The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-01-03

and the spirit of the constitution Of the
state to longer lease convicts or work
them on the lands of private indivd-
uals.
On Public Education.
Under the head of public education the
governor says. Public education is a
matter of profound and abiding interest
to the people of Mississippi, and the main
tenanee of a system Of free public schools
has become fundamental tenet in our
political creed But people have a fad
about education as they have about every
thing and are liable to go to unprofita-
BILE extremes. believe a dollar
invested for the development of the mind
of the white child, and the cultivation
of the mind of the white man and woman
is the best investment the state ever
made. On the other hand l believe every
dollar invested for negro education under
our present free school system, is an in
defensible and unwarranted prodigality
of cash. It is crime against the white
man WHO furnishes the dollar and a dis
advantage to the negro upon whom it is
spent"
Here follows column quotation from
the governors first message, that of two
years ago in which he urged that the
country boys and girls be given, every
opportunity for the rudiments of an edu-
cation. He would have the state do the
very best 1t can for them, believing that
an educated citizenry is the bulwark of
the state and country What he said then
on that subject he declared was intended
only for the white boys and girls of the
state, and ends by asking the question.
| What shall we do with the negro?" An
swering that question, he says
Certainly the education that suits the
white child does not suit the negro. This
has been demonstrated by forty years Of
experience, and the expenditure in the
southern states of nearly three hundred
million of dollars. 1t was natural and
quite reasonable Immediately after the
civil war, especially by those who had
made but a superficial study Of the negro,
to expect that freedom, equal education
al facilities and the example and precept
| Of the white man, would have the effect
of improving his morals. and make a
| better man of him generally. But it has
not, | am sorry to say. AS race, he is
| deteriorating every day. Time has demon
strated that he is more criminal as
| free man, than as a slave, that he is in
| creaslng in criminality with fearful rapid
ty. being one-third more criminal in 1890
than he was in 1880.
| The startling facts revealed by the CEN
sus show that those who can read and
write are more criminal than the Hitter
ate, which is true of no other element of
our population. 1 am advised that the
minimum of illiteracy among the negroes
is found in New England, where 1t is 65.7
per cent And yet the negro in New
England is four and one-half times more
criminal, hundred for hundred, than he is
| In the black belt. In the south, Missis-
sippl particularly, ! know he is growing
worse every year You can scarcely pick
up a newspaper whose pages are not
| blackened with an account Of an unmen-
tionable crime, committed by negro
| brute. and this crime, l want to impress
upon you, is but the manifestation of the
negros aspiration for social equality, en-
| couraged largely by the character of free
| education in vogue, which the state is
| levying tribute upon the white people to
maintain. The better class of negroes are
not responsible for this terrible condition
or for the criminal tendency of their race.
Nor do | wish to be understood as CEN
| surfing them for it. l am not censuring
anybody, nor am inspired by ill-will for
the negro, but l am simply calling atten-
ton to a most unfortunate and unendura-
BILE condition of affairs. What shall be
done about 1t? Surely something must be
done. The white people of Mississippi
cannot sit idly by without making an
effort at least to arrest this destructive
tendency.