man into something of the richness of the inheritance from the great racial ideas2
 The White Mans Duty.
 "The time is come when it is a duty of all intelligent white men who have been and are the friends of the black man to tell him plainly the signs of the times and to show that the making of the history of the negro race will not be unlike the making of the history of the white man. It is said in all kind ness. because the error Is due to mis- understanding of the situation that now, as since the day the first flagship was legalized in it's trade in Massachusetts, that the trouble Is the race question is due to the persistent assertion on the part of northern friends and philan- thropists that they understand the prob lem and can devise the means for it's solution.
 The reconstruction period immediate ly following the war was literally the bringing of hell to the earth for both the black and the white race of the south, and it was due to no other cause than the meddllng of the north What was done all good men in the south re- gret the necessity for doing, but the policy adopted by the north made 1t ab- solutely necessary for the southern peo- pie to continue the war on the negro race in the form of the Ku-Klux and otherwise, in order to keep the races life. Now we are passing though pe- riod of reconstruction that is fraught with the greatest dangers unless 1t is skinuly handled
 The North's Attitude
 "The north has put many millions in educational institutions for negroes in the south. It has led the negro to be- lieve that education will solve all his problems and relieve him of all his ills; that Booker T. Washington has been lauded not only as a great man, but has been made to stand out as greater than the greatest man produced by the Saxon race. He has recently claimed that his race has accomplished in thirty years what 1t has taken the Latin race to ac- complish in one thousand years that here his race is superior to the white race.
 No Confidence in the Theory.
 For myself l have never had any confidence in the Booker Washington theory of the reward education would bring his race 1 have read what he has written with care, and while l am strong advocate for the education of the negro. not alone on industrial lines, but on all lines that would fit him to inherit what has been worked out by the races, nevertheless l am firm in the belief that the theory of education Is dangerous that leads any negro to be- lieve that his race life will ever be par allel with that of the white race in this country, and from Booker Washingtons writings 1 most certainly understand that he teaches that this can be done, which appears to me to be humbuggery'
 How he has caught and held the American people Is puzzling, for the reason his congregations are comical. For instance, he was born in 1S59 yet he remembers being wrapped in batch of rags lying on the dirt floor of cabin on a slave plantation in Virginia, ms sainted mother bending over him utter ing a fervent prayer that Marsa Lln- coin might succeed. This might not appear as comical had it not deliberate- ly been written down and sent to Phila- deIphia to be read at the celebration or Abraham Iincolns birth. It might be pardonable as an eXaggeration or speech, but not of writing. Bearing in mind he was born in 1859, yet he was able to take sacks of corn to the mill on horseback in 1865 and when the corn shifted and fell to the ground he spent his time in crying until some passerby helped hlm up with his turn. This would put him late at the mill and late in arriving at home for which he was severely beaten. Since he has become a man, after hard davis work in New York city, he would leave A day coach, where there was room and comfortable seats, to stand in an already crowded sleeper, until nnely dressed ladies were moved by his de- lection and insisted on his taking seat with them, and when they had tea served on the sleeper they insisted that he take tea with them, which he de- c1lned. all of which he offers as proof that he Is not seeking social equality or he might have such. In the early days of his work for his race he says that inc accommodations were so poor that when if rained he and pupils were com peled to seek shelter under umbrellas so inferior was the roof of the school house-and this in land where pine slabs were easily gotten.
 q have nothing to say against the industrial education that he gives the negroes. for l know nothing about 1t. but he certainly teaches in his writings that the negro may hope to become more than A successful competitor with the white race and his society may be made to be parallel with the best Of the white race It seems to me that along with the industrial education and all other kinds of education the negro should be taught that his rights of property, rights of person, safety of his family and the sanctity of his home should be as well sefeguarded as the white citizen; that he is to be absolutely equal to any or the white race before the law. but not his
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