The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-23

mans civilization. Just that and noth- ing more. The negro lives in the light of the white mans civilization and re- fleets a part of that light.
 He initiates an example kept before his eyes: copies models never out of his sight; echoes the words the white man utters: patterns after the man. ners and the methods of the whites around him. and thus reflects our civ ilization.
 He has originated nothing. and if the copy. the patterns, the example were taken away he would fall back as he did in Haiti.
 He has never either evolved nor sus- tained d civilization of his own.
 Fortunately for the Afro o-American, he finds himself better situated than his brethren elsewhere. In Africa and Haiti they have to scuffle for them selves. Result-barbarism.
 In America he swells the ranks or civilizations advancing army. and he has to go forward. We not only sup port him with aid of all sort, we not only give him daily precept and ex- ample. but we compel him to live better life than he would live in Africa or Haiti. This compulsion is of two kinds, the fear of punishment and the hope of reward--thus enlisting two of the most powerful passions of the hu- man being.
 It should be significant to Doctor Washington that the only portion Of his race which has ever made any de- velopment Is that which has the vast advantage of being sustained, encour- aged taught. led and coerced by the whites among whom they live.
 Not long ago a negro preacher whose self-appreciation was as great IS that of Doctor Washington went out to IL beria to subdue the heather, in the home of the negro race.
 The heather were not subdued, but the preacher was. He threw off his store clothes, gave a whoop, gathered up an armful of wives and broke for the woods; the Call of the Wild was too much for his newly soldered civil lization.
 Now, I don't mean to say that Doctor Washington would relapse. under sim liar circumstances; but when I hear him call his new race Afro Americans and listen while he soberly tells them that they are superior to the whites, beg that he will remember his kin across the seas, his brethren in Santo Domingo, the decadents of Liberia. and the tens of thousands of his race here in this country who devoutly believe in witch doctors in ghosts, in the con jure bag and in the power of one ne gro to undo another by the mysterious but inVincible Trick.
 Remember this, Doctor. education is a good thing. but 1t never did. and never will, alter the essential charac- ter of a man or a race
 Of course, Doctor, If you think your race the equal of ours. you have the right to say 1t. it's free country, you know.
 But, really. you ought not to crowd the monkey" by putting in claim for superiority.
 Such claim does your race no good,
 If may do them harm. It may culti- vate a spirit of truculent self-assertion which even your warmest admirers. North and South, might find hard to tolerate.
 In the History of Civilization" Buckle says;
 "Ahove all this, there is a far higher movement. and as the tide rolls on, now advancing. now receding, there Is, amid its endless fluctuations, one thing, and one alone which endures forever. The actions of bad men produce only lem rorarv- evil, the actions of good men only temporary god; ana eventually the good and evil altogether suoslde' are neiItralized by the lncessant movement of futuro ages. But the discoveries of great men never leave us, they are I'm mortal. they contain those eternal truths which survive the shock or em- hires. soutliye~ the struggle or rlVdi creeds and witness the decay Of sue cessive religions All these have their dinarent measures and their dinerent standards: one set of opinions for one