The daily sentinel., 1907-07-11

| foolish white men and there are fool
| ish black men, and what are we 60
ing to do with them and about them
"This our planet would be heaven,
indeed, If all of US were wise and
good. But, If all Of us were wise
and good. why each of us would be
ten feet tall, and beautiful, and ed
ucated, and rich-above all, mark
you, richl None of us would have
to work; just only to loll back in the
shade of summer and eat watermel-
ons. and to snuggle by the roaring
Iog-heaps of winter and tell fairy
tales. with angels to wait upon us.
That is the promised Jubilo. | am
afraid it is a good ways off yet. Mean
while, both winter and summer most
of us-very nearly all of us-haye
to work; and even the few who have
nothing to do but sip custards and
clip coupons, to play policy and to
be at the races, are not the happiest
What, then, Is best for us, black and
white alike? For be sure the interest
of one race is the interest of the 9TH
er race, that neither can prosper if
either suffers.
81 must tell you. after forty years
of experience and observation and
reflection, that think we began
wrong. We put the cart before the
horse. Four millions of poor black
people, with some centuries of alb
ject slavery and many ages of bar
barrie night behind them, We're not
equal to using the freedom that came
to them so suddenly, and especially
the ballot, with prudence or intelli-
gence. How could they? l don't
blame them at all. On the contrary,
/ sometimes wonder at their self-re-
straint. As, during the sectional war
they were faithful servants, remain
ing at home and tilling the fields and
taking care of the women and chill
dren, so I since the war, according to
their lights, they have tried to be
good citizens. / glory in every step
of progress they have made-and
they have made many strldes-from
that day to this. Temperamentally
ever for the under dog-a crank
about personal liberty If | am Il
crank about anything my heart
goes out to the black man wherever
| see him honestly struggling to raise
his children to a condition better than
his own.
"The race question is a mystery.
For the matter of that, life IS a mys-
terry. Whence we came, whittier we
are going. we know not. The negro
you will understand that | say
negro as | would say Briton. or Egypt
tian. as a racial designation and not
as nickname-the negro Is thought
to be especially initiative. All of us
are more or less neutrality-suspicious.
larly the ultra smart set of high so
ciety-which. on the seaboard. imi-
tates the little 1t knows about the
English Dobility, and, in the interior
whatever it can find out about the
smart set of the seaboard, 1t is an
unfortunate Characteristic of imita-
tion to take for its example rather
the bad than the good of whatever
attracts its admiration or its envy
Jess like white folks is sometimes
heard in colored circles of fashion
that is, among the colored smart set
or the colored four hundred. Now
for my part, | scarcely think much
more Of the colored four hundred
than I think of the Caucasian -four
hundred, who live for vanity and
pleasure, and who. If they can't e.
to heaven in their automobiles, don't
want to go at ALI
Every shoemaker to his last, the
saying hath It, and that say I, each
mothers son to his vocation, what
ever it be. Men in their places arc
the men who stand.
Honor and fame from no condi-
tion rise;
] Act well your part
THE lines may be something mus
| ty but they are even truer now thar
when Pope wrote them 200 years
ago amid class favoritism and caste
distinction, uncontested and immov
able. You cannot make a silk purse
out OF a sow's ear the familiar
aphorlsm tells us. No more can yol
make a musician or poet, or law
yer, or a doctor, out of material tina
was heaven-sent and earth-meant fol
blacksmithing, dray-driving anI
blowing.
"All of us are creatures of evolu
ton and education. The white race
seem to have got along faster in th'
great eternal plan than the blacl
race. Why, l cannot tell you. 1t Il
simple fact obvious to all of us
that. Just as Europe and America ar,
/ farther advanced in arts and arms
1 than Africa. are the Europeans ant
Americans ahead of the Africans ii
| the developments of modern culture
/ As this ought not to be the subject
of vainglorious eXa1tation among the
whites, il should not be considered OF
! felt as either a humiliation or a re-
proach by the blacks. In case it
should become so, the future would
be dark indeed for both races. Each
needs to grow in grace; but it is my
belief that each can and will thus
grow in grace in the south first of all
and most of all, and within lines
plainly fixed by God and nature, lead
ing to that ultimate peace that pass
eth understanding, when the lion and
the lamb shall lie down in harmony
I'VE may not escape our manifest
destiny. Neither of us can get rid Of
the other. Schemes to that end, how
ever ingenious, are wholly visionary
Since this is so, let us take account
OF what has been done these forty
years of freedom.
THE world has never witnessed
any such progress from darkness to