Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1905-11-03
A WEAK oAMPAIGN DODGE

4 uC letpuOilCNu convention at 40
anoKe thought it was perpetrsting a
very popular campaign dodge 10
promising free books to the free
school children. but the bubble has
been pricked, aud its emptiness ex-
posed. lo discussing this matter the
Richmond Evening journal says:
"ln addition 10 supplying with free
books the sixty nine thousand young
negroes now attending the public
Schools, provided for them by the
whites, there are estimated to be about
one hundred and ninety-6ve thousand
Others of school age, large percen-
tage of whom would probably be in
duced by the offer of free books to
forsake the prosaic and uncongenial
laboTs of the hoe aud plow, and de.
vote themselves with ardor TO the
pursuit of literature, art and science
at the expense of their white neigh
bors. This proposition will no doubt
meet with enthusiastic support from
the negroes, but what will the white
voters have to say who are invited to
pay for this Republican dream of
universal negro education at the ex-
pense of the whites?
"Iu our laudableambition to make
classical scholars of all the rising
hopes of the negro race, we have for
forty years furnished them with edu-
Gated teachers and comfortable school
houses, in which to pursue their
studies and fit themselves for that
station in society for which their
souls hunger, and 10 which constitu-
tional amendments and northern
phiIanthropists have called them.
The Republicans now propose, as a
further encouragement, to furnish
them free books. Why should they
not also furnish them with free
clothing? And then, too, midday
luncheon would materially contribute
to that comfort Of body and repose of
mind so essential in attaining the
best results from the youthful stu
dent. How can anyone expect the
young negro to concentrate his mind
on the systems of Euclid, che beauties
of Virgil, or the splendors of Homer
while painfully conscious of an
empty or an inadequately filled stom-
ach, and a doubtfully clothed back ?
Unless he (the young negro) be
properly fed and clothed, as we'll as
housed and taught and supplied with
books, how can the Republican party
hope to raise him from that station
in which it pleased God to place him,
and it him, to adorn the drawing
rooms of Mr.. Ogden aud similar
philanthropists aud educators?
Gail the Republicans have to do is
to persuade the white voters of Vir
ginia to pay for these educational ad-
vantages, and the result-so, at least,
We have been taught-will be rising
generation of off colored orators and
statesmen, poets and wits, scientists,
philosophers and scholars-of course,
the hewing of wood, the drawing of
water, and the hoeing of corn can be
done by the whites, since they have
to be done by somebody.
"When we consider all the allur-
ing possibilities involved in thus
spending the money of the whites for
the general benefit and we'll being of
the blacks, we are simply amazed at
the moderation that only promises
them free school books.
"But perhaps we do the Republi-
cans an injustice; perhaps it is their
purpose, having first committed the
white voters of Virginia to the prin-
ciple of supplying the young negroes
with free books, to stilI further call
on them to furnish free clothing,
free food, free lodging and free trans
portation to and from school.
compared with this magnificent
programme, the forty acres and a
mule proposition of reconstruction
times is simply ridiculous.
"But we foresee difficulty in the
realization of this Republican dream.
Will the white voters of Virginia
agree to pay the cost viii the eel
lie still and be skinned?" a