The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-06-25

here all our hopes are eentered for us
and for our children and their children
children unto the remotest generations.
University Mans Mission.
I'VE are. therefore, charged with a
mssion-the nilsson of preserving and
strengthening our civilization and OF
making it fit and seemly in the sight OF
God; and, l doubt not that under the IN
SEPARATION of a past fraught with heroic
endeavor in peace and war of present
filled with all the attachments that make
life most dear and of a patriotism sprung
from out all these we shall discharge our
share of the burden.
MY friends. we have a harder task
than have most civilized communities, IN
that forty-five per cent of our people are
negroes For the most part massed to-
gether in segregated colonies constituting
what is known as the Black Belt inca
pacitated by temperament, training and
tradition from sharing appreciably In the
upbuilding of the state, citizens as re-
suit of a revolution in their behalf, yet
separated from the white citizens by an
impossible ehasm deep and wide, they
constitute a problem vexatious to the
minds of all thoughtful persons and a
perpetual clog In the march of progress
There has not been a day in the. life
of our state, of our nation when the
negro race in our midst was not a prob
lem, and source of axiety. 1t entered
into the very constitution which cemented
the states together, and was nearly the
cause of rendng that constitution into
fragments. For a half century prior to
our great civil war it was the principal
cause of strife between political parties,
created the dividing line between north
and south, made and unmade statesmen
affected the acquisition of new territory,
and the terms and conditions upon which
such territory should be carved up and
admitted as states into the union, split
in twain the great religious denomina-
lions of the country, gave tremendous I'M
petus to, IL it did not create the doctrine
of secession, and at last swept the whole
country into the jaws of one of the most
terrific internal wars that ever scourged
the race of man.
Though the union was saved its con-
stitution was altered and the relations
of the state to the union and to the ma
ton readjusted; the emancipated negro
was made citizen, and all the guaran-
tees of CT izenship thrown about him by
the amended constitution which thence
forward was declared to embody and
symbolic the absolute sovereignty of the
national government not only in the en-
forcement of these guarantees, but in all
things concerning its own integrity and
the national welfare. 1t is yet uncertain
how far-reaehing were the changes in
our Institutions wrought by this immor-
tai conflict.
Damage Done the State.
"The extent of the damage done to
Alabama is simply incalcuable. The value
of her farms and her farm improvements
| have never to this day reached the figures
by many millions which they had in
1860; our agricultural system as a whole.
| by reason of our negro peasantry, has
been isolated from the touch of modern
| progress, and remains today crude and
| primitive. immigration has ignored us.
Capital, until tempted by our vast min
| eral resources, has been cold. Popular
education has Jagged, and the state has
| lain stranded upon the outer reaches of
| that great tide of thought and move
ment which. in the last forty years, has
| swept the nation at large into its hign
| place of power, fame and fortune.
| 1T is its men who constitute state;
and in the homogeniety of its men is
| found the first grand requisite of social
] progress. These may differ amongst
| themselves In matters of detail, and even
| of principle; but in the fundamental law
| of free society organized into popular
| government they will stand forever as
i one man. In such a society there will be
1 iiO SutI llliiB as anal ilN OH iHt one lldilh
| or despotism on the other; no castles nor
| caste privileges, no pariahs such as exist
amongst the Hindus, no ghettos, no race
| cults, no distinctive dominant class adj
ministering government for itself and for
| a subserviant class, nothing of the kind
| 1.-The need of homogeneity is indeed an
| instinct of man, else race precaution
| which has for its end the driving out OF
| destruction of the subservient and repug-
| nant race would never exist.
| Race Antagonism an Old Story.
| Upon this instinct is built an ancient
| story whose opening chapter began with
| historic man. The commonwealth of Aus
| tralla knew well this story and remem-
| bered it when in the formation of their
| great federated republic of the Pacific
| they decreed that no blacks should be
/ admitted on any terms, and that those
| who, heretofore, had been imported prin-
cipaly the Kanakas working the sugar
D