The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-18

ed labor shall never again come into the hands of the negro; that he shall not run motor car or operate a cot ton mill; that if white men put him In the Columbia mills of Columbia. s. C., they will put him out if 1t, as they have done.
 "The labor unions are his undying enemy, and they say if the govern ment itself undertakes to solve the la- Dor difficulty with him they will kill him. as they did in Chicago. The Unit ed States soldiers say that if the negro be given any responsibility in the army they would pay no attention to his or ders.
 "Pitiabie. indeed. is the spectacle of a race with all work taken away from 1t. Foolish is that negro who does not seize every opportunity that comes his way to do any kind of work. and do 1t well. that is offered him in the face of such foes as these that are closing In upon him.
 Negro ana Disease.
 Another giant more difficult to con- troi than any have mentioned Is dis- ease. Tuberculosis is recognized by physicians as an enemy that may be controlled, but 1t must be along tho lines of sanitation. The poverty, the unsanitary habits and the natural tri- flingness of the greater portion of the race makes him the greatest propagat- or of disease. When the laws are to be enforced the people will not long toIer- ate those who persist in their violation. I have been informed that certain name1ess diseases have already so iii- fected many of the negro race as that in time the increase from four and q half millions to nine millions in the last forty-five years will be practically re- duced to nothing.
 A Hopeless Problem.
 These conditions make a race prob- lem that Is fast becoming hopeless, and has given rise to such thinking as that expressed above by MT. Page and Bish- op Penick. have felt myself that in trying to make the lot easy for the black man one may discern the plan ot Providence in fitting him for a larger and better life in a land that is all hIs own, for 1t is fact that when for thousands of years before the coming of Christ the white man had dwelt on the shores of Africa. he had built cities. he had had greater thologies and greater schools. yet even to the death of Cecil Rhodes no great impression has been made in Africa by the white man. There are kingdoms of Ivory there; there are kingdoms of rubber; there is untold wealth in mineral and in soil. The natives are incompetent; they live in tribes, fight savage wars, live on roots, fruits pr human beings. The im- \ pIements of war are possibly the re- mains of the instruction of Tubal Cain in the making of metal. and the reason they remember this is because they have been working upon them from day to day. Everything else that has come to them from old civilization they have forgotten, for 1t Is a strange. psycho- logical fact that the African black man has no memory.
 sHrhat Which is DamnabIe."
 When the first slave ship touched these shores and the first slave was put to work in America. and the first mu- latto baby was born, we have that which we are taught in Holy Writ is damnable. No right thinking, moral man can find word to make an apology for 1t. It has It's place in the great drama of God, alongside of those things which we know are wrong and which somehow He causes to work together for good.
 'sThe greatest negro I have ever known, and whom believe to be the greatest negro alive. is w. H. Sheppard, humble, Christian gentleman, and worker among negroes for fifteen years in Africa. He and his wife arc both mulattoes. By this strange cross of blood in the human race 1t looks as  years of the black mans existence in America there was to be ingrained in his blood and in his memory our insti- tutions, our religion, our literature, our art, our government, and that when the day should come when God would open the door of hope again. He would find a man prepared for the land of Canaan.
 T myself have always believed that the darkness of the picture of tho black man in America is due. not to himself. but the awful burdens that his would be friends have put upon him. I have hoped for the race if the conditions of his growth can be found. These condi- tIons are certainly not In the way of the silly sentimentalist of the South nor in the indifference of the lazy South arner, who says. Let the negro alone; we want him down here,' which has no meaning and never did have any truth. The moment the Southerner can get some one to do his work better and more faithful than the negro the world will see there was no truth in it. Nor Is the condition to be found in the ey- erlasting meddllng of the misguided northern friend. with his opinions and his money. It may be found when in- telligent. loving northern white men and Southern white men and wise negroes sit down and reason together. If, then, Africa be the solutoin, 1t will not be found to be an idle dream or a Ethiopia, as many suppose.
 A Changed World.
 .sThe digging of the Panama canal | and the lighting of the Russo-Iapanese