The Hattiesburg news., 1909-06-03
WHITES MINGLE
With NEGROES
AT CONFERENCE
New York World.

Of the American Negro, was for
morning in the Assembly Hall of the
United Charities Building. The Ques-
tion of equality was cleverly sidestep-
ped though on several occasions it
was brought up adroitly by some negro
delegate who would refer to the inter
est taken by the white man in the po-
litical and economic standing Of the
negro and the effort to win justice for
him. One negro advocate, George
Clemm, o. Boston, was particularly
anxious that the proceedings should
be opened with prayer, and he also de-
plored the absence of young white wo-
men at the meeting.
Whether the conference will be-
came an annual affair or not is doubt
full, as it has encountered opposition
on the part of some of the prominent
men who have been asked to attend.
Seth Low, Francis Lynde Stetson and
several others declined the invitation
on the ground that although they are
friends of the negro they do not be-
lieve that such conference can bring
much good, because it must necessarily
emphasize the points of difference.
Two Races CommingIe.
The attendance showed a larger pro-
portion of negroes than whites, but
the two races sat together and COM
mingled during debate. Among those
who attended the morning and after
noon sessions We're Prof. Livingston
Farrand and Prof. John Dewey, of
Columbia; Bishop Alexander Walters,
of the Zion Methodist church; Mrs
Celia Power Parker Wooley, founder
of the Frederick Douglass Centre. in
Chicago; Jane Adams, of the Hull
House; Ida Wells Barnett, the negro
editor, whose printing presses were
destroyed in Tennessee by a white mob
and who will address the conference
this morning on lynchings in the South
Pudge Wendell Stafford, OF the Su-
preme Court of the District OF Colum-
bia; Clarence Darrow, the Chicago rad
ical; Prof. John Spencer Bassett, of
Smith College, Northampton. Mass,
who was forced to leave the South on
account of his pro negro utterances;
Edwin d. Meade, of Boston; Prof. w.
thor of The Souls of Black Folks"
and William A. Bennett, Representa-
tive in congress from New York
Man and Ape Brain Exhibits.
In order to refute the generally ac-
cepted Southern dictum that a negro
could not be improved by education
the platform was surrounded with
the charts showing diagrams OF the
branis of an ape, orang outang, an un-
scupulous politician. an illiterate black
ianitor and a prominent mathemati-
clan. Prof. Burt G. Wilder. of Cornell
University. who is the author OF a
Form OF Beouest of Brains.' eXhibi
ted preserved brains and showed the
thinking apparatus of man and beast
He pleased his colored audience might
lily when he said. The negro brain is
distinctly human in all essential re-.
spects, and as yet there has been
found no constant feature by which il
may be distinguished from that of a
Caucasian; whereas either of them is
at once distinguished from the brain
of an ape and would be by a dozen or
more points of structure even if they
were of the same size"
Prof. Wilder contended that the
brain OF the negro was about two
ounces lighter than that of the aver
age white man. Prof Wilder asked
all Africans who had attained emf
nence to leave their brains to his de-
partment at Cornell.
William Hayes Ward, who presided
at the opening session. in his opening
address said that the purpose of the
conference was TO emphasize the prin-
cipal that equal justice should be done
to man as man, particularly to the
negro.
Mrs. Celia Parker Wooley, who was
accorded q warm welcome. said: III
is not that the negro is at stake ir
this controversy, deep and widespread
| as are his wrongs. 1t is the white
man, the white mans civilization, the
white mans republic. 1t is not
question of negro supremacy. but o
the worth of those claims to superior
ity which are so easily alarmed TO
their own safety and continuance"
II Prof. Du Bois said: The voteles
negro is a provocation. an invitation
| to oppression. a plaything for mob
and a bonanza for demagogues. Whe