The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-05-28
AND THE NEGRO.

Senator Tillman's discussion of the
race question in the south seemed to be
a revelation to his audience in the ter
rible picture it made of the conditions
which make the negro problem the
gravest question the nation has TO
solve Those familiar with the stu
alton know that his portrayal of facts
bearing on lynching was not exag-
gerated no exact description could
ever be adequate to the horror of the
fear which is too often realized by the
white men and women of the south.
Nor was he too severe in his arraign-
lnent of the men of the north who see
Eothing in the struggle for protection
from black fiends except the bare vio-
lation of law. Either III ignorance or
with malice, these northerners fail TO
present the real motive back of sudden
and violent punishment of the I'M
nameabe crimes which lead 10 lynch
ings. Living in the serene security of
communities which have no such fear,
they condemn the action of men who
live day by day in terror of suffering
worse than death, who are compelled
to resort to a barbaric code to defend
themselves against a brutality which is
less than human.
So far Senator TiIlman may be do
ing good work in the presentation of
facts which are usually ignored or
misunderstood in the north. Beyond
that, Tillman's mission is worse than
useless as a contribution to study of
the negro problem and solution of it's
difficulties. Passing by the erudeness
of his language, admitting the violence
Of the prejudices which he engenders,
his speeches and his personal attitude
serve only to make the question harder
10 settle.
Take, for instance, his assumption
that the negro is own brother to the
baboon, that the white man is natural
" the master Of the negro. Why? Who
made any human the natural master
of another? Why should the negro be
the slave in fact of the white man now
as he was the slave in law before the
great war?
Again, Senator Tillman sneers at the
work of Booker Washington and as
serts that he is the son of a white IA
Their and black mother: that logically
the advocates of a Booker Washington
and believers in his work will have to
seek more of his kind by the same COM
bination that produced him if they
wish to save the black race ON his plan.
Right there the sober student parts
company with Tillman. No matter
what Washington-s antecedents are, no
matter whether he is half white or half
black, or all black, he is an infinitely
achievements for good, in his devotion
10 humanity, in breadth of thought,
steadfastness of purpose and endurance
Of wrong that came to him in birth
and must continue until death.
Washington's idea is that the saliva
ton of the negro race must come from
the negro himself; that the black must
learn the independence which comes
from honest toll, frugaiity, accumula-
ton of wealth. He has no use for pol
itics or politicians as factors in the
negro problem: he deplores the educa-
ton of the negro which fails TO teach
self-help and the dignity of labor. He
has done more in few years to show
what the negro can do for himself than
a thousand TiIlmans could do in a mil
lenium. Booker Washington is a con-
structive, vigorous force in the eleva-
ton OF a race. while Tillmans mission
is destructive, its purpose is TO discred-
it a people who suffer intoleraDly at
the best.
1t may be true. as Tillman insists,
that the negro is of a low order of hu-
manity. but that is not surprising. The
negro is yet child as civilization goes.
He has had little more than a genera
ton of opportunity and freedom, where
the white man has had his thousands of
years of struggle upward. The negro
has been the bondsman. borne down.
ward constantly by the brutality of the
white. He is not the equal OF the white
man. although misguided sentimental
ism has tried TO believe he is. He can
rot be the equal of the white man until
ks has struggled and suffered and