The Washington bee., 1908-04-25
THE NEGRO AS A SOUTHERN
ISSUE.
ISSUE.
By TOHN 7. c. NEWsOM


that IS pertinent and best for the
civil moral and material good Of the
greatest number in the community.
Any other idea, or any other view,
is to be rejected as hurtful and
harmful, and subversive of the pub
lie veal.
The slogans OF designing polite
ians. in their discussions OF the Ne
gro as an issue, have varied from
time to time, one taking the place
of the other as soon as the last has
worn threadbare Directly after the
war the cry was Negro domination, "
later it was Social equality and
now the most hurtful and humiliat-
ing stigma yet applied to the race IS
the effort to make it appea' as a
"Race of rapists.'
The wanton playing on the pas
sions and prejudices Of men by crafty
politicians, for political advantage or
personal gain, regardless of the ulti-
mate ethical effects, is vicious in
conception and positively criminal
it is out OF harmony with reason and
common sense; it is inimical to our
American spirit, and subscribes to
a low morality: a crude civilization
is its countersign and mobocracy its
name. And yet this Is the system
which has obtained throughout the
South ever since the days of recon
struction! The custom does a great
injury. not only to the colored race,
who are the greatest sufferers, but to
the well-disposed whites. who are
daily hoping and praying for a per-
feet and permanent peace between
the races.
Whatever economic or political is
sue has forced itself TO the front as
a national or other domestic topic,
the Negro is sure to be selected as
the issue of Southern politicians; /;
and. whatever particular phase of the
Negro question has been chosen, you
are sure to have a new and bounte
Gus crop Of offenses Of that specific
brand, just d day or two before cleo
ton day - they are made to order,
as it were - and the effect is cleo
trical! Ohense against womanhood
IS usually the fayorite charge chos-
en-, because of-the great sensitiveness
of the white Southerner on this sub
ject; for, if there Is anything which
will bring them together or cause
them to go a-gunning. it is this one
subject
So that it matters not what the
exigencies of the times demand as an
issue, some phase of the Negro ques-
ton is sure to be selected This IS
the controdistinctive difference be-
tween Southern and a Northern
political campaign.
Outside the South the race ques-
ton has no place or influence in pol
itics: No Northern Republican, or
Democrat, would seriously contem-
plate the passage of any Federal law
to disturb the civil or political status
of the Negro, or the abolition of any
existing Federal statute affecting him
The periodical holding up of the
Negro to denunciation and scorn, as
a rapist and a hend, can be product
i've OF no ethical or political good.
It can result only in friction and
race hate. The Atlanta riots, pre-
ceded by one of the bittertst anti
Negro campaigns of all history, is an
illustration of what may invariably
be expected of such political meth
ods. For eight months prior to the
election in Georgia the two oppos-
ing gubernatorial aspirants had held
the Negro up as a hend, a rapist
and a brute! No name was too bad
to apply to him, and no adjective too
strong to describe his brutal instincts.
No other subject, except the Negro,
was discussed. Each candidate We'd
with the other to see who could prove
the stronger in his denunciation of
the Negro, and the stronger won the
nomination But, at what a cost, t,and
what a harvest of death for the Ne
groil
1t was the inevitable result of such
political methods. "Medea sowing
the dragons teeth. and thereby pro-
ducing a crop of armed men, is a
most forcible and fitting illustration
of the truth that the virus of passion
and race hate can have no other re-