The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1910-07-06
The Messoge of The Whites To the
Negroes of the South.
(By Clarence Poe. Editor The Pro-
gressive Farmer

MY purpose Is 10 bring you Wnat
believe To be the message OF the
white south TO the negro race. III |
were asked to put this message into
single paragraph L could not do
better than to quote the words of the
foremost citizen of North Carolina.
Charles II. Aycock, who declared
when he was governor of the state,
at the 'opening of the negro state fair
I'm 1901"
mo thoughtful, conservative and
unright southerner has for your race
aught but the kindest feeling, and we
are all willing and anxious to see
you grow into the highest citizenship
OF which you are capable and we
are willing to give our energies and
best thought to aid you in the great
work necessary to make you what
you are capable OF. and TO assist you
I'm that elevation of character and of
virture which tends TO the strength
ening OF the state. But to do this 1t
In absolutely necessary that each race
should remain distinct and have a
society OF Its own. Inside of your own
race you can grow as large and broad
and high as God permits. with the
aid. the sympathy and the encourage
ment or your white neighbors. II you
can equal the white race In achieve
ment In scholarship. In literature. in
art. In industry and commerce. you
will find no generous us-minded white
man who will stand in your way. But
all OF them In the south will assist that
you shall accomplish this high end
without social intermingling; and
this 10 well for you; II is we'll for US;
II Is necessary for the peace OF our
section"
This. as I conceive II. is the true
message OF the white south to the
negro race expressed in a paragraph.
Expressed In a sentence, 1t would
read: Our race integrity guaranteed,
there Il nothing that we are not will
ing to do TO promote your develop
ment.
How THE Negro Hand Has Hurt South
And my answer to the hoary and
oft-repeated charge that negro edu-
cation Is a mistake and will spoil
field hands"'-a charge repeated 70
me the very day L accepted your in
vitation by a man who had held
honorable Office by negro votes-is
that there Is almost nothing else un-
der high Heaven that the south needs
80 much as the spelling" of field
hands OF the type we have had until
now.
The ignorant negro field hand is
and has been one of the greatest eco
nomic curses with which any people
has ever had to contend, and IL L
thought your race could never ad-
vance to any higher type of industrial
efficiency / would start an effort to-
morrow-chimerical as the plan
might seem-for the colonization OF
our entire negro population.
IL by spelling field hands you
mean making them into something
different then every state and county
I'm the south needs a campaign for
spelling them, for whom the stand
point of efficiency almost any change
would be for the better. Considered
entirely apart from the losses of war.
let me express TO you the frank and
deliberate opinion that even since
1855 the presence Of the negro i'm
the south has made the whole section
and my entire race poorer-and chief
~ by reason of this same time worn.
half-sacred southern fetch OF an ig-
norant illiterate field hand as the
ideal agricultural laborer-a Geld
hsnd who too much of the tim has
make mocking parody of what
should have been the richest agricul-
tural section In the world. slrnply be-
cause he has been ignorant and the
white man has let him remain igno.
rant: field hand whose most trust
ed agricultural guide has been the
inconsistent moon. And yet when all
h told fear that the ignorant negro
depending upon the moon as a guide
presents less pitiful spectacle than
the 18th century white man depend
ing upon ignorance as help!
Has Cost The South Millions.
Small wonder that the penalty has
boon that while the southern farmer
has grown poor hiring an ignorant
negro to take one mule and pIow an
acre Of land "a day three or four
Inches deep. farmers in the west have
grown rich naYlnr scvnrnl ti,,n, -.