The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-18
Black Man Can Never Be the Equal of the White-Cruel to Let Him Cherish the
 Hope.

The following Is copy in full of the mingham. on the negro problem, which he delivered first at Auburn and then again at Nashville Tenn., last Tuesday. The First Presbyterian Church in Birmingham of which pr. Stagg Is pastor contributes more money to the education of the negro than does any other Presbyterian Church in the South. pr. Stagg is himself a trustee of ne- gro school at Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 'The greatest question now before the American people Is not that of the government of the Hawaiian Islands or of the Philippines, nor Is 1t that Of conserving the Monroe doctrine. or the question of the tariff, made acute now as 1t Is by the position taken by the President and those in authority in the Panama Canal business. Nor is 1t even the success of either the Democratic or the Republican party. The great issue before the American people is how to conserve the interest of nine million colored children who live within those Stafes. To conserve their interest by being kind. but what Is better by being absolutely just, Is now and always has been. the most difficult problem to make the American people see that solution is an absolute necessity.
 We have prepared all kinds of so- lutions. Since the days of the Missouri compromise. the negro question has been pre-eminently before the Ameri- can people, but in no case has it eyer been discussed seriously. Events are shaping themselves now in such way as to demand that a solution of the question be arrived at. Therefore I deem it proper to discuss this question from the view point of problem of our times that will require trained minds to work out
 Great Radical Ideals.
 Tn order to get at a sensible view of the race problem, we must begin further back than the existence of the African on the American continent To give the picture a correct prospective It Is necessary for~us to draw the out line of the great racial ideals that have been worked out in the history of man and in which. so far. the negro ha- had no part.
 Somewhere in Central or Western Asia, in the years atfer the flood, there dwelt race of men, the sons of Japhet, who were destined to spread by emil grafton over large parts of the earth, to occupy Europe, America and Aus tralia. and to rule the growth of the human race. They are sometimes call ed by scholars-Aryans. For ages they were shepherds in Asia and never dreamed of the great future that lay before them. Finally. they were split into five branches; one remained in In- aia and four crossed into Europe.
 Greek and Roman.
 There may be some dispute as to which arrived first, whether the Celtic or the Greek and Roman wave. shall not take time to discuss the priority of either. but shall assume that the Greek and Roman were first. The nations composing this wave were quite diff ferent. The Greek was essentially arr tfsticS the Roman essentially political, practical and realistic. The Greek found- ed states, planted colonies and diffus-~I ed culture. The Roman imposed laws, opened highways of commerce and made the world an empire There was one common idea thac ray at the base of Greek and Roman life alike, that Idea was the glorifcation of the state.
 philosophy requires us to examine into the cause that gave birth to the unrivaled monuments of Grecian gen. ius and Roman power. That examina- ton will lead us to the conclusion that Greek and Roman history, Greek and Roman life, were based upon national pride. The idea of a great state pre- dominated. For acts of courage. for devotion and loyalty to ones country, for facts to inspire our own people to- day we turn to the history of these na- tions. The highest cultivation of all innate powers belonged to the idea of a free born Greek; yet, these powers were never to be developed for person. al ends; every man belonged wholly to the common public life, and individual talent and power had value only as they related to the state. The state was all; the man was nothing. This Is seen in those glorious fabrics which seem, as PIutarch expFvsses IL. "En- dowed with the bloom of perennial youth" .
 "A stranger entering Athens would not have recognized the mistress of Grecian art but to the humbleness of her private mansions the magnificence of her public buildings made a dag zling contrast. The Acropolis lowered above the houses and thoroughfares where man lived until 1t became a city of the gods. The citizen was every where reminded of the magnificence of the state and the nothingness of the man. From this conception there arose those master pieces, which, even in their broken remains, still command the wonder and admiration of the world. a devotee to power. Art with him was a hotbed plant: it was quickly grown and instantly died. He believed in the army and that the safety of the state depended upon it. The clang of arms was heard throughout the Roman ulSClplillSu hAOOpS were eve rywhere to be seen. Thus they pushed out after, conquest, and the Roman ideal of a great state followed hard upon the, Roman sword The conquer ed population was grouped in towns and cities. Liberty, civil ana religious was granted wherever it did not con fict with the Roman conception of the state. and thus to the days of the closing of the reign of the Caesars did this mighty conception hold this peo- pie, who dwelt on the Tiber. Their ideal was to small to build a kingdom lasting. Man was misplaced in 1t. in that man vas for the kingdom and not the kingdom for the man.
 The Celtic Ideal
 And in its place the Celtic wave started from the great fountain in Asia and flowed over the valleys of the Vol ga, Ural and Danube, went as far as the Rhine; pressed on and reached the furtherest bounds of the continent; fill- ed up Spain, France. England. Scot land and Ireland. 9hese were embrac- ed under the common name of Celt, so that the gallant Frenchman, the wild Irishman, the close-fsted Scotchman and the Welshman are brothers. The chief characteristic of these people was the spirit of the clan, all it's institu- tions, all it's laws, all its proceedings are marked by the maxim of the clan 1 The devotion of the Scottish clans to l the chieftalns, of the Irish troops to their leaders, the French soldiers to i 4s- Traf sNf l.