Franklin's paper the statesman., 1909-06-19

and avowed exclusion of a whole race of
our fellow citizens from their constitu-
tional rights, accompanied by the an
nouncement that that exclusion must and
snail be permanent. 1t is not that the
negro is ignorant nor that he Is poor
nor that he is vicious, but that he is a
Negro. Even when he is good and learn
ed and rich he must still be excluded be-
cause he Is still a Negro. That is the
proposition. and that it is which makes
1t the duty of all who dissent from such
doctrine to make their dissent known
and make 1t uncOmpromising and clear.
IL VIII not do to shut our eyes to the
real causes and results of the war. espe-
cially now. when northern Indifference and
southern injustice strike hands to keep
the black race in a new bondage as help
less and hopeless as the old. AS a mem
Der OF the white race and turning for the
moment to white men l say that our race
will deserve any calamity the presence OF
the black race may bring. We brought It
here by theft and force. We owed it lib
erty. and we gave 1t 2 chain We owe 1,
light, and we give 1t darkness. We owe
II opportunity, and we hedge 1t around
with restraints We owe 1t the court.
house, and we give it the lynching tree
Shame on the race that holds in its
hands the wealth of the continent and
carries in its brain the accumulated cul-
turo of the centuries and yet, refusing TO
lift ignorance and vice to the level OF
enlightenment and virtue makes that ig-
norance and vice an excuse for the denial
OF rights' Never until the white man has
spent his last surplus dollar and ex-
hausted the last faculty Of his brain in
the effort to lift up his weaker brother
never until then can he stand in the pres
ence of infinite justice and complain of
the ignorance or the criminality of the
black
America did not choose the great doc
trine OF equal rights. That immortal
truth chose America. 1t has nodded her
from the beginning. 1t will mold her un-
I'll the end. But II it cannot IT will cast
her Off with the wreckage of the past and
take up some other nation that shall be
found worthy.
The speeches by Mrs. Ida Wells Bar
nett, Professor w. E. B. Du Bois, DR.
j. Milton Waldron and Bishop Alex
ander Walters were strong and fear
less.
Joseph c. Manning, white man, o
Alexander City, Ala, eXcoriated white
supremacy at the south and asserted
ii is the result Of political control by
the sons of the slaveholding genera
ton that suppresses whites rs well Of
blacks. He declared that out Of 500.
COO males of voting age in Alabam,
100000 Of them are black and 3OO.ON
white. Only 100000 are able to write.
The appointment Of Professor WI
liam L. Bulkley, principal of public
school No. so, New York. on the com
mittee on permanent organization gave
general satisfaction to the Afso-Am Amer.
ican wing Of the conference, as did
also that Of Professor Du Bols and
Bishop Walters.
A. +. Pillsbury, formerly attorney
general Of Massachusetts, aroused
much enthusiasm by speech in which
he said:
object to disfranchising not because
the Negro is disfranchised, but because
the whole performance Is political fraud
upon the whole community, the whole
country. all the nondisfranchising states
DISTINGUISHING the Negro has multiplied
by at least two the political power OF
every "hite Noter IN ulsIranchlslng states
and by so much has disfranchsed the
other white voters in the thirty-seven
nondisfranchising states
William A. Sinclair Of Philadelphia
said:
Mr.. Taft has made a shameful conces
sion to placate the south. The people OF
the north support him because they be-
lieve him honest. He fairly basked r
southern hospitality, and there are no
more hospitable people. nor are there peo-
pie who know better how to use 1t to fur
ther their own aims. Mr.. Taft has bent
the knee to the Baal of southern race
nrpfudIca in cavip1 tb,t l,o ,,o,,ia -. - =