Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1908-08-28
WOULD NOT EXCITE
 RACE PREJUDICE
Negro Leader Advises Against thc Employment of Negroes Where Whites Obi icct to Their Presence,

''''"N iohNis pi IitipdL ol tut Branch Normal College for negroes, in Pine Bluff, has written to J. A. Franklin, of this city, the owner of the mill at Truman, where the whites have recently driven negro laborers away on two occasions, urging him not to attempt to again employ negroes in his mill. The letter is as follows:
 Pine Bluff, Ark, Aug. 25, 1908.
 MT. J. A. Franklin, Truman, Ark.
 Dear. MT. Franklin-I believe discharge public duty to you and to the negroes of the state by addressing this letter to you relative to the labor troubles at Truman, and want to assure you that my purpose is to meddle with your private business af- fairs no farther than they touch the negro in his relation to the public peace and welfare.
 Press dispatches indicate that ne- groes employed in your mill at 'Tru- mann have twice been driven away. from the town by the whites. The fur ther information is given that you need the services of the negroes driv- they have been treated, and that you will endeavor to carry out your plan of employing negroes in your mill. be- lieve the negroes in the state will rex member these things concerning you and will feel grateful to you for the kindness indicated by your attitude. But l am wondering whether the car rying out of your purpose will be best for all concerned.
 Since last October. more than two million men in the United States have been out of employment, and want and suffering have borne heavily upon the | shoulders of the poor. All sections of the country have felt the financial de- pression and unrest; and, considering the causes which produced these hard times, the South has had more than it's share. Many of our factories and mills have been closed for months, and, as result, men have left their homes to seek employment in other places; and the burdens have borne so heavily up- on some of these men that, forgetting all moral obligations, they have de- serted their families and loved ones. Amid such conditions, it is dangerous lit is suicidal, to awaken race feel ing; for when you add to hatred which, unfortunately, seems to run in the blood of many, the feeling that the despised race is making harder the struggle for bread, the question rises terrible and stern from the debatable ground of social phenomena to the bitter, cruel forum of economic expe- diency. where, in the struggle for sur vival man harks back to the ele;:lent- al days and throws all ethical codes to the winds. All students of eco homie problems as they have injected '.Hem- selves into the history of man, know that hatred becomes as cruel IS the grave when races struggle for bread
 And more than that The experiences of the past teach that in such strus- gies the stronger asks for no quarter and gives none; but, on the other hand, seeks to wipe the weaker oppor- ent from the earth, settling at once :Ae accumulated scores of vear.. This
 is net pleasant reading. 1t is not cred
 :taL'2 to men; but it is hun1an na-
 5ure revealed through history: and you, Mr Franklin, and l ana al of us
 nave not time to cry out agaia.t the
 etc, i.ai verities-against human na- t1rt-We are under obligations 70 our
 times to know the past and ,o suide
 o,r steps today in it's light.
 To-. tiese reasons, and without a;- t:r'p:ins to go into the question O.
 tfe ethical principles il.3vlvel I be-
 lleVe you ought not to persevare in %o"r determination to employ negroes
 in y,,.l mill if such a course vii er- 3"h,er strife in the town Of lrunann
 l Hecc"nize the right of those negrces ny ~ ] people-to work rather than
 5e ''i!e and commit crime-tos. work
 tha' the;. loved ones may ha9,. breal;
 for it is not easier for olac', man
 to he,s lis child cry for food .han for
 any other father. But there the other places ill Arkansas where the presence
 of the negro is wanted, and where
 white men with hearts as large as your own will give employment to the men denied the right to labor at Tru-
 mann. Depend upon it: if the majority
 of the citizens of that town want ne- sroes there the black people will be
 fully protected without your or the governors aid; if the majority feel
 bitter toward the negroes, the negroes tx-.