The Washington bee., 1908-01-25


ing had no occasion to change a serv-
ing man, or woman. in many years. We
go away, and sometimes are absent for
months, returning to find the place as
we left it. If they were actual mem
bers of the family they could not be
more solicitous for our welfare.
Some Personal Experience
l passed not a few of my boyhood
days upon a plantation in Tennessee
in point OF fact upon two plantations in
Tennessee - wher slavery existed in its
complete but also under its milder as
poets and conditions. From the earliest
dawnings OF intelligence which l can
remember the system seemed to me as
nonstrous. If slavery is not wrong"
said Lincoln, nothing is wrong" So
| thought, and so l think. Thousands
of men fought and fell on the oCnfed-
crate side of the War of Sections who
believed the same thing; as did Wash
ington and Jefferson, and the gentle
men OF Virginia who made the first
American Revolution.
When the second American Revolu-
ton came to pass. liberating as by the
stroke OF the sword nearly four million
slaves from bondage, my sentimen of
freedom was in excess of my sense of
the magnitude and the complexities of
the event. l accepted The situation. The
last three Amendments to the Constitu-
ton I declared to be the actual and
final treaty of peace between the North
and the South 1t was my opinion
based on feeling and not on knowledge
or judgment - that invested with full
citizenship the newly liberated slave
would be able TO work ont his own
destiny. During the ten years of Re-
construction that followed, l devoted my
energies toward the habiltation of the
black man of the South as essential to
the pacifcation OF the white men of
the North and South. There are plenty
of black people living in Kentucky who
remember we'll the contest we had with
the elements OF disorder masquerading
as the Ku Klux Klan long after the dis
bandment of that drear organization in
the States south Of us, the struggle for
the admission of Negro testimony to
our courts of law - in point of fact,
the stubborn fight for the expurgation
OF the old black laws from the statute
books of the Commonwealth - narrow
ing itself down even to the right OF the
Negro to ride upon the street cars. Hap
PLY, Kentucky escaped the many dan
gers and evils which would surely have
en5ued if the extremism of those dark
days had prevailed.
Because it did not, we have had no
race war or serious racial conflict in
Kentucky The feudists of the noun
tains, the Night Riders of the tobacco
belt are all whites, not blacks. Reason
able white people and reasonable black
people find it easy to get along much as
if there existed no color line Each
is inspired by a sense OF duty to the
other, which. under the benign inhu-
ence OF religion and humanity, may yet
blossom into the old domestic relations
Of confidence and affection, the man
ownership clause at once self-respecting
and reciprocally respected.
What Shall NE Do about IT,?
Unfortunately there are bad white
men as there are bad black men; there
are foolish black men as there are fool
ish white men, and they constitute the
real menace and danger
am bound TO tell you, after forty
Years of experience and observation and
reflection, that l think we began wrong.
We put the cart before the horse. -Four
millions of poor black people with
SOME centuries of abject slavery and
many ages of barbaric night behind
them, were not equal to using the free
dom that came to them so suddenly,
and especially the ballot. with prudence
CT intelligence How could they? I
don't blame them in the least On the
contrary, l sometimes wonder at their
self-Iestraint As, during the Sectional
War, they were faithful servants, re-
naming at home and tilling the fields
and taking care of the women and the
children, so, since the war, according
to their lights, they have tried to be
good citizens. l glory in every step OF
progress they have made and they
haev made many strides from that