The Washington bee., 1907-02-23

certainly be chronicled as one of the
grandest episodes in history, a brilliant
achievement of humanitarianism as
taught by Jesus; but no, they were
brought here for the express purpose Of
being enslaved, debased, defrauded, and
their wives and daughters debauched,
and that is what has actually taken
place.
A war was fought. the slaves by acci-
dent were emancipated, not in magnan-
unity but purely as war measure.
They were then given the franchise by
the people in power, not for the reason
named, but purely to perpetuate the
power of a party, so now we have the
strange paradox of the descendants of
slaves in the South voting with plu
tocracy, tyranny and oppression. while
the whites of the South, the most con-
scienceless tyrants and oppressors the
world has ever known, vote solid with
the party of Jefferson, the party of
equality.
Strange paradoxes, these!
The African Negro is an imitator
Could these millions of slaves have
found homes in high grade. intellectual
families devoted to magnanimous
thought, generous impulses and rational
Interpretation of life, their transporta-
ton to America would, indeed. have
been a most meritoriOus enterprise be-
cause they were bound to initiate their
masters and grow up like them, but
what was their fate? They, their wives
and children fell into the hands of the
most lustful. the most dangerous. hypO-
critical and SNUG lot of loafers that any
country has ever produced, viz, the
southern slave holder who, with all his
boasts of chivalry. his honorable atti-
tude toward womankind. his religious
fervor. etc, has ever been a demagogue.
a brute and this was the teacher of the
Negro. this was the training to which
Providence gave over the African to
mould his character and now Tillmans,
Hoke Smiths. and John Temple Graves
es walk up and down the earth in
Georgia, South Carolina and elsewhere
and proclaim the hideous characters Of
"the foul black fends.'
We must not forget that it was the
white fathers and grandfathers of the
present race of black who made it their
business TO debauch black women. Is
there not something in herediy?
Was there ever before such an out
rage on common decency and common
sense as the present crusade against the
blacks in the face of the fact that the
ignorant whites Of the South have made
of the Negroes just what they are?
Granted that it is true that much Op-
preston and humiliation have actually
been factors in cleaning the souls of the
blacks. this part of his education was
by indirection and the self-satisfed
white surely can expect no credit for
this.
1t will be remembered in ante-bellum
days, how public speakers came north
to harangue our audience in order to
create favorable impressions for the
slave holding class, and to those who
understand, this was the beginning of
the end.
It is true, chattel slavery IS abolished !;
it is true that auction on the block no
longer takes place in any State, but it
is not true that the blacks in the South
are free. They are no more free now
than when the four-decbed ships of Liv-
erpool were still engaged in landing
their cargOes at southern ports. and the
question arises. are 10000 self-conscious
black people going to continue to per
NIT themselves to be robbed, swindled,
bulldozed and browbeaten out of their
franchise, and are 80 or 10 millions Of
northern whites going to stand by and
observe this fragrant menace to their
own rights thrown to the winds, while
Justification bribery and oppression
stalk abroad in precise attire, and with
the hearts of devils in them declare that
black men have no rights that we need
respect?
1t Is time to say plainly that in addi-
ton to 100000 blacks of the South
there are 100000 and perhaps 5o,ooo,-
600 whites of the North who, once
aroused. will not permit our dearly
bought and most cherished principles Of
our civilization to be overridden by an
organization of southern bullies Ben
Tillman in his Chicago speech declared
that there will be another race war in
America. but it will be one of short
shrift. It will be one that will clear
our Jim Crow cars forever, it will be
one that will bring down upon the
southern hOOdlum elements a pressure
so profound and tremendous, composed
of persons one-tenth black and nine
tenths northern white. that will force