The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-01-16
DR.. RILEY REPLIES :.
TO DIXON DEFENSE
OF BOOK AND PLAY
Thinks Author Is Doing
Wrong to Attempt to
Stir Up Race Hatred
in the South
70 the Editor of The Age-Hcrald:

TO the Editor of The Age-Herald:
In the reply of Thomas Dixon to the
negroes who protested against his play
beng presented in Birmingham, he shoots
wide of the mark of the spirit of the
protest, which was that the play was cal
ciilated to foster race trouble about which
there is no doubt. The protest of these
cclored men was commendable because OF
the reason stated by them why they did
not wish the play presented.
The spirit of the reply was in the way
of a timely advertisement of the play,
plus an appeal to race aversion, plus the
proceeds to be derived. Mr. Dixon has
long found it profitable to keep alive, in
the most strenuous way, race hatred. He
has grown wealthy in his passionate ap-
peals to race hatred. No possible good
can come from keeping at fervent heat
tha passions of period now forever gone,
with no possibility of it's return. Mr.
Dixon was once minister, Boston pas
tor. but his salary did not yield him the
Income desired, hence he forsook the min
istry and fell to writing books of an in
flammatory character, and later to dram
aizing these stories of mis-. I have in my
by Mr. Dixon, and in an address in Bos-
ton, in 1889, when the memories of the
reconstruction era were still fresh, he
said. before the New England Paint and
Oil club on the southern question. What
do l mean by the southern question:
Certainly not what the sectional mono-
maniac has in mind when he uses the ex-
preston. If by southern question you
mean the supposed problem of crime, vio-
lerce and standardization, is presented
in the cock and bull stories you hear of
tile south, then have no time to discuss
such question, for such problem exists
only in the distorted fancy of ill-informed
nen!' Place that beside his article in yes
torday mornings issue, and one would
not believe the authorship the same. But
then he was living in Boston.
The two races are here together and
ale destined SO to remain. The move-
ment of the present is toward conciliation
ard amity, and should be encouraged for
the good of both races. The races are
working in a most pralseworthy way at
present to promote good will, with their
backs to the past and their eyes to tho
future. No good citizen of either race
desires the injection of any agency that
btgets discord. So far from being amen
able to denunciation, these worthy colored
men, in thus protesting, are to be praised
- Mr.. Dixon does not forget that in other
southern states his plays have been resist
cd. not by. negroes. but by distinguished
whites. This is notably true of COLUMBIA,
&. c., and Americus Ca, and other cities
ncw not recalled. The passionate appeal
which he makes with historical reference
to Alabama, finds sufficient reply in the
facts that South Carolina was the first
state to seoede from the union, and suf-
fered most and longest in consequence
of reconstruction, while Georgia is the
native state Of the vice president of the
: Confederacy. The gentlemen who led the
the opposition to his plays were DIR. w.
G. Lindsey, pastor of the First Baptist
church of Columbia, Sc. and DR.. Lans-
ing Burrows. the pastor of the First
Baptist church of Americus, Ga. and for
e great many years a secretary of the
southern Baptist convention. Both of
these men were familiar with the career
o: Mr.. Dixon from the beginning, hence
their opposition. Between the desire to
establish proper relations between the two
races and the sensational and highly
wrought plays of Thomas Dixon, there is
q loud call.
was absent from the state till too late
to intercept the bringing off of the play,
or I should have done my utmost to pre-
vent 1t. The cheap performances of
Thomas Dixon SO far from doing good,
I. breed harm continually, and deserve re-
sistance wherever offered.
B. F. RILEY.
Birmingham, January IS, 1914.