The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-10-03

dark child has not forced the family
back over the line to black.
There is. in Washington negro cir
yles, a growing feud between the
'brights' and the black" to use the
terms of the former, or between the
"yalIers'' and the browns" to use
the terms of the latter. The former
are better bred and in general better
reared than the latter.
Among this transient, parasitical,
and generally black element of the
colored population are thousands
whom. if they were white, We would
brand as "roWdies," ''cut-throats,
thugs Cadets hold-up men,
''hoboes;" but whom, in our careless
scorn. we now content ourselves by
loosely CHASING together as id
niggers." Recently four of them at
tackled in a ~treet car white young
man who was escorting young lady.
They cut him with a razor beyond
recognition, and ne lay for weeks in
a hospital. The fear of race war"
is one of the several blights upon the
community, and is sufficient to pre-
vent any adequate dealing with the
growing trouble.
Mskeshift Negro School.
1t might be supposed that the
S%AOOlo, OCluS ny SOHS1 OSc,
would help in the solution of the
problem. But for several reasons
they only make bad matters worse.
Twenty thousand children, one-third
of them cOlored, are upon half-time i'll
the schools; and there are about one
third as man kindergaTtenS as are
required. Instead of building schools,
congress rents an extraordinary num-
Der of miserable buildings. paying
some forty thousand dollars a year for
this item. The negro children go to
school for three or four years, most
ly upon half-time, and then drop out
10 go to work" which means to help
their parents at home or to enter
service The negroes resent, and
congress will not afford any adequate
funds for, manual and industrial
training. What schooling most of
them get is worse than nothing. for
1t enables perhaps half of them to
read daily newspapers and to acquire
much perverse information
In consequence of this situation.
Congressman Hefllin found himself
pursued by hundredse of anonymous
letters warning him to quit his attack
upon disorder and crime here. treat
ed with insolence in the street-cars,
and criticized by timid District whites
for stirring up trouble This timid-
ity of the whites makes the negro bull
" in his own eyes sacrosanct. Being
incapable of covering in this storm
of threats and of reproaches, as a
matter OF common sense, the Con-
gresham applied to the police for
permission to carry revolver And
when the time came for Ilm toN use
it, after half-drHnken man, adding
to his load in the car itself by
taking out pocket-fiast, freely to i'm
bibe from il, had drawn a razor upon
him, the Southerner could only do
what any man would do; de used the
revolver. first as a bludgeon, then as
a fireman
OF course, it viii be said that his
life was not in danger" Those who
know the situation believe that the
life of any and every man in the
District is in danger wnen he attempts
in any serious way to baIk the license
of these thousands of brutal negroes.
AS matters are now, the only other
course for a decent man to pursue,
when thus insulted in car or upon
the street, is to move away fast.
And this is what most persons in
the District do. They get out of the
car that has the "drunkS" upon it,
they cross to the other side of the
street, they avoid certain streets,
and they move out of the District
One sixth of the white population
moves away every year. The changes
of politics have very little to do with
this. The general political condition
has much to do with il. The repub-
lican party is committed TO preserving
things as they are. Republicans who
would not allow their own children
TO go 70 school with negro children
nevertheless maintain as directors OF
the public schools upon the Board
of Education one-third negroes. As
one consequence, though the city
grows steadily, there are actually two
hundred and fifty less children en-
rolled this year in the public schools
than last. So discredited are these
schools that. partially as a result, two
hundred private schools also are
maintained in the District
Some Needed Reforms.
The negro problem in Washington
will grow steadily worse and worse
until some climax comes. 1t may
come when. if soon enough, the re-
publican regime is overthrow, and
Southern democrats, who alone know
now to deal with the negro. are given
an opportunity TO restore Self-goyern-
ment with restricted suffrage 70 this
Southern city. And il may come in a
worse form at some time when
crowds gather. The tinder and the
tar-barrels and the fuel for a great,
and let us hope never-to-berealized,
social confiagration are ready and in
place Only the lighted match and the
hand to use it have not yet come.
How much better IL would be TO re-
move all this infiammable material.
Yet ii is not reasonable 10 suppose
that congress will give the District
prohibition, separate cars, ordinances
calculated to encourage in1ustrialisn,