The weekly chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Craig County, Okla.) 1905-1913, 1911-04-28
HIGHER EDUCATION FOR
NEGROES URGED BY STOWE

| 1911 0oy Vi NOtlQ III
Boston Missionary Exposition" We'd
nesday, Charles Edward Stowe, son of
Harriet Beecher Stowe, immortalized
as the author of Uncle Toms Cabin,
Ispoke in behalf of the higher educa-
ton of the negro. In part he said:
Shortly after the close of the Civil
War, General c. G. Howard was ad-
dressing freedman's school at Allan
ia, and asked the pupils what message
he should take to the north from their
school. "T'ell 'em we's risln massa, .
Icalled out one little negro.
at was true then, but, still more
manifestely true today that the negro
is rising. Day by day is this fact more
apparent. The negro is gaining in
wealth, In education, in intelligence,
and in all that pertains to a more
abundant life. There is no more effee-
tive witness to this fact than the cries
of alarm, almost hysterical in intensi-
ty, that come from those who oppose
negro education. The Industrial edu-
cation of the negro, we are told is
rapidly bringing him in competition
with the skilled labor of the white
man, and that If he tries to get the
white mans job the white man will
kill him. The higher education of
the negro makes him imagine himself
the social equal of the white man, and
1t is held to be a self-etident PROPOSE
tion that when a negro adds to the
enormity of being born with a black
skin the crime e. appearing as intelli-
gent, as cultivated, and as refined as
the white man he begins to be peril
to the white mans supremacy and
should be promptly exterminated The
Iboasted supremacy of the white man,
apparently resting on so precarious
and insecure foundation as to be
Threatened by every upward step taken
by the colored race. 1t must therefore
be sustained by threats of blood and
violence, and drastic measures to keep
the negro in position of industrial,
social, political and intellectual in
Iferiority and subserviency. The much
vaunted superiority of the white man
is then according to these noisy ora
cles rather feeble affair that Is like
ly to perish from the earth unless the
negro is vigorously suppressed and
denied all opportunity for improve
ment.
If 1t is true that the negro is rising
it is equally true that among the ten
millions of negroes in this country
there are black bogs, and swamps of
barbarism, ignorance and viciousness
! which are a threat and a menace to
civilized society. 1t is from these
! weltering masses of moral rottenness
J that the miasma of crime arises to
poison whole communities. From
! these dark spots come the negro rapist
with his crime of unimaginable bru
tality and horror which stir up the
white man to all the ferocities of the
lynch law. This in turn is avenged
on the white man for in the long rur
, the life of the white man will be ne
I more sacred than that of the pool
e NEGRO. The property of the white mar
t no more secure than the property o.
the poor negro So If the white mar
: does not raise the negro the negro
!. drags the white man down. If The
white man permits the negro to grow
S up in ignorance and vice the Negro
S revenges that ignorance and vice OF
d the white man and his wife and chill
t dren. Then If the white man to pun
y ish the negro gives himself up to th,
t promptings of savage brutality h,
It sinks to the level of the negro ant
t perhaps below. For what is vice Il
# the negro is crime in the white man
k Not only justice but self-interes
e demand the education of the negro
o To shut the door of opportunity on thi
e negro to relegate him to the loves
s place and shut the door of hope upol
s MIN is to make him desperate. Th
man who has intelligence property an,
! social position is manifestly less like
a ly to develop criminal instincts thar
n the poor wretch who lives a mere ami
n NAL existence.
e "In the last forty years the negrt
e population of the United States ha
e nearly doubled. It is still increasing
e rapidly. The two races must dwell
e. side by side. The negro is not th
e, problem of the south; but the prob
Z, lem of the whole country.
v "The idea of deporting him to tn
h "land of his fathers" is more than All
IS surd as time goes on. Many negroe
0, had Irishmen for fathers; shall W