Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1906-10-12
THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH.

existing in the South
The fearful occurrences in Atlanta,
Georgia, which have Mortified readers OF
the daily press may we'll give us OF the
North q shock. We deserve it and we
need it to awaken US to q realization OF
our responsibilities to our brethren OF the
South. A race war, undertaken on the
part of the whites in sacred defense OF
their homes. or an unlawful outbreak in
which the innocent and guilty of one
race were alike sacrificed to the madden
ed vengeance of another; consider it
either way, as you will; deuounce it or
excuse it; find pslliation in the greatest
of provocations humanity can know or
condemn the perpetrators as outrageous
law breakers, you cannot avoid the aw-
full fact that the condition which is re-
sponsible for it exists and must be reckon
ed with.
The North is even more responsible
for this overshsdowing horror than the
South. Let it face the facts as they
are aud cease this sloppy, sentimental
talk about the elevation of the negro race
and the need of self control on the part
of the southern Caucasian. Ethical con-
siderations, fine spun theories, philan-
thropical devices for gradual elevation
of the negro are not entitled to a mo-
ment's consideration when it is true that
no white woman living in the South is
safe for a moment unless guarded by the
gun. =.
The North freed these negroes. 1t
elevated them to citizenship and pro-
claimed them the possesors of equal
rights With the whites. They washed
their hands of responsibility; they left
to the impoverished, defeated, disheart-
ened South the task of making the new
ly freed worthy of citizenship.
Since then, the North has contributed
largely of money to educate the negro.
1t has sympathized with and supported
every scheme devised to benefit the
negro and has lsuded to the highest
skies every effort to create in him So
cial, political and financial aspirations
To the protests of the white men OF
the South who knew the negro and
had to live with him, that the methods
chosen were wrong and mischieyous and
would surely result in disaster, the
people of the North turned deaf ear.
The southern white mans exact
knowledge OF conditions was discredited,
his advice scorned, his warnings un-
needed.
He was told to contain himself, to be
patient and await the results of long
distance northern theorizing.
Now 1t has at length come 10 pass that
the deluge has broken and this problem,
long in the brewing of its maligu factors,
must be effectually settled not alone by
the South but the North as well. We
have had enough of theorizing, temper
orizing, philosophizing, it is time to act.
White women and children are not
safe, they cannot walk unguarded in the
streets of the cities even in the day
time. At night, doors must be locked
and windows barred, the revolver must
be- ready at hand, if the black assailanl
is to be kept out.
Northern people do not know the
truth and their journals are not enlight'
ening them. The South, for very shame,
ia 10th to let the facts be known, but 8
residence of even few weeks in any
portion of the country where the igno'
rant negro population Is congested will
convince the most skeptical that thii
hideous danger is always imminent ant
very real.
The fear of immediate and dreadful
death is powerless to control the brutal
degenerated negro when his passions arr
aroused. His mind is too feeble and
shallow to consider the consequences o
his crime and the brute in him, onc'
awakened, reckons nothing whatever
of future punishment.
This national cancer is 8 revolving
hideous subject. The South understand
| it and the better classes of whites, Il
whom our sympathy and aid should b
extended in the fullest measure, know
further that, besides the vicious negro
they have with them large element o
ignorant, violent, incorporate whit
people for whose crude and revolving ex
ecution of lynch law they are held re
sponsible by the world.
1t is time for the North to bear ham
in the solution of the problem it has lib
orally shared in creating. 1t can do 8
by ceasing to exploit the negro as tn
white mans equal. Itcan do 30 by con
sidering the mass o. negroes in ths Sout
as they are, not as sentimentalists repre-
sent them to be. 1t can do so by di;
continuing Its senseless, fruitless attemE
at higher cultivation OF the negro. A
long as the vast majority Of the race i
the South remains as it is, the stron
arm of white control must be strength
ened and encouraged to exert itself.
The negro must be taught the rld
mentary virtues he has forgotten befor
he can aspire to g higher educatior
The North can do its duty by hrst III
,, derstanding the condition as it is an
True and tried friends Of the family-p