-^REPLYf— TO wiLLmn n/iNNiPflL Tnon/is (Author of the American Negro) The 20U1 Century Slanderer of The Negro Race AN ADDRESS BY Rev. C. T. WALKER, D. D. Pastor of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, West 53d Street, New York City. SEQUEL TO "THE AMERICAN NEGRO" A reply to William Hannibal Thomas, author of a book recently published by the McMillan Com¬ pany, Fifth Ave., New York City, called "The American Negro." By REV. C. T. WALKER, D. D. Pastor Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, "West 53d Street, New York City. Mr. Thomas claims to be a member of the race he has so grossly misrepresented and so wilfully lied against. He states that he was born May 4, 1843, in Jackson Township, Pickaway County, Ohio. He claims to remember vividly the reading of the Scriptures, recitation of the Decalogue and Shorter Catechism by his religious parents during his youthful days. He attended a village school in Ohio. During the Civil War he entered the 42d Ohio Regiment in civil capacity; he afterwards joined the 95th Regiment, and later still the 5th U. S. Colored Troops. At the close of the war he studied theology in a Presbyterian school; for a while he worked on a religious newspaper; in 1871 he went South to organize schools and teach the colored people; in 1873 took.up.his residence in New¬ berry County, S. C., and practiced law. in the courts of that State. He was Trial Justice in the county in which he lived for a while. He was a member of the South Carolina Legislature in 1876, and chair¬ man of the leading committees (he says). He practiced law in the State Supreme Court and was commissioned a colonel of the Na¬ tional Guard. Mr. Thomas says he has been a student of political history for three decades. He voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1864. He says, "I have seen the transposition of the Negro from chattelism to freedom, to enfranchisement, to legislative power, to dominating insolence, to riotious infamy, and through it all I beheld the ac¬ credited leaders impervious to every thought or care for race, government, civilization or posterity. From my youth I have had an intimate knowledge of Negro religionists, and have learned to know by personal experience the shallowness of their preten¬ sions, depravity of their morals, the ignorance of their ministers, the bigotry of their leaders, and the levity of their faith. The social side of Negroes has been to me an open page of execrable weak¬ ness, of unblushing shame, of inconceivable mendacity, of indurated folly and ephemeral contrition." It might be well to remind my readers in the outset, that Mr. Thomas is a minister of the A. M. E. Church. He would have greatly helped his readers if he had told them why he entered the ministry, which he had known from his youth to have accredited leaders known for their stupidity and ignorance. He claims at one time to have been a leader of this race he now assails, for Negroes elected him to office in South Carolina. Why did he not seek ad¬ vancement and promotion in Ohio, his native State, rather than have joined the "Carpet-bag" brigade, and settled in the South at the close of the war? I propose to name and discuss the salient points in his attack upon my people and refute them by showing the progress of my race intellectually, morally, spiritually, and financially. Allow me to state, that the author of "The American Negro" has given us a book that will pass as a well-written and scholarly production. He has given important and interesting historical in¬ formation and other advice that no sensible man will object to; while, on the other hand, he has made such sweeping charges against his race—false charges, slanderous charges—for the sake of money, that ought to entitle him to pass alongside of Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr. Let us proceed to name his charges. i. He charges that the Negro is an ingrate, he says: "We are painfully impressed with the indifferent attitude of Negroes toward the agency which consummated their freedom; an indifference which leads us to conclude that they have neither intelligent knowl¬ edge of the magnitude of the boon conferred on the race, nor sensible gratitude for the one who performed the most heroic act for them. Not only is their need for racial recognition of the 22(i of September, the date of the issuance of the Emancipation Pro¬ clamation, nor for the ist of January, the time when it went into effect; but Negroes neither celebrate within their own ranks nor unite with their fellow citizens in commemorating the anniversary of the great Emancipator's birth." Mr. Thomas shows his ignorance of the doings of Negroes in this charge. The Negro as a race has been as true to the party that gave them their emancipation as the needle to its pole. They have gone to the polls and voted for Republican candidates at aL hazards. They celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation through¬ out the South; and Abraham Lincoln's birthday is celebrated in Negro schools, by Negro citizens, by military and civic organiza¬ tions throughout this country. They have religious and benevolent organizations named after the great Emancipator, churches, asso¬ ciations, and several military organizations bear the name of the distinguished liberator. In his attempt to explain why the Negroes remained upon farms 2 at the outbreak of the Civil War without organizing a general in¬ surrection, he is very inconsistent, for he says "The supreme and aH pervading influence which restrained them was rooted in their religious convictions." He had previously stated that the Negroes' religion was mockery and shallowness, he was "familiar with the levity of their faith," now he states that faith and Negro freedom ""was the dying prophecy of white-haired patriarchs, the parting benediction of fathers and mothers of whom they were bereft by a dehumanizing chattelism." 2. His second charge is, that the Negro has an aversion to manual labor and strives to evade it, as is shown by the vast num¬ bers of freedmen who throng the cities and towns, although idleness and poverty await the great majority of them. From my own personal knowledge, the cause of a great many of the members of my race being in the cities and towns through¬ out the South, is due to the fact that they are poorly paid for their labor, and sometimes not paid at all; they have no protection, no way of securing redress for wrongs inflicted, and, with a knowledge of the cheapness of human life, many have gone where they thought they would at least have some protection; and yet, the bulk of our race are in the South on the plantations. If the gentleman would remember, that "if a strike occurs in the cotton fields of the South a million white merchants and planters would go bankrupt; fifty million spindles from the Merrimac to the Savannah would be silenced as by the touch of death, and five million white people in the mill district of the Carolinas, in Lowell and Manchester, will go without their daily bread." Let there be a strike in the cane fields, the corn fields, and the turpentine districts and there will be stagnation in business. With regard to his charge against that class of freedmen who ■come North lured here by fairy tales of high wages and ready em¬ ployment, that hardly ever return to the South: "After a brief stay in the North Negroes of every sort seem to acquire an aversion for their Southern connections, and whenever possible seek to hide the fact of their actual origin by conveying the impression that they are from elsewhere. He further states that the greatest draw¬ back in the way of colored men procuring domestic employment is the innate fondness of Negro men for white women." Let me say in answer to Mr. Thomas, Negroes of the South are now free as they are in all other parts of America; they have the Tight to go North, East or West as any other people; live in large cities or in the suburban towns as they desire. The day of securing tickets and passes from masters to travel has passed. With regard to Negro men seeking to marry white women, it is untrue of the masses; nearly all of the men are satisfied to marry the women of the race to which they belong. They have women as good, as 3 pure, and as beautiful as any other race. As to variety they excoJ all other races. Mr. Thomas states, that "the slave disciplined mechanic has no successor in the ranks of the freedmen, for the simple reason they are lacking in mental energy and that subtle intelligence required of efficient artisans. The exclusion of the Negro from the higher mechanical industries is due largely to his incapacity for acquiring a thorough, painstaking knowledge of details; his sloven and slip¬ shod methods are justly chargeable to his inability to achieve place and distinction in the mechanical field." In answer to this charge I will read to you a quotation from "Howard's Magazine" on Industrial Progress of the Negro. This statement proves that wherever the Negro has been given equal opportunity he has measured up to the requirement. Mr. Thomas states that "the Negro is industrially inefficient by inheritance for other than the crudest endeavor." INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS OF THE NEGRO. It is said with regard to the various industries in and around Pittsburg, Pa., labor skilled and unskilled is in constant demand. That neither nationality nor color stand in the way of employment, the only question is "Can you do the work?" We give the follow¬ ing from "Howard's American Magazine": He says, "The iact that a very large number of Negroes are now employed in every industry in Pittsburg betrays a marked advance toward the time when manhood's standard will be applied to the black as to the white. "The Park Brothers, operating the great Black Diamond Steel Mills, were the pioneers in employing Negroes, and to-day 700 are employed in the various departments of these mills. Here all the puddling is done by them; they operate the 'muck' and 'iron bar'" rolls, and scattered throughout the mills they will be found doing that work that requires brain as well as brawn. Of the 500 mills- in the Pittsburg district, there is possibly not one but what employs, colored men in various capacities. "The Olivers, with Henry W. Oliver at the head, employs a considerable number of colored men in each department of their mills. At the great Carnegie Mills the Negro will be seen as en¬ gineer of their yard locomotives—operating gigantic electric cranes; filling and mixing materials for the open hearth and blast furnaces and working on the mammoth rolls. From the handling of the ore, to the bringing forth of the finished product the Negro fills no unimportant part in these the largest iron and steel mills in the world. President Schwab, of the Carnegie Company, started in the mills as an ordinary mill-hand, now being at the head of the great corporation, will allow no man to be turned away on account of his color. It is but asked that he be sober, willing and capable. 4 Twenty per cent, of the coal mined in the Pittsburg district is nunc J by colored men. "The Booth & Flinn Company, now consisting of Mr. Wi'liant Flinn, president, and Mr. George Flinn, his son, secretary and treas¬ urer, now employ 400 colored men in their general contracting business. Most all of the asphalt streets put down in and about Pittsburg are laid by this firm, and nearly all, if not all, of the work, is done by colored men under the superintendence of colored men.. "The great Westinghouse Electric Company, presided over by' H. W. Westinghouse, Jr., employs colored men in every capacity.. They make electric light bulbs, wind armatures, build motors; im fact, they perform every kind of work that men are capable of per ¬ forming in this, one of the largest, if not the largest, manufacturing- plants in the world. Some of the best machine hands employed at Westinghouse are colored men, some of them having been in the employ of the company for twenty years. "In bridge building and structural iron work, the Negro is em¬ ployed not only as a laborer, but in the skilled work as well." He further says, that "the servant characteristic, that which was; bred in the Negro, has given away to the active, quick thinking1 mechanic, and trades character, that argue well for a perfect civili— zationship. They are training their children in the industries, so- that they might become a clas>s of producers instead of consumers- only." It is claimed that the colored people in and around Pittsburg*" own and control two and a half million dollars' worth of real estate.. Their private property, including mortgages equal two hundred and1 fifty thousand dollars. Upwards of one thousand families own their own homes. The writer says the Pittsburg Negro chases after the dollar, and his saving thereof speaks volumes in his behalf. Under the head of "material thrift," Mr. Thomas denies that: the freedman has made unparallelled material progress since the- war. He states this is another unwarranted assertion frequently indulged in by over-zealous "friends of the blacks in that they art- the wealth producers of the South." "It might be," he says, "that: they are mechanical factors in the primary forces of wealth pro¬ duction." I will read a statement from Bishop Waters in answer to that charge: "REPLY TO WILLIAM HANNIBAL THOMAS, AUTHOR OF THE BOOK ENTITLED 'THE AMERICAN NEGRO'." Bishop Alexander Waters states: "The book exhibits consider¬ able literary ability, but, while written in an entertaining style, it dis¬ plays a malevolent spirit. The author states that his purpose in writing the book is to help his race, but the reader is not long in discovering that the writer has decieved himself. The book is a 5 wholesale and unwarranted slander of the Negro race." The Bishop further states, that "there are 2,500,000 Negro pupils in the public schools; students in higher institutions, 45,000; Negro teachers, 35,000; students learning the trades, 30,000; pur¬ suing classical and scientific courses, 3,000; business courses, 1,500." He refutes the author's statement, that "the majority of the Negroes are idlers," by quoting the tobacco, corn, potato and rice crops of the South. "There were more than 11,000,000 bales of cotton produced mainly by Negro labor in the South during the past year. Nine-tenths of the domestic service in the South is per¬ formed by negro women. There are quite a number of mechanics, miners, and a large number of professional men and women dis¬ tributed throughout the country, who, though not receiving munifi¬ cent compensation for their labor, have by their frugality secured for themselves comfortable homes. We have raised for educa¬ tional purposes since our emancipation $13,065,000; have accumu¬ lated in church property $40,000,000; in school property $15,000,- 000. We have 1-50,000 farms valued at $450,000,000; 175,000 homes valued at $325,000,000; personal property, $165,000,000; making in all more than $700,000,000 accumulated by the Negro in thirty- five years." * * * The New York "Press" states: "As near as can be learned, the colleges for Negroes have graduated about 2,000 men and women, and from other colleges in the country perhaps 400 Negroes have been graduated. An allowance is made in the total of 2,500 for the unreported graduates. At this time there are studying in the various Negro colleges 725 Negroes and in other colleges about 25 Negroes. Of the larger Northern institutions Harvard has 11 Negro graduates; Yale and Union Michigan 10 each; Cornell 8, Columbia 4, and Pennsylvania 4, Oberlin leads with 128 graduates, University of Kansas 16, and Bates 15. More than half the graduates are teachers, 6 per cent, are preachers, an¬ other 6 per cent, are students and professional men; over 6 per cent, are farmers, artisans and merchants, and 4 per cent, are in the Government service. Vassar College has had only one colored girl among its students, it was not known that she was a Negro until after her graduation. Welleslev has had several colored students of whom two have been raduated. Radcliff College, Har¬ vard Annex, has had two Negro graduates. The greater number of Negro graduates are Southern born; of those who are born and raised in the South, gain a college education, 90 per cent, stay in the South and work. The employment of most of them is in con¬ nection with the uplifting of the Negro race; still more significant is the fact that half of those graduates who were born in the North leave this part of the country where life is kind and go to the South 6 to help educate the Negro masses. As already stated, more than half of the college graduates become teachers of their own people. The question was sent out to several hundred Negro graduatesr "Are you hopeful of the future of the Negro race in this country?" Of 733 replies, 641 were hopeful, of whom 276 answered simply "hopeful." Forty were doubtful and 52 not hopeful. Some an¬ swered by saying: "This country offers the Negro the brightest future of any in the world; he will and must succeed." One an¬ swered by saving:- "All of the other races have risen and fallen,, the white race is at its zenith and of necessity will fall, and the Negro take its place." * * * From the "Outlook": "In his introduction Mr. Thomas makes it known that he is partly a Negro, though throughout the book he refers to the race as if he were not a part of it. One gets the feeling that he is mak¬ ing the most of the fact that he has enough blood connection with the race to enable him to speak from the inside, yet he is not proud of being a Negro, and never once refers to the race as 'our race' or 'my race.' Mr. Thomas acknowledges that he was a 'Carpet¬ bagger, and that he fought in the Civil War, and afterwards was elected by the colored vote in South Carolina to the State Legis¬ lature, and still later held a judicial position in that State. Still later he claims to have been engaged in educational work in the South, though diligent inquiry so far fails to bring us accurate in¬ formation as to where he was engaged in the work of education. At any rate, it is clear that the last twenty years of Mr. Thomas' life have been spent mainly in the North, near Boston, away from the great bulk of the race and out of direct touch with the tre¬ mendous constructive forces which have been at work for the last twenty years for the regeneration of the black man. "We have seldom seen a 'Carpet-bagger,' black or white, who did not take a gloomy view of the future of the South and of the Negro. So long as the Negro, by his vote, was able to keep the Carpet-bagger in office, the Negro was all right; when he ceased to do this, the future became very dark. On the other hand, men like the late S. C. Armstrong, of Hampton, and the late Dr. Cravath, of Fisk University, who were soldiers and remained in the South after the war, not for the purpose of getting office, but for lifting up the Negro and the white man, have always taken a hopeful view of the future. "One strain that runs through Mr. Thomas's book from first to last is his insistence that the Negro get land and education. This, however, is not new, for this is the thing that most of the educators in the South for more than thirty years have been in¬ sisting upon. More recently the importance of land getting has 7 been emphasized through the medium of the Tuskegee Negro Con¬ ference and the various local conferences that have grown out of it and are now scattered throughout the South. There is no mis¬ taking the fact, though, that the main object of the book is to show, in a word, that the Negro so far has been a failure from a material, mental, and moral point of view. Over against many of the bold and unsupported statements made by the author of 'The American Negro' as to the lack of material progress, we want to place a few facts that will tend to show whether or not the efforts of Negro schools in the South have been fruitless, and whether or not the Negro has stood still or gone backward. First, let us take the State of Virginia, where the colored people have been under the direct influence of the great Hampton Institute as well as of other schools. The Hampton Institute and its work, however, Mr. Thomas strangely omits altogether, or brushes it aside as being of no consequence. The official figures in relation to the Negro's ownership of land in Virginia for the past year are as follows: " 'The Negroes now own one twenty-sixth of all the land in Vir¬ ginia, and one-sixteenth east of the Pine Ridge, ore-tenth of all the land in 25 counties in the State; one-seventh of Middlesex County; one-fifth of Han¬ over County, and one-third of Charles City County. The Negroes of Vir¬ ginia are acquiring land at the rate of about fifty thousand acres a vear. Their real estate holdings would appear much larger if there were added the farms for which they have contracted, upon which they are making payments, but have not received the title.' "In regard to the Negro's material progress in the State of Georgia, the State Comptroller has recently given out the following figures, which are reliable in every respect: " 'The aggregate of property owned by Negroes in Georgia is $14,- 118,720, as against $13,560,179 last year. Of this $4,361,390 is city and town property, and $4,274,549 is represented by farm lands. They own $72,975 worth of merchandise, have $93,480 in cash solvent debts and $469,637 in plantation and mechanical tools. The total number of acres of land owned by Negroes is $1,075,073, and there are 110,985 voters in the State, as shown by the digest. Their property returns show a flattering in¬ crease for every year since 1879, when they returned for taxation only $5,- 182,398 worth of property. In 1889, ten years later, they have doubled their possessions, returning for taxation for that time $10,415,350 worth of property.' "Other Southern States could make as good a showing, and yet Mr. Thomas would have us believe that practically no material progress has been made. According to the theory advocated in his book, he would have us throw a wet blanket over all this splen¬ did advance through individual effort, and have the General Gov¬ ernment enter into a scheme of buying and selling lands to the Negro much on the old 'forty acres and a mule' plan. He would have the Negro trained to look to Washington for everything, in- 8 stead of depending on himself or his State, and have the whole South flooded again with Federal officers. "A fair idea of the value of Mr. Thomas's economic ideas can be obtained by reading the passage in his book wherein he criticises such men as ex-President Hayes, Morris K. Jesup, William E. Dodge, and Dr. J. L. M. Curry for not following his advice to invest the John F. Slater Fund of a million dollars in Southern lands. According to his theory, which he outlines with much de¬ tail, if his advice had been followed, instead of that of bankers like Morris K. Jesup, the million dollars would have yielded the first year an interest amounting to four hundred thousand dollars, and the second year it would have yielded five hundred thousand dol¬ lars. Clearly, according to this showing. Mr. Thomas's rightful place is in Wall street, rather than in the field of book writing. It is perhaps true that no single agency has accomplished more in stimulating and guiding the education of the Negro along proper channels than the John F. Slater Fund. At least this is the opinion of experts and of men of national reputation in the educational world. "The author of this, book condemns practically every method that has been used for lifting up the Negro; everything is wrong except that which he advocates, but which he himself, it seems,, has failed to put into practice anywhere in the South. He advocates industrial education all through his book, yet condemns it as it now exists in many Negro schools at the South. He goes so far as to outline a curriculum for the teaching of agriculture to the Negro. We have recently placed this curriculum by the side of that of one of the largest industrial schools in the South, and find that what he condemns the educators of Negro youth for not doing is actually being done in several schools, and is fast spreading all through the South. "Mr. Thomas devotes much space to a contention that the fundamental mistake in the education of the Negro is in educating him along Anglo-Saxon lines, and yet, at the end of his long con¬ tention, it is almost pittiful to see how he knocks the foundation from under his own logic by stating that a certain literary college in Kentucky, where there is almost no attempt at industrial educa¬ tion, and where the bulk of the students are white—only a small proportion being Negroes—is the only institution in the South that is educating the Negroes along correct lines. How can a college that exists mainly for white people educate along anything but Anglo-Saxon lines? And in what respect is the curriculum of Berea College—a worthy instituion—different from that of Fisk University and Atlanta University? "But, plainly, the main point of the book is to discount the morals of the Negro. In this respect many of Mr. Thomas's state- 9 nients are so extreme and so entirely unsupported by evidence, except his own bare assertions, that much that is good and valuable in the book will be discounted. We believe that no one would be quicker to refute many of these unreasonable statements than the Southern white people themselves. A writer who is unknown and almost unheard of, who makes such statements with expectations of being believed, should be careful to fortify himself by giving names, places and dates, and not deal so largely in generalities and statements taken merely from his own head. He speaks constantly of having received his information from a 'certain Governor' or a 'certain physician' or a 'certain teacher.' "For example, does the author of 'The American Negro' ex¬ pect himself to be taken seriously by intelligent and thoughtful people when he says, 'The consequence is that there is no school of prominence in Negro training which has not had among its pupils young freedwomen sustaining immoral relations with white men, whose school expenses have been, in many instances, de¬ frayed by such persons with the knowledge and consent of the school authorities?' It would be hard to make any of our readers believe that such a statement would apply to men like Dr. Frissell, of Hampton, the late Dr. Cravath, of Fisk University, Dr. Bum- stead, of Atlanta University, the President of Wilberforce Univer¬ sity, and numbers of institutions under the control of the Congre¬ gational, Methodist and Baptist denominations at the South. "In another statement he says: 'We shall, however, in view of all the known facts at our command, be justified in assuming that not only are fully ninety per cent, of the Negro women of America unchaste, but the social degradation of our freedwomen is without a parallel in modern civilization. A little later on Mr. Thomas seems to have forgotten this outrageous statement regarding Negro women, and says, when speaking of the whole race: 'It is correct to say that fully ninety per cent, of the freedmen are reasonably law-abiding, and, apart from an instinct for petty pilfering, are fairly honest in deportment. They have the confidence and support of orderly white society, and are rarely molested by its lawless class.' "In another case he says: 'For instance, the Negro's ethical code sternly reprobates dancing, theater attendance, and all social games of chance.' A few pages further on he forgets this state¬ ment, and adds: 'It is as much a quest for physical excitement as the promise of pecuniary gain which impels the Negro to indulge in petty gambling, and makes him the chief "policy-player" of the community, in every city, North and South.' "In another instance he states that the high death-rate and low birth-rate of the Negro people shuts out any possibility of their attaining formidable proportions in this country. A litt'e 10 further along in the book he speaks of the 'ever-increasing millions of Negro citizens.' "In still another statement he speaks of the South being overrun with incompetent, illiterate doctors, among other classes of pro¬ fessional men. Now, what are the facts? In Alabama, for ex¬ ample, no man, black or white, can enter the medical profession without passing a very severe examination. Perhaps with the ex¬ ception of the State of Virginia, the examination is more severe than that of any other State in the Union. In that State a diploma from no college is accepted. No one can enter the medical profes¬ sion without taking the regular State examination, and it is very rare that any man can pass this examination inside of ten days. The code of medical ethics in the South perhaps is higher than it is in the North; no man of any race would, for a single day, be tolerated in the profession of medicine who did not lead a correct, moral life and was not well prepared professionally for his work. In Alabama there are about twenty-five Negro physicians, and we have facts that warrant us in sayng that, almost without a single exception, these men are highly educated, are successful in their practice, are respected by their white brother physicians, and havs high moral and business standing in their communities. There are nearly seven hundred thousand Negroes in Alabama, and it is bordering on the ridiculous to speak, for example, of that State being overrun with Negro physicians, when there are only twenty- five to practice among seven hundred thousand people. What is true of Alabama is in an equal degree true of other Southern States. No set of individuals have made a higher record profes¬ sionally and otherwise since the war than the Negro physicians. "Further on Mr. Thomas enlightens us again in the following statement: 'The preacher in charge o'f the moral training of his people, and the teacher engaged in their mental instruction, will steal from each other and from the whites as readily as the most indigent freedman.' This statement will include such ministers as the Rev. Dr. J. W. E. Bowen, of Gammon Theological Seminary; the Rev. Dr. F. J. Grimke, of Washington, D. C., and such teachers, as Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, of Atlanta, Ga.; Prof. Hugh M. Browne, of the Hampton Institute, and Mrs. B. K. Bruce, woman principal of the Tuskegee Institute, and Miss Maria Baldwin, principal of the Agassiz public school of Cambridge, Mass. It has remained for Mr. Thomas to inform the public that such persons will steal from one another and from the whites. "He further proceeds with the statement that the more intelli¬ gent the Negro is, the more does his disposition to theft enlarge. In answer to this, some years ago, a careful investigation was made, and it was found that not a single man or woman who had 11 graduated from one of the larger instituions in the South was to be found in a State prison. "Mr. Thomas says: There are, in all of the large cities, North and South, among the race, so-called voudoo and conjure doctors to whom vast throngs go for amulets to ward off disease, and for treatment when sick.' As a practical test of much that the writer says in his book, we should be interested in having someone in¬ terested in sociological conditions in Boston or New York ask Mr. Thomas to lead him to one of these voudoo and conjure doctors to whom 'vast throngs' go for treatment. We venture the state¬ ment that no such 'vast throngs' can be found, and that few, if any, voudoo or conjure doctors can be found in our Northern cities; at any rate, we hope some of our readers will put Mr. Thomas to the test. The following statement is equally unworthy of belief: 'It is, therefore, almost impossible to find a person of either sex, over fifteen years of age, who has not had actual carnal knowledge.' "We have not been slow to point out the weaknesses of th^ Negro race nor to condemn the Negro's follies. We know the race at many points is weak and needs to make itself strong, but at the same time we are convinced, through direct and reliable ■evidence, that there never was a time in the history of the race when so much real progress is being made materially, educationally, and morally as is true at the present time. The progress is slow, but it is steady and sure, and no one need become discouraged or lose hope for the Negro race. Mr. Thomas, on the other hand, would, it seems, lift the race up as much as one would build a house. This cannot be done. If the author of 'The American Negro' had spent his lime in the last ten or twenty years in going through the South, speaking directly to the colored people in their .schools, their churches, conventions, and associations about the weak points that lie brings out in his book, and this book had been the natural result of his efforts in this direction, we confess that we should have more respect for him and for what he says. The people in the United States do not have a very high regard for a man who goes to England to make known the weak points in the life of Americans. The people of Boston do not have high regard for an individual who goes to New Orleans to condemn Boston. The citizens of At'anta do not have much respect for an individual who goes to New York to condemn the people of Atlanta. The men of the white race will not have high regard for a writer who seems to withdraw himself from his own race and goes outside of ;it to emphasize its weak points before an audience of another f his type. But the greater part of the Negro ministry of all denominations have the interest of their race at heart, and are striving honestly and faithfully to advance the people morally, spiritually, intellectually, and financially. It is also true of the educators of our race; we have a noble band of men and women •engaged in the profession of teaching, who have made sacrifices to qualify themselves for their arduous and responsible task; hun¬ dreds of them have gone in the summer to Chautauquas, the normal schools, the summer schools like Chicago University, conferences at Hampton and other places. Hundreds of them are teaching at a great sacrifice, and they have made teaching a profession although many of them could get more remunerative employment in some other calling. What would Mr. Thomas say to Haines Institute at Augusta, Ga., founded by that noble woman, Miss Lucy C. Laney, and now conducted by her and Miss M. C. Jackson, with hundreds of students attending annually? What about Mrs. Fannie Coppin and her work for the race/ What about Miss Jennie Dean who has done such a creditable work for the race at Manassas, Va. ? What has he to say of our temperance women such as Mrs. Francis Harper, Mrs. Lucy Thurman, Mrs. Georgia King, Mrs. Jessie Lawson, Mrs. I. W. White, Mrs. J. W. E. Bowen, and a host of others ? LTnder the head of ''enfranchise functions" he says, "The Re¬ publican party is directly responsible for the political debauchery of the Southern Negro ; and every National Republican Administra¬ tion by its policy of appointments to Federal positions increases party corruption in that section." Let me state, that the Republican party is not responsible for the debauchery of the Southern Negro, but political fanatics, "Carpet-baggers," office seekers, parasites, and hypocrites of the Thomas ilk. He says he knows of three Negro office holders whose com¬ bined salaries during their term of public service exceeded $200,000, but whose private lives were execrable; their salaries were wasted in riotous living, and to-day all of them are penniless in means and bankrupt in character. In order for Mr. Thomas to be believed in that statement it will be necessary for him to name the three office holders, for we do not know of any three office holders whose com¬ bined salaries amounted to $200,000 during their term of office. Mr. Thomas cannot truthfully say, that "in these days colored men are appointed to Federal positions who are lacking in mental and moral fitness and so ignorant of common business affairs that the assistance of white men is required to conduct business for them." He says, also, that he has "no knowledge of a single Negro official at the head of either branch of the Government service 23 above named, who, unaided, is capable of discharging his public functions aright." The gentleman ought to inform himself upon that subject before he attempts to slander all of those who hold office under the Federal Government. What charge can he bring against Douglass, Bruce, Langston, Lynch, Lyons, the present Register of the Treasury; Cheatham, Recorder of Deeds; John P. Green, Arnett, Townsend, Dancy, J. H. Young, Devaux, Rucker,. Sheppard, Cuney, Wright, as Paymaster in the Army; Madison Davis, ex-Postmaster at Athens, Ga.; Pink Moten, the present Postmaster in that city? What has he to say of Lee of Florida, Pappy of Florida, Hill of Mississippi, and a host of others? Mr. Thomas states, that "The American Negro has nothing to> offer in the way of civilization, scholastic knowledge, scientific ac¬ quirement and superior resources to the African people." He says, "the colored man is not great in music, poetry, literature, mechanics, commerce, government or Christianity." In reply to our critic let me say to him, the Negro is great in music—the soul-inspiring songs of the Negro has thrilled and enthused the most cultured in this and other countries. Has he heard of Harry T. Burleigh, the great New York Negro singer? Sydney Woodward, who has been employed in one of the most cultured white congregations in Bos¬ ton? Take our own Madam V. Hunt Scott, accomplished organist and pianist; the Adgers, Washingtons, Laytons, and others. Then our poets, like Paul Lawrence Dunbar,D.Webster Davis,George C. Rowe, Phylis Wheatley, Frances Harper, and others. What has he to say of HenryO.Tanner, the painter? or of Montgomery Jones, of this city? Let me give him a list of some of the literary men and women of the Negro race: Booker T. Washington, In man Page, W. H. Council, R. R. Wright, H. T. Ivealing, J. W. Gilbert, of Brown University and the American College, Athens, Greece; \V. L. Bulkley, Principal of School No. 80 in this city; John Hope, William E. Holmes, J. S. Brown, M. W. Gilbert, G. W. Hayes, J. E. Tones, N.W.Collier, D. Abner, Jr., Prof. Scarborough, D. J. Saund¬ ers, of Biddle University, Charlotte, N. C.; W. R. Coles, of Im- manuel School, Aiken, S. C.; Curtwright, of the Walker Baptist In¬ stitute, Augusta, Ga. Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, Lucy C. Laney, M. C. Jackson, Sarah Thomas, Fannie J. Coppin, Mary Cook Parish, Miss Imogene Howard, Ida Wells Barnett, and hundreds of others. As to able writers we would refer him to J. E. Bruce, of Albany, N. Y.; Cooper, of the ''Colored American," Washington, D. C.; Fortune, of the "Age;" Knox, of the "Freeman;" Adams, Assistant Register of the Treasury; Mitchell, of the "Planet;" White, of the "Georgia Baptist;" Taliaferro, of the "Banner;" Isaac, of Tennessee; Emmet J. Scott, Daniel Murray, Assistant Libarian, Washington, D. C.; the editors of the "Colored American Magazine;" the editors of "Howard's Magazine." 24 As to Christianity, every denomination in our race can furnish a list of noble men and women who are known by their works. As to his claim that we have nothing superior to Africa, we have the Christian religion; we have a host of trained men and women, well educated; we are sending missionaries—all of our denominations— to the Dark Continent to wave the banner of the cross among the heathen. Bishop Coppin has recently gone to superintend the work of the great A. M. E. Church, in which Mr. Thomas was once a minister. Negro Baptists have sent four missionaries within the last two months who sailed from this city. The west coast of Africa, South Africa, Central Africa, and parts of the Congo are receiving the Gospel and Christian education through American Negroes. As to his description of the various parts of Africa, Mr. Thomas knows nothing more of that continent than he does about his race in this country. His criticisms and reflections on Hayti, West Indies, and Liberia are in keeping with his slanderous tirade against his own people. No one need share in the alarm which he raises concerning the future of the American Negro. Our Bible tells us to beware of false prophets. Through the kindness of Mr. J. E. Bruce, of Albany, N. Y., one ■of the most brilliant writers in our race, a champion and defender of the rights of his people, Mr. Thomas's record has been secured, and when the public finds out the truth concerning this modern Haman—this twentieth century Judas Iscariot, his book will not exercise any influence among the unbiased, unprejudiced, fair- minded American people in their dealings with the greatly oppressed Negro. Mr. Bruce, in his article "The Critic Revealed," gives us, first, a letter from the President of the Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny, Pa. Mr. Thomas tells us in his biography how he en¬ tered this school, but took good pains not to inform us the cause of his leaving. The good president, however, supplies that deficiency by telling us that Mr. Thomas was dismissed because of criminal intercourse with the woman he subsequently married, that he first denied the charge, but later confessed the truth and was sent out. That sentence reminds me very much of the New Testament descrip¬ tion of Judas, where it is said, "and he went out." This letter is signed by T. H. Robinson, President of the Faculty. Other letters from South Carolina will follow showing the conduct of Mr. Thomas while in the South—how he stole from the people he now slanders, etc. "THE CRITIC REVEALED." "The record of the 'Rev.' W. Hannibal Thomas Reviewed—It Could Hardly be Used in the Sunday Schools—Bruce Grit Winds Up with the Judas of His Race." 25 The following corespondence will explain itself: western theological seminary, allegheny, pa. April, 1901. Dear Sir: W. H. Thomas was a student in this seminary between-; the years 1865 and 1868, and in the latter year was dismissed be¬ cause of criminal intercourse with the woman be subsequently mar¬ ried. He first denied the charges, but later he confessed their truth, and was sent out. I have just written out a transcript from the faculty minutes for a lawyer in New Bedford, Mass., and mailed them to him. Yours sincerely, T. H. Robinson, Pres. of Faculty. Columbia, S. C, March 1, 1901. Dear Sir: Referring to your letter of the 21st ult. in regard to> Mr. W. H. Thomas, I hand you enclosed a letter from Mr. E. W. Screven, who at my request has looked up Mr. Thomas's record- Hoping that the enclosed letter will furnish you the desired informa¬ tion, I am, very truly yours (signed), E. A. Webster. P. S.—You are at liberty to make any use of this letter you think, proper. Note.—Webster is Collector of the Port at Charleston, S. C. ♦ * * Columbia, S. C., March 1, 1901. . Dear Sir: With reference to the career of Mr. W. H. Thomas iro South Carolina in the period of 1876, I would say he was elected a member of the State Legislature in fall of 1876, and took his seat ini that body when it convened at the Capitol on November 29th of that year. Owing to polictical complications at that time there were two rival organizations claiming to be the legal House of Repre¬ sentatives, and Mr. Thomas gave allegiance to the Mackay House,, which was shortly after its organization adjudged not to be the legal body by the Supreme Court of the State, and after sitting just twenty-three days it adjourned sine die. It never reassembled. I find by the reports of the proceedings of this body that Mr. William H. Thomas was chairman of the committee of privileges and elections and that during the twenty-three days, three reports were made by this committee. I find also that Mr. Thomas made one report to the House on behalf of the Judiciary Committee, and upon inquiry I learned that he was chairman of that committee. All this information I got from the files of the "News and Courier," whose reporter was present daily and gave very full ac¬ counts of these proceedings. I can find no journal of the House in the State Library giving any account of the proceedings of the Mackay House, and it is rea¬ sonable to assume that the legality of that body never having been recognized no records of its proceedings would be preserved by the State. 26 While in Newberry County a few days ago at the county seat I took occasion to make inquiry as to the record of Mr. Thomas while a citizen of Newberry, and find that he was a trial justice in 1876. I also find that Mr. William H. Thomas was indicted on May 9, 1877, for "corruptly and fraudulently" seizing and selling property. Mr. Thomas was bound over to appear at the general sessions court, and bonded in the sum of $500, his bondsmen being Elijah Phillips, Burrelle M. Raines, Henry Kennedy and William H. Snead. When the court convened Mr. Thomas failed to appear, and these bonds¬ men were cited by order of the court on the 17th of June, 1878, to make payment of the bond, which they did. A sealed sentence is now on file. Roll 1306 in the clerk's office at Newberry against Mr. William H. Thomas in this case. The case against Thomas was brought by a colored man, J. H. Blease, who in the examination swears that a bale of cotton valued at $42 was taken from him and that he has never seen the cotton from that day to this. I saw Elijah Phillips, an honest and respected colored black¬ smith, doing business in the town of Newberry, and he assures me that he and his associates on the bond of Thomas paid the bond, and that they have never been able to get any payment or reimburse¬ ment of any kind from Thomas. I saw Mr. R. E. Williams, a highly respected colored citizen and former merchant of Newberry, who informs me that he had en¬ dorsed for Mr. Thomas's rent in the sum of $84 which he has had to pay, and that he has never received any reimbursement from Thomas, although he has many times requested payment of the debt. I called Mr. Williams's attention to> the sweeping charges made by Mr. Thomas against the virtue and morality of the women of his race, and asked Mr. Williams how he accounted for Mr. Thomas's impression. He said that Thomas himself was a lecherous character and doubtless drew his impressions from his peronal and immediate surroundings, which were horrible during his residence in Newberry. I found that Mr. Williams's opinion was concurred in by all from whom I asked information. E. W. Screven. * * * Newberry, S. C., April 1, 190T. Dear Sir: Your favor of the 29th ultimo received. Will send certified copy of record in the case of State (vs.) William Hannibal Thomas for $500. Your information as to the case is correct. Respectfully, ^ JN<^ C. Goggans, C. C. C. P. New Bedford, Mass., April 5, '01. Friend Bruce : Many thanks for documents you sent and which I return herewith. Have got certified copy of criminal court record 27 complete in case of State vs. W. H. Thomas. Have received fronn Dr. T. H. Robinson, president of faculty of Western Theological Seminary, a copy of vote recorded in minutes April 17, 1868, show¬ ing Thomas was expelled on forced confession, after strenuous denial of immoral conduct with a woman he afterwards married, and by whom he had a child in less than seven months. It seems Thomas- himself had informed shortly before on another colored student and caused his expulsion, so the faculty felt his own case peculiarly aggravated. The same sneaking reptile then as now. Somehow they have confounded Wm. Henry Thomas, a man and minister, with this libertine and criminal. That error they must correct and I know they will gladly do so. With sincere regard, Edward B. Jourdaix, Attorney and Counsellor-at-Law. * * * What the Scripture said to the critic: Therfore thou art inexcusable, O man whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thy¬ self, for thou that judgest doest -the same things. . . . Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preaches a man should not steal; dost thou steal? Thou that say est a man should not commit adultery; doest thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorest idols; doest thou commit sacrilege?—Romans, ill, 21, 22. "No more need be said concerning 'thomas;" his uneviable record speaks for itself, and if there is anything in it of which he is particularly proud he's welcome to it all. These exposures will ex¬ plain more fully than any words of ours who this man is who has. presumed to set himself up as a critic and censor of the morals of the Negro race. Discriminating people of whatever race will be slow to attach much, if any, importance to the learned deliverances of this 'second Daniel come to judgment' to be found in the auto¬ biography of w. hannibal thomas. His extreme modesty possibly prevented him from giving his book its correct title." John Edward Brlxe, 97 Orange St., Albany, N. Y. •fc "From the 'Richmond News": "William Hannibal Thomas is too swift—just as much too swift now as he was when he used to roar out the menacing and defiant chorus about holding the fort. He does not know whether the Negro is a failure or not, and nobody will know for a good many years yet. All of us white people are inclined to regard our own race and humanity in general as a failure when our own pet schemes and notions and ambitions have failed or when things do not go to suit us. The truth is the Negro has never had a fair chance to show 8S what is in him. Give him ten generations of freedom and scuffling- for himself and with some opportunities of education and civilization and free from the influence of the white man, which shadows and' dwarfs and devitalizes every other growth about it, like an oak tree- in the cotton field. Then he can be fairly judged. Our Anglo- Saxon race, when it first came into touch with Roman culture was. not a promising outfit. The Negro comes from cannibals and bar¬ barians, and some generations back our ancestors drank most villainous intoxicating and filthy decoctions from the skulls of their enemies, rejoiced in slaying and ravishing and worshipped uncouth and bloody gods in whose honor they got unanimously drunk. "To-day is Wednesday because it is the Wodin whom the fore¬ fathers of us, now proud lords of the earth, said their prayers to—a diety whose traditional adulteries and murders were about as many as the days of his long life and was therefore held in high esteem by the people from whose race and stock we come—the highest of us as well as the lowliest. The Celts with whom we are mixed, had a shade more decency and poetry in their superstitions, but on the whole were about as brutal and wild and blood thirsty as the Saxon and Dane. What the Negro will do, having our chance, is a problem yet un¬ solved. The solution of these things is in the future. The dream of William Hannibal Thomas—dreams of a Negro empire and a new race created into greatness and supremacy from barbarism and slavery by revised statutes of the United States—were the dreams of a fool and a dreamer, as William Hannibal Thomas now evidently realizes. But let him not despair of his race. Let him wait until it has had its opportunity." ^ ♦ c What some of the best white man of this country have said about the Negro and the solution of the vexed and intricate "Negro Problem": The Judge of the United States Court of the Southern District of Georgia, Hon. Emory Speer, said recently: "Good character some¬ times serves to make that doubtful which seems clear, and sometimes serves to make that clear which seems doubtful; it is always a strong circumstance to the credit of a colored man that the white people among whom he lives will testify strongly and unmistakably as to his good character as a man and citizen. _ It is always evidence proper to be considered; they are entitled to justice. We hear much about the "negro problem" in these days; my own conviction is> that no prophecy or prediction or process of ratiocination will have anything like an intelligent solution of what is termed the "negro problem" except one, and that is absolute justice to the Negro ac¬ corded to him by the whites, and obedience to the law on his part; 29 and though it may take centuries to accomplish all the patroits may wish, the problem will solve itself in God's good time." & * State School Commissioner Glenn, of Georgia, said in his speech at the Educational Conference held at Hampton Institute this week, that he "depreciated the idea that the education of the Negro has proven a failure," and stated that he knew from observation that it had helped the colored man. He repudiated the plan sometime urged for leaving to the blacks the education of their own people, and thought they needed the uplifting hand of all who could help them. * * * Bishop Doane, of Albany, N. Y., said at the same meeting, that *'all educational opportunities should be opened to every class of people in the United States without regard to color or race." Re¬ ferring to the suffrage he said that "the black man, if he could be¬ come worthy to exercise it, must regard it as a responsibility for which he must make himself accountable." 2k 3k :k Here is the tribute of a Southern white woman, published in the New York "Times" of April 17, 1901. She states: "I should say with conviction there is no race which, exposed to the same condi¬ tions as the American Negro, would have done better than the Negro has done. We must remember that in bringing him here by extraordinary cruel and base means, and in forcibly taking from him all means of mental and moral progress after we had enslaved him, we inevitably and impiously not only arrested his higher develop¬ ment, but, also, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, insisted on his adopting a course of conduct which would brutalize an angel from heaven. The African was not an angel any more than the Anglo- Saxon, and both races suffered morally for the wrongs inflicted by the Anglo-Saxon. To-day it is the happy privilege of both races to serve each other, and all nobler minds are rising to their oppor¬ tunities. Does not all enlightened thought show that every race wias meant to serve some other race; that each has some peculiar gift which rightly used contributes to the true riches of all mankind? The African race, like all other races, has scarcely begun to know its noblest possibilities, yet a beginning and one of rare and high wis¬ dom has actually been made. Every fair minded person who would know of it has only to read Max B. Thrasher's 'Tuskegee, Its Story and Its Work.' " (Signed) "White Woman of the South." * sk jfc It is customary for preachers to have somewhere to conclude their discourse. And so, as is the usual custom, we begin to close. And now in conclusion let me state to you, that it is my opinion that 30 the solution of the Negro problem, or the American problem, as it should be called, does not depend upon emigration, amalgamation,, nor colonization. The Negro must learn that character, education^ industry, and money are the essential prerequisites for intelligent citizenship. Let the American white man decide to lend a helping hand to his struggling black brother on life's highway; give him justice, equal and exact justice, North and South, East and West; for the North held slaves as long as it was profitable business, and, prejudice to-day in some sections of the North is as strong against; the Negro as in the South, it is only met and dealt with in a different way. My advice to my race is to remain in the South, use the oppor¬ tunity to assist in developing the almost boundless resources of the South; buy land, build homes, inaugurate business enterprises, learn the importance of self-help, self-reliance and independence; cultivate a friendly relation with the people among whom they live. Let my people remember that we must rise by our own efforts and exer¬ tions; and here in America carve out our destiny, make our history^ and solve our problem. "Yes, Ethiopia shall yet stretch Her bleeding hands abroad; Her crying agony has reached The burning Throne of God. "Redeemed from dust and freed from chains, Her sons shall lift their eyes; From cloud-capped hills and verdant plains,. Shall shouts of triumphs rise."