The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-08-27

tionists, for he is man of brains and
canacity.
1 have a friend of this kind in New
York. He got after me the other day
somewhat in this fashion:
What do you want to keep agitat-
ing this internal question for? There g
no danger in it unless you stir it. Let
it alone. l grant you that the Negro
race is a poor, worthless parasite,
whose criminal and animal instincts
threaten society. But the Negro is
here to stay. We must train him. 1t
is the only thing we can do. So what's
the use to waste your breath ?''
But what about the future when
you have educated the Negro?" l ask
ed timidly.
Let the future take care of itself"
the ostrich man snorted. I'VE live
in the present What's the use to
worry about Hell? If l can scramble
through this world successfully I'll
take my chances with the He'll prob
lem!''
My friend forgets that this was pre-
cisely the line of argument of ou,'
fathers over the question of Negro
slavery When the constructive states
men of Virginia (call pessimists and
iniidels in their day) foresaw the COM
ing baptism of fire and blood C61 to
tempted to destroy the slave trade and
abolish slavery. My friend can find
his very words in the answers of their
opponents. Let the future take care
Of itself. The slaves are here and
here to stay. Greater evils await their
freedom. We need their labor. Let
the question alone. There is no dan
ger in it unless you stir it.
The truth which is gradually fore
in n fI1l st n
our national life is that no scheme of
education or religion can solve the
race problem, and that Mr.. Booker I.
Washington plan. however high end
noble, can only intensity its Difficult
tbs.
This conviction is based on few
big fundamental facts. which no pooh
pooling, ostrich-dodging, weak mind
ed philanthropy or political rant can
obscure.
The tirst one is that no amount of
education of any kind industrial
classical or religious. can make Ne
gro a white man or bridge the chasm
of tho centuries which separate him
from the white man in the evolution
of human civilization,
Expressed even in the most brutal
terms of Anglo-Saxon superiority there
is here an irreducible fact. 1t is pos
Kelly Miller. claims that the Anglo
Saxon is 'the most arrogant and rapa
cious, the most exclusive and intoler-
ant race in history" Even so. what
answer can be given to his cold-bl
ed propositions: Can you change the
color of the Negroes skin, the kink OF
his hair. the bulge of his lip or the
beat of his heart with a spelling-book
or a maChine?'
What Abraham Lincoln Said.
No man has expressed this idea
more clearly than Abraham Lincoln
when he said:
There is a physical difference be
tween the white and black races
which. believe. will forever forbid
them living together on terms of social
and political equality"
Whence this physical difference? It's
secret lies in the gulf of thousands of
years of inherited progress which, sep
arates the child of the Aryan from
the child of the African
Buckle in his History of Civilization
saws: '"The actions of bad men pro-
duce only temporary evil, the actions
of good men only temporary good.
The discoveries of genius alone re-
main: it is to them we owe all that
we now have; they are for all ages
never old they bear the seeds of their
own lives; they are essentially cumu-
latiVe.''
Judged by this supreme test, what
contribution to human progress have
the millions of Africans who. inhab!t
this planet made during the past four
thousand years? Absolutely nothing.
And yet Mr.. Booker t. Washington in
recent burst of eloquence' over his
educational work boldly declares:
THE Negro race has developed NOR?
rapidly in the thirty years of its free
thousand years of freedom.
Think for a moment of the pitifuI
puerility of this statement falling
from the lips of the greatest and
wsest leader of the Negro race has
yet produced!
Italy is the mother of genius, the
inspiration of the ages, the creator OF