The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1905-05-06

ooh 1louSI, tIC dutIlol, Ids q
fine analysis of Gov. Vardaman in
last Saturdays Chicago Daily Re-
view. Although a Roosevelt Repub-
lican and a Northern man, Mr..
Hough has given the fairest expo
nent of the real character Of the
Governor we have yet seen from a
Northern standpoint. The article
covers five columns of the Review,
and every line is vitality interesting,
but we have space for only the fol-
lowing extracts:
The truth is that Vardaman of
Mississippi knows more on his
chosen theme than do his Northern
detractors. The immense ignorance
Of the entire North of the race cues
tiOn-an ignorance which begins at
the White House and runs from
Maine to Oregen-is something I'M
speakable. We say that in the South
they I still fighting the war.
Really, it is we in the North who
continue to fight. It is we in the
North who insist we know all there
is to be known about the negro ques-
ton. We might easily learn other
wise did we care to investigate, but
the North has never yet begun to
study the question. Northern men
who move to the South, or who fire.
quently visit the South, in a very
short time stand shoulder to shout
der with Southern men on the race
question. It is an immense, an i'm
possible folly, to think that the white
man, North or South, will not stand
shoulder to shoulder as white men,
and as against the rest of the world.
That is all that Governor Varda-
man of Mississippi has claimed or
ever will claim. Hence, for telling
us a simple truth, which we ought to
be willing to admit, we deride him,
call him a mountebank and a pre-
tender. He can afford the epithets.
1t is a concession to Northern igno-
rance to state that in making such
statements as the foregoing, the wri-
ter feels it necessary to say he is a
Northern man, a republican and a
warm admirer Of Theodore Roose-
welt. Were this not said, surely this
writing would be set down as the
fumings of a discontended Southern
partisan. So much for ignorance.
Where does Northern ignorance
on this race question have its foun-
Northern ,onor- dation? In geog-
rance on Race Iaphy' IN tfansp9i-
Vuoo''o'' tics. There is an
other strange basis, not 50 easily dis
covered. The South understands the
North, but the North does not I'M
derstand the South. The great
Northern newspapers T read IN the
South, but the great Southern news
papers are almost unknown to the
North. We get little news from the
South except that of lynchings;
hence, we suppose hal lynching ne
grOes is the exclusive occupation in
the Southern states. Yet since, North
and South, we are savages-while
savages, the strongest savages the
world ever saW-Were we Northern
men to live in the South, under ex-
listing conditions, it is a certainty that
we would do precisely as our South
ern brethren do. But what Northern
newspaper is catholic enough to ad-
NIT this? No, it is better to purchase
press dispatches covering incidents
which 7 as shocking to the South
as to the North. It is better to keep
up the absurd and ruinous sectional
line.
In the South there rises a strong
man who openly declares that the
negro is still a savage, such a savage
,noL,.1. as he was forty
years ago, and that
0o'o '>os'o it is useless and
hopeless to try to make an educated
citizen of him, or to try to make a
safe neighbor Of him. This man