EMORY UNIVERSITY LIGHT AHEAD FOR THE NEGRO BY E. A JOHNSON AUTHOR OF The School History of the Negro Race Colored Soldiers in the Spanish American War The Negro Almanac THE GRAFTON PRESS NEW YORK CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE LOST AIRSHIP—UNCONSCIOUSNESS, . 1 II. TO EARTH AGAIN—ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER, ......... 6 III. AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY WITH IRENE, . 13 IV. NOW AND THEN, 21 Y. A VISIT TO PUBLIC BUILDINGS, ... 99 VI. A RIDE WITH IRENE, 107 VII. DR. NEWELL AND WORK OF THE YOUNG LA¬ DIES' GUILD, Ill VIII. WITH IRENE AGAIN, 116 IX. THE PRIZE ESSAY, 120 X. SAD NEWS FOR IRENE, 131 The Lost Airship—Unconsciousness 3 was the industry—thanks to the misfortune of the poor devil who solved the problem and neglected to protect his rights thoroughly. Through this fatal blunder on his part, their manufacture and their use became world-wide, almost at once, in spite of countless legal attempts to limit the pro¬ duction, in order to keep up the cost. A wealthy friend of mine had a ship of the finest Parisian make, the American machines still being unfashionable, in which we had often made trips together and which he ran himself. As I was ready to go to my field of labor, he invited me to go with him to spend from Saturday to Sun¬ day in the City of Mexico, which I had never seen, and I accepted. We started, as usual, from the new aerial pier at the foot of West Fifty-ninth Street, New York City, then one of the wonders of the world, about one o'clock, in the midst of a cloud of machines bound for country places in different parts of the United States and we were peacefully seated after dinner, enjoying the always exhilarating sen¬ sation of being suspended in space without sup¬ port—for my friend had drawn the covering from the floor of clear glass in the car, which was com¬ ing into use in some of the new machines—when The Lost Airship—Unconsciousness 5 and pitched forward, holding on by one hand. Involuntarily, I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again, he was gone ! My feelings were indescribable. I commenced to lose consciousness, owing to the altitude and the ship was ascending more rapidly every mo¬ ment. Finally I became as one dead. CHAPTER II TO EARTH AGAIN ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER ONE day an archaic-looking flying machine, a curiosity, settled from aerial heights on to the lawn of one Dr. Newell, of Phoenix, Georgia. When found I was unconscious and even after I had revived I could tell nothing of my where¬ abouts, as to whither I was going, or whence I had come ; I was simply there, " a stranger in a strange land," without being able to account for any¬ thing. I noticed however that the people were not those I had formerly left or that I expected to see. I was bewildered—my brain was in a whirl—I lapsed again into a trance-like state. When I regained my full consciousness I found myself comfortably ensconced in a bed in an airy room apparently in the home of some well-to-do person. The furniture and decorations in the 6 One Hundred Years Later 7 room were of a fashion I had never seen before, and the odd-looking books in the bookcase near the bed were written by authors whose names I did not know. I seemed to have awakened from a dream, a dream that had gone from me, but that had changed my life. Looking around in the room, I found that I was the only occupant. I resolved to get up and test the matter. I might still be dreaming. I arose, dressed myself—my suit case lay on a table, just as I had packed it—and hurriedly went downstairs, wondering if I were a somnambulist and thinking I had better be careful lest I fall and injure my¬ self. I heard voices and attempted to speak and found my voice unlike any of those I heard in the house. I was just passing out of the front door, intending to walk around on the large veranda that extended on both sides of the house, when I came face to face with a very attractive young lady who I subsequently learned was the niece of my host and an expert trained nurse. She had taken charge of me ever since my unexpected arrival on her uncle's lawn. She explained that she had been nursing me and seemed very much mortified that I should have come to consciousness at a moment when One Hundred Years Later 11 came, finally closing my eyes as the date of the year in the corner became almost legible—just as I had done in the car of the air-ship, that awful moment. I moved a little nearer. I could read it now! I opened my eyes and glanced, then wildly tore the pads apart, to see if they were all alike—and fell to the floor once more. It was the year two thousand and six, just one hundred years from the date of my appointment to the position of a teacher in the South ! In a short time I regained complete conscious¬ ness, and under the influence of that wonderful room became almost myself again. I learned that I had not really been left alone but had been ob¬ served, through a device for that purpose, by both the doctor and his niece, and on her return I re¬ lated my whole story to her as far as I could then remember it. The strangest and most unaccountable part was that though I had been away from the earth about one hundred years, yet, here I was back again still a young man, showing no traces of age and I had lived a hundred years. This was after¬ ward accounted for by the theory that at certain aerial heights the atmosphere is of such a char- 12 Light Ahead for the Negro acter that no physical changes take place in bodies permitted to enter it. The physical wants of my body seemed to have been suspended, and animation arrested until the zone of atmosphere immediately surrounding the earth was reached again, when gradually life and consciousness returned. I have no recollection of anything that tran¬ spired after I lost consciousness and the most I can say of it all is that the experience was that of one going to sleep at one end of his journey and waking up at his destination. CHAPTER III AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY WITH IRENE THE next time I met my nurse was by chance. I saw her at the public library near Dr. Newell's house, where I often went to sit and think the first few days after my re¬ birth into the world. She had left the Newell residence on the night of the day she had put me in the violet room, being called to some special duty elsewhere. I approached her with a kindly salutation which she reciprocated in a manner indi¬ cating that she was pleased to meet me. In the meantime I had found out her name—Irene Davis —and had also found out that an elective course in a training school for scientific nursing was accord¬ ing to the custom of the times, which regarded such a course as indispensable to the education of a liberally trained young woman. Our conversation drifted along as to my per¬ sonal comforts until I told her that I had heard 13 16 Light Ahead for the Negro where the Negro's musical talent seemed to have been miraculously developed. I further remarked, to myself, " How congenial in tastes and sympathy we seem to be, and how beautiful you are ! " She moved me strangely as she stood there with her black hair, rosy cheeks, large good-natured black eyes, her Venus-like poise of neck and shoulders, and a mouth neither large nor small but full of expression, and show¬ ing a wealth of pearls when she laughed—and all this coupled with such noble aspirations, and such deep womanly sympathy. I said to her, " Miss Davis, I am certainly glad to learn that our sentiments on the Negro question coincide so thoroughly and if any encouragement were needed, I should certainly feel like offering it, as a stimulus in your efforts." "All humanity needs encouragement," she re¬ plied, " and I am human; and so are these people around us who are of a different race. They need encouragement and in my humble way I hope to be of some service to them. Their chances have not been as favorable as ours, but they have been faithful and true with the talents they have." " So I understand you are assisting in this work At the Public Library with Irene 17 more from a sense of duty than as a diversion? " I observed. "Yes, that is true," she said, "but nevertheless I really get considerable recreation in it. I find these people worthy of assistance and competent to fill many places that they otherwise could not but for the help of our Guild." " So you have found that success does not al¬ ways come to the worthy," I suggested, " if those who are worthy have no outside influence ? I can remember people who worked hard all their lives for promotion and who not only did not get it, but often witnessed others less skilled and deserv¬ ing than themselves pushed forward ahead of them. This was especially true of the Negro race in my time. The Negroes were told that Negro ability would sell for as much in the market as white, but while this was encouraging in some respects and true in many cases, it could by no means be laid down as a rule." " I agree with you," she said, " in part; for the feeling no doubt prevails among some people that the lines of cleavage should move us naturally to do more for our own than for a different race, and that spirit occasionally crops out, but the spirit of helpfulness to Negroes has now become so B 18 Light Ahead for the Negro popular that it permeates all classes and there is practically no opposition to them." "You are a long way removed from the South of the past," said I, " where to have done such work as you are engaged in would have disgraced you, and have branded you for social ostracism." She replied that there was no criticism at all for engaging in such work but only for doing more for one race than another. " You Georgians had degenerated in my day," I remarked. " The Southern colonies under such men as Oglethorpe seemed to have higher ideals than had their descendants of later times. Ogle¬ thorpe was opposed to slavery and refused to al¬ low it in the Colony of Georgia while he was governor; he was also a friend to the Indians and to Whitfield in his benevolent schemes, but the Georgian of my day was a different character al¬ together from the Oglethorpe type. He justified slavery and burned Negroes at the stake, and the ' Cracker class' were a long ways removed from the Oglethorpe type of citizenship, both in ap¬ pearance and intelligence. I notice, too, Miss Davis, that you never use the words ' colored peo¬ ple ' but say ' Negro,' instead." " That is because these people themselves pre- 20 Light Ahead for the Negro in the South were now allowed the use of the books, and that they were encouraged to read by various prizes, offered especially for those who could give the best written analyses of certain books which were suggested by the library com¬ mittee. 22 Light Ahead for the Negro Called Mister,' are, to me, conspicuous by their absence. In the old days, in referring to a Negro who had made a speech of some merit he was called t Professor,' but in making a reference to him as being connected with politics the same per¬ son was dubbed 4 Jim ' or i Tom.' Fights between three white men and two Negroes were published, under glaring headlines, as ' Race Riots.' The usual custom of dealing out the vices of the Ne¬ gro race as a morning sensation in the daily papers evidently fell into ' innocuous desuetude,' and the daily papers having dropped the custom, the week¬ lies, which were merely echoes of the dailies, also left off the habit, so that now neither the city people nor farmers have their prejudices daily and weekly inflamed by exaggerated portrayals of the Negroes' shortcomings. " The character of no individual and in fact of no race can long endure in America when under the persistent fire of its newspapers. Newspapers mould public opinion. Your organization for the dissemination of news has it in its power to either kill or make alive in this respect. Our organiza¬ tion, called the News Distributing Bureau, was formerly in the hands of people whose policy de¬ signedly necessitated the portrayal of the Negro Now and Then 25 ally employed by the colored people, while the colored professional man, by the conventional laws of society, was rarely or never employed by white people. " Second—The natural disposition of the col¬ ored people to patronize white merchants and pro¬ fessional men in preference to their own was a factor to be reckoned with in looking for the causas rerum—a kind of one-sided arrangement whereby the whites got the Negroes' money but the Negroes could not get theirs—in the profes¬ sions. In many of the small lines of business, however, the Negro was patronized by the whites. " So that—with the News Bureau making capital every morning of the corruption in the race; with the efforts of Southern ministers who had taken charge of Northern pulpits, to strew seeds of poison by proclaiming, on the commission of every offense by a Negro, 'We told you that the Negro was not worth the freedom you gave him,' 'We told you he wasn't fit for citizenship and that the money you have spent for his educa¬ tion is worse than wasted ;' with the constant assertions that his only place is < behind a mule,' that education made him a greater criminal, that 26 Light Ahead for the Negro c the Southern people are his best friends' because ' we overlook his follies' and e treat him kindly if he will stay in his place;' with the money interests clamoring for the South 'to be let alone' with the Negro question, for fear of un¬ settling business and causing a slump in Southern securities; with the claims that, to keep the rail¬ roads earning dividends, to keep the cotton mar¬ ket active, the Negro must be handled according to the serfdom or shotgun plan, and that the best task master so far found was the Southern white man, who had proven himself wonderfully adept in getting good crops from Negro labor—with these and many other excuses, the question of raising the Negro in the scale of civilization was left to posterity. "4 What is he worth to us now ?' That is the only question with which we are concerned, was the ruling thought, if not the open confession. " Let it be understood that statistics (which the Negro did not compile) showed that the race at that time was, as a mass, the most illiterate, the least thrifty, and the most shiftless and criminal of any class of American citizens—dividing the population into natives—Irish emigrants, German emigrants, Italians, Jews, and Poles. This was a Now and Then 27 fact that hurt, regardless of who was responsible for it. " Then the question of color cut no small figure in this problem. The Negro's color classified him; it rang the signal bell for drawing' the color line' as soon as he was seen, and it designated and pointed him out as a marked man, belonging to that horrible criminal class whose revolting deeds were revealed every day in the newspapers. No wonder he was shunned, no wonder the children and women were afraid of him ! The great mass of the people took the newspaper reports as true. They never read between the lines and seldom read the corrections of errors * that had been made. In some cases the first report had been that a Negro had committed a crime, and later it was discovered that a white man with his face blacked * " Errors " like the following, for instance: " A special dispatch from Charleston, S. C., to the Atlanta Journal, reads: 'While dy¬ ing in Colleton county, former Section Foreman Jones, of the At¬ lantic Coast Line Road, has confessed being the murderer of his wife at Ravenel, S. C., fourteen miles from Charleston, in May, 1902, for which crime three Negroes were lynched. The crime which was charged to the Negroes was one of the most brutal ever com¬ mitted in this State, and after the capture of the Negroes quick work was made of them by the mob.' " Comment is certainly superfluous. What must be the feelings of those who participated in the lynching." (Raleigh, N. C., Morn¬ ing Post.) 28 Light Ahead for the Negro had been the perpetrator. Some one has said, ' Let me write the songs of a people and I will control their religious sentiments.' In a country like America where the newspapers are so plenti¬ ful and where people rely on them so implicitly, those who control the newspapers may be said to control the views of the people on almost any public question. With 30 per cent of the Negro population illiterate, with a criminal record double that of any of the emigrant classes above outlined, with the News Distributing Bureau against it, with no political or social standing—pariahs in the land—with Northern capital endorsing serfdom, with their inability to lose their race identity, on account of their color—we realize how heavy the odds were against the Negro race at that time. "As a Negro orator once put it, ' De Southern white man's on top'er de nigger and de Yankee white man's on top er de Southern white man and de bad nigger 's on top er dem bofe!' " I now come to some of the proposed solutions of the problem. Various meetings were held all over the country to discuss the Negro problem, and many a mediocre white man who thirsted for a little newspaper notoriety, or political prefer¬ ment, in both the North and the South, had his Now and Then 29 appetite in this direction satisfied by writing or saying something on the Negro question. One Thomas Dixon tried to out Herod Herod in taking up the exceptional cases of Negro criminality and using them in an attempt to convince his readers of the Negro's unfitness for citizenship. A public speaker named John Temple Graves # made lecture *The following were the views of Mr. Noah W. Cooper, a Nash¬ ville lawyer, on one of Mr. Graves' addresses: "John Temple Graves' address in Chicago contains more errors and inconsistencies about the so-called Negro problem than any recent utterance on the subject. " He says that God has established the ' metes and bounds ' of the Negro's habitation, but he never pointed out a single mete nor a single bound He says, ' Let us put the Negro kindly and hu¬ manely out of the way;' but his vision again faded and he never told us where to put the darkey. " If Mr. Graves' inspiration had not been as short as a clam's ear and he had gone on and given us the particular spot on the globe to which we should ' kindly and humanely ' kick the darkey 'out of the way,' then we might have asked, who will take the darkey's place in the South? Who will plow and hoe and pick out 12,000,000 bales of cotton? Who will sing in the rice fields? Who will raise the sugar cane ? Who will make our 'lasses and syrup ? Who will box and dip our turpentine ? Who will cut and saw the logs, and on his body bear away the planks from our thousands of sawmills ? Who will get down into the mud and swamps and build railroads for rich contractors ? Who will work out their lives in our phosphate mines and factories, and in iron and coal mines? Who will be roustabouts on our rivers and on our wharves to be conscripted when too hot for whites to work ? Who will fill the darkey's place in the Southern home ? 32 Light Ahead for the Negro —rejecting also as unsound the theory of higher education; because that would develop in the Negro a longing for equality which the wdiite man persons that are antagonistic. For instance, the dram-seller is an¬ tagonistic to all homes and boys and girls; therefore, put all dram- sellers and dram-shops on one island, and all the homes and boys and girls on another island, far, far away ! Now there is your idea, Mr. Graves ! Then, again, all horse thieves, bank breakers, train robbers, forgers, counterfeiters are antagonistic to honest men; so here, we will put them all in the District of Columbia and all the honest men in Ohio, and build a high wall between. All the bad boys we would put in a pen; and all us good boys, we will go to the park and have a picnic and laugh at the nincompoop bad boys whose destiny we have penned up! Ah, Mr. Graves could no more teach us this error than could he reverse the decree of Christ to let the wheat and tares grow together until harvest. The seclusion or isolation of an individual or a race is not the road that God has blazed out for the highest attainments. The Levite of the great parable drew his robes close about him and 'passed by on the other side'—like Mr. Graves would have us do the Negro, except that instead of passing him by we would ' put him behind us'—a mere difference of words. But the good Samaritan got down and nursed the dirty, wounded bleeding Jew; sacrificed his time and money to heal his wounds. Now that Levite must be Mr. Graves' ideal Southerner! He says the Negro is an unwilling, blameless, unwholesome, unwelcome element. So was the robbed and bleed¬ ing Jew to the Levite; but did that excuse the Levite's wrong? Ought the Levite to have put the groaning man ' out of the way' of his ' imperial destiny' by kicking him out of the road ? " Nay, verily. By the time that Mr. Graves gets all of the an¬ tagonistic races and all the antagonistic occupations and people of the world cornered off and fenced up in their God-prescribed 'metes and bounds,' and fences them each up, with stakes and riders to hold them in—by that time I am sure he will envy the job of Sysi- Now and Then 33 would not give and was never known to give an inferior race, a statement which all honest white people must regard as a base slander upon their Christianity. " Bishop Turner, senior bishop of the African Methodist-Episcopal Church, one of the leading organizations of the Negro race, also advocated emigration to Africa as the only solution of the problem, on the grounds that the white people would never treat the Negro justly and that his¬ tory furnished no instance where a slave race had ever become absolutely free in the land of its for¬ mer owners, instancing that to be free the Jews had to leave Egypt; that William the Conqueror and his followers slaughtered the native Britons, rather than attempt to carry out what seemed to them an impossible task, that of teaching two races, a conquered race and a conquering one, to live side by side in peace. " One Professor Bassett made enemies of the Southern newspapers and politicians by proposing justice and equality as a solution of the problem. The ' most unkindest cut of all' of Professor Bass- ett's saying was that Booker Washington was phus. But there is a grain of sober truth in one thing Mr. Graves says—that the Negro is blameless." C 36 Light Ahead for the Negro vision of the world and its opportunities, could not bring himself to leave the South, so far as the great mass was concerned. Then, too, he had been told that the Yankees would not treat him like the Southerner, and Southern newspapers took especial pains to publish full details of all the lynchings that occurred in the North and make suggestive comments on them, in which they en¬ deavored to show that the whole country was down on the Negro, and that while in the South the whites lynched only the one Negro against whom they had become enraged, in the North they mobbed and sought to drive out all the Ne¬ groes in the community where the crime had been committed. (The two clippings below oc¬ curred in the same issue of a Southern paper and showed how, while the North was mobbing a Ne¬ gro, the South was honoring one.)* * NEGRO TORN FROM JAIL BY AN OHIO MOB. SHOT DEAD ON THE GROUND, THEN HANGED FROM TELEGRAPH POLE YELLS OF LAUGHTER FOR HALF AN HOUR THE SWINGING CORPSE SERVES AS A TARGET FOR THE MOB WHICH POURS LEAD INTO IT, SHRIEKING WITH DELIGHT. {By the Associated Press.) Springfield, Ohio, March 7, 1904.—Richard Dixon, a Negro, was shot to death here to-night by a mob for the killing of Policeman Charles Collis, who died to-day from wounds received at the hands of Dixon on Sunday. Now and Then 37 " Instances of white mechanics North who were refusing to work with Negroes, and instances of Northern hotels refusing them shelter were also O Collis had gone to Dixon's room on the Negro's request. Dixon said his mistress had his clothes in her possession. Collis accom¬ panied Dixon to the room, and in a short time the man and woman engaged in a quarrel, which resulted in Dixon shooting the woman, who is variously known as Anna or Mamie Corbin, in the left breast just over the heart. She fell unconscious at the first shot and Collis jumped towards the Negro to prevent his escape from the room. Dixon then fired four balls into Collis, the last of which penetrated his abdomen. Dixon went immediately to police headquarters and gave himself up. He was taken to jail. As soon as Collis' death became known talk of lynching the Ne¬ gro was heard and to-night a crowd began to gather about the jail. The mob forced an entrance to the jail by breaking in the east doors with a railroad iron. At 10: 30 the mob melted rapidly and it was the general opinion that no more attempts would be made to force an entrance. Small groups of men, however, could be seen in the shadows of the court house, two adjacent livery stables and several dwelling houses. At 10: 45 o'clock the police were satisfied that there was nothing more to fear and they with other officials and newspaper men passed freely in and out of the jail. Shortly before 11 o'clock a diversion was made by a small crowd moving from the east doors around to the south entrance. The police followed and a bluff was made at jostling them off the steps leading up to the south entrance. The crowd at this point kept growing, while yells of " hold the police," " smash the doors," " lynch the nigger " were made, inter¬ spersed with revolver shots. All this time the party with the heavy railroad iron was beating at the east door, which shortly yielded to the battering ram, as did 42 Light Ahead for the Negro slightest offense, so that no man's life was safe if he was unfortunate enough to have had a difficulty with some individual, who had friends enough to raise a mob at night who would go with him to the house of his victim, call him out, and either shoot, or unmercifully beat him. The refusal of the officers of the law to crush out this spirit in its embryonic stage resulted in its growing to such enormous proportions that they found, too late, that they could neither manage nor control it. The officers themselves were afraid of the lynchers. "The method of lynching Negroes was usually by hanging or by burning at the stake, sometimes in the presence of thousands of people, who came in on excursion trains to see the sight, and, pos¬ sibly, carry off a trophy consisting of a finger joint, a tooth or a portion of the victim's heart. If the lynching was for a crime committed against a woman, and she could be secured, she was con¬ signed to the task of starting the flames with her own hands. This was supposed to add to the nov¬ elty of the occasion.* * BURNING OF NEGROES. Birmingham, Ala., Special—The Age-Herald recently published the following letter from Booker T. Washington: " Within the last fortnight three members of my race have been Now and Then 45 baric races, except the Indian, makes the best of circumstances. It is possibly true that the Negro would be a slave among us to-day if some one else had not freed him. The sentiment, ' He who would be free must first himself strike the blow,' did not appeal to him. "Another reason cited for the Negro's submis¬ sion so long to oppression both before and since the American Civil War of 1860 to 1865 was his inabil¬ ity to organize. The white man learned this art by thousands of years of experience and of necessary resistance for the protection of those rights which he holds most dear. The Negroes were never able to make any concerted movement in their own be¬ half. They clashed too easily with one another and any individual would swamp the ship, as it were, to further his own scheme. The ' rule or ruin' policy prevailed and the necessity of the subordination of individuality for the good of the whole was lost in a storm of personal aggrandize¬ ment whenever an attempt was made at anything bordering on Negro national organization. This was one of the fruits of slavery, which encouraged jealousy and bickering. Several religious organi¬ zations had a successful existence for some time and quite a number of business and benevolent 46 Light Ahead for the Negro enterprises, but in politics all was chaos. The Negroes cast their ballots one way all of the time; it was known just as well ten years before an elec¬ tion how they would vote, as it was after the bal¬ lots were counted. No people of political calibre like that could measure arms with the white man politically ; his rebelling in such a condition would have been preposterous. The Negro took his cue in matters of race policy from his white friends— he did not fight until the signal was given by them. No Negro gained any national reputation without first having been recognized by the white race, instead of his own. The Negroes recognized their leaders after the whites picked them out—not be¬ fore. " The Negro nature at this time was still a pliable one, after many years of drill training, but it was much more plastic in the days of slavery, and for the first forty years after reconstruction. The master labored to subordinate the will of the slave to his own, to make him like clay in the hands of the potter. In this he had an eye to business. The nearer the slave approached the horse, in follow¬ ing his master's guidance, the nearer perfect he was, and this lesson of putting himself absolutely at the mercy of his master was thoroughly learned, Now and Then 47 and it was learned easily because there seemed to exist a natural instinctive awe on the part of the Negro for the white man. He had that peculiar fondness for him that the mule has for the horse. You can mount one horse and lead a thousand mules, without bit or bridle, to the ends of the earth. " The Negro sought to please his master in all things. He had a smile for his frowns and a grin for his kicks. No task was too menial, if done for a white master—he would dance if he was called upon and make sport of the other Negroes, and even pray, if need be, so he could laugh at him. He was trustworthy to the letter, and while occasionally he might help himself to his master's property on the theory of a common ownership, yet woe be unto the other Negro that he caught tampering with his master's goods! He was a ' tattler' to perfection, a born dissembler—a dip¬ lomat and a philosopher combined. He was past grand master in the art of carrying his point when he wanted a ' quarter' or fifty cents. He knew the route to his master's heart and pocket- book and traveled it often. He simply made him¬ self so obliging that he could not be refused ! It was this characteristic that won him favor in the 48 Light Ahead for the Negro country from college president down to the lowest scullion. Had he been resentful and vindictive, like the Indian, he would have been deported or exterminated long since. " The Negro's usefulness had also bound him to the South. The affection that the master and mistress had for the slave was transmitted in the blood of their children. " As unto tlie bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman, Though she bends him, she obeys him, Though she draws him, yet she follows; Useless each without the other," applied to the relations between the Negro and his white master. In the Civil War between the states, many a slave followed his master to the front. Here he was often the only messenger to return home. He bore the treasured watch, or ring, or sword, of the fallen soldier, and broke the sad news to the family ; and there were black tears as well as white ones spilled on such occasions. " The white males went to the war leaving the family and farm in charge of the blacks thereon. They managed everything, plowed, sowed, reaped, and sold, and turned over all returns to the mis¬ tress. They shared her sorrows and were her pro- Now and Then 53 He refused to do either, whereupon two physicians, with others who were present, tied him, laid him on a table and opened his jugular veins and bled him to death in buckets provided for the occasion. Meanwhile the stamping of feet and the yelling above, where the speaking was going on, was tre¬ mendous, being prearranged to deaden any outcry that he might make. It is said that Stephens's last words before he was put on the table were a re¬ quest that he might go to the window and take a final look at his home, which was only a few rods away. This was granted, and as he looked his wife passed out of the house and his children were playing in the yard. Stephens's dead body was found by a Negro man who suspected some¬ thing wrong and climbed to the window of the room in search for him. " Such acts as these spread terror among the Negro population, as well as bad feeling, and dug a wide political pit between the Negro and the Democratic party which organized these methods of intimidation.* The ' Ku Klux Klan' was finally annihilated by the strong hand of President Grant, who filled the South with sufficient militia to suppress it. A favorite means of evading the *Tourgee relates this incident in "A Fool's Errand." 54 Light Ahead for the Negro arrests made by the militia was to have the pris¬ oners released on habeas corpus by the native judges. To stop this the writ of habeas corpus was suspended by some of the provisional gov- erners. One governor who did this was impeached by the Democratic party when it returned to power and he died broken hearted, without the removal of his disabilities. You can easily see from these facts how the political differences between the Negro and the Democratic party arose." Here my paper ended. When I had read it over to Dr. Newell, he rose and went over to his desk, saying, " While looking over some old papers belong¬ ing to my grandfather, I found the following arti¬ cle inside of an old book. On it is a statement that it was written in the year 1902 and republished in 1950. I have often desired to get at the true status of this question, and when I found this my interest was doubly aroused. The so-called Negro problem was truly a most crucial test of the foundation principles of our government a century ago, and I feel proud of my citizenship in so great a country when I reflect that we have come through it all with honor and that finally truth has won out and we are able at last to treat Now and Then 55 the Negro with justice and humanity, according to the principles of Christianity! This problem tested our faith as with fire." He handed me the article, and gave his attention to other matters until I had read it:— " RECONSTRUCTION AND NEGRO GOVERN¬ MENT. " In the ten years culminating with the decade ending in 1902, the American Negroes have wit¬ nessed well nigh their every civil right invaded. They commenced the struggle as freemen in 1865 ; at the close of the civil war both races in the South began life anew, under changed conditions— neither one the slave of the other, except in so far as he who toils, as Carlyle says, is slave to him who thinks. Under the slave system the white man had been the thinker and the Negro the toiler. The idea that governed both master and slave was that the slave should have no will but that of his master. " The fruits of this system began to ripen in the first years of freedom, when the Negro was forced to think for himself. For two hundred and forty years his education and training had been directed Now and Then 59 resistance there would have been less friction, but the South had its own ideas of how the thing should be done and resisted any others to the point of a revolution which had to be put down by government troops. The government's plans were carried finally at the point of the bayonet, when they might have gone through smoothly, had the Negro's call for Southern leadership been heeded. Had this been done, the 'Ku-Klux' would never have developed. The South came back into the Union, ' overpowered,' it said, ' but not conquered.' So far as the Negro ques¬ tion is concerned that is true but in other matters the South is essentially loyal. Although it came back pledged never to deprive any citizen of his rights and privileges i on account of color or pre¬ vious condition of servitude,' it is now engaged in a bold and boasting attempt to do this very thing. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia have all adopted amendments to their constitutions which prac¬ tically nullify the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which the honor of these states was pledged not to do when they were re-admitted into the Union at the close of the war of secession! In Virginia 62 Light Ahead for the Negro pies. It will not do, however, to listen to the siren of commercialism whose songs are composed by advocates of Negro disfranchisement. There is method in the spell she would bring upon you, and her story is literally nothing but a song. " The truth is that during the whole period of the ' Fusion Movement' North Carolina never had a more economical government—taxes then were 93c. on a hundred dollar valuation; taxes now are $1.23. North Carolina six per cent, bonds then sold for $1.10; they now sell for $1.09. The Fusion government made the state penitentiary self-supporting ; the white supremacy government has run it into debt to the amount of $50,000. Under the Fusion government, most of the counties paid off their debts and had a surplus in their treasuries for the first time since the war. Under the Fusion government more miles of rail¬ road were built than in any period of the same length before or since, more cotton factories were established ; one of them being owned and oper¬ ated by Negroes. A silk mill operated entirely by Negro labor, from foremen down, was also estab¬ lished. The fees of public officers were cut down about one-third. These are some of the phases of Now and Then 63 the Fusion government—a government based al¬ most entirely on Negro votes—that the enemies of Negro suffrage do not discuss. " It is useless to refer to the period of reconstruc¬ tion to disprove the theory that Negro suffrage would entail an expensive government on the South, when we have the recent experiment in North Carolina before us. For the sake of ar¬ gument, we might admit that the Negro was unfit for suffrage forty years ago, but that by no means proves that he is unfit now. Forty years of ex¬ perience under American institutions have taught him many lessons. He is no longer the 1 child- man,' as the white supremacy advocates call him. These people are as false in their theories as were the pro-slavery advocates who maintained the ab¬ surd proposition that if the Negro was emancipated he would soon perish, for want of sufficient ability to feed and clothe himself. Forty years after emancipation—about as long as Moses was in the wilderness—in spite of these false prophecies, we can now find some of the sons of the prophets fearing and foretelling, not that the Negroes will perish, but that they will outstrip them in the race of life ! So the white man in the new con¬ stitution is to be allowed to vote on his ' grand- 64 Light Ahead for the Negro daddy's' * merits and the Negro must vote on his own. " These politicians were afraid to base the right to vote on merit, as they feared the Negro would win.f Among these people a Negro has to be * The grandfather clause in the North Carolina constitution, as recently amended, gives illiterate whites the right to vote if their grandfathers voted prior to 1867. The negroes were enfranchised in 1867 and their grandfathers therefore could not have voted prior to that time. So, while all negroes must be able to read and write the constitution, in order to vote, the illiterate white man may do so because his " grand-daddy " voted prior to 1867. t As Mr. A. V. Dockery, who is a competent authority, so tersely said in the New York Age, June 23, 1904, the Negro has been practically the only natural Republican in the South. That a considerable number of soldiers were furnished by the South to the Union army during the Civil War is not contested, and proves little as to political conditions then and for several decades later. It is well known that the mountain section of North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia sent many soldiers to the North¬ ern army; it may not be so well known that Madison county, North Carolina, the home of Judge Pritchard, contributed more soldiers to the Union cause, in proportion to population, than any other county in the whole United States. It was not asserted that all those soldiers were then, or after¬ wards became, Republicans. Before the emancipation, there were some Republicans in this sparsely settled section, it is true, but aggressive Republicanism in the South got its impetus and had its birth in the actual emancipation, not necessarily the enfranchise¬ ment, of the Negro. Yet when this remnant of white Republicans could no longer protect the Negro in his right to vote, and successive Congresses supinely consented to his disfranchisement, the South's contribu- Now and Then 69 tempted to capture her slaves in the streets of anti-slavery cities like Boston, by the Fugitive Slave Law—under the very noses of the abolition¬ ists ! Had the pro-slavery people been satisfied with restricted slavery, the abolitionists might have had harder work in dethroning the institu¬ tion. " If the question of lynching had been con¬ fined to Negroes guilty of assaults on females some justification might exist, but it has been extended to all crimes ; and not satisfied with hanging, burn¬ ing by slow fire has been substituted, accompanied by stabbing, the cutting off of finger joints, the digging out of eyes, and other torture. " On the question of civil equality, the ' jim- crow' system has not sufficed ; like the horse leech, they continually call for more. If practiced only in the South it might stand, but an attempt has been made to cover the country, and the Pres¬ ident himself must not treat a colored gentleman otherwise than as a scullion—according to the ad¬ vocates of white supremacy. In their doctrine all Negroes are to be humiliated. This tendency to dictate to others and go to extremes is character¬ istic, and it means that we may always depend on this class of individuals to go too far, and by over- 70 Light Ahead for the Negro stepping the mark to turn the country against them. " If a fool has rope enough the end is easy to see." After reading the article, I turned to the Doctor, and said, " These statements are essentially correct, according to my recollection of those times, and I will say further that there were grave doubts one hundred years ago as to the permanency of our institutions under the strain of the Negro problem; and no less prominent was the labor agitation or the war between capital and labor. It is a happy realization for me to return to my country and find these questions peaceably adjusted and that the South, which was for a long time considered obdurate on this subject, has led in bringing about this happy solution, in spite of the proph¬ ecies of many writers like this one. But the problem I have been laboring with ever since my second advent, as it were, is, how was it all done ? " Well, we Southern people changed our leaders. We took men of noble character; men who ap¬ pealed to reason and humanity, rather than pan¬ dered to the lowest passions of the people," he said. " Tell me, Dr. Newell, how the labor question Now and Then 73 the Negro down.' Towards this end, they bent their best energies, under the mistaken idea of conserving their own interests, not realizing the all-important fact that as long as there was a large number of Negroes in their midst who would work for only fifty cents per day as above stated, and capital was disposed to employ them, just so long would every laboring white man have to accept the same wages as the Negro. " The intelligent solution of the problem was found by making the Negro see what his interests were, by taking him into the labor unions, where he could be educated up to an intelligent appre¬ ciation of the value of his labor; instead of seek¬ ing further to degrade him by oppression, with the consequent result of lowering the white man's scale of wages. Further it has been found that oppression does not oppress when aimed at the Negro—he rather thrives under it. In those communities where he was most oppressed and the hand of every laboring white man seemed to be against him, the Negro thrived and prospered to a marked degree. Oppression simply drives negroes together, they concentrate their trade in their own stores and spend their wages among them¬ selves to a greater extent than otherwise—and 74 Light Ahead for the Negro thus it more often than otherwise happened, that Negro laborers as a mass, in such communities, lived in better homes, and educated their children better than the white laborers. The eyes of the Southern white laboring men began to see this point and a change of base took place, and now they are and have been for a long time, seeking to elevate the Negro laborer to their own standard to keep him from pulling them down—a most in¬ telligent view of the matter ! "The South had congratulated itself on being free from the strikes and lock-outs caused by or¬ ganized labor in the North. Their contention was that the Negroes could not act intelligently in any organization, and that serious consequences would certainly follow. But all such predictions failed to materialize after the Negroes were organized. The work of organizing did not stop with their admission into labor unions but courses of in¬ struction were mapped out and competent people were employed to drill the members in the princi¬ ples of the order; and, so far as possible, in the advanced methods of handling tools. The result was the creation of a much better class of work¬ men, better wages and better living for all. " The unions also opened their doors to women Now and Then 75 in separate meetings. Schools of Domestic Science were established and those who employed servants soon found that they could leave the household and kitchen work to a master-hand. The wives and mothers of employers were eman¬ cipated from constantly 4 overseeing.' There was a vast difference between the professional domestic servant, who needed only orders, which would be carried out faithfully, and the ' blunderbuss,' who was continually at sea in the absence of the directing hand and mind of her mistress. The Southern people began to recognize the difference, and soon became the firm champions of the new system, and welcomed the new efforts of the labor unions as a blessing rather than a curse." " But, Doctor, am I to understand that there are no labor problems at all in the country at present ? " "No, not exactly that; organized labor still has its problems, but you must remember that they are not of the same character as those of a hundred years ago. The essentials of life, such as coal, iron, oil and other natural products are now handled by the National Government, and the government is pledged to see to it that labor in the production of these commodities is paid a fair share of the surplus accruing from sales. No at- Now and Then 77 " As I remember the past, the laboring people in coal and. iron mines earned barely enough for subsistence and their hours of toil were so long that anything like self-improvement was impos¬ sible. They were in a continual row with their employers, who revelled in luxury and rebelled against a 10 per cent, increase in wages, and who in many instances, rather than pay it, would close down the mines until their workmen were starved into submission. I never could reconcile myself to the logic of the principle that it was lawful for capital to thus oppress labor. I think the legal maxim of sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas (so use your own as not to injure another) applies with force in this instance. The application of it is usually made in suits for damages, where one person has injured another by negligence. But the force of the maxim is applicable to capital as well, and he who would use money (though in fact it be legally his own) to oppress others has violated both the letter and spirit of the maxim. In saying this I would not be understood as in¬ dulging in that sickly sentimentality which de¬ spises all rich people simply because they are rich, but rather to condemn the illegitimate use of riches. A rich man can be a blessing as well as 80 Light Ahead for the Negro two races pure and has developed both the Saxon and the Negro types and preserved the best traits of each." I noticed that the subdued look of the old time Negro was absent and that, without any attempt at display, this man possessed " le grande air " which is a coveted attribute in the highest walks of life. I had already observed that an advance in civilization produced more individuality and more personal freedom in choosing one's associ¬ ates. It was not expected that a man was the social equal of another because he worked at the same bench with him, or rode in the same car on the railroad. That was now considered the postu¬ late of an ignoramus. Individuality is a marked development of ad¬ vanced civilization—of this I have always been aware, the more so since witnessing the changes wrought during my absence. Individuality gives room for thought, out of which is born invention and progress. When the individual is not al¬ lowed to separate from the crowd in thought and action, the aggregate will, the aggregate thought, is his master and he " dare not venture for fear of a fall." Progress is measured only by the de¬ gree of swiftness made by the mass. Some indi- 86 Light Ahead for the Negro is race antagonism, and that race antagonism pre¬ sents a problem more complicated and perplexing than most others, because it is apt to be unreason¬ ing. It creates violent impulses which refuse to be argued with. " The race antipathy now heating the Southern mind threatens again to curtail the freedom of in¬ quiry and discussion there—perhaps not to the same extent, but sufficiently to produce infinite mischief by preventing an open-minded consid¬ eration of one of the most important interests. * * * And here is the crucial point: There will be a movement either in the direction of re¬ ducing the Negroes to a permanent condition of serfdom—the condition of the mere plantation hand, ' alongside of the mulepractically without any rights of citizenship—or a movement in the direction of recognizing him as a citizen in the true sense of the term. One or the other will prevail. " That there are in the South strenuous advo¬ cates of the establishment of some sort of semi- slavery cannot be denied. Governor Vardaman, of Mississippi, is their representative and most logical statesman. His extreme utterances are greeted by many as the bugle-blasts of a great Now and Then 89 blacks should divide their votes according to their inclinations between different political parties— will promise the desired result in the same meas¬ ure as it is carried on with gentle, patient and persuasive dignity, but also with that unflinching courage which is, above all things, needed to assert that most important freedom—the freedom of inquiry and discussion against traditional and deep-rooted prejudice—a courage which can be daunted neither by the hootings of the mob nor by the supercilious jeers of fashionable society, but goes steadily on doing its work with indomit¬ able tenacity of purpose. " WHAT THE ' NEW YORK EVENING POST ' THINKS " This analysis of existing conditions and ten¬ dencies in the South is one to which the South itself and the entire nation should give heed. Mr. Schurz clearly perceives a dangerous drift. Slavery ideas are again asserting themselves. The movement to extinguish the Negro's political rights is unconcealed. By craftily devised and inequitable laws the suffrage is taken from him. With all this go naturally the desire and purpose to keep him forever 'alongside the mule.' Negro education is looked upon with increasing hostility. 92 Light Ahead for the Negro of North Carolina, and Governor Montague, of Virginia. There is a whole group of educational leaders who represent the best of the Old South and the best of the New. It is the duty of wise, patriotic men in the North to cooperate with these new leaders ; to strengthen their hands ; to recog¬ nize and aid the best sentiment in the South, and to stimulate its activity. The Negro question can be settled by cooperation of the North with the South, by sympathy, by understanding; it can never be settled in any other way. " WHAT GOV. AYCOCK, OF NORTH CAROLINA, THINKS " I am proud of my state because we have solved the Negro problem, which recently seems to have given you some trouble. We have taken him out of politics, and have thereby secured good gov¬ ernment under any party, and laid foundations for the future development of both races. We have secured peace and rendered prosperity a cer¬ tainty. I am inclined to give you our solution of this problem. It is, first, as far as possible, under the Fifteenth Amendment, to disfranchise him; after that, let him alone; quit writing about him; quit talking about him; quit making him ' the white man's burden'; let him ' tote his own skil- Now and Then 95 " You can imagine that it was getting very un¬ comfortable for the Negroes in the South about that time. Many of them left for the North and West. Quite a number went to Africa—and Bishop Smith of the African Methodist Church induced many to go to Hayti. Vast tracts of land in the Southwestern part of the United States were opened up to the cultivation of cotton by a na¬ tional system of irrigation, and the Government employed Negroes on these improvements and also in the cultivation of the plant itself, after the irrigation system was perfected." " What happened to the Southern white farm¬ ers ? " I inquired. " They moved to the cities in large numbers and the Negro: " He is not ill-treated nor improperly discriminated against except in the courts, and for the injustice done him there, there seems to be no remedy." A CLOSE CONTEST. (