The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-03-14

for him in the early Nlctorean peflou and my first question to him was whether he wouldn't like to come back to his for mer haunts in the Sunny Southland, now that his race was enjoying freedom ev- anywhere, and in some places such free domi
 Not for dis ole nigga, Massa,'' he be- gan. and then he broke off sudednly and said: Say, Mister, would you mind if l talked like plain human being for lit- tie while? Simply because I'm about four tones shadier than Central American l am expected to use an impossible lan- guage that was invented right out of his own head by the first British traveller that ever heard of a West Indian black try ing to speak English and subsequently adopted and used by the native American fiction writers. I suppose it's true that all real Afro-Americans residing north of the Ohio river have lady friends named Lulu and Baby-I gather from my study of the coon-song oucput-but I give you my word as a poor but honest colored man that no southern darkey that ever lived outside of dialect story could say ;Massa without taking aim first. And if we always said berry when we meant very what do you suppose we'd do when we wanted to say berry'-make signs on our fingers? If you have no ob- jections, I'll converse with you from this point on in plain United States"
 So I told him to go as far as he liked, and then I put the opening question to him again. The venerable Uncle Thomas shook his white wool emphatically.
 "But look at the opportunities that are open now to your people back in your old home?' I pointed out. There's Booker T. Washington and Bert Williams getting thousand a week in vaudeville-and- and Cole and Johnson-and the Black Patti and Jack Johnson riding in his own automobile and running over the white trash from time to time and Matt Hanson mailing a chitterling to the pole-and ev- erything like that?"
 Boss, please excuse me-" said Uncle Tom. 'I've already been back there for one short trip, and once was enough.'
 But I don't understand" I said. "How could the original Uncle Tom return to his own country without being recog- nized?"
 '.It was a pipe' said Uncle Tom, slip ping easily into the modern vernacular. '.In the south I wasn't noticed as long as I was satisfied to wear old clothes and ride in a jim-crow car, and in the north I learned right away I would be left se- yerely alone unless I tried to move into white neighborhocd or join labor union. The north mas about as much use for an elderly colored man as John D. Rockefeller has for mustache cup. The south will put up with him as long as he wears his hat off most of the time and bows politely when addressed as a black rabbit by a patrician scion of the superior white race who's clerking in Tuscum- bia Ala, grocery store for $9 Q week.
 Aren't you exaggerating trife, Uncle Tom?' asked. simon Legree is dead. "Yes," he said; The is. But he left a large family. and most of his sons seem to have grown up and got jobs on the police force in the heavily republican wards of the larger cities. They inner tied fathers disposition, too, If I'm any judge. So on the whole I decided wouldn't care to stay in the United States, and I came back here where the climate is not 80 subject to change and a colored fs mily can settle in any neighborhood that suits them without running any great personal risk
 "Persons from Harvard college and oth- CT parts of New England are constantly pointing with pride to the advances which your people have made since emancipa- tion," I inter1ected.
 ..Tm not denying that the negro has made great personal strides forward v sa,d Irncle Tom: "sometimes on his own initiative and sometimes with posse be- hind him. And for freedom as nation al institution I have only the klndest words It's the way 1t was applied III this case that seems to grate on me. The north freed the recent human chattei ana then gave him a job to work. mat was the wrong way to start. In the coiore1 brother's mind freedom wasn't associated W ith labor, and isn't yet, ir large num- Der of cases. Telling man he was 1ree and then advising him to come around at a quarter to o'clock tomorrow morning and begin the day by splitting apout nine cords of wood before breakfast was an announcement that started out loveiy put had a kind of harsh way Of winding up
  gan to look as if the democrats were breeding rather too fast, the nation con- ferred the right of suffrage on us. But I don't see that we've derived much nour- ishment from that precious boon, either. Tn the south the colored man can do al- most anything he pleases with ms vote except to vote it. He can bury It Dehlnd smokehouse or boil it down into soup stock or put frame around 1t and Rang %In Ara alongside chrome of Fred Douglas and the dollar bottle of Anti-Kink. There's just one sol itarv thing he mustn't do with 1t, and that's to take 1t to the polls on election day and try to slip 1t into the oDlong siot in the lid of the large square box to Dc found in such places. Such an endeavor on his part will render him liable to the charge of endangering race antagonism and possibly hurry him into the midst Of active preparations for his own funeral much sooner than he had been expecting Hardly anything Is so calculated to dis courage the freedom with the right Of franchise as being shot at eight or nine times just because he forgets it's the first Tuesday after the first Monday in No- yember and careessly approaches the cor ner barber shop where, on any other day in the year, he can shave the oack or the naughty Caucasian neck with feeling of comparatiye immunity. The system in inc north is more to be commended, but not very much. The north gives the col ored man every reasonable opportunity to sell his vote and then puts him in jail if he's caught doing it. What's the use of giving a man anything and then denying him the chance of making little money on 1t? He's encouraged to vote the right way, but firmly discouraged from the sim ful pursuit of seeking political office after fin all over and victory is engaged in