The morning journal-courier., 1908-05-02
Two-CoLoR MARRIAGES.

TWO-COL0R MARRIAGES.
 Eminent Europeans have said of us hat we are country of extremists At times 1t certainly seems as if We were, An instance at hand comes in connec ton with the negro problem. which like death and taxes seems certain to be ever with us, at least for some time to come. Almost at the very time that Senator Jeff" Davis, of Arkansas, was asking Senator Foraker, of Ohio in a | voice that thundered through the Cap | itol building why 1t was, f he loved 1 niggers' so well, he did not come for ward and defend them, social equali- ity dinner was being held by the Cos mopolltan club of Brooklyn, at which white women Of some of the best Brooklyn families and black men sat at the banquet board, side by side In alternate arrangement, and where all present gave their approval of Inter marriage as the solution of the vexlng race problem. The significant fact about the dinner Is that prominent ne- groes all over the country have been unwlllingly forced to admit that the gathering did the negro cause no gool but rather great harm. some of them going so far as to assert it will injure the negro more than any occurrence in the north in recent years.
 The range of the suggestions offered was large. one reverend gentleman was wiling to frankly assert that the hope of the negro lies in socialism Chi cago negro editor declared Taft the heir apparent to the throne who will restrict the suffrage or the negro The editor of the Independent declared that since deportation is impossible, anal. gamation with intermarriage and edu- cation Is the only remedy, which if continued would gradually bleach the race" The editor of the Evening Post is reported to have made the startling statement that in this country we stand for equality of rights and for | doing as we see ft" Incidentally the name of pr. Booker T. Washington was hisscd because hc believed only in peaceful resistance" and not in ag gressive action on the part of the ne- groes. and Miss Overton, n Brooklyn girl. said she liked 10 think I've arc going 10 eat with and stand up for om colored brethren.
 Just what the dinner has accomplish
 ed it is difficult to see The Rev nr
 Madison c. Peters, who says, as ar
 American citizen and n Christian al
 well as a man, that he can entertain
 neither race prejudice nor religious
 prejudice made an abrupt departur
 from the banquet hall after he saw in
 phenomenal seating arrangements al
 though he was expected to be one O
 the speakers When interviewed afte
 the occurrence he said 1t would b
 needless for him to say that he did no
 believe in the intermarrlnge of tn
 races. He had not expected that sue method of procedure would be pro
 posed but that the meeting was { bring together the two races in order { protest against the caste spirit in general way, having, as he said, n
 sympathy with that spirit that 'set
 men at each others throats when theI
 hands should be casped in brotherl , love"
 pr Peters said (and right here seen to be the pth of the whole matter
 that after having made n very careft
 study of the negro problem for veal
 he had become thoroughly convince . that its solution does not Io in tl hands of those who have intense hatre for the negro, or those who go too f.
 in the other direction, And that Is $
 The negro problem Is not going to
 settled in a moment or even in q d.
 neither of whom comprise the majOrit v to settle. Sentiment on the color que
 ton Is almost entirely question of el
 vironment. The northerner cannot flu
 ly comprehend the meaning behil
 Senator Davis' remark when he me n tioned "the nlggers" the southernt - surely, could not even imagine | 1t daughter seated between two bla 't men at banquet in his widest drear - of A. topsy- y-turyy world Reactionari .a have their spheres but the negro que f lion is not one of them And what m l. be said with all assurance of truth .u connection with the occurrence is th le Booker T. Washington Is doing mo d for the solution of the negro problf le than thousand such dinners cou t. And he who has the true cause of { Is negro at heart would be the last to h n the name of the head of Tuskegee