The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-12-04
MAKING YANKEES OF THEM.

Mir. Moorfeld Story of Boston an nounces graveiy and with some indi- cations of surprise that we have been trying to turn FiIipinos into Yankees, palm trees into pines. by force. It is hopeless" It no doubt comes in the nature of a shock to Boston that the FYllpinos are not capable of being transposed into Yankees. but a little reflection ought to be of advantage to them. Something like forty years ago our fellow citizens of New England en- dsavored to turn Southern negroes into Yankees or some other brand of white ! mon, and the result was a miserable I abortion. just as it is proving in the kPhiiippines.
 1 Will the people of this country. es- pecialIy of New England, never learn that ths decrees and operations of na- ture cannot be annulied, set asile or changed by the puny hands of man? For a matter of three or more centu- ries they have been consistently en- gagged in the effort to transform the American Indians into Caucasians, but for the most part the undertaking has been largely failure. There are edu- cated. refined and intelligent Indians. many of them. but they arc mainly so ir, spite of New England methods. not because of them. The blood and treas ure that have been spent in the iilog- teal, generally inhunian. efforts to force the red man to at once put from him the habits and customs of ages Of saw awerv and to assume at once the dress, habits and manners of the white man forms one of the least creditabie fea- lures of American dominion on the con tinent. There is really little in 1t to be proud of
 But our New England brethren learned nothing from experience and conservation. Hardly waiting till the war was over they turned their atten- ton to the late slaves and set m to metamorphose them into good and in- tellirent citiSens---to make Yankees Of them. in short. It mattered not that the negroes were not ready to be lifted up It made no difference that the ignorance built into them by ages of SANAKefY 6nu OAAJ PaA tASAtS by some centuries of slavery could not he eradicated in a day. It mattered not that the negroes were in no way
 prepared or fitted to be elevated and placed on the level of the white race.
 It nattered not that the course pursued bv New England was unjust, wicked and cruel towards the whites of the
 South who were just beginning one of
 the most gigantic and apparently hope | less industrial and financial struggles that any people ever engaged in.
 All this made no difference with the cranks and fanatics of the North. The eolored man was here and he must be lifted up. 'Is he not man and
 brotherg'" was the cry of the Garri- sons and all their coterie of fanatics and awry humanitarians. and that question permitted of but one reply.
 The negro was the blood-brother of the
 white man and he must at once be ele-
 vated to the seats of the elect and
 nlaeed In the chairs of the highest. It
 was a miserable fnrcG unjust to the negroes, unjust to the Southern whites
 and not at all credit to those who | led in 1t.
 It has taken our deluded or malicious fellow citizens of New England almost 1 two-score years to see that they made
 A most miserable botch of the elevating business, but yet they are not satisfied. The same cranks hardly waited for the
 Spanish flag to be hauled down before they were again busy. Here was new
 brand of man and brother. Here was
 another lowly people to be pried up,
 educated and cultivated. In many re- spects these islanders were not above our southern negroes. They were ig- norant. debased, treacherous and cruel. but no matter. They are our wards l and we must at once lift them up We
 must humanize and christianize them--- make Yankees of them, in short, and
 do it at once.
 We cannot better conclude this ar
 ticle than by making some extracts | from an editorial in one of our Yam
 kee contemporaries, The Hartford Cou-
 rant It says:
 The Filipino will never be q Yankee, | and therein is the complete reason win y l the agitation of the Boston school is useless and, indeed, dangerous. The