The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1905-06-16
be excelled in point of patriotism. jus
tice, or generosity of sentiment.

tice, or generosity of sentiment.
Another notable u~tterance of recent
date was by President Eliot, of Har-
ward in an address TO the Associate
Har-ard Clubs, ut louisville, Ken
lucky. His subject was the race prob
lem. Or. Eliot is not given to gush;
but he is a man who looks facts fairly
in the. face, aid he recognizes that. In
the North as in the South, there is a
race problem OF the most serious kind.
Ii is true that the race problem at the
North Is a problem of absorption and
assimilation. while the problem at the
South involves the contact OF races
which, as races, must remain separate.
But he insists that. in both cases, the
solution OF the problem is 10 be found
in more and better education. He
said:
lis not education the main hope Of
our country: We feel it so in Massa-
chusetts today, exactly as the Puritans
did in 1913. We feel it the more, per-
haps, because strange races and a re-
ligion strange to the Puritans have in
vaded Massachusetts. We have three
Catholic races in Observation-Disclosures
Irish, the Italian, and the French Ca
madam; and soon. if nc already, they
will constitute the majority OF the peo-
pie in Massachusetts. 1t is not the
South alone which has Il race problem
before it. and the one means of deal
ing with the race problem is the same.
in Massachusetts as in Kentucky: the
n means is education.
eva hp1iorn ~ tho North itrSf &c
much as you do in the South. in the
separation of the two races that divide
the South between them. We believe,
however, that the very fact of separa-
ton demonstrates that both races must
enjoy h amplest opportunities Of ed
ucation. | think that is the sun and
substance Of the Northern belief about
the Southern problem. 1t is a question
for generations working always
through public and private education"
Quite in the same tone is an address
delivered by Ernest Hamlin Abbott at
the eighth annual conference on edu-
cation in the South at Columbia, South
Carolina, in April last. Mr.. Abbott
began by telling an anecdote OF the
Rev. G. W. Dame, a Southern clergy
man whose charge "a in the neigh
DOrhOOd of a military prison. Mr..
Dame ministered to the Federal SOL
diers with such tender n careful So
l;citude, and with such sympathetic
care for their relatives, that he Ell
GeareG himself to all who knew hlm.
When the Federal troops took posses
sion of the place, Mr.. Dame applied to
the commanding officer for Il guard to
protect his property. The officer re-
fused, and then, says Mr.. Abbott, The
clergyman expostulated: he argued
that others had obtained the privilege
of a guard. The NOrtherner was re-
lentless. Finally, in desperation, the
clergyman asked: Since YOU refuse me
this request, will you at least tell me
why?' Certainly the Federal officer
replied. You surely must know that
I've been told what you've done. why,
you are as safe as the commander of
the Sixth army corps!" Anecdotes ike
this, or of similar tendency, might be
multiplied by hundreds, If not by thou
sands. The bitterness OF that stupen-
conflict had little Judgement in the
hearts of those who did the lighting.
1t was not unnatural in civilians, and
unfortunately it was cultivated by in
politicians. The surviving
soldiers of both sides are all for peace
and amity,' and the politics of that bad
time are obsolete: a new generation
now rules and the bitterness is gone.
The trouble is that misapprehenslOns
still cloud the good feeling which pre-
walls in both sections, and that While
foolish things and wicked things are
repeated by the press from one end OF
the country to the other, the true SEN
timent Of the nation fails to find eX-
preston. Says Mr.. Abbott: JUS as,
among many Northerners, the utter
ance of some Southern demagague or
the editorial of some Southern paper
of an ugly breed. or uncertain temper
is considered as an expression of the
Southern view, so among Southerners
the brutal commercialism of some ma
terialist or the ill-considered threat OF
the Northern clOset-philosopher Is ac-
cepted as the Northern view There
upon Mr.. Abbott endeavors to express
in his own words a body OF opinion
which MI. Mabie affrms to be that of
1.-The New North In 1.-The e NOrtn,'
says Mr.. Abbott, ''are included all VINO
desire, not to their own COLI
victions, but to understand the con-
victiOns of Americans in the South,
and who will not be surprised or dis
pleased to find that their w convlc-
tons and the convictions Of the o
thoughtful, earnest, and humane peo-
people of the South are essentially the
same" These convictions relate to the
past and also to the present and the
future. With reference to the past,
Mr.. Abbott makes his statement OF
them:
1--WE believe that, not the South, but
the whole nation, was responsible Tor
the existence of the institution that
created sectionalism: that therefore the
whole nation and not the South alone
should zeal the burdens which that II
stitution has ~bequeathed to us today.
I'VE believe that, however compli-
Gated the conditions were that occa-
stoned the war. the men of the Con-