The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1907-11-08

SudJ SIfeS OHeuSe. An ignorant col
ored nurse travelling with a white
family disturbs nobody in sleeper or
dining-car; but when educated ne
groes petition the Interstate Com
merce Commission for decent railway
accommodations, for which they are
willing and able to pay, the act is
characterized as "impudent and I'M
~speakably brazen." The colored valet
of a college student was once the
friend of all the boys; now they will
not live in the same boarding-hall
with a negro undergraduate, and if a
Northern college would be boycotted
by Southern students, it has only to
get a reputation for encouraging
the attendance of black ones. The
negro maid tricked out in her mis-
tress's cast-off finery is not an ele-
ment of disturbance; ominous is her
thirst for social equality" if she pays
for her own silk petticoat. And we
are solemnly informed that hitherto
inoffensive negroes who served as sol
diers in the Spanish War came back
from Cuba completely spoilt" by the
social privileges which they saw there
accorded to members of their race.
If the apparently innocent ambi-
tons Of the negro are thus estimated,
is it likely that their real offenses
are reported without ex~aggeration? l
have no desire, certainly, to white.
wash negro crime, but it is not always
the negro who begins the trouble
in a late disturbance in Arkansas
ovr0,, n GO11fh own rnnnrtorJo xyarofnn
could not conceal that fact-yet he al
ways gets the credit for it. The At.
lanta riot was followed in one South.
ern town by the posting Of threaten
ing notices upon the houses of even
the most respectable negroes. The
white citizens, touched by the alarm
of these unfortunate creatures, called
a meeting to make provision for their
protection. Its result was a long set
of resolutions, whose numerous
"whereases" opened by announcing
that efforts to educate and elevate the
negro had proven vain, and the dec
laration of its purpose to protect the
lives and purity of our women and
children" required so much space and
eloquence that the original object OF
the meeting was overlooked until the
very last paragraph! 1t is strange
that we cannot see that if we go on
alternating the better negroes by such
persistent unfairness, if, after repeat
eddy calling upon them for co-opera
/, ton in suppressing crime among thei1
race, we give a slap in the face to
those who publicly respond to the ap
peal by echoing the sentiment Of
many newspapers that I'VE can never
! be sure that tenders of cooperation
q now coming from negroes in many
portions Of the South are genuine,
c the plan Of closing the dives where
Il negro criminals are bred, good as it i
in itself, must be surely futile.
v Again, however little we like to
days negro as compared with the de
- lightful old-time nanny and "un
cle," it is he with whom our genera
ton has to deal, and we cannot brini
back the old type. My old washer
woman is, l confess, more picturesque
q ly attractive to me than her daugE
ter, who can read and WINS a piano
i, but l must in fairness say that tn
u latter is just as honest and just a
proud of the artistic touches whic
she puts upon my summer gowns an
~ what her mother calls my "wais'eS.
Is it not the merest common sense t
cease our lamentations for the n
gro that is passing away, and offe
- fair recognition and encouragement
W to him who now is, whether he woul
ie study agriculture or Greek? Call hi
70 inferior" always, if that idea is cor
forting, but remember that it is N
ou from the schools that negro crimina
come, and let him be educated for oil
safety, if not for his benefit.
,at AS to social equality" social lin
aw have ever been drawn, or | am mi
70. taken, upon considerations of co
of geniality. Never having been col
oh PEELED to invite to my house peoI
NO whom l found distasteful, l fail to S
why any Southern white man shou
nc. ever entertain a negro guest again
10, his will-or why it is any of his bu
ness if a Northern man wish to do
We And since all of us have been in d
q ing-cars and hotels with highly
asst %jectionable white people and still 81
ned yived, | suppose that nothing but O
rlv "uncompromising racial pride wol
ler suffer much from like proximity to
rial respectable and intelligent negro.
An1 finally noupot undarcto