The Monticellonian., 1906-12-06

ana therefore such careless use of the intunctive process tends to threaten it's very existence. for if the American peo- pie ever become convinced that this process Is habitually abused. whether in matters affecting labor or in matters af- feeting corporations. it will be well-nigh impossible to prevent its abolition"
 The Negro Problem.
 The negro problem is given considera- ble attention, after calling attention to the fact that no section Of the country IS free from faults, and that no section has occasion to jeer at the shortcomings of any other section, he turns to the sub 1eet of lynchings, and especially as ap- piled to the negro of the south. He says the greatest existing cause for mob law Is the perpetration by the blacks of the crime of rape. a crime which he terms even worse than murder. He quotes the admonitions to the white people spoken by Gov. Candler, of Georgia, some years ago. and by Gov. Jelks. of Alabama. re- gently, and then says
 Every colored man should realize that the worst enemy of his race is the negro criminal. and above all the ne gro criminal who commits the dread full crime of rape; and it should be felt as in the highest degree an offense against the whole country, and against the eolored race in particular, for colored man to fail to help the officers Of the law in hunting down with all possible earnestness and zeal every such infamous offender. Moreover. in my judgment, the crime of rape should always be punished with death, as is the case with murder: assault with in tent to commit rape should be made capital crime. at least in the discretion or the court: and provision should be made by which the punishment may follow immediately upon the heels of the offense; while the trial should be so conducted that the victim need not be wantonly shamed while giving tes- ttmony, and that the least possible publicity shall be given to the details.
 The members of the white race on the other hand should understand that every lynching represents by just so much a loosening of the bands of civ ilizatien. that the spirit of 1ynehing inevitably throws into prominence in the community all the foul and evil creatures who dwell therein. No man can take part in the torture of q hut man being without having his own moral nature permanently lowered. Every lynching means just so much moral deterioration in all the children who have any knowledge of it. and therefore just so much additional trouble for the next generation of
 Let justice be both sure and swift; but let it be justice under the law. and not the wild and crooked savagery of a mob.
 Need for Negro Education.
 There is another matter which has direct bearing upon this matter of lynching and of the brutal crime which sometimes calls it forth and at other times merely furnishes the excuse for its existence. It is out of the question for our people as whole permanently to rise by treading down any of their own number. Even those who them selves for the moment profit by such maltreatment of their fellows will in the long run also suffer. No more shortsighted policy can be imag gined than. in the fancied interest of one class, to prevent the education of an other class. The free public school, the chance for each boy or girl to get good elementary education. lies at the slfaH atlon. In every community the poor est citizens. those who need the schools most would be deprived of them If they only received school facilities approximately to the taxes they paid This is as true of one portion of our country as or another. It is as true for the negro as for the white man. The white man, if he Is wise will de cline to allow the negroes in mass to grow to manhood and womanhood without education. UnqueStiOnabiy ed ueation such as is obtained in our pub lie schools does not do everything to- wards making a man good citizen; but it does much. The lowest and most brutal criminals. those for instance who commit the crime of rape, are in the great majority men who have had either no education or very ltle; just as they are almost invariably men who own no property; for the man who puts money by out of his earnings, like the man who acquires education. is usually lifted above mere brutal crfminalitY. Of course the best type of education for the colored man ta ken as d whole, is such education as is conferred in schools like Hampton and Tnskegee; where the boys and girls, the young men and young wo- men, are trained industrially as well as in the ordinary public school branches. The graduates of these schools turn out well in the great ma iortty of cases, and hardly any of them become criminals, while what little criminality there is never takes the form of that brutal violence which in vites lynch law. Every graduate of these schools-and for the matter of that every oher colored man or wo- man-Who leads a life so useful and honorable IS to win the good will and respect of those whites whose neigh bor he or she is, thereby helps the whole colored race as it can be helped in no other way for next to the negro himself, the man who can do most to help the negro is his white neighbor who lives near him; and our steady effort should be to better the relations between the two. Great tho the bene- fit of these schools has been to their colored pupils and to the eolored peo- pie, it may well be questioned whether the benefit has not been at least as great to the white people among whom these colored pupils live after they graduate"
 Capital and Labor.
 On the subject of capital and labor the president takes the agitators of class hatred to task and says ito preach
 
 to seek to mislead and infiame to mad ness honest men whose lives are hard l and who have not the kind of mental training which will permit them to ap- precate the danger in the doctrines preached is to commit a crime against the body polite and to be false to every worthy principle and tradition of Amer ican national life" Continuing on this subject he says:
 ''The plain people who think-the mechanics. farmers, merchants. work CTS with head or hand, the men to whom American traditions are dear who love their country and try to act decentIy by their neighbors, owe it to themselves to remember that the most damaging blow that can be given pop ular government is to elect an un- worthy and sinister agitator on a platform of violence and hypocrisy. Whenever such an issue is raised fin this country nothing can be gained by hinchng from it. for in such case dem ocracy is itself on trial popular self government under republican forms is itself on trial. The triumph of the mob is just evil a thing as the tri- umph of the plutocracy, and to have escaped one danger avails nothing whatever if we sucuumb to the other. In the end the honest man. whether rich or poor. who earns his own living and tries to deal justly by his fellows. has as much to fear from the insineere and unworthy demagog. promising much and performing nothing. or else performing nothing but evil who v1,