Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1910-01-28
Americas, Ga, January %, 1910.
BISHOP REESE ON OUR DUTY TO
THE NEGROES.

Outside of his own immediate
church circles the portion of Bishop
Reese's annual address that will at
tract the most attention is that deal
ing with the attitude of the Christian
people of the South to the negro. It
is a calm dignified, well-balanced APP
peal for considerable treatment of the
race, for full and candid recognition
of the duty resting upon all protesting
Christians of assisting in the improve
ment of the condition of the negroes of
the South, of dealing kindly and justly
by them, recognizing their ignorance,
their racial weaknesses, giving them
due credit for their virtues, and show
ing by a considerate interest in their
welfare, moral and material, that they
are not regarded simply as hewers of
wood and drawers of water, but as fell
low men and fellow women, children
of the same God, living under the same
Divine authority and capable of being
lifted to a higher sphere of existence
by the teachings of Holy Writ.
Bishop Reese does not believe the
white people of the South can throw
off the responsibility that the pres
ence of ten or more millions of ne
goes around them brings. To him the
answer to the question first uttered by
Cain, Am my brothers keeper" IS
an emphatic Yes" AS he views it
and how can any Christian man take
any other view of it?-it is duty rest
ing upon every white man and woman
in the South to ceaselesly endeavor to
improve the spiritual, moral and ma
terial state Of the vast army of Afri
can blood that camp about the white
inhabitants of this section. 1t is pre-
eminently the duty of the best element
of the whites to see that no injustice
is done to the negroes. Unfortunately
we cannot shut our eyes to the fact
that too frequently injustice is done to
many members of the race. 1t is the
duty of the avowed church people of
the South to see that while the negro
is dealt with firmly when he errs that
with frmness there goes no bitterness,
no hatred, no punishment that is based
on prejudice and passion, no i'll treat
ment that arises simply from the fact
that the culprit is a negro. The better
training of the negro, too, in domestic
life and in industrial life, is incumbent
upon the whites. Bishop Reese sees
this clearly and does not hesitate to
place the responsibility upon the supe-
rior race. The South cannot afford %
have the negro race, vastly increasing
in numbers as it undoubtedly is, stay
in the same condition of poverty, of il
literacy, of immortality, of disregard Of
sanitary laws, surrounded by condi-
tons that are prone to create criminals
and Yagabonds. 1t must seek to make
useful, honorable citizens of them. 1t
may seem an impossible task, but, as
he shows, while the race as whole
may be centuries in moving up to
much higher scale of being, each in
dividual lifted to a better understand
ing of the true worth of life means a
centre of influence for good for others
of the race with whom he comes in
contact and exercises an influence
upon.
If the clergy of all the churches in
the South were to ceaseIessly innrese
upon their people the duty of the
white Christians to the negroes along
these lines it is quite possible that
the resulting efforts toward the inn
provement of the race would produce
astounding results. And if not, there
would be at least the satisfaction of
having performed duty that, however
unpleasant it may be to many, is still
one of the most important resting up
on the South at this tine