The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1909-11-18
THE NEGRO PROBLEM.

In the sixth article in "The Story
of the Negro" by Booker T. Washing
ton, which appears in the current
issue of the Outlook, the famous
head of Tuskegee Institute, refers to
Rev. Lemuel Haynes, soldier in the
American Revolution, who, probably
minister in the United States, and
who served as a minister in Rutland
( from 1881 to 1917. A sermon which
he preached in reply to a discourse
by Rev. Hosea Ballou, noted Uni
versalist clergyman, was widely Cir
culated throughout this country and
Europe
Vermont was the first State to pro-
hibit slavery in her constitution, and
this clause, and Theophilus Harring-
tons we'll known demand for a bill
of sale from the Almighty before he
would deliver Dinah Maths to her
owner, show the early attitude of
Vermont toward slavery, an attitude
which continued until slavery was
abolished.
President Washington says in his
article in the Outlook that "one of
the most striking and interesting
things about the American Negro,
and one which has impressed itself
upon my mind more and more. in the
course of the preparation of these
articles, is the extent to which the
black man has intertwined his life
with that of the people of the white
race about him."
Unquestionably this statement is a
true one. We hear, occasionally, of
plan to deport the Negroes to Lii
IBERIA, or some other far away place,
but when we realize that colored
children are being born faster than
ships could be provided to carry them
away, and that the South cannot get
along without Negro labor, we real
ize the impossibility and the imprac-
ticability of such scheme. The
Negro was brought here against his
will. He was stolen by our forefath-
ers for their own enrichment He
was held in bondage for many years
in order that out of his unpaid labor
the cultivation of the plantations
might be made lucrative. His train
ing was not of the kind to cultivate
high degree of morality. AS a re-
suit we have problem on our hands,
and are reaping where. other genera
lions have sown unwisely.
The Negro is here to stay. Our
problem is to make him a blessing
and not a curse to this country. OF
course it is easy for those of us who
live in the North to theorize about
conditions, which would appeal to us
in different way if we lived in the
South. There are certain facts,
We cannot deport the colored race.
We cannot again enslave it. We can
not with safety allow it to degener-
ate. 1t would appear that our own
safety and our own economic needs
alike demand the widest possible
extension of the kind of work which
Booker Washington is doing, making
intelligent citizens, good men and wo-
men, out of the colored youth.
!, The Journal has the greatest SYM
pathy with the Southern people in
their endeavor to deal with race
many of whose members are idle, liz.
norant and vicious 1t does not have
sympathy with that contemptuous
treatment which sees in a Niger
g, something fit only for the most me-
NAL kind of labor, and which pos
I sesses no rights as man. This pa
per would not object to the mos
> stringent kind of an educational test
that would shut out ignorance from
the right of suffrage, but it considers
course of action that would appl!
: one rule to a white man and another
: to black man, for the sole reason
\ that he is black, as wholly vicious
;, and the kind of injustice that makes
a shipwreck of nations. Righteous
ness and justice are terms that know
a no color line.