The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1910-03-10

OH the nlgnC OF Lee birthday, at
the leading negro Congregational
Church, in Atlanta, I heard a lee
ture on the Gospel of Uncle Tom"
by the Rev. Charles Stowe, son of
the famous author, Harriet Beecher
Stowe, who wrote "Uncle Toms
Cabin. What was the object of the
lecture I did not learn. It must not
have been money, for no admission
was charged. Just why Mr.. Stowe
should be going over the South talk
ing about the Gospel of Uncle
Tom is not plain, although he man
ifested many evidences of good in
tentions and sincerity. Really, how
ever, I don't think he will do much
good by coming down here and Civ
ing to our Southern negroes the lee
ture that heard that night.
AS to what he said of the Gospel"
Of that famous negro character, he
made few statements about toler-
ance, forgiveness, etc. The weak
point of his lecture was not in en-
phasizing the Gospel" as manifest
ed by that character, but on the con-
trary laying more emphasis on
bloodhounds, bleeding backs, rice
swamps, fleeing slaves, separation of
negro children from their parents,
aristocratic women of the South who
would not do their own work, and
the race of Northern women from
whom he was descended who were
not ashamed to do their own house
hold duties. Such unnecessary state
ments and useless statements, state
ments that can do no good, state
ments that do not fairly represent
the conditions that obtained in the
slave-holding States previous to the
War, received undue emphasis, and
the Gospel of Uncle Tom" was left
in the background.
The speaker received loud and
prolonged applause from the big au-
dience of colored folk when he said
he was proud to say that he was
descended from race of women
who were not ashamed to do their
own work. He tried to hedge off
criticism, however, by paying COM
pliments to the Southern people, ap-
plauding their nobility and sincerity.
He made good point in saying
that it was economic forces that
caused the war, forces which were
quite different in the two sections
of the country, forces which made
the negro profitable in the South
after the invention of the cotton
gin, and forces which made slavery
Improbable in the North. He did
not emphasize the fact that it was
the appropriateness of slavery in the
North that caused them to abolish
that institution but he laid all man
ner of stress upon his contention
that it was economic forces that
caused the Southern people to be-
lieve in the righteousness of slavery.
1t was the sight of fugitive slaves
in the North and her employment in
her household of fleeing slaves,
where she heard their cries of cruel
ty, that caused Mrs. Stowe to write
her book, said the speaker. eff God
gives me strength / will write some
thing that will arouse the people
against the horror of slavery" That
sentence is in substance what Mr..
Stowe said his mother uttered many
times before she wrote ''Uncle Tom"
Another statement, which he had
heard her make over and over
again, is this: "How would 1 have
felt if you, Charles, had been torn
away from me as you lay in your
GRADER" He says the book was writ
ten by his mother in a spirit of per-
feet tolerance, that the book is fair
to Southern conditions at that time,
that his mother thought the South
ern people would be pleased with the
.sr.1 Il rr1,1