Woodrow Wilson Papers Microfilm Reels

Race Prejudice in Labor The Effect, Cause and Cure

by James Samuel Stemons Philadelphia

EDITORS' NOTE.—Our recent editorial on The Negro's Chance to Work is appropriately followed by Mr. Stemons's article, which gives additional facts with reference to industrial discrimination against colored people. Mr. Stemons is field secretary of the joint organization to which he refers, with headquarters at 1251 South 18th Street, Philadelphia. He is a colored man of ability who has the commendations and confidence of prominent clergy of various denominations in his city. His work is a move in the right direction.

There is scarcely a section of the country in which it is not becoming more and more difficult for Negroes to earn an honest living. In defiances of the widely heralded and universally accepted fact that Negroes, through various systems of education and training, are rapidly advancing in character, reliability and efficiency, they are being systematically displaced from the branches of labor formerly open to them, while no corresponding branches of labor are being opened to them.

For example, during the past several months at least four of the larger hostelries of Philadelphia, which, in the main, had never before employed other than Negro servitors, have dismissed them in favor of white help; while other establishments, not only in Philadelphia but throughout the country, widely advertise the fact that they employ none but white help. In August, 1911, an association of hotel proprietors of New York adopted a resolution that no hotel which employs Negro help shall be rated as first class, and following that action there was a veritable scramble among the hotel proprietors of that city -- some of whom had employed Negroes continuously and with admitted satisfaction for more than thirty years -- to substitute white help, as the price which they were willing to pay for being rated as first class. Thre years ago the hotel proprietors of Providence, R. I., united in displacing Negro with white help. Atlantic City, St. Joseph, Mo., Portland, Ore., Chicago and one city after another are rapidly falling in line with this movement to do away with Negroes as hotel and personal servants, while the broader avenues of labor in the North, such as shops, mills, foundries, factories, steam and street railways, mercantile and business houses, already exclude them.

One of the most desirable openings for Negroes has been that of automobile driving, mostly for private families. But a widespread movement is now on foot to exclude them from this occupation. In New York, for example, at the behest of white automobile drivers, white garage owners are stubbornly refusing to stable automobiles which are manned by Negro drivers. Many automobile owners, rather than engage in controversies, have substituted white for Negro drivers.

INJUSTICE AND FOLLY IN GEORGIA

In discussing this very feature, ex-Gov. W. J. Northen of Georgia recently said, in an address on Christianity and the Negro Problem in Georgia before the Evangelical Ministers' Association of Atlanta: "Walton County farmers have been notified that they wil be allowed to keep their Negro labor for the gathering of their present crops, but that they must hire no Negroes for another year. Vagrancy is one of the most dangerous tendencies of the times. Vagrancy is the breeder of crime. What will we do when one million Negroes in Georgia are driven into enforced idleness and loitering and are denied the opportunity to make an honest living in legitimate service? Such conditions will multiply criminals beyond our power to punish or our inclination to reclaim."

It may be recalled that the legislature of Georgia, in response to the furious strike against Negro firemen on the Georgia Railroad, in the year 1908, has seriously considered a bill to prohibit the employment of Negroes in any capacity on the railroads of that state. The entire system of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad was paralyzed by a fierce and bloody strike of white firemen in the spring of 1911, instituted for the deliberate and boldly announced purpose of forcing that railway system to dispense with Negro firemen.

This strike had scarcely been settled when firemen on the Southern Railroad of Georgia threatened to strike unless certain of their extreme demands against Negro firemen were acceded to. The company was finally forced to yield, according to a statement issued by the chairman of the committee of the Brotherhood of the Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, by agreeing to limit the number of Negro firemen to a certain percentage of white firemen, which provision, it was said, would result in greatly reducing the number of Negroes on all divisions. It was further stipulated that the white men should receive a flat increase of ten per cent. in wages. Their wages formerly were twenty per cent. more than those of Negroes. Thus they are paid thirty per cent. more than is received by Negroes for identical service, performed with equal satisfaction to the employing company.

The legislature of Oklahoma has seriously considered a bill to prohibit the employment of Negroes as hotel waiters, Pullman car poreters, or in any other capacity which would throw them into close personal contact with the white people of that state.

THE TWOFOLD CAUSE

These are but few of the many unmistakable evidences of an almost nation-wide movement to snatch from Negroes the imperative and fundamental right of working to earn an honest living. The deep-seated cause is two-fold. One is traceable to the white race: the other to the black race. With the white race it is the willful misrepresentation and the appeals to the basest passions on the part of a conspicuous element -- newspaper editors, popular writers, strife-breeding and self-seeking politicians, and even a type of ministers of the gospel -- who are in a position to influence and inflame popular opinion. With the colored race it is the notoriety which is being attained by the basest and the most criminal elements among them; to the undisputed sway of a relatively small, but obnoxiously conspicuous type who seem to be lost to every sense of moral responsibility and social restraint. In short, the entire reactionary movement is due to the fact that the most perverse elements of both races have usurped public attention, and are corrupting and confusing and distorting the mind of the entire nation.

The remedy? Remove the cause. The self-respecting Negroes of the country must suppress and repudiate the base and criminal elements among them. Negroes will have done their full duty when they prove to the world that they mean to constrain their race to conform to high standards of civic duty and public deportment. The white race must then be appealed to, through their churches, clergy and other exponents of social justice, to do their duty by giving Negroes an opportunity to make themselves useful men and upright citizens, the same opportunity to earn an honest living they they extend to other citizens and to the millions of aliens who are flooding our shores.

The joint organization of the Association for Equalizing Industrial Opportunities and the League of Civic and Political Reform, though new as an organization, representing the crystallized thought and labor of a lifetime, is the medium through which an effort is being made to put both of these remedies into immediate and practical operation. The essence of the plans and purposes of the League of Civic and Political Reform is contained in a pledge "to exert my influence to supress political crookedness, rowdyism and public indecency on the part of an element of colored people;" and which concludes "with the proviso that the influence and activities of this League shall ever be confined to the ends here specified, and not used to serve the abstract politicial ambitions of any race, any party or any individual."

The mission of the Association for Equalizing Industrial Opportunities is to be prosecuted by appealing directly to every pastor, white and colored, and through him to every church, and through these agencies to all right-thinking persons for their combined influence in procuring for all men, regardless of race or color, unrestricted opportunities for working to earn an honest living.

It is also the plan to have in every community a committee of representative citizens whose duty will be to confer directly with proprietors and employers of specified industrial establishments regarding a recognition of colored labor on the same bases that apply to other classes of labor. Realizing that a vast amount of the prejudice against Negro labor is due to a frequent lack of efficiency and reliability on the part of such labor, this Association also seeks to elevate the standard of Negro labor by discouraging the recognition of any Negro who is not deemed in every way worthy of the position for which he or she aspires.

The Effect, Cause and Cure

By James Samuel Stemons Philadelphia

EDITORS' NOTE.—Our recent editorial on the Negro's Chance to Work is appropriately followed by Mr. Stemons's article, which gives additional facts with reference to industrial discrimination against colored people. Mr. Stemons is field secretary of the joint organization to which he refers, with headquarters at 1251 South 18th Street, Philadelphia. He is a colored man of ability who has the commendations and confidence of prominent clergy of various denominations in his city. His work is a move in the right direction.

[COLUMN 1]

There is scarcely a section of the country in which it is not becoming more and more difficult for Negroes to earn an honest living. In defiance of the widely heralded and universally accepted fact that Negroes, through various systems of education and training, are rapidly advancing in character, reliability and efficiency, they are being systematically displaced from the branches of labor formerly open to them, while no corresponding branches of labor are being opened to them.

For example, during the past several months at least four of the larger hostelries of Philadelphia, which, in the main, had never before employed other than Negro servitors, have dismissed them in favor of white help; while other establishments, not only in Philadelphia but throughout the country, widely advertise the fact that they employ none but white help. In August, 1911, an association of hotel proprietors of New York adopted a resolution that no hotel which employs Negro help shall be rated as first class, and following that action there was a veritable scramble among the hotel proprietors of that city—some of whom had employed Negroes continuously and with admitted satisfaction for more than thirty years—to substitute white help, as the price which they were willing to pay for being rated as first class. Three years ago the hotel proprietors of Providence, R. I., united in displacing Negro with white help. Atlantic City, St. Joseph, Mo., Portland, Ore., Chicago and one city after another are rapidly falling in line with this movement to do away with Negroes as hotel and personal servants, while the broader avenues of labor in the North, such as shops, mills, foundries, factories, steam and street railways, mercantile and business houses, already exclude them.

One of the most desirable openings for Negroes has been that of automobile driving, mostly for private families. But a widespread movement is now on foot to exclude them from this occupation. In New York, for example, at the behest of white automobile drivers, white garage owners are stubbornly refusing to stable automobiles which are manned by Negro drivers. Many automobile owners, rather than engage in controversies, have substituted white for Negro drivers.

INJUSTICE AND FOLLY IN GEORGIA

In discussing this very feature, ex-Gov. W. J. Northen of Georgia recently said, in an address on Christianity and the Negro Problem in Georgia before the Evangelical Ministers' Association of Atlanta: "Walton County farmers have been notified that they will be allowed to keep their Negro labor for the gathering of their present crops, but that they must hire no Negroes for another year. Vagrancy is one of the most dangerous tendencies of the times. Vagrancy is the breeder of crime. What will we do when one million Negroes in Georgia are driven into enforced idleness and loitering and are denied the opportunity to make an honest living in legitimate service? Such conditions will multiply criminals beyond our power to punish or our inclination to reclaim."

It may be recalled that the legislature of Georgia, in response to the furious strike

[COLUMN 2]

against Negro firemen on the Georgia Railroad, in the year 1908, has seriously considered a bill to prohibit the employment of Negroes in any capacity on the railroads of that state. The entire system of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad was paralyzed by a fierce and bloody strike of white firemen in the spring of 1911, instituted for the deliberate and boldly announced purpose of forcing that railway system to dispense with Negro firemen.

This strike had scarcely been settled when firemen on the Southern Railroad of Georgia threatened to strike unless certain of their extreme demands against Negro firemen were acceded to. The company was finally forced to yield, according to a statement issued by the chairman of the committee of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, by agreeing to limit the number of Negro firemen to a certain percentage of white firemen, which provision, it was said, would result in greatly reducing the number of Negroes on all divisions. It was further stipulated that the white men should receive a flat increase of ten per cent. in wages. Their wages formerly were twenty per cent. more than those of Negroes. Thus they are paid thirty per cent. more than is received by Negroes for identical service, performed with equal satisfaction to the employing company.

The legislature of Oklahoma has seriously considered a bill to prohibit the employment of Negroes as hotel waiters, Pullman car porters, or in any other capacity which would throw them into close personal contact with the white people of that state.

THE TWOFOLD CAUSE

These are but few of the many unmistakable evidences of an almost nation-wide movement to snatch from Negroes the imperative and fundamental right of working to earn an honest living. The deep-seated cause is twofold. One is traceable to the white race; the other to the black race. With the white race it is willful misrepresentation and appeals to the basest passions on the part of a conspicuous element—newspaper editors, popular writers, strife-breeding and self-seeking politicians, and even a type of ministers of the gospel—who are in a position to influence and inflame popular opinion. With the colored race it is the notoriety which is being attained by the basest and most criminal elements among them; to the undisputed sway of a relatively small, but obnoxiously conspicuous type who seem to be lost to every sense of moral responsibility and social restraint. In short, the entire reactionary movement is due to the fact that the most perverse elements of both races have usurped public attention, and are corrupting and confusing and distorting the mind of the entire nation.

The remedy? Remove the cause. The self-respecting Negroes of the country must suppress and repudiate the base and criminal elements among them. Negroes will have done their full duty when they prove to the world that they mean to constrain their race to conform to high standards of civic duty and public deportment. The white race must then be appealed to, through their churches, clergy, and other exponents of social justice,

[COLUMN 3]

other citizens and to the millions of aliens who are flooding our shores.

The joint organization of the Association for Equalizing Industrial Opportunities and the League of Civic and Political Reform, though new as an organization, representing the crystallized thought and labor of a lifetime, is the medium through which an effort is being made to put both of these remedies into immediate and practical operation. The essence of the plans and purposes of the League of Civic and Political Reform is contained in a pledge "to exert my influence to suppress political crookedness, rowdyism and public indecency on the part of an element of colored people;" and which concludes "with the proviso that the influence and activities of this League shall ever be confined to the ends here specified, and not be used to serve the abstract political ambitions of any race, any party or any individual."

The mission of the Association for Equalizing Industrial Opportunities is to be prosecuted by appealing directly to every pastor, white and colored, and through him to every church, and through these agencies to all right-thinking persons for their combined influence in procuring for all men, regardless of race or color, unrestriced opportunities for working to earn an honest living.

It is also the plan to have in every community a committee of representative citizens whose duty will be to confer directly with proprietors and employers of specified industrial establishments regarding a recognition of colored labor on the same bases that apply to other classes of labor. Realizing that a vast amount of the prejudice against Negro labor is due to a frequent lack of efficiency and reliability on the part of such labor, this Association also seeks to elevate the standard of Negro labor by discouraging the recognition of any Negro who is not deemed in every way worty of the position for which he or she aspires.

Making Lincoln Smile

While acting as private secretary for H. B. Fowler of Bristol, N. H., surgeon in charge of hospital at Point of Rocks, Va., I was one among others who played a joke on Abraham Lincoln. Just a few weeks before the assassination, the President, feeling the need of rest, with his family took a small steamer at Washington for a little trip, making Point of Rocks one of his landings for less than one short hour. We had in the headquarters a pair of shoes, extremely large in size, which had been worn by a Negro, who had recently died in the hospital. Knowing the President would pass by in his walk about the place, we hustled out those big shoes and hung them on the front of the building, with a placard underneath on which were these words, "Shoes with which Abraham Lincoln is to crush the Rebellion." As Lincoln neared the headquarters, walking leisurely with his hands behind him, his eye caught sight of those shoes, and the smiles which came into his face gave evidence that the joke was a good one. Thus my first and only sight of our martyred President was with a smile on his face.

Middletown, Ct. GEORGE T. MEECH.

A five weeks' tour has taken [illegible] Fitch of Andover Seminary as far West as Colorado College and as far to the Northwest as Yankton, N. D. En route he has touched at such points as Ann Arbor, Mich., Chicago and Galesburg, Ill., Grinnell, Io., and Beloit and Ripon, Wis. He has presented, with characteristic enthusiasm, the claim of the ministry to students in many institutions. He will return to his work at Cambridge next week.

272

83399

Picture and Paragraph

[?]TINUATION COMMITTEE, CALCUTTA, DEC. 18-21, 1912

[?]ting the London Missionary Society; the United Free Church of Scotland; Evangelical Lutheran; Friends Foreign Missionary Assoclation; Society [?]nd Swedish societies; numerous Christian colleges; as well as Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists and Congregationalists of the United States and [?]the left. The first in that row, beginning at the left, is the Bishop of Madras, the third is Bishop designate Azariah; while next Mr. Mott are seated, [?]wn American Board and third from the end is Dr. R. A. Hume. At the extreme right of the front row is Mr. E. C. Carter of the Y. M.C. A. For [?]

IN CONSTANTINOPLE HARBOR Photo by Rev. C. T. Riggs, Constantinople

[?]ament House. The small warship at the left of the house is the Turkish Izzeddin. Away at the left, barely inside the photo, is the British [?]

TINUATION COMMITTEE, CALCUTTA, DEC. 18-21, 1912 ting the London Missionary Society; the united Free Church of Scotland; Evangelical Lutheran; Friends Foreign Missionary Association and Swedish societies; numerous Christian colleges; The first in that row, beginning at the left, is the Bishop of Madras, the third is Bishop designate Arariah; while next Mr. Mott are seated, wn American Board and third from the end is Dr. R.A. Hume. At the extreme right of the front row is Mr. E. C. Carter of the Y.M.C.A. For

IN CONSTANTINOPLE HARRO

Photo 6y Rev. C. T. Kivos, Constantinople

ament House. The small warship at the left of the thouse is the Turkish Izzeddin Away at the left, barely inside the photo, is the British th still a third in midstream rather near the Parliament House. The ship nearest Leander's Tower, which is the small white tower off shore in the group at the right of the picture includes another Italian, one more French, a Roumanian, two more British, one Dutch and the representative

152

[stamp: MAR 11, 1913]

[stamp: THE WHITE HOUSE Mar. 1913 Received]

President Woodrow Wilson, 1251 South 18th Street

White House, PHILADELPHIA PA, March 10, 1913. Washington, D.C.

Dear President Wilson:

I am sending you under separate cover a marked cooy of The Congregationalist of Boston, containing a brief article by me on what I designated as "Growing Antipathy and Antagonism between the White and Negro Races-The Effect Cause and Cure", but which was inappropriately changed by the editor to read "Race Prejudice in Labor-The Effect, Cause and Cure", which I beg of you to read with extreme care. The article also was greatly condensed by the editor, and much of its original scope and force therefore destroyed. But the methods there briefly suggested for adjusting certain vital relations betwen the races(which methods for nearly two decades I have expended every energy in an effort to induce the public to pause long enough in their precipitate rush toward chaos and confusion on this question to soberly consider) are based almost whol1y on the proposition that it is within the province of the Church, as a collective body, to, by precept and example, fix and maintain those standards of relations between the races, especially along economic lines, regarding the justice and expediency of which the various churches are already a virtual unit in sentiment. In other words, I have ever maintained that the standards for certain imperative relations between the races should be dictated and controiled by concurrent agreement among the various churches, recognized as our highest exponents of civilization, rather than by the erratic and controversial contentions of the irresponsible demagogues of either race.

But my efforts to seriously turn the attention of the public to this most simple and immediately effective of all methods for adjusting adjustable relations between theraces have been more and more hampered and discouraged by a disposition on the part of the public, responding to the preachings of certain well-meaning but strangely narrow-visioned leaders of thought among both races, to group themselves into one of two "schools of thought" on this question. One of these "schools", with optimism, in season and out of season, as its keynote, insists that, through the spread of certain kinds of education, the problens of the Negro are even now in process of steady and satisfactory solution. Any adverse manifestations which at times may appear against the Negro are, according to this "school", but natural sequences in the process of mutual adjustment between two dissimilar races, which can have no other permanent results than to spur the Negro to renewed and higher efforts.

The other "school" frankly admits that there is an appalling retrograde movement of the race situation; but contends that the remedy lay in sweeping protests against every form of injustice, and in uncompromising demands for certain "manhood rights" of a civil and political nature. It may be said that Mr Booker T. Washington

38400 237

-2-

and Mr. V.R.B.Dubois are widely recognised as the highest exponents of these respective theories. To the average person there is no intermediate grounds between these two schools of thought, it being almost universally assumed that between them every possible interest of the Negro is being faithfully served. The growth of this idea has schooled the public to regard with indifference, not to say impatience, any individual or any movement which is not, either direct- ly or indirectly, an exponent of one of these "schools." Nor can it be denied that both of these theories are serving the race a high purpose. Neither can it be denied, on the other hand, that neither of these theories, nor both of them combined, are meeting the fundamental needs of the Negro by checking the growth of hostility between the races and by causing to be opened to the Negro, rather than closed against him, the doors of economic opportunity. But the Washington school of thought would seem to be the more practical of the two, because it fosters those essential principles of self-help and individual fitness without which no race can be other than at a tremendous disadvantage. But this theory stops short by almost completely ignoring the patent fact that an untrammelled opportunity to ply a trade is of vastly more fundamental importance than is any mere opportunity to learn a trade. The other "school', however represents little more than a perpetual protest which, however just and impressive it may sometimes be, never so much as hints at a specific method for striking at the roots of the evils of which it so persistently complains. Indeed, neither of these "schools" takes into consideration and seeks to remove the basic causes which, despite the educational propaganda of the one and the condemnatory propaganda of the other, are antagonizing and estranging the races in an unprecedented manner of late years (as witness the avalanche of hostile and oppressive legislation now directed against Negroes, and the rapidly-spreading tendency to segregate repress and intimidate them and to deny them contact with other citizens) in the face of which it is the grossest madness to contend that Negroes can long hord their own in this country, to say nothing of making any substantial progress.

It is this intermediate and almost completely ignored ground which this movement seeks to cover. Not only the "Congregationalist", but every intelligent person who has so far detached himself from the grooved lines of thought of this and that "school" as to consider the principles of this movement on their own merit, has heartily approved its basic idea: That the only possible means of righteously adjusting differences between the races lay in upright Negroes combining, through their churches and otherwise, to curb and repress the obnoxious elements among them, to whose civic and political short-comings may be traced almost every hostile measure that plagues the race to-day; and in upright white people agreeing, especially through their churches, to apply such rules of social and economic justice in their dealings with Negroes as measurably accord with the accepted ideas of Christian civilization.

Your deep interest in the Negro is widely appreciated. I am sending you this matter in the earnest hope that you may be impelled to study the position and needs of that race from another and more vital angle--an angle upon the speedy recognition and adjustment of which must inevitably depend the future hope of the Negro in this country.

Very respectfully yours,

J. S. [Stevons?] 83401

21 Cornhill.

[stamp: MARCH 13, 19]

BOSTON, MASS., March 11, 1913.

152

[stamp: THE WHITE HOUSE, MAR 13, 1913 RECEIVED]

Hon. Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C.

Honorable Sir,

Permit me to congratulate you upon your inauguration as president of the United States, and to wish your administration full success in the truest sense.

You will doubtless recall hew earnestly I labored for your election since the day at the state house in New Jersey when you assured a delegation of us from the National Independent Political League that as president you would carry out the constitution in it's letter and spirit and in the spirit of the Christian religion and be the president of all the people without distinction as to section or race.

As editor of The Guardian, which alone of the few national Colored, newspapers published unqualifiedly supported you, as President of the New England Suffrage League which endorsed you from a racial view point, as corresponding secretary of the National Independent Political League and Manager of its Eastern Campaign Headquarters

83403

BOSTON, MASS, ___________ 191

I did my utmost to further your election among the Colored voters. Let me add that my father, the late Lt. James M. Trotter, was Recorder of Deeds under Pres. Cleveland in his first term.

From my responsible position in this cause as editor and leader 1 greatly desire to have your confidence, and to know and be granted the privilege of consultation on your general policy where we are concerned.

I should esteem it highly to receive word from you on such matters at the beginning of your administration, and to be accorded the privilege of assisting the success of your administration in any way possible through the Guardian. As Secretary of the National Independent Political League I have a personal representative in Washington in the person of Rev. A. W. Adams, who did such successful work for your election as our league organizer for Connecticutt, his home, his address being 421 Q Street, north-west, who would call at your invitation for consultation as my representative. I mention this because 1 am here in Boston, but I would come any time at your command.

We believe we can be of assistance as far as the Colored voters are concerned if we are consulted.

83404

[stamp: March 16, 1913]

406 H Street, N. W. Washington, D. C., March 14th, 1913.

152 Colored

[stamp: THE WHITE HOUSE MAR 15 1913 RECEIVED]

His Excellency, Prest. Woodrow Wilson, Washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. President:

I enclose you an article written by me prior to your inauguration, to which I have given no publicity. After carefully reading your inaugural address I hope I am not violating any rules of propriety in submitting this paper to you.

I don't know what consideration you are going to give the Colored Citizens, who actively supported you, and the cause of Democracy generally, but somehow I have full faith and confidence that we will have nothing to regret for the course we have pursued.

My politics stand next to my religion and I have been very conscientious in the stand that I have taken and am willing to stand or fall on my past record.

The enclosed copy of my letter of congratulation will remind you that you have heard from me before.

I am a graduate of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute--have taught in the public schools of Virginia for twentyfive years and have won the respect and confidence of the best white friends of the State.

Should this communication be worthy of your consideration a line from you will gladden the heart of

Yours most respectfully, Wm. P. Morten

83406

COPY xxxx THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO IN POLITICS. xxxx ------------------- o -------------------

"AN OPEN DOOR OF HOPE."

Just fifty years ago, January lst, 1913, Abraham Lincoln, emancipated four million slaves. None but those to whom the glad tidings came could know what visions this sublime act of the Great Emancipator opened to their inner souls.

Having been a slave, and then to know oneself afterward forever free; who shall imagine the soul's tumult of joy and expecation in that hour when it all stood forth a reality? Has my race fulfilled the promise of its friends? No man who has acquainted himself with the facts, will for a moment, deny that it has.

The progress made in half a century in education, in the growth of self-respect and self-confidence, in the production of distinguished leaders and in the accumulation of property, has astonished both our friends and enemies. Many promises and guarantees were held out to the race soon after the dawn of freedom, but those promises have been left unfulfilled and those guarantees have become mere idle words. It were better that they had not been made, and the negro left to fight out his own political salvation, and as he fitted himself, then, adjust himself to the body politic.

It takes a great race and a christian race to deal fair with a weaker race; but I am very sorry to say that a bitter and unchristian prejudice seems to have taken possession of the minds of those who ought to be our friends North and South, and they have shamefully neglected the promises and witheld the guarantees made fifty years ago. Is it the color of a man’s heart or skin that makes him black or white in the sight of heaven and of the noblest manhood?

The first half-century has past and with it many of our friends; the second half-century since the emancipation begins with ominous clouds still darkening the eastern skn where slowly the sun of hope has been rising for the negro. But these fity years will see forces at work that will right many a cruel wrong; inspire a larger faith and hasten the day that must come since God is just, when it shall be acknowledged that men are brothers; the world over.

The negro is not wholly responsible for solidifying his vote in the past; there were those who taught him to hate and humiliate his neighbor, by voting for the carpet-bagger during the period of reconstruction in the south, upon false promises and hopes until as a last resort these neighbors began to disfranchise my people, and they became as harmless, politically, as a finless-fish

83407