IRLF 
 

 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 
 C/tfSS 
 
By Z. WITHERS 
 
/ 
 
OUR 
 INHERITANCE 
 
 By Z. WITHERS 
 Author of "Slavery Days" 
 
 ( UNIVERSITY 
 X OF 
 
 Tribune Publishing Co. Print 
 
 Oakland, Cal. 
 
 1909 
 
To 
 
 HON. JAMES B. FORAKER 
 
 United States Senator 
 
 THE FRIEND OF MY RACE, BECAUSE THE FRIEND 
 OF MANKIND 
 
 THIS ESSAY, WHICH ARGUES FOR THE 
 RIGHTS OF MY PEOPLE BEFORE AN 
 UNBIASED and JUST AMERICAN PUBLIC, 
 IS REGARDFULLY, GRATEFULLY 
 INSCRIBED 
 
 v THE AUTHOR 
 
 1 .u 
 
 (f 
 
 Copyright Applied For 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 rHE author of this contribution foreswears the 
 thought of a single line of malice, hatred, or preju 
 dice. In the simple spirit of honest y, which should 
 govern the motives and principles of mankind, I herewith 
 present the subject Our Inheritance that in this day 
 of our triumphant march towards wealth, education and 
 power, we shall not forget the trials and sacrifices of our 
 noble forefathers, who bequeathed to its this estate. 
 
 We who accept it as our home and country are respon 
 sible as grantees of the estate and arc bound by the lazvs 
 of civilization to transmit it to our posterity more ad 
 vanced, freer and nobler. To promote the welfare of her 
 citizens, to increase the greatness of her power, to remedy 
 wrongs, to insure justice to all men, is a mandate correla 
 tive with the exercise of authority, which becomes a 
 responsibility of the nation. 
 
 In accepting the grant, all questions pertaining to it, 
 whether political, social or moral, are a part of the estate, 
 and we are constrained by the laws of inheritance to 
 concede their standing and to deal with them in the same 
 high sense of reason as we have dealt with every question 
 that has confronted the nation. 
 
 Slavery was a constitutional question and a grave moral 
 wrong. It was one of such enormity that it shook the 
 foundation of the Republic. Like the winds of a fierce 
 hurricane, the war of 6r smote the tree of human bond 
 age and on its mighty apc.r it swayed and fell ; but re- 
 
maining was its firm root of two centuries growth. Hence 
 the spread of Jim Crozvisin, or the living spirit of slavery, 
 springs from its live, but submerged, foundation. There 
 fore, as freeholders of the estate we must deal with 
 the question of Jim Crowism as a result of slavery: 
 which, as a moral blight, affects the character of the 
 Nation as an incentive to lawlessness. Then let Truth be 
 our guide and Justice our motto, that we may bequeath 
 tc the distant man a home and a country not cursed zuith 
 slave-ridden statutes, but rich in its splendor of freedom 
 and happiness. Yours truly, 
 
 Z. WITHERS. 
 
The Estate 
 
Chapter I. 
 
 BOUNDED on one side by the Atlantic Ocean, and 
 on the other by the Pacific, extending far into the 
 Asiatic waters as far north as Alaska and south to Pan 
 ama, we have a grand country, over which floats a noble 
 flag. Rich are her blessings of wealth, freedom and op 
 portunities. Her agriculture in a single year nearly ex 
 ceeds the world s crop. Agricultural products, 1905, 
 $1,899,379,652." Her factories are crowding those of 
 Europe and Asia combined. "Manufactured products, 
 1907, $15.000,000,000"; and besides, there are teeming 
 millions from her mineral yield. " Mineral yield, 1907, 
 $1,872.312,449." Pier vast economic growth is mar 
 velous. She has 254,076 schools, 207,707 churches, 
 6,043 national banks and 328,000 miles of railroad. Her 
 population being 80,000,000, she has wealth per capita 
 to the amount of $1,310.11. 
 
 Why should not the American citizen be proud ? 
 Proud of his ancestry, his liberty, his country s wealth 
 and its opportunities? Commanding the eminence of the 
 western world, she commands all nations to know that 
 there is a "Monroe Doctrine," which prescribes a fitting 
 line between monarchial and republican forms of gov 
 ernment. In accepting this legacy as a freeholder of the 
 estate, or as an American citizen, we contract to maintain 
 both the letter and the spirit of her constitution, which 
 provides Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness to every 
 citizen." This condition is implied in our declaration of 
 
8 Our Inheritance. 
 
 citizenship : to live under her laws of government and to 
 accept her protection. The question of slavery was a 
 constitutional question and was appended to the grant, 
 being one of the great sociologic questions of the day. 
 Greely s American Conflict, Ch. 11, pp. 9, 41-49. The 
 result of slavery was the beginning of debased public 
 opinion, which brought with it a lawless spirit, notwith 
 standing our advance in science, literature, art, commerce 
 and education. 
 
 The original Declaration of Independence, as was 
 framed by Mr. Jefferson, was against slavery. The 
 declaration of universal freedom and independence in 
 cluded all men. The opinion of the majority to the 
 convention was opposed to slavery as immoral and 
 against the institution of free government. Even Vir 
 ginia had at this time prohibitive slavery, there being 
 but 60,000 slaves then on her soil. But South Carolina 
 and Georgia, with pro-slavery delegates, were obstinate 
 and declared "No slaves, no Union." Thus at the most 
 critical period of the Nation s history, when the union of 
 the colonies was so imperative that the new government 
 would have been a failure with one absent member, 
 slavery was tolerated as a measure of diplomacy, not 
 withstanding the righteous spirit of the framers of this 
 wonderful compact and their bitterness against the na 
 tional evil. The following is the indictment of George III, 
 then the British Sovereign, as a patron and upholder of 
 African slave trade, embodied by Mr. Jefferson in his 
 original draft of the Declaration : "Determined to keep 
 
The Estate. 9 
 
 open a market where men should be bought and sold, 
 he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every 
 legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable 
 commerce, and that this assembly of horrors might want 
 no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those 
 very people to rise in arms among us. and purchase that 
 liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the 
 people on whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off 
 former crimes committed against the liberties of one peo 
 ple, with crimes which he urges them to commit against 
 the lives of another." Mr. Jefferson in his autobiography 
 gives the following reason for the omission of this re 
 markable passage from the Declaration as adopted, issued 
 and published. "The clause, too, reprobating the enslav 
 ing of the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in compli 
 ance with South Carolina and Georgia, which had never 
 attempted to restrain the importation of slaves." Govern 
 ments on earth are institutions of mankind, and reforms 
 and abuses are results of his nature. Thus, handed 
 down to us was the government, or, estate, by our fault 
 less forefathers. Following in a direct line, the violence 
 of today is but the wrong of yesterday. In the heated 
 passions of abolition agitation, the world was given 
 the spectacle of open violence. Disregarding the laws, 
 mobism prompted law-breakers. It became legal to mob 
 and lynch before the days of "The Conflict." 
 
 The great speech of immortal Lincoln sheds much light 
 on the age of which we refer. In 1837, before the Spring 
 field, 111., Lyceum, Air. Lincoln was observable and spoke 
 
K) Our I nhc- ilcincc. 
 
 of free institutions. We will quote extracts. "At wh it 
 point shall we expect danger? Shall we expect 
 some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the ocean an:! 
 crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, 
 Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasures of the 
 earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a 
 Bonaparte for a commander, could not take a drink from 
 the O .iio, or make a track on the !>lne Ridge, in a trial 
 of a thousand years. At what point, then, is this 
 approach of danger to be expected? 1 answer, if ever 
 it reaches us it must spring 1 up among us. It cannot 
 come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must 
 ourselves be the author and finisher. As a nation of 
 free men, we must live through all time or die by suicide. 
 There is even now something of ill-omen amongst us. I 
 mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades 
 t .ic country, the disposition to substitute the wild and 
 furious passions in lieu of sober judgment of the courts 
 and the worse than savage mobs for the executive minis 
 ters of justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any 
 community, and that it now exists in ours, though grating 
 to our feelings to admit it, it would be a violation of 
 truth and folly to deny. 
 
 "Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the 
 every day news of the times. They have pervaded the 
 country from New England to Louisiana; they are 
 neither peculiar to the eternal snows of the former, nor 
 the burning sun of the latter. They are not the creatures 
 of climate, neither are they confined to the slave hold- 
 
The Estate. 11 
 
 ing or non-slave holding- states. Alike they spring up 
 among the pleasure hunting- masters of the southern 
 slaves and the order loving- citizens of the land of steady 
 habits. Whatever, then their causes may be, it is com 
 mon to the whole country. 
 
 I will refer again to Greely s American Conflict, page 
 449, Chap. 19, Vol. 1. Wherein we see the ascendency 
 of mobs and the terrible rise of lawlessness, the appeal 
 of traitors and the song of disunion. Following this 
 line, you will see the cause of our President s assassina 
 tion. To be a President of the United States, is to run 
 the hazards of death. To have wealth induces cynical 
 hostility. To be born a Negro often means disfranchise- 
 nient, Jim Crowism, out-lawry and the stake. The aim at 
 the President s life is the blow at all society. Its de 
 struction and annihilation is attempted. The epithets 
 hurled at wealth emphasizes the latent spirit of deep 
 class hatred. The blow to the Negro is the triumph of 
 hate a culmination of the greatest wrong the world 
 lias ever known. What is the cause of this? Lawless 
 ness begets lawlessness. You cannot have a Jim Crow 
 system for one class of citizens and a free government 
 for another. As the flow of blood circulates through the 
 human body, so also does public sentiment course through 
 our body politic. One drop of poison will pervade the 
 whole system. Now, behold ! the low respiration of high 
 public sentiment. The faint throb of the heart of pure 
 motives ! No longer doeth it beat at normal ! No 
 longer its tender thoughts are the cherished sentiments 
 
12 Our Inheritance. 
 
 of the weak ! No longer is its strength the noble spirit 
 of patriotic freedom ! Statesmen cease to clamor for the 
 cause of the just! They cry no more in the spirit of Gar 
 rison, Philips, Beecher, Clay, Douglass, Whittier, John 
 Brown ; nor in that of any of the world s emancipators ; 
 nor, out of the depths of patriotism, do they emulate our 
 Patrick Henry, George Washington, or their compatriots, 
 who cried aloud for the just cause of God! Water seeks 
 its level. With poison there must come an epidemic. 
 Alas! O God, is the nation in the throes of murder? 
 The disease of lawlessness, like an avalanche, carries 
 away the pillars of the Nation ! And now life is as un 
 certain as the storm-swept ship of the ocean ! Presi 
 dent Lincoln was assassinated to propitiate the animosity 
 of the Slave King ! Garfield died of a ghastly wound ; 
 another glaring deed of lawless shame. Thus the sweep 
 of lawless hate leaves death in its wake ! The nation 
 hows her head in sorrow at the ascendency of bitter 
 caste. Again the triumph of Death! Our greatest 
 statesman, William McKinley, assassinated ! He died 
 to appease the hellish passion of the lawless element for 
 bloocl ! The anarchist alas ! Ah, step by step the highest 
 monument in crime is reached ! 
 
 THE ANARCHIST. 
 
 He dark and cold and chilled in vein, 
 
 The mind of anarchism his mein ; 
 Too black his countenance to see 
 
 The Noble Image of Liberty. 
 
The Estate. 13 
 
 In this land where men are free, 
 
 Their lives to live in prosperous way. 
 
 There can be none, but reprobate 
 Who would murder, or assassinate ! 
 
 Thy dull cause many years has grown, 
 
 And seed seditious has been sown. 
 The difference twixt thee and right 
 
 Doth mark the passion of thy stiife. 
 
 Like wormwood bitter as the gall, 
 
 Thou st chased the empty thought of hate ; 
 
 And bitterness shall turn to thee 
 The crowning of thy hapless fate. 
 
 But oh! this ghastly horror! Blind, dead, insensible 
 man! O, Heavens, withhold thy light! O, God, withhold 
 Thy wrath ! Look not upon this beastial scene ! Chained 
 to a stake! Writhing in the torture of his pain! Face 
 aglare emitting the anguish of his suffering soul, while 
 fiercer the fires of Hell destroy his living body ! Now a 
 cheering crowd gloats in triumph ! They cheer and 
 laugh and shout in ejaculations of praise at this grew- 
 some crime ! This convention of murderers is the tri 
 umph of slavery s two centuries of lawless reign. Aghast 
 stands the Goddess of Liberty at this ignoble deed. But 
 lawlessness by this act gains new impetus ; it is stimu 
 lated thereby to become more prevalent and the criminal 
 thirst of its perpetrators grows stronger and more acute. 
 
14 
 
 The deed, the scene, the picture with a flash reaches the 
 homes of a thousand million people of the civilized world 
 and on the minds of these masses is the character of 
 the American negro painted as black as the dismal walls 
 of hell, while that of his white brother is held aloft as 
 the image of purity, courage and strength. Shall the 
 world s greatest agencies of usefulness, electricity and 
 the press which has steadily advanced the onward march 
 of progress, be the ^trong influence to obliterate the 
 Negro s freedom ? The field of crime is amazing. In 
 the industrial strikes, the same spirit pervades the throng. 
 They are willing to burn your property, destroy your 
 railroads, your factories and your cities. They awe the 
 police power and laugh at the militia. In the great 
 A. 1\. \J. strike in Chicago (1894) the civil authorities 
 were helpless. One act of lawlessness succeeded another. 
 Trains loaded with merchandise, one after another, were 
 burned. Obstructions were placed upon the railroad 
 right-of-way. Even cars were overturned to blockade the 
 traffic. Trains carrying innocent people were stoned 
 and their inmates injured. Everywhere property was 
 wantonly and recklessly destroyed. Who did it? The 
 moli. Business of every sort was crippled. The loss 
 to business interests, not including millions upon millions 
 of dollars of property destroyed, was more than two 
 hundred million dollars. For industry of every kind was 
 crippled throughout the United States ; and the head of 
 the nation was called upon to restore law and order. 
 At St. Louis, during the street-car strike, we had an- 
 
The Estate. 15 
 
 other repetition of the mob. Police power was helpless 
 to preserve law and order. For weeks the mobs held 
 the city, preventing" the lawful pursuit of business. 
 Every citizen was inconvenienced by this trouble. The 
 business interests suffered. Their estimated losses were 
 more than two hundred and fifty million dollars. 
 
 In San Francisco car-strike, we had the same shameful 
 occurrence. The mobs defied the police power. Obstruc 
 tions were placed upon the street car company s right-of- 
 vvay, cars were wrecked and dynamite was placed upon 
 the tracks. Missiles were thrown from the tops of 
 buildings, which struck the cars and injured and 
 even endangered the lives of innocent people. 
 Ambulances were kept busy caring for patronizers of 
 the car company. They even went so far, this 
 lawless power, as to carry a boycott against all per 
 sons who used the cars, when such power could be in 
 voked. Next we hear the echoes of a frantic mob at 
 Atlanta, Georgia. Like the storms which sweep the 
 oceans, we meet mob violence first, North, then East, then 
 West. As we read the bold type of our daily press 
 throughout the land, we see "Race Riots," "Negroes 
 Lynched," and similar headings. That is wrong. It 
 is mob riot. The same spirit appears here as did at 
 San Francisco, at St. Louis, and at Chicago. But now 
 it poses as a protecting angel to defend the sanctity of 
 womanhood ; and with torch and gun they begin their 
 destructiveness. Homes are burned ! Men are killed 
 in cold blood ! Women are insulted ! Children and 
 
16 Our Inheritance. 
 
 babies are made homeless and fatherless ! Ah ! tis the 
 hellish passion for murder, the thirst for blood. 
 
 Again in Springfield, Ohio, the mob rules, and 
 wantonly wastes life and property. The Negro again, 
 left homeless and humiliated, is beaten by a fiendish 
 horde of ruffians. The mob defies the police power. 
 Willfully and maliciously they burn the homes and 
 dwellings of innocent people. Then, again, even in 
 Kentucky, there was loss of life and the destruc 
 tion of property. By whom? The mob. Even there, the 
 destruction of property ran into millions of dollars. 
 This was a white lynching. They sought the destruction 
 of the property of the American Tobacco Co., whose 
 offense was, that they controlled the prices of tobacco. 
 This is conclusive proof that mob-rule has achieved more 
 power than the courts. It abrogates the authority of 
 the courts, the states and the Nation. At last, we see 
 the serene order of peace and dignity upset in the great 
 state of Illinois ; and, at the very seat of her government. 
 The frenzied fury of a mob is awakened ! Casting aside 
 every semblance of piety, it breaks forth as doth vol 
 canic fires, emitting their poisonous fumes. Cloud after 
 cloud s revengeful fury rises ! Deeper and deeper the 
 fires of hatred burn until it seems that the last vestige of 
 patriotism, law and order will be obscured. They go so far 
 as to desecrate the tomb of our noble patriot, Abraham 
 Lincoln ! There the mob reaches the zenith of its power ! 
 
The Negro s Right As a 
 Freeholder 
 
Chapter II. 
 
 THE Negro of the United States began his tenancy of 
 the soil as a slave in 1619 when the first slave ship 
 anchored at Jamestown Colony. By the laws of slavery 
 he was declared an official tenant of the soil, that is, he 
 was hound by the laws of the colonies which had slaves, 
 to clear the forest, till the soil, and plant the crops; 
 therefore, he was a tenant of the soil in fact, if not in 
 law. At that time he was prohibited from any form of 
 rights as a citizen, being considered a chattel by the laws 
 then existing. 
 
 The laws that subsequently established his rights, 
 notably the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitu 
 tion, did not create them. His rights existed before 
 the proclamation, or the enactment of any laws with such 
 purpose. The fact that the Declaration of Independence, 
 and the Constitution gave liberty to all men was suffi 
 cient to make the Xegro a citizen as it did every 
 nationality that lived in America. That is why a number 
 of states, called free states, such as Rhode Island, Con 
 necticut, Massachusetts. Vermont and others were so 
 named. 
 
 Appendages were placed, or, attached to the Consti 
 tution to legalize slavery, so also became the adoption of 
 pro-slavery clauses to state Constitutions. Thus, to re 
 tain slavery, subsequent enactments were necessary to 
 the original compact. Therefore, under the fundamental 
 
20 Our inheritance. 
 
 laws of the Nation, or the Constitution, slavery has never 
 had a legal sanction, since the laws for and against 
 slavery were mere appendages and not a part of the 
 original instrument. Then the Negro is a citizen under 
 the Constitution ; therefore, his position as a freeholder in 
 the estate is made on constitutional grounds, notwithstand 
 ing the unlawful regime of slavery which deprived him 
 of his constitutional rights. They must have existed prior 
 to the amendments that established them, or, the laws 
 that created them are unconstitutional. His rights were 
 constructive and did exist. This theory is based on 
 the principles of jurisprudence. This fact is confirmed by 
 the 14th and 15th amendments. 
 
 The folly of class legislation is proven by historical 
 events. Such are the laws that discriminate and create 
 classes against the masses. In Europe the clamoring for 
 centuries has been against selfish laws of the aristocracy. 
 Men were held in serfdom because of class made laws ; 
 therefore, the popularity of the colonies of the New 
 World was heightened by the hope of honest legislation 
 and universal suffrage. Thus it was that the many thou 
 sands of Europeans came to America to free themselves 
 from the pernicious rule of selfish government. The 
 Stamp Act as a reprisal against the British Colony in 
 Boston was an instance of detestable selfishness. This law 
 was created for the interest of one man against the rights 
 of another. American impulse revolted ! Pro-slavery 
 laws were principles with similar design, and again the 
 Nation revolted! The fact that class legislation was 
 
The Negro s Right as a Freeholder. 21 
 
 subversive to the Constitution, brought forth popular 
 agitation against it. Then followed "The Conflict." 
 
 After dreaded days of four years war, came remedial 
 legislation which established the Constitution over the en 
 tire Union. It seems the lessons of history are easily for 
 gotten. For no sooner did we become reconciled to 
 peace and industry than arose the spirit of disregard to 
 ward our fundamental law. Amendments to the Con 
 stitution are now superceded by Constitutional amend 
 ments to state constitutions, which have a large Negro 
 population thus null and void are the Negroes rights, 
 or prospective rights, under the National law. 
 
 This discussion is clear in the essay of Walter C. 
 Hamm in the Review of Reviews Magazine, March issue, 
 1889. " Two events of recent occurrence are accepted as 
 marking the beginning of a new phase of the colored 
 suffrage question in this country. One is the decison of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States affirming the 
 validity of the suffrage clause of the Mississippi Consti 
 tution. The language of the court was this: Re 
 strained by the Federal Constitution from discriminating 
 against the Negro as a race, the Mississippi Constitutional 
 Convention discriminates against its characteristics and 
 the offenses to which the weaker members are prone. " 
 The other event is the election of Nov. 8, 1898, in 
 North Carolina, and the spirit of which the result was 
 received throughout the country. The election is ac 
 knowledged to have been revolutionary in its character, 
 but while there is criticism of the methods bv which the 
 
22 Our Inheritance. 
 
 object was accomplished, there is no disposition mani 
 fested to interfere or to question the permanence of the 
 result." "Brute force was chosen as the instrument for 
 securing white supremacy. The colored voter was in 
 timidated by the night riding Klu Klux Klan and fright 
 ened away from the polls by threats on his life." "Ballot 
 boxes were stu fifed with tissue ballots and forgery on 
 tally sheets was freely committed. In this way state 
 after state w r as reclaimed by the Whites." "The second 
 phase of negro suffrage began with Whites in control 
 in every southern state and determined to perpetuate that 
 control. The means used to insure this w r ere violence 
 and crime against the Blacks and political, social and 
 business ostracism against a few Whites who persisted in 
 adhering to the republican party." "But the political 
 wrong done to the southern Blacks and the northern 
 Whites by the suppression of the colored vote was not the 
 worst result of methods employed to maintain white su 
 premacy in the South. Open acquiescence in fraud on 
 the ballot boxes and in deeds of violence against the 
 Negroes worked endless demoralization among the 
 southern Whites themselves." "Tt is only natural for 
 men to argue that if a crime is excused for a political 
 purpose, it will be excused for all other purposes. The 
 public conscience was debauched and the moral sense of 
 the people blunted." "Other evidences of the harm done 
 to society in the South by the methods used to maintain 
 white supremacy were the propensity to mob law, and 
 the larsre number of defaulting state treasurers, by whose 
 
The Negro s Right as a freeholder. 23 
 
 dishonesty the southern people lost millions of dollars." 
 Then we will assume that the Xegro is denied an 
 honorable right as a freeholder in the estate which 
 was created by the energies of his forefathers, and 
 by the blood and tears of their outraged manhood. 
 When we glance at the ages we are constrained 
 to wonder. Now we see the tree of Liberty with her 
 soothing branches full of life overshadowing the earth. 
 We say, by whom was She planted? By whom was She 
 defended? By the Eternal God, and by those who believed 
 in Him. Then the right to the fullness of this earth was 
 intended for all men. O. Earth, hold not in thy hallowed 
 soil the spirit of heroes that have fallen, lest Death shall 
 keep their lives and power! O, God, imbue the earth 
 with truth and right ! If Wisdom ever gave in sacrifice 
 her ardent strength to God, just so has the black 
 race in America struggled, suffered and died that some 
 born of its kinsmen might live free in this land of oppor 
 tunities. But, alas ! the hour of darkness approaches. 
 On every hand evil clouds arise ; higher and higher they 
 ascend until the Supreme Court of the United States con 
 firms a Jim Crow Law ! The Jim Crow statesmen, I 
 call pirates, because in infamy of disgrace piracy is 
 famed for its black intensity. On the seas of public 
 opinion the great ship of state is attacked and the Negro is 
 tortured and maltreated by the buccaneers of the color 
 line. I call the Jim Crow laws criminal because they 
 discredit the lives of our noblest patriots Washington, 
 Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and many others. Let us 
 
24 Our Inlicrittwcc. 
 
 retrace the lines spoken by the immortal Lincoln at the 
 battlefield of Gettysburg: "Fourscore and seven years 
 ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new 
 nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposi 
 tion that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged 
 in a civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, 
 so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We 
 are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to 
 dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those 
 who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It 
 is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 
 ]>ut, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate we cannot 
 consecrate we cannot hallow this ground. The brave 
 men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated 
 it far above our power to add or detract. The world will 
 little note nor long remember what we say here, but it 
 can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the 
 living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work 
 that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather 
 for us here to be dedicated to the great task remaining 
 before us that from these honored dead we take in 
 creased devotion to the cause, for which they gave the last 
 full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that 
 the dead shall not die in vain ; that the nation shall, under 
 God, have a new birth of freedom, that the government 
 of the people, by the people and for the people shall not 
 perish from the earth !" 
 
The Negro s Right as a Freeholder. 25 
 
 O, noble thought be thine and mine ! 
 
 The Nation s purpose bend 
 O, truthful heart the soul incline 
 
 Our wrongs to rightness mend. 
 May God s will be earthly light, 
 
 A unit with no end ! 
 
 Shall another century pass and the Negroes life be 
 littled, narrowed and darkened by opponents of reason, 
 by men who disregard all laws and appeal to caste, 
 prejudice and selfishness? How long will the Nation 
 countenance lawlessness? Can it be that we have reached 
 the mean state of political corruption, where might is 
 right, where, in the scale of Justice, the dollar out 
 weighs the man and where the crying need of humanity 
 is the subject of barter and sale in our houses of con 
 gress? Think, ye men, whose strength measures the 
 reign of government ! You who swear the oath to 
 uphold our constitution ! You who mould public opinion ! 
 J ask all men how long shall Justice be dethroned and 
 Reason cast aside? When, through dishonor, a race of 
 honest men are being enslaved in civilization s bright 
 est era! 
 
 Is the press dead, or will she awake to chronicle the 
 Nation s darkest deed? Can the serpent of prejudice 
 remain the bosom companion of honest men? If not, let 
 the vigilant, the strong, the active, the men with honest 
 hearts unite against the passions of the vile and the 
 power of the unjust! Then out of chaos will come a 
 
26 Our Inheritance. 
 
 concrete substance: a nation devoted to freedom, a 
 country of honorable men ! The Negro is maltreated, 
 misrepresented, and outlawed for the sole purpose of 
 depriving him of the benefits from the estate. Every 
 nationality is welcome here except him. He is a tenant 
 at sufferance in every community; and where he is dis 
 liked the most, although a law-abiding citizen, he must 
 live in dread of bodily harm and is free nowhere from 
 the pernicious influence of Jim Crowism. So merciless 
 has been the attack upon him, that his very color has be 
 come the emblem of shame, the incentive for attack. 
 In no place, in no industry or profession is he welcome. 
 He meets the color line regardless of his fortune or 
 misfortune, his manners, his education, his wealth or his 
 ability. Merely being born black, or, partially so, is the 
 curse of the most civilized and progressive age the 
 world has ever known. I ask, is the Nation s advance 
 ment based upon her culture, science, literature, com 
 merce and education, or. upon prejudicial sentiments con 
 cerning color? If the former, then the latter is wrong; 
 if the latter, then the former is wrong. But, however, 
 regarding advancement because of color, the white man 
 who brought the Negro to this country did not advance 
 very far on his knowledge ; and the white man who is 
 opposed to the black man because of his color, is not 
 advancing himself, nor the interest of the community in 
 which he lives. 
 
 Organized labor is opposed to the Negro. On the rail 
 ways, on the street cars, in the factories he is not wanted, 
 
The Negro s Right as a Freeholder. 27 
 
 because organized labor is against him. The majority of 
 these Union men are of foreign birth and aliens who en 
 deavor to prevent the Negro, an American citizen, from 
 earning his daily bread. This is the keenest blow against 
 the black man s freedom. Like a huge giant threatening 
 and menacing all that seek equal freedom with him, 
 this monster labor trust threatens to thrust upon the Na 
 tion a period of oppression unequaled in its severity. 
 Organizations, whether public, private, civil, fraternal or 
 religious are capable of great moral uplift. Likewise 
 they are capable of great wrongs, oppression and servi 
 tude. The exalted aim, the high purpose, the sublime 
 thought, principle and action are the tendencies of good 
 which must animate these bodies, or their use as a fac 
 tor toward the advancement of mankind is negative. 
 Capital looks down upon the Negro ; so busy is he in the 
 plunder for wealth that naught but gain is confined to 
 his progress. From Europe come the many millions of 
 immigrants, all supposed to be better than the Negro; 
 from Asia we receive a flood of Asiatics, all considered 
 better than him. If there ever were a world of horrors 
 presupposed, created by the world s selfish millions, a 
 triumph of calamities, the sphere the black man fills 
 surely seems its successful conclusion. 
 
 At this great wrong we pause, and look civilization 
 in the face to ascertain her meaning. Can this be the 
 great Christian era, the progressive age of accumu 
 lated science, art, literature and wealth? Can the Na 
 tion remain strong, vigorous and successful when the 
 
28 Our Inheritance. 
 
 sanctity of her laws are beneath the ashes of men s feet? 
 No! 
 
 Then it behooves those who believe in Liberty and Law 
 to assert themselves, that the overthrow of Justice may 
 not become complete in the "land of the free and home 
 of the brave?" 
 
Relationship of Jim Crowism to 
 Lawlessness 
 
Chapter If I. 
 
 true response for right is the elevation of the 
 1 ideal. Beginning from childhood our conceptions of 
 right and wrong- are formed. The highest regard for 
 the rights of others is truly found in "Love thy neighbor 
 as thyself," which as a spirit of action superceded all 
 just laws. 
 
 The highest monument in the Nation is not the em 
 bellished statue of Liberty, nor the monument of George 
 Washington towering tip its many hundred feet into 
 space, nor, that of any sainted patriot who left the "in 
 fluence" of his life to be commemorated by granite and 
 stone ; but, the context and spirit of our laws and their 
 influence toward uplifting the character of manhood and 
 womanhood are the highest and indestructible towers 
 of our greatness. 
 
 The feeling of disrespect is the point of danger. Its 
 influence is the seat of lawless traits. Sacredness of 
 right is the strength of wise men ; and when there is no 
 sacredness of duty, there is no respect for the rights of 
 others. Tf our ideals are not cultivated to the true ap 
 preciation of Nature, of home, of duty and of country, 
 the lack of our refinement would ignore the sanctity of 
 our laws ; therefore, the strongest bulwark of t .ie Nation 
 would crumble. In God s creation were born the nations 
 of this earth whose right to life, freedom, and happiness 
 arc as sacred as our own ; therefore, in proclaiming, de- 
 
32 
 
 claring- and establishing- law, order and government we 
 acknowledge their rights in protecting our own. 
 
 All nations then must abhor those teachings that tend 
 toward selfishness ; for, when developed, they produce 
 lawless traits. 
 
 These lawless traits begin in childhood and ripen in 
 manhood, so, therefore, we find unjust and unreasonable 
 laws not only dulling the ethical sense of honor, but lead 
 ing the youth to wrong. Therefore Jim Crowism has its 
 relation to lawlessness from its conception. A statute, a 
 law, or a principle laid down by a community, state, or 
 a nation which, from its spirit, its precepts, its antece 
 dents, or its motives disregards idealism, must directly 
 incline towards injustice, prejudice, and lawlessness ; and 
 can only mean the destruction of man s highest ideals. A 
 nation, like a man, to become great, must build with the 
 best material obtainable. It must be actuated only by 
 high purposes and resolves. He must think right, act 
 right and live right. Wherefore, we see the spirit of Jim 
 Crowism at first, a vital factor against the peace and 
 dignity of the Nation, because, like a blight, it destroys 
 freedom, liberty and happiness. It lessens the ethical 
 powers of the white race. The higher sense of reason is 
 dulled. Christian ideal, then, bereft of power, and the 
 strength of Liberty must weaken. Justice thereby be 
 comes but a howling mockery ! We have truth without 
 love ! and bravery without honor ! 
 
 Against the slave were heaped all the iniquities of man 
 kind ; to look down, to stoop to beastial plane, with no 
 
Relationship of Jim Croivisin- to Lawlessness. 33 
 
 thought of shame, or remorse, and to have no feeling of 
 pride. And upon this state of affairs were the laws of 
 society based. Therefore, from the lowest, meanest plane 
 of wicked hatred the spirit and principles of Jim Crow- 
 ism were conceived. 
 
 Now, as satan of old, plausible and cunning, it ascends 
 the throne of Justice and poses as a defender to protect 
 the integrity of the white race. It doth entangle the black 
 race, but ah ! friends of civilization, its cunning will de 
 ceive. With it comes the murderer, with it comes the 
 anarchist, with it comes annihilation. Behold ! the law 
 less power doth challenge the. authority of the city, the 
 state and the Nation ! Against the peace of all, the mob 
 has come. Dangerous even more than the blight of 
 cholera, the scourge of war, or pestilence, or famine. 
 The moral effect of Jim Crowism is, that first it 
 shadows the black man with a cloud of indecency ; sec 
 ond, it dwarfs his lofty ideals and narrows his scope of 
 aspirations. For the white man, it creates disrespect for 
 the black man and lessens the keen perception of human 
 rights. 
 
 As the mind becomes clouded, he grows more unreas 
 onable and selfish till, like the slave, is all who measure 
 not strength with him. Brutal and tyrannical fast be 
 comes the rule. Hatred for love ! selfishness for patriot 
 ism, torture for the weak ! The wisdom of Jim Cro\v- 
 ism is unsafe. It fosters dislike, prejudice and cowar 
 dice. It cannot benefit the \vhite man, therefore it cannot 
 help the Negro. The humiliation and disgrace following 
 
34 Our Inheritance. 
 
 in pursuance of these laws, is as fatal as the weapon that 
 destroys the suicide. This destruction is more disparaging 
 than all others. Hope is thereby faded and life belittled 
 to satisfy the cruel desire of revengeful hate. The Na 
 tion clamors for liberty, freedom, and justice; and yet 
 with the fatality of death she clings to Jim Crowism ! 
 They who adhere to political Jim Crowism have left no 
 stone unturned that wouVl assist in the degradation of 
 the Negro, or that would multiply his misery and hard 
 ship. Slavery was the leprosy of this Nation, and, 
 through God that curse was obliterated. Step by step, we 
 rise to honor, or sink in shame ! Who calls for this 
 dreaded scourge again to sweep the land? Who advo 
 cates a fatal malady that will consume and destroy? Is 
 it statesman-like to invite misery and hardships in a 
 country where men are prosperous and free? No! Then, 
 what follows the enactment of Jim Crow statutes if their 
 intent and purpose is not to defeat Justice? If white 
 supremacy cannot maintain herself through the wisdom 
 of natural law, her ascendency is a blight and a curse to 
 the earth. Or, if dishonest principles are necessary to 
 secure to the white man political power, that power 
 and influence cannot sustain itself in a world of growing 
 wisdom ; hence, with advancing civilization, its weak 
 foundation will crumble. Are these agitators not satis 
 fied with the grievous mistake of their forefathers? 
 
 Draw an imaginary line from the coast of Africa to 
 the fertile plains of Missouri ! Imagine a graveyard 
 this entire distance. Then picture ten millions of Africa s 
 
Relationship of Jim Crotvism to Lawlessness. 35 
 
 able sons the ill-fated victims of this tomb ! Picture again 
 the events of history : the North arrayed against the 
 South in a mighty conflict, because natural justice de- 
 creeth God s will. Hear ye the appeal of our beloved 
 Lincoln in the interpretation of God s law : "Woe unto 
 the world because of the offense, for it must need be 
 that offenses come ; but woe to the man by whom the 
 offense cometh." "If we shall suppose that American 
 slavery is one of the offenses, which in the providence 
 of God must need come, but which, having continued 
 through this appointed time, He now wills to remove, 
 and that He gives to both North and South this terrible 
 war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, 
 shall we discern therein any departure from those divine 
 attributes which the believers in a living God always 
 ascribe to Him ?" Fondly do we hope, fervently do we 
 pray, that this mighty scourge of war may soon pass 
 away. Yea, if God wills that it continue until the wealth 
 piled by the bondsman s two hundred and fifty years of 
 unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of 
 blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another by 
 the sworcl, as was said three thousand years ago, so 
 still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are 
 true and righteous altogether." The "blood of the 
 lash" was paid by the blood of the sword ! The millions 
 of wealth acquired by the bondsman s toil was lost! 
 Does this not prove the moral philosophy and the just 
 ness of natural law? Jim Crow laws are properly traced 
 to the institution of slavery. Was her spirit a righteous 
 
36 Our Inheritance. 
 
 one? No! Are her conceptions founded on the great 
 ness of the white race, and the intent to conserve moral 
 contentment of that people? If so, her wisdom is wrong. 
 History is true and our judgment is not false in look 
 ing in the past. The fear of the southern white man is 
 well grounded. Cowardice prohibits him from the re 
 course to honor. Something wrong was done, he seeks 
 to justify his misconduct toward the Negro by advocating 
 race prejudice. Thus, the herald from the Southland 
 cometh, proclaiming her dignity ! Thrusting aside the 
 rights of others, she doth declare her superiority and 
 the black man s inferiority, and her right to abuse, dis 
 franchise and annoy law-abiding and peaceful American 
 citizens. Now, prescriptive laws and Jim Crow statutes 
 are the glasses through which we look. We see the glar 
 ing infamy of murder, robbery and rape ! We see the 
 vile purpose of the southern White in his shameful atti 
 tude towards the black man ! We see the toiling Blacks 
 fettered to earth! We see the "Tree of Knowledge" a 
 forbidden fruit to him ! We see him toiling, toiling* 
 wearily toiling, a leaden cross heaped in human sorrow 
 upon his back ! Alas ! we see that vast graveyard with 
 its million tombs, looking toward God and the eternal 
 skies, asking, yea, demanding justice for an outraged 
 manhood, the black race! The white man may forget, but 
 the black man shall not ! This may cause serious re 
 flection, but it truly teaches that the perpetuity of govern 
 ments rests upon the freedom of man and the justice of 
 God. The rabies of this Jim Crow spirit must be 
 
Relationship of Jim Croivism to Lawlessness. $7 
 
 obliterated, or there will not be a spot of free soil in 
 the United States nor in a single possession that she 
 holds. Its lawless instincts are the outgrowth of national 
 patriotic indifference. It abides by no decision except 
 its own. If it wills murder, it commits murder. It is 
 the seat of lawlessness. Shall this disease grow and 
 grow until it actually and forcibly defies national author 
 ity? Where will its activities cease? We may trace it 
 over a period of three centuries in the United States, or 
 nearly so. It began with slavery in the year 1619 and has 
 taken first one form of national disgrace or another 
 ever since. It argued for slavery, for state s rights, 
 for secession ; it established prescriptive laws, it organ 
 ized mobs, it authorized lynching; alas, it declared the 
 treaty-making power was not lodged in the National 
 Government! (See Japanese school question and the 
 California Legislature.) 
 
 A plan to defeat the Wisdom of God may be in the 
 sphere of human thought, but naught will it accomplish. 
 It may be an easy thing today to hinder and obstruct the 
 Constitution. You may declare this country is for the 
 white man and shall be, but what about tomorrow ? 
 You may claim superiority over the dark races and their 
 possibilities, but are you taking into your counsels the 
 law of God ? What is gained by the cannon shall be 
 lost by the sword. If your government shall find its 
 axes resting on brute force, what will connect you with 
 moral strength and economic virtue? In what way can 
 we assimilate the ethics of our Constitution with the 
 
38 Our Inheritance. 
 
 spirit of lynch law, Jim Crow statutes and race preju 
 dice ? 
 
 Mobs were first intended for Negroes and their sympa 
 thizers, but now, ah! they mob everybody. 
 
 Shall not the restless wave of night, 
 
 Grim by the color line, 
 Her own fair outline then besmirch 
 
 With ills of hatred blind? 
 Roll on imperious wave of night, 
 
 Thy own damnation find ; 
 Thou Ocean, reeking in thy blight, 
 
 Sustained bv color line ! 
 
Disfranchise or Disqualify 
 
Chapter IV. 
 
 SHOULD the Xegro be eliminated from the ballot- 
 box? Xo! because it is his only safeguard against 
 tyranny, oppression and slavery. The claim that the 
 elective franchise granted the ex-slave was an injustice 
 to the Whites of the southern states, is the same argu 
 ment that his becoming free was wrong. The right of 
 franchise is based on the right of taxation. And no 
 citizen can live in a community or state without his 
 burden of taxation, whether or not he be landlord, lessor 
 or tenant ; because properties, both real and personal, are 
 taxable, and the laws of taxation are based on community 
 valuations. Therefore, the burden of each district bears 
 its relationship to its own maintenance. 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that any discrimination against 
 honest representation is usurpation, dangerous and de 
 grading. We all know of the Klu Klux Klan, the 
 election frauds of the South, the rise and fall of Justice. 
 
 The claim that the ignorant masses were powerless to 
 execute an intelligent vote is as truthful as to declare 
 and argue that their interest would be safeguarded by 
 the selfish classes who persisted in their ignorance. They 
 say the Negro knew nothing of government; and still, 
 what they themselves practiced was too low and mean to 
 be called government. Returning the stolen jewels does 
 not excuse the crime of robbery; nor open acknowledg 
 ment of fraud legalized justify or excuse the act of dis- 
 
42 Oi .r Inheritance. 
 
 honesty. * A thief cannot convey a title." The ballot 
 earned by the Negro then is justly his. The grandeur 
 of the slave king is the curse of his posterity. The 
 stolen treasures of bondage which weigh about his neck 
 is the millstone threatening his destruction. 
 
 As long as Slavery s cruel chain 
 To thy conscience beareth claim, 
 
 The noblest heart in thralldom dies 
 Ye reap the seed ye thoughtless sow ! 
 
 We argue a higher law as a fitness to vote. The 
 acquisition of wealth and education does not qualify one. 
 nor does it purify the ballot box. A man s wealth and 
 education might induce either an honest or a dishonest 
 purpose. Education, money and brains are circum 
 stances ; and a man may have either and yet be truthful 
 or untruthful. The surest way to protect the rights of 
 mankind is to allow his participation in organization and 
 government. So with the newly emancipated slave, his 
 right to participate in the organization of which he was. 
 and by which he was to be governed, carried as high con 
 firmation, as that which directs the legislative body of 
 any race which shall be subject to our laws. Some writers 
 say this was a curse. That is but another way of saying 
 slavery was right. Taxation without representation is 
 laid down by the writers of history as the cause for the 
 War of Independence. An appeal from the sovereignty 
 of the nation to the sovereignty of man is laid down as 
 
Disfranchise or Disqualify. 43 
 
 the sacred right for revolution. The Negro s right to a 
 just consideration, therefore, cannot be denied ; and his 
 right to the ballot-box is confirmed by the history and 
 laws of this nation. Thus we might conveniently refer 
 to the crisis in San Francisco when the chief executive 
 of that city was a convicted felon ; and when for days 
 the municipal authority was crippled because of the vast 
 exposure of fraud. As we raise our eyes and gaze over 
 the political horizon of American politics, it is hard to 
 find the cloudless sky. Every city, every county and 
 every State has produced its Eugene Schmitzs, or its 
 Abraham Ruefs, or some such characters, who have ap 
 peared beneath the cloud of public scorn. These men are 
 white men and educated men. Even the United States sen 
 ate is not without its stains. Rut these conditions do not 
 result because of the color of men or their education. 
 
 The details of .slavery are too vicious to chronicle. 
 Never in the history of governments did the debasing 
 influence of a criminal system reach such a low ebb. 
 Mean, cruel, wicked, cursed, and not within the concep 
 tion of human mind, except the low and vile, were its 
 practices. Every principle of law, moral, social and eco 
 nomic, was banished from the realms of southern institu 
 tions by American slavery. 
 
 The intent to disfranchise characterizes the spirit of 
 slavery. To nullify the voice of the laboring class in a 
 republican form of government is not a democratic idea, 
 but autocratic; because to destroy their freedom, to pro 
 hibit their advancement, is the wav to demoralization, 
 
44 
 
 inefficiency and inompe.tency. Lastly, their power to 
 advance and compete with the laboring classes in any 
 other part of the world where there are advanced ideas 
 and progressive movements, is negatived. 
 
 With disfranchisement accomplished, what are the re 
 sults ? The success of the Negro as a free and independ 
 ent laboring class is defeated. The crown of bondage is 
 again placed on his brow. His chances to develop to the 
 fullness of his power are destroyed. With independence 
 gone, he has no alternative except a condition of serfdom. 
 TTe cannot maintain his freedom, for his independence is 
 lost. As a working class, he can neither assert nor 
 defend his rights. 
 
 The power of America as a commercial nation would 
 thereby be impaired, because what will affect one class of 
 labor will affect all. What will affect the South will 
 affect the North, and vice versa. The Nation cannot, 
 with a part of its labor ignorant and neglected, hold 
 foreign markets ; because where men are free to make 
 the best of their lot their advancement is the basic foun 
 dation of national prosperity. In the future we will not 
 be able to compete with Germany, France, England, nor 
 any other country, with a part of our resources undevel 
 oped. 
 
 Social and economic laws are not subjugated by Jim 
 Crow statutes. They recognize neither white nor black. 
 This is a higher law, beyond the reach of prejudice and 
 the edicts of pirates, a law on which the fate of the 
 
Disfranchise or Disqualify. 45 
 
 Nation hangs ! Why are we seeking foreign markets, if 
 it is not to improve the labor class at home ? 
 
 The cry of unionism against convict labor comes with 
 a shock with the attempt to destroy the efficiency of the 
 black man as a laborer, by elimination, disfranchise- 
 ment, etc. 
 
 Under the laws of slavery, industry was shackled by 
 the same chain that held the slave. Forbidden was the 
 southern white man, under the social laws, the exercise 
 of industrial skill. Hence, the foundation of southern 
 economic progress was shattered, because labor was 
 degradation, and only fitted for the slave. Their re 
 sources of material progress were thus enfeebled. Slave 
 labor has always been the most costly, less effective, and 
 actually powerless to compete with free labor, which is 
 necessarily stimulated by its freedom, education and 
 endless opportunities. 
 
 During the period of economic depression in the South, 
 the North has advanced materially. Factories and mills 
 grew up in every village and every city. The prestige of 
 the North as a financial giant continues to grow with her 
 many thousand schools and colleges, and with her con 
 structive idea of free and educated labor. 
 
 "There was not a public school system in any south 
 ern state before the war." 
 
 The argument of disfranchisement, therefore, loses its 
 weight, because it acts as an estoppel in the operation 
 of fundamental progress. 
 
 Socially wrong, morally wrong, and economically bad ! 
 
-46 Our Inheritance. 
 
 The contentment of the laboring classes amounts to the 
 total wealth and power of a nation. Can any mind con 
 ceive the tide of unrest in a large laboring population 
 who are smarting under the restraint -of prescriptive 
 laws, that de-citizenize them, while it gives another 
 laboring class the oppressor s hand ? In this shameful 
 plight to-day stands the Negro, an American citizen ! 
 
 "A man who knows that the laws under which he lives 
 violate the first principles of natural justice, is bound to 
 strive, by all honorable means, to break down and defeat 
 those laws. Among the honorable means is, the right of 
 armed resistance the sacred right to revolution." "This 
 is the higher law which sanctified the revolt of George 
 Washington against the constituted authorities then ex 
 isting in this country." 
 
 Ry the spirit of patriotism, by the usages of the Nation, 
 by the laws of society the Negro is entitled to his ballot 
 and should not be disfranchised. To be a man with edu 
 cation, he must have freedom ; to have his freedom, he 
 must be honest ; to be honest, he must be patriotic ; to be 
 patriotic, he must be brave ; to be brave, he must love ; to 
 love, he must be honorable ; to be honorable, he cannot be 
 without his ballot. 
 
 If the Negro were disfranchised, then his education 
 would become the consuming fires of his destruction. 
 His soul would thirst for life and perish as a plant in the 
 desert waste. Then would rise within him a spirit en 
 kindled with latent fires of racial hate, whose burning 
 activity would seek anarchistic strength. What then? 
 
Disfranchise or Disqualify. 47 
 
 II is characteristic happiness would turn to the sullen 
 mood of the ox. The Negro, knowing that execrable 
 laws were steadfast and against his progress and happi 
 ness, could he feel different than the assassin, or the 
 hideous murderer who clamors for blood? 
 
 Therefore, what the Negro race has seemed to have 
 lost through dishonor and the white man s dishonesty 
 ought, nevertheless, to remain his. And he will struggle 
 ever to retain his possessions ! Through the courts of 
 civilization, before the jury of public opinion, before the 
 judge of Progress even to the end of time shall he pur 
 sue the cause of Justice, that the restoration of his rights 
 before God may prove his manhood. 
 
 Who breatheth now the sun s pure ray? 
 Who livtth life in brightest way? 
 Who sees as God, though but in clay? 
 Tis lie that loves, that loves ! 
 
A Pertinent Question 
 
Chapter V. 
 
 THERE is no question of more importance to the 
 American Nation than the one of lawlessness. As a 
 part of our inheritance, we must study, understand and 
 deal with it in the same high sense of reasoning as we 
 have every question that has confronted the Nation. 
 The mob affects the interest of one race as much as it 
 does the other, for there can be no rule of justice or in 
 justice that will not measure its equal in all directions. 
 Mob rule is the result of slavery. It is the culmination 
 of criminal passions. Jim Crow law is the tide of preju 
 dice. Unite the criminal passion, the tide of prejudice 
 and the assembly of men and you have tyrants. You 
 have lawless characters who will fill the Nation with 
 horrors, and stain a spotless coat with blood ; those who 
 will trample beneath their murderous feet the reputation 
 of our laws and the honor of our country. They now 
 jeopardize the interests of ten million Negroes and 
 threaten the liberty of seventy million Whites. 
 
 Will the Negro be a free man in a free country ? Will 
 the white man be a free man in a free country? These 
 questions are inseparable. The standard of one will be 
 the height of the other. If the Negro s freedom is cur 
 tailed by perverse laws, the white man s liberty is re 
 strained, by the same perversity. Like the pendulum of a 
 clock, its movements depend upon the equation of its 
 bearings. When the clock runs free, her bearings are 
 
52 Our Inheritance. 
 
 right; when the Nation prospers, it is when her bearings 
 are equality and justice. Every rule must have a prin 
 ciple, and every principle must have a foundation. 
 
 So with our laws if they are entangled with incon 
 sistencies, or conflicting opinions, we shall have misrule, 
 because a law must be general, permanent and universal, 
 in order to insure us against confusion of interpretation, 
 which might render its power null and void. If we are 
 to increase the efficacy of our laws by the grow r th of vital 
 strength, we must observe the Rule and the Square. 
 
 The hope of honest men is the realization of just and 
 efficient laws ; but we cannot sow discord and expect to 
 reap the beauty of harmony. You cannot destroy the 
 efficacy of the soil by acidulous legislation and expect 
 mankind to boast of the waving gold" of freedom s 
 triumph. If we plant wheat, wheat will grow; if we 
 plant thorns, thistles will blossom. As the Nation grows, 
 whether we shall become stronger or weaker, will depend 
 upon the virtue of her laws. If they shall conform to the 
 ideals of sublime reason, if our law-givers shall be actu 
 ated by noble motives, then what we shall build will 
 become stronger and stronger. This is not a question 
 of color prejudice, but one of national importance, be 
 cause it affects the entire status of our free government. 
 Nothing is more injurious to free government than spe 
 cial legislation, for such legislation establishes a disregard 
 for Justice and brings into disrepute the wisdom of sane 
 and just laws. Should not legislation of this character 
 be dreaded bv all mankind? 
 
A Pertinent Quest wn. 53 
 
 Men fight first for liberty, because without freedom 
 they possess little that insures happiness. Since we have 
 traced lawlessness from the spirit of the mob and Jim 
 Crow legislation, it is the duty of the Nation to stop its 
 clamoring, defeat its purpose, and negative its powers. 
 Like a black rag hideous for its execrations, we have ap 
 pended this contemptible plague, Jim Crowism, to a noble 
 Constitution by condoning certain states in constitutional 
 amendments. To show the proof of this claim, I offer 
 the extracts from Congressional Records, extracts from 
 remarks of Hon. Benjamin Tillman, February 26, 1900: 
 
 "I have exhumed the bloody shirt for a brief moment 
 and am waving it like a red flag to a bull and the latter 
 will not fight or budge. And I will call the attention 
 of my friends of the North. I have a great many on that 
 side, I am proud to say to the fact that they do not 
 know, and never will know until they come south to 
 live with us, just what we have to contend against even 
 now. They do not realize it, they cannot realize it; and 
 it is for the purpose of trying to have them study this 
 question of race a little more, and analyze it, that I have 
 attempted, in my feeble way, to intrude on this body for 
 the brief remarks I have made on this subject, I will tell 
 you, while T am talking about negro suffrage, why they 
 are so dangerous as voters. In any state where the 
 Whites divide and they have divided in every southern 
 state except mine and Mississippi into Populist and 
 Democrats, the Negro has been the balance of power, 
 thonsfh one side or the other lias controlled the elections 
 
54 Our Inheritance. 
 
 by means of bribery, for the Negro vote was a pur 
 chasable one. Therefore, we have been confronted by 
 the condition of a large, ignorant, debased vote, thrust 
 upon us by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. 
 Other states, not peculiarly situated as mine, have 
 retained the negro vote. They have taken no steps 
 looking to its elimination by educational qualifi 
 cations or other system. That vote to-day stands as 
 a menace to the freedom, to the purity of the ballot-box, 
 to the purity and honesty of elections, to the decency of 
 government, and it is there forever until there is a consti 
 tutional provision made here which will relieve us from 
 it. I should be glad to see an educational qualification 
 throughout the North. I believe no man is fit to be an 
 elector unless he is able to read and write and understands 
 about government and its great principles. But who 
 hopes to see that? No party at the North will dare to 
 undertake to limit suffrage in that way, because it would 
 mean at the first election that the vote which they dreaded 
 would go to the other party and they would be beaten, 
 and the demagogues in both parties would plead that 
 you must have equality of manhood, without regard to 
 patriotism, or intelligence, or decency, or ability, or any 
 other qualification which makes a man fit to vote. Let 
 me tell you how we are situated in our state. We had a 
 hundred and twenty-five thousand Negroes of voting age 
 jind we had a hundred thousand Whites. Now, can you 
 lift yourself over the fence with your boot straps and 
 beat that bv honest methods. Yet you stood up here and 
 
A Pertinent Question. 55 
 
 insisted that we must give these people a free vote and a 
 fair count. They had it for eight years, as long as 
 bayonets stood here, and in 1876 they sent more bayonets, 
 because we had got the devil in us by that time and we 
 did not care whether we had any government. We pre 
 ferred to have a United States army officer rather than a 
 government of carpet-baggers and thieves and scally 
 wags and scoundrels, who had stolen everything in sight 
 and had mortgaged posterity ; who had run their felon 
 ious paws into the pockets of posterity by issuing bonds. 
 When that happened we took the government away. We 
 stuffed the ballot boxes. We shot them. We are not 
 ashamed of it. With that system force, tissue ballots, 
 etc. we got tired ourselves. So we had a constitutional 
 convention and we eliminated, as I said, all the colored 
 people we could under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth 
 Amendments." 
 
 When the Jim Crow orator receives applause, when 
 howling mobs fill the streets, when the assassin and the 
 anarchist lurk about in the dark ready to attack individ 
 uals as well as society, when infants are taught the sel 
 fish spirit of hatred and to ignore the beauty of God s 
 creation, when Presidents stand in awe of murder, when 
 every community has its special laws and her color-line, 
 when a large part of our citizens go armed, is it a won 
 der that our European critics say history will repeat 
 itself "a Republic, then an Empire ?" 
 
The Tragedy 
 
Chapter VI. 
 
 THE world has read the piteous tale of the South the 
 Clansman and the Leopard spots. By her able sons 
 she has been defended through the press, pulpit and plat 
 form. They have all portrayed her high standard of 
 virtue, chivalry and patriotism. They have declared her 
 justified in both mob-violence and Jim Crow laws, and 
 have certified her ill-treatment of the Negro as just. 
 Now, let us reason. The African race in America was 
 once a dark people ; but we now have the mulatto : a sub 
 stitute for white and black. Some are even so fair that 
 the African extraction is hardly visible ; but as some 
 writers put it, "one drop of negro blood makes the crea 
 ture black." We will accept the doctrine as truth and 
 calculate therefrom. 
 
 Of the ten million Negroes in the United States, three 
 millions are mulattoes. For such a gigantic admixture of 
 blood there must be a cause. Beginning in the early days 
 of slavery, this miscegenation began. The civilized white 
 man and the heathen slave woman were the factors in 
 this unit. As slavery progressed this prodigious wrong 
 increased. The slave woman bore the name of a negro 
 wench, while her master was rated as a gentleman ! This 
 was one of the common practices of slavery. From this 
 bestial state of affairs the negro race got its first admix 
 ture of blood, and this through the criminal rape and im- 
 moralitv of the white race. Tn heathendom the negro 
 
( Our Inheritance. 
 
 race is known for its honesty and virtue. Even unto this 
 day, infraction of moral propriety are punishable by 
 death. 
 
 The first crime against women in the United States 
 was committed by the white man against black women. 
 In civilization, nothing is more horrible than the strong 
 crushing out the life of the weak. 
 
 This destruction was deadlier than the vicious fangs of a 
 poisonous reptile, it was a sin against the home, the 
 Nation and the honor of a defenseless race. Its infamy 
 struck the very cords of society. The moral strength of 
 the civilized world was against this institution of beastial- 
 ity! To Heaven went up the vociferous cry of civili 
 zation against this terrible crime ! And the world in pity 
 gazed upon the sorrowing tale of inhumanity ! And now 
 from the foundation of this criminal waste arises the off 
 spring, this Jim Crow spirit, this color line, this death, a 
 living power, this curse of our civilization, this image of 
 Death whose only mission is to crush the hopes of a 
 struggling race of freedmen. 
 
 This cruel spirit now seeks to protect its home after it 
 has destroyed the beauty and happiness in the home of 
 another. Is it a moral theme that would advocate the 
 actions of a thief and a murderer? No! Then dis 
 abling laws of Jim Crowism are nothing more nor less 
 than the edicts of criminals and murderers, who breathe 
 the sentiment of confiscation, degradation and damna 
 tion of the Negro race. 
 
 We depict the crime of murder in the harshness of 
 
The Tragedy. <V1 
 
 indignant wrath ; but what is it but murder when the 
 moral propriety of the negro race is wickedly assailed 
 by its malf actors ? 
 
 The "crime against woman" is assigned to the Blacks, 
 while the vicious and bcastlike passion of the white man 
 lures and carries to destruction every black woman that 
 its cunning, shrewd and criminal influence can reach. 
 
 "Enemies are cowards, that fight in the dark." War 
 fare is honorable so long as it does not outrage the prin 
 ciples of reason. It may be just to fight, and it may be 
 honorable to die ; yet, it can be that every drop of blood 
 is the stain of murder, even though its sanction conies 
 from the highest legal authority. 
 
 How long will the Anglo-Saxon boast of his home, his 
 influence and his power, when the sin of all sins, the 
 wrong greater than all others, casts its grim reflection in 
 a lighter Negro or mulatto ? 
 
 A man s standard of character and virtue are measured 
 by the history of his accomplishments. Then in order to 
 judge southern institutions, w r e must study their history, 
 compare their achievements and measure their progress. 
 To read the history of the southern states, is to revive 
 in mind the harrowing recollections of misery and ser 
 vitude of the black race and the extravagance and im 
 morality of the white race. If we measure her success 
 with her sister states of the North, \ve would say, man 
 hood is the greatest title of honor in the American 
 Nation, and the promotion of it must be well founded 
 in the statutes of our states. Then the declaration of 
 
(>2 Our Inheritance. 
 
 southern chivalry is as unwise as it is untruthful. She 
 was but a criminal tragedy in her days of glory and 
 fame. For, while high tribute was paid to the stranger 
 who visited the southern soil, the clanking chains of 
 four million men was the resourcefulness of this extreme 
 kindly nature ! Now the world must condone this crime 
 to propitiate the spirit of racial hatred and the unjust 
 claim of Jim Crowism ! This Jim Crow spirit surely 
 comes from hades, for the trials of our ancestors are 
 pictured in hell s darkest drama ! 
 
 The harvest e er long must reach her fullness ! The 
 deed, the seed implanted, why should we not have a 
 lawless age? T doubt a single instance where an honest 
 white man, or an honest black man, would scorn the 
 effort to place feminine virtue upon the highest pinnacle 
 of human reverence. Even so high that rather would 
 they have it be the character of their state defamed than 
 the honor of woman ! We read in the early days of the 
 Greeks, that once, when their country was at war and 
 they were hard pressed by their enemy, they placed 
 their mothers, wives and children aboard their fleet and 
 called their ships their country and their country their 
 state. Indeed, such honor and sublimity was attached 
 to womanhood that their protection and defense laid 
 first in the laws of government. 
 
 Quote the deepest thought that letters teach, 
 
 The purest lines that poets preach, 
 
 Nay, all in all we fail to find 
 
 Fitting words that will define woman. 
 
The Tragedy. 63 
 
 lint ah! as deeper we go into the subject the clearer 
 is our conception of the grave wrong committed against 
 the negro woman, and the tru? origin of Jim Crowism. 
 
 Born in the depth of this disgraceful shame are the 
 offsprings of the white man and the slave woman ! Out 
 lawed by birth ! Fatherless and homeless in a country 
 of Jim Crow laws ! In the great state of California 
 we have outlawed the negro woman. 
 
 In March, 1872, the marriage between Whites and 
 Blacks was prohibited by statute, which amounted to 
 the total disability of the negro women. 
 
 Now, what are the resultant conditions which have 
 been brought about by this law? Her laws prohibit 
 marriage between the white race and the negro race. 
 Are the laws of God subservient to the laws of man? 
 Can any man change the nature of creation ? Then, why 
 legislate against the decrees of God since the action is 
 man s disgrace ? Finally, the laws to protect woman 
 hood have become submissive to prostitution and crime. 
 She is barred by the state from an honorable standing. 
 Womanhood in a dark skin is but a waif, unprotected, 
 outlawed and disgraced. The champions of our code 
 could not see the beauty of the sublime honor, chastity 
 and purity in a dark-skinned woman. History refuses 
 the analogous of this state of affairs. It must be a cold, 
 cold heart, a dark mind, and an empty conscience, and 
 a soulless being, indeed, who would refuse woman pro 
 tection. Yet, implanted in the twentieth century are laws, 
 weak for the lack of courageous manhood to detect them. 
 
64 Our Inheritance. 
 
 Laws which outrageously condemn us in the eyes of all 
 honest men throughout the entire civilized world. 
 
 I ask the political economist, the sociologist, the philoso 
 pher, and society itself, to picture another race in the 
 same position, or give me a finality of this one ! Beastial- 
 i;-:ed, criminalized, bastardized, outlawed, hated, enslaved; 
 a drop of her blood means the cast of shame, the spirit 
 of the country against her color. Avenues, one after 
 another, closed against her as far as it lies in the power 
 of mankind ! Yet in the face of this inhuman damnation, 
 Jim Crow legislation and beastlike spirit of madness, she 
 stands firm, refusing to denounce Democracy, and asks 
 civilization for her share of enlightenment, education 
 and happiness. 
 
 Bending like the welded steel, 
 
 Forged by Vulcan s hand, 
 Her strength, ah! must be true and tried 
 
 The angered fires to stand. 
 Let Afric s day of trials be 
 
 The furnace fires glowing free ; 
 That purest steel the forge may lend. 
 
 True and tried neither break nor bend. 
 
 Professor Scarborrough, in an able magazine article 
 (Arena), gives the appalling figures, "36,000 children 
 born in a year in the South with white fathers and 
 Negro mothers." This offspring is under no pale of 
 protection. What a terrible condition ! Why should 
 the white man lynch the Negro? 
 
The Tragedy. 65 
 
 It is one thing to commit murder and another thing to 
 shield the crime. Webster says, "The whole creation of 
 God has neither nook, nor corner, where guilt can be 
 stow and say that it is safe." O murdered ! homeless ! 
 unfortunate woman, where are thy brave defenders? 
 The legislature, the press, the pulpit? the angered 
 mob with torch and gun, bent on death and murder, 
 are these thy defense? Why do we read: Justice! 
 Lynched ! Burned at Stake ! A white man never suf 
 fered the stake for a black woman s honor ! Yet the 
 greatest crime of the century was and is being com 
 mitted by the white man. In the state of California, we 
 have one of these outlawed women, a negro girl under 
 age, who became the mother of a child by a white man. 
 Under pressure of vengeance by the mother, he married 
 her; but as soon as the storm calmed, he sought annul 
 ment of ties on the grounds that she was a Negress. 
 
 Not marked by sun s scorching rays, 
 Nor clouds that hang from evil sky, 
 
 Nor cares that steal her beauty way, 
 Is she whose color is black, 
 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
 Thou macl st the laws of this land. 
 
 To protect woman on every hand ; 
 But, strange, thott gav st her naught to say. 
 
 She whose color is black, 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
66 
 
 Know st thou not that she could love. 
 And bear to man hope from above 
 
 In woman s exalted glory ? 
 She whose color is black, 
 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
 Dire grieved by cheerless past. 
 
 Wronged by ignoble class, 
 Bearing their burdens as her pay, 
 
 The \\oman whose color is black, 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
 Cheerless worker, go on thy way ; 
 
 Thy starving soul must pity find 
 Beyond the veil of human mind, 
 
 Thou whose color is black, 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
 Move on, O blighted hope, move on ! 
 
 Arouse thy spirit from the dust, 
 The carnal age, the age of lust, 
 
 Thou whose color is black, 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
 We see thy gloom from day to day, 
 \Ve watch the serpent with its prey. 
 
 The poisonous sting and death it brings 
 To thee whose color is black, 
 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
The Tragedy. 67 
 
 Thy chastity was cast aside 
 
 To soothe the passions of evil tide 
 Who wedded not thy sorrowing, 
 
 Thou whose color is black, 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
 They pitied not the sorrow wrought, 
 
 But, demonlike, fought for hope 
 Of bondage, and misery s yoke. 
 
 For her whose color is black, 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaw r ay ! 
 
 Can there be those with minds so great 
 
 This dreadful sorrow could relate, 
 Save her, who suffered another s wrong? 
 
 Nay, she alone whose color is black, 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
 Then live thou on, O spirit, and trust! 
 
 It s better to wed the woes of dust 
 Than cast away the throne of love ! 
 
 Live on, thou soul in black. 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
 Build high, thy hope shall always live ; 
 
 Strive hard, thy soul shall fill 
 With conquering courage, dominant will, 
 
 Thou whose color is black, 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway! 
 
68 Our Inlicritancc. 
 
 Live thoti then for a brighter day ! 
 
 This woeful age shall pass away 
 Beyond the cliffs of sorrow s bounds. 
 
 Live on, thou soul in black, 
 The outlawed spirit, the castaway ! 
 
 I implore the honor of every honest man in behalf 
 of Justice and against the damnable curse of Jim Crow- 
 ism ! May womanhood, regardless of race or color, be 
 the matchless ideal of our national honor, and the splen 
 dor of her character reflect the greatness of our man 
 hood. 
 
 Bleeding, sorrowing, weeping heart, 
 A lay thy laden cross come light, 
 Thou heroine of earth s dark night ! 
 The world, shall see thy mission then, 
 Thy honor shall all men defend ! 
 That Arian hue upon thy face 
 Shall mark forever the unjust race. 
 Thy piteous soul ne er sinned. 
 
The Lawless Trend 
 
Chapter I ll. 
 
 HE strong shall protect the weak!" This is one of 
 the oldest axioms of law. The strong should 
 lead the weak ; but not with a rope around his neck, nor 
 the shackles of bondage about his feet ; but to right, to 
 light, to hope, to happiness and to usefulness. We may 
 as well stop building colleges if we are continually erect 
 ing saloons. The Nation spends many millions of dollars 
 annually for the education of her youth. And more 
 than two hundred and eighty millions is used in the 
 manufacture of liquor. More than that amount of money 
 is paid the l/nited States Government for revenue tax 
 and license ; and each state is burdened with extra tax 
 ation of millions of dollars because of the institutions 
 for the prosecution of crime. Are we to educate the 
 youth to drunkenness, hypocrisy and crime? 
 
 With the same malicious boldness, the white man en 
 tered China with opium and poisoned that nation, and 
 to-day we are killing the world s millions with rum. The 
 influence of rum is the curse of heathen Africa. Her 
 natives are cajoled by merchants with liquor into every 
 conceivable degradation. The influence of this poison 
 is the shame of that helpless nation, while the thieving 
 white man continues to plunder her soil with armies in 
 the name of Christianity and civilization. This, by allu 
 sion, is merely a reference to the lawless trend. At 
 home, as a result of the saloon license, our penitentiaries 
 
72 Our Inheritance 
 
 arc crowded, our asylums arc filled ; the fallen women 
 swarm like bees in the alleys and dungeons of disgrace. 
 If we are going to stop lawlessness we must begin where 
 it starts. Our pretenses of pride are false; our claim of 
 honor is base ; orr allusion to greatness is barren, while 
 in our midst we tolerate institutions of lying, liquor and 
 thieving. 
 
 In t .iis drama of wickedness, the plot, the cast and the 
 designing characters are white men, whose love of 
 money would bequeath to mankind a state of moral de 
 bauchery, a country of prostitutes, lunatics, criminals 
 and thieves. So ardent has been their zeal, that they 
 have included the Negro, that the last penny shall be 
 wrung from society to assist and to complete its de 
 struction. T don t believe in legal privileges that give 
 one man the power to make a criminal of another. The 
 Negro does not need a saloon. It would be an act of 
 humanity, a blessing to the race, an atonement to God, 
 if the authorities in every city in the Union, where liquor 
 is sold by the Negro, would revoke such license. Be 
 cause he (the Negro), being the weaker member of 
 society, needs every force, every dollar and every man 
 of his race to assist in building a defensive power in this 
 age of special competition. It has been said, "It is better 
 that the ninety and nine go free, than the conviction of 
 one innocent man." It is better that a few selfish mem 
 bers of the race be deprived of their business privilege, 
 if it calls for the sacrifice of their brother s honor, than 
 
The Lawless Trend. 73 
 
 that a single man or woman of that race should suffer by 
 such influence. 
 
 The toleration of degradation and crime in the Negro 
 race is against the wishes of her intelligent members. 
 The success of the Nation depends upon the enforce 
 ment of every law on the statute books against crime. 
 The criminal element of each race is adverse to progress ; 
 and the interest of civilization is conserved by honest, 
 fearless and expedient administration of Justice ; there 
 fore, let each man awake to duty, knowing the responsi 
 bility he owes to his home, his country and his God, 
 which requires Love, Honor and Truth; for what will 
 be an excuse for crime, will be a stain on the Nation s 
 honor. A successful government cannot be run as long 
 as the Nation is dishonest. The black man can assist the 
 white man, the white man can help the black man, if 
 the principles of right shall rule. If the dishonest Negro 
 is chosen by the white man for an honorable post, be 
 cause, as we say, "he can be used," what is the incen 
 tive for an honest man to upright conduct? 
 
 To be successful in this age, must a man be dishonest? 
 It is said by many that the black man is dishonest. Let 
 us see what is the incentive to make him honest. First, 
 lie meets the color line ; second, he has no capital ; and 
 third, he is outlawed from industrial arts by organized 
 labor, or the labor trust. He has nothing to start with; 
 his parents are poor; and, as we might say, they were 
 slaves and could give him no start. Fourth, he has an 
 education. A strange condition and one without paral- 
 
74 Our Inheritance. 
 
 lei. His education calls for better living ; it kindles the 
 fires of his latent forces, it renews his energies until 
 ambition arises to feel the keenest insult hurled in his 
 way. Like a plant, he tries to grow, but the soil around 
 him is barren : the color line, the empty pocket and the 
 labor trust. What can he do? He wishes to live, not 
 die. Often lie is forced to leave the sphere of his long 
 ing to trample restless in the ways of poverty in search 
 of bread. If he is employed as a porter, or a waiter, 
 or as a similar servant, he has no chance to rise. Porters 
 are always porters and waiters are always waiters. So, 
 then, wherever employed, he fails to reach the position 
 of trust. Is he honest, or is he dishonest? If dishonest, 
 then another crime shall be added to the long list of 
 indictments of the white race. Then if those who govern 
 will prevent the growth of this plant life, what shall the 
 future be? What shall the Negro do? The protection 
 and defense of home must be strengthened. Our privi 
 lege to honorable living must not be denied. One s 
 chances to become a man must increase with the age in 
 which he lives. 
 
 Would to God that idleness could be erased from the 
 face of the earth. It is the curse of any race or nation ! 
 With the Negro, as with the white man, we have this 
 element to contend with. The spirit of honest men should 
 be to force upon all society that condition which will 
 require of all men responsibilities and duties relative to 
 the condition of citizenship. The fact that a large popu- 
 
The Lawless Trend. 75 
 
 lation exists which refuses to assume the burden of 
 citizenship ought to bring forth rigid inquiry. 
 
 Moral cleanliness is as necessary as physical cleanli 
 ness. We may pave our streets, light our cities, establish 
 costly sewerage, build good roads, erect fine homes, busi 
 ness blocks, etc., and rigidly enforce the discipline of 
 public health, yet the work is but partly completed, and 
 will not be until we suppress the mites and kill the 
 vermin that affect the morals of our society. Beastly 
 institutions of immorality exist, and have found a lodge 
 ment under legal sanction ! Who says that criminal insti 
 tutions can be legalized ? Under what code does civili 
 zation license crime Under the right of Divine Law, 
 under the right of the Civil Code, all acts that are 
 prejudicial to the peace and dignity of society are punish 
 able by the rules of society. Therefore, those resorts 
 that exist for the folly and vice of mankind, those places 
 that establish prostitution, idleness and vicious pleasure, 
 those places that offer money for a woman s honor, 
 and sensuality for man s dignity, are the breeding places 
 of immoral beings and the last ditch this side of hell. 
 A nation without honor is the vilification of God! A 
 woman without virtue is the infamy of hell! And yet 
 we tolerate institutions among us that create them. So, 
 then, it is confirmed that the strong shall lead the weak 
 to right, to light, to happiness, and to usefulness. 
 
The Negro Soldier 
 
Chapter riff. 
 
 TO read the history of the negro soldier is to dwell 
 in Nature s sublimes! attitude. For deeds of chivalry 
 and heroism, history has failed to record events more 
 touching than those that relate to him a defender of 
 the Nation and a contestant for freedom. His instincts 
 for right have impelled his enlistment as a soldier in 
 every conflict of our times. 
 
 He was with Washington s army, with Jackson at New 
 Orleans, with Sherman at Atlanta, with Grant at Rich 
 mond. He was at Port Hudson, Milliken Bend, Fort 
 Pillow, Fort Wagner and Petersburg. He was with 
 Dewey at Manila, Sampson and Schley at Santiago, and 
 the American forces in the Philippines. His blind zeal 
 for duty leads him on to the Goal of Fame, where friend 
 and foe alike laud his valor. He was never a traitor, 
 nor a coward ; he was always cheerful and content in 
 the hours of trial ; he was ever immune to the hardships 
 of Fate; the miseries of war was but a trial of his en 
 durance. 
 
 On the brightest pages of history we see the name of 
 the noble Christopher Attucks and he a Negro and a 
 slave. Twas he who, with two others, shed the first 
 blood on the altar of Liberty for American independence. 
 I le, grand and sublime in his noble effort, helped to 
 withstand the attacks of the British and to overthrow 
 their tvrannical rule. One of the most thrillinsr battles 
 
SO Gnr Inheritance. 
 
 was fought on the fifth of April, 1770, that of the "Boston 
 Massacre," in which the Negro distinguished himself as 
 an American soldier. With the spirit of immortal free- 
 doom he cries, "The way to get rid of these soldiers i< 
 to strike at the main guard ! Strike at the root this 
 is the nest !" Thus the knot that held America a British 
 subject was severed once and forever! Then like wild 
 fire the spirit of freedom spread. More than 3000 
 Negroes fought for the Nation s independence in her 
 first struggle. 
 
 "The records of the War Department show that there 
 were 178,595 colored men regularly enlisted as soldiers 
 in the Union Army during the Rebellion, who, by good 
 conduct, established a commendable record, and did effi 
 cient service in camp, fortress and field. The first enlist 
 ment of the Negroes was by General Hunter in the De 
 partment of the South in June, 1862. It was made with 
 out authority from the War Department, and was due 
 to emergency." Thanks be to God that the mantle of 
 courage, bravery and honor was a test of the black man s. 
 He dared to face the cannon s mouth, defying death 
 for the institution of law and government. He trod the 
 bloody field of battle in hope of no reward save that the 
 "Flag of the Free" should never trail in the dust, and 
 willingly sacrified his blood for the honor of his country. 
 Twas a grand spectacle, these negro soldiers : a vast 
 army, equipped with the Nation s cannon and backed 
 by the principles of manhood. Ah ! they waited im 
 patient for the order to defend the Flag that had suf- 
 
The Negro Soldier. 81 
 
 {red their persecution. They felt that the stars of Old 
 Glory were as true as the stars that shine ; they knew 
 her crimson stripes were the token of the blood of fallen 
 heroes ; they knew that the blue was the purity of the 
 heavens. Hence, they never faltered, being righteous in 
 heart and true in hope. They looked beyond the dim 
 and tumult, and beheld the Glory of God and freedom of 
 mankind ! 
 
 When President Lincoln reviewed the black patriots 
 on their way to the field of battle, as they marched 
 through Washington, 20,000 strong, for the campaign of 
 Virginia, he was struck by their soldierly bearing, their 
 cheerful hopes for freedom and their Hurrahs for Mr. 
 Lincoln !" which meant the Union. The scene was 
 enough to kindle the soul to emotions of great pity, and 
 tears fell from the eyes of the noble Lincoln, who 
 had been converted to the belief that the slave should be 
 rewarded his freedom and that the question of the Union 
 was a question of. slavery. 
 
 Can any mind paint the picture of the deep enthusiasm 
 of the Negro soldier in 1862? Events followed events, 
 like the waves that sweep the restless sea. One day the 
 Negro was a slave with chains about his feet, the next 
 he was clad in the uniform of his country, and shortly he 
 became acclaimed a hero and a martyr. When the order 
 went forth giving him a citizen s right and a soldier s 
 honor, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. By what shall 
 we compare this new found hope of freedom? Shall it 
 not be exalted courage, heroism, ardent zeal and true 
 
82 Our Inheritance. 
 
 bravery? O, tell me, pray, where human impulse ever 
 beat with such deep penetration? Was this the spirit of 
 the troops of Caesar as they laid waste to Carthage? 
 Was it the courage of Hannibal and his million con 
 querors ? Was it the feeling of Napoleon s army in his 
 conquest of Europe? Was it the dominant will of 
 Lord Cornwallis" men ? The strength of the soldiers of 
 Frederick the Great? No! None other than the famed 
 heroism of George Washington and his patriots and 
 tiie Blacks themselves as they marched forth in their 
 immortal strength to defeat tyranny and oppression and 
 to uphold law, order and the American Flag. 
 
 Like shaft of light, from noon-day sun, 
 With efforts heroic, a battle won ! 
 Freedom kindled the black man s soul, 
 Justice his motto, Liberty his goal ! 
 Enthusiasm built her fires at last 
 Where courage held her strong and fast ! 
 
 His soul alive in battle array, 
 No strength e er this power could stay ! 
 The pent-up fury of raging storm 
 Sweeps its course from night till morn! 
 The thrill of ocean wave we see, 
 Awakes fond hope of liberty ! 
 
 His strength moved his whole being into one insepa 
 rable courageous manhood. Heroism was but a svnonvm 
 
The Nc^ro Soldier. 83 
 
 for his valor, but an allusion to his courage. Back of 
 him was the conviction of ultimate freedom for man 
 kind. 
 
 With such pent-up forces the Negro soldier entered 
 the battlefield, not with hollow mockery of soldier pomp, 
 but freedom and liberty imbued in his soul. Thus he 
 crowned the bloodstained field with the blood of a 
 martyr ! 
 
 When the first gun echoed the assault on Fort Sumpter, 
 he was ready, he was willing; and he begged to be en 
 listed as a defender of the Nation. And when the last 
 battle was fought he led the triumphant forces into 
 wreaths of victory. Generous as a soldier and magnani 
 mous as a foe, not chargeable to him is one deed of dis 
 honor. 
 
 After the grim roar of the deafening cannon at Peters 
 burg, the fame of the valiant negro troops was heralded 
 to .the world. Friends were jubilant, while foes were 
 astounded at the strength of his courage. When the 
 order "Charge !" went forth, not a man faltered. But 
 on, and on, to duty ! Freedom his reward ! When the 
 blood of the slave subdued the tyrant of slavery, Heaven 
 proclaimed, from her highest portals, universal freedom 
 for mankind ! 
 
 Twas a negro sergeant, William Casey, at Fort Wag 
 ner, carrying regimental colors of his battalion, who 
 ascended the wails of that fort and planted the colors 
 there. Amid shot and shell he kept the colors flying ! 
 He was wounded twice at his post, but when taken to 
 
Our Inlicritance. 
 
 the hospital where his comrades lay wounded they 
 cheered him and his colors ; and although he was nearly 
 exhausted from the loss of blood, he said, "Roys, the old 
 flag never touched the ground." In every engagement 
 the negro soldier was accredited with heroism. 
 
 On another occasion a negro sergeant, being com 
 manded to protect, defend and die for the Flag, rather 
 than surrender it, replied, "Colonel, I will bring these 
 colors back to you in honor or report to God the reason 
 why." At Port Hudson his colors were literally torn 
 to pieces by shot and bespattered with brains and blood, 
 and this noble hero died hugging the colors to his breast. 
 At the battle of Wilson s Wharf, when the word "Fire !" 
 went forth, southern chivalry quailed before the north 
 ern bullets by negro hands. Volley after volley rained 
 upon the superior by the inferior race, and "chivalry 
 broke to run." Thus endless are the deeds of honor 
 accredited to the negro soldier, who knows no cause 
 but Justice, and who loves no principle but right ! 
 
 We call attention to the time when the cry "Cuba 
 Libre" broke forth on the American tongue, and to the 
 well-known fact how the negro soldier eagerly sought 
 his place in advancing civilization. Thus proven is a 
 fact that righteous hope of freedom dwells in the black 
 man s soul. He organized to go forth in another land 
 that the ends of Justice might be secured to a nation of 
 down-trodden men. Again we see the sublime spectacle : 
 face to face with Death, he earns the honored crown 
 of hero. The battle of San Juan Hill is well known to 
 
The Negro Soldier. 85 
 
 every reader of history. Negro troops were first to plant 
 the Stars and Stripes on a Spanish fortress in Cuba. 
 With rousing enthusiasm they, the Twenty-fifth Infantry 
 (Negroes) charged the Spanish blockhouse at El Caney, 
 July 1.. 1898, and Private T. C. Butler, Company II, was 
 the first man to enter it and take possession of the Span 
 ish flag. This was a task of daring and courage that 
 heralded again the fame of the negro troops around 
 the world. ]t was near this place that the intrepid, reso 
 lute and fearless Theodore Roosevelt (now our ex-Presi 
 dent), with others, owe their lives to the brave conduct 
 of the negro regiments, the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry. 
 That the spirit of the African race, from which came 
 the negro soldier, possesses the deepest charms for lib 
 erty, that he has always vindicated that honor, I will 
 quote one of America s greatest thinkers : "There never 
 was a race held in actual chains that vindicated its own 
 liberty, but one. There never was a serf, nor a slave 
 whose own sword cut off his own chain, but one. Blue- 
 eyed, light-haired Anglo-Saxon, it was not our race. We 
 were serfs for three centuries ; and we waited until 
 commerce and Christianity and different laws had melted 
 our fetters. We were crowded down into a village 
 which crushed out our manhood so thoroughly that we 
 had not vigor left to redeem ourselves. Neither France 
 nor Spain, northern or southern races of Europe, have 
 that bright spot on their escutcheon, that they put an 
 end to their own slavery. Blue-eyed, haughty, con 
 temptuous Anglo-Saxon, it was the black, the only race 
 
86 Our Inheritance. 
 
 on record of history, even after a century of oppression, 
 retained the vigor to write the chapter of its emancipation 
 with its own , hand in the blood of the dominant race. 
 Despised, calumniated, slandered San Domingo is the 
 only instance in history where a race with indestructi 
 ble love of liberty, after bearing a hundred years of 
 oppression, rose up under their own leader and with their 
 own hands wrested chains from their own limbs. Wait, 
 garrulous, ignorant, boasting Saxon, till you have one- 
 half as much before you talk of the black race/ " 
 
The Negro s Faith 
 
Chapter IX. 
 
 HAYING shown that lawlessness comes as a part of 
 our inheritance, we will therefore consider with 
 equal care that which becomes a tribute to our trend 
 toward higher civilization. 
 
 First, Christianity: the right of religious freedom, 
 has found her greatest liberties in the United States. 
 The founders of this Government have shown their 
 wisdom, courage and genius in adopting a constitution 
 of religious tolerance ; therefore, the growth of religious 
 influence is commensurate with our development in every 
 line of progress. Assembled in every community are the 
 various sects of religious worship, without aught to 
 mar their activities. No racial conflict of sects, no dis 
 qualifications, or discords because of belief ; but for one 
 and the same end, to save the soul are their energies 
 bent. In fact, the tendencies are for a universal belief; 
 and, because of her freedom, the ascendency of Christian 
 influence becomes the general aim. 
 
 There is no question of vital importance which affects 
 the Nation that can be amicably and properly settled 
 without the influence of the church. This does not mean 
 that the church dominates politics, but her membership 
 and her influence are the strongest factors in modern 
 legislation. Then, instead of hindering progress, herself 
 both aggressive and free, she lends civilization her 
 greatest power. For naught would be a worth} aim, a 
 
90 Our Inheritance. 
 
 national law or a compact, unless imbued with deep Chris 
 tian principles ; thus Christianity benefits mankind. In 
 all we have 207,707 churches in the United States, with 
 32,283,658 communicants. It shows God s light and up 
 lifting- spirit, also progressiveness and strength. Thus we 
 behold a Christian era and a Christian nation. That our 
 record is unequaled, no one can dispute. From the 
 207,707 churches we see the grand spectacle of the negro 
 Christian progress. There are 23,770 Negro churches, 
 with seating capacity of six million, eight hundred thou 
 sand. It has 2,673,977 communicants ; this property is 
 valued at $26,626,448. This is the triumphant march 
 of progress since the birth of freedom ! Tis the songs 
 and prayers of these thousands in their praise to God 
 that revealeth to mankind the depth of Divine love. They, 
 like the patriots of old, from the mouth breatheth the 
 spirit of the soul. Hence, every one loves to hear the 
 Negro sing. In his sad moments the oracle of his voice 
 is the depth of sublime inspiration. We were quiet, 
 thoughtful and serene when from the stage he sang, 
 "Swing Low 7 , Sweet Chariot," and other melodies of 
 pathos, with such harmony and spirit until the world 
 was charmed with the beauty of the song even were 
 they sang in Europe. Again, in the pliant mood of hap 
 piness from him come the witticisms that startle all 
 with laughter. Ragtime is a distinct character of negro 
 genius and forms amusement for the world s millions. 
 In our spirit of joyfulness we hail this negro wit in 
 acclaimed happiness. It is this factor that marks the 
 
The Negro s Fai-lt. 91 
 
 Negroes usefulness in the development of this growing- 
 Nation. The Nation is not going backward, but for 
 ward. She contributes millions in money annually for 
 foreign missions showing the breadth of our love for 
 God and humanity. We hail His command, "Preach My 
 gospel unto every creature." The revelation of God s 
 spirit preserved the vital forces of the negro race during 
 its period in slavery. Divine Providence delivered him ! 
 And his strength to-day enables him to grapple with the 
 tide of modern progress. Christianity alone as an estate 
 for the white man and the black man insures American 
 progress, development and strength. What would the 
 world be without her Savior? What would the Nation 
 be without her God? All she has gained through cen 
 turies endless struggles, from barbarism to civilization, 
 from heathendom to Christianity, from primitive hut to 
 the palace of Arts, from the ox team to the veritable 
 moving palace propelled by steam and electricity, from 
 ancient to modern, would be lost unless maintained under 
 the light and influence of Christianity. 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 Onward! Onward! Forever on, 
 
 O, great Eternal light! 
 This earth redeem ! This earth redeem ! 
 
 From dim of pagan night. 
 Lead on, O light ! uplifting man 
 
 To ways of usefulness ; 
 As long as day doth follow night, 
 
 Shine forth Eternal lieht ! 
 
92 Onr Inheritance. 
 
 With 254,076 public schools and 16,641,970 pupils and 
 439,596 teachers, the picture eclipses all other nations in 
 magnitude of grandeur. Never before in the world s 
 history has education been the property of every man. 
 Nor can any man with a single thought imagine the 
 onward sweep of her power. 
 
 The tide of education, like the million waves of the 
 sea, carry us on and on and on. Perhaps, on the distant 
 shores of yonder horizon, the edifice of knowledge will 
 be the noon-tide of a generation of men, who in pride 
 and power will reduce this earth and her laws to that 
 final ecstatic life, where our civilization will reflect as 
 tiny raindrops from the clouds of Celestial Sunshine. 
 Education is the second bulwark of the Nation. 
 
 Of the. total number of 16,641,970 pupils attending 
 the public schools, more than a million are negro chil 
 dren; 1,096,734 attended public schools, 17,138 attended 
 higher schools of learning. If anyone doubts the sin 
 cerity of the Negro to become permanent and useful, 
 he need but visit his schoolroom. The pupils are bright, 
 enthusiastic, scholarly and hopeful. 
 
 Their instructors are courageous, brave and honorable. 
 With this balance of power bent upon upright conduct, 
 it is needless to say that this Nation will become freer 
 and nobler. Born in the school of adversities, reared in 
 the home of trials and the throes of poverty, with fortune 
 against him, he can but be strong for the conflict to 
 come. 
 
 We have already produced one of the greatest charac- 
 
The Negro s faith. 93 
 
 ters of the century, the lion. Booker T. Washington, a 
 genius, a scholar, a philosopher, and a gentleman ! To 
 his credit we must attribute the adoption of one of the 
 greatest schools of the century. And he is a Negro 
 and, furthermore, an ex-slave ! He is practical, thorough 
 and useful ; so much so, that the world to-day places upon 
 his head the honored crown of Doctor of Philosophy. 
 He has carved the hard stone of Fate and found the 
 instrument of man s most useful learning. To-day civili 
 zation is interested in the man and in his school. 
 
 Millions and millions annually are spent in the United 
 States, for the education of her youths scholarship in 
 America is as necessary as the air one breathes ; and as 
 we progress, it becomes more and more important. If 
 anyone doubts the future of America, we can but ask 
 his consideration of the fact, that each day sixteen mil 
 lion children soar higher and higher in mental develop 
 ment. Each day, we may say, illiteracy becomes more 
 and more extinct illustrating the power of courage, 
 freedom and independence. If, with all humility, each 
 day we would offer to our Creator our deepest prayer 
 for the departed heroes of American independence, it 
 would but faintly answer in tokens of gratitude our re 
 spect for the founders of this estate. Nature, how won 
 derful! The seas, the skies, the earth, and all are made 
 our useful agencies. The world was once to man obscure 
 and doubtful. He dreaded the seas ; the skies were a 
 mystery to him ; the earth was unknown. Hut, ah ! to-day, 
 
94 Our Inheritance. 
 
 as God intended it to be, they are the powers of our re 
 sourcefulness. 
 
 The printing press, the railroads and electricity mark 
 the days of modern progress. The seas, the skies, the 
 earth and all have proven their worth through science 
 to mankind. And her development continues. In scien 
 tific progress, America leads the world. 
 
 Our wealth can hardly be stated in figures, and 
 continues to grow. In 1907, the wealth of the United 
 States was $116,000,000,000. The causes of these teem 
 ing millions each year to our vast resources are Chris 
 tianity, science, industry and education. From a few 
 old wooden crafts in 1860 to the most splendid navy in 
 the world in 1908, is our advancement that astonishes 
 civilization. From Hampton Roads to San Francisco 
 we marshalled the greatest armada ever assembled under 
 one flag; and today the nations of the earth are greeting 
 this invincible force with acclamations of joy. Uncle 
 Sam, "policeman of the ocean," is not saying too much. 
 Above every Consulate in the world, wafted by the gentle 
 breeze of the tropics and sub-tropics, by the winds of the 
 Arctic and Antarctic, over forty-four States, over every 
 public building, over every schoolhouse, from the mast 
 head of a thousand ships in every clime, floats Old Glory ! 
 
 Wave on, O Flag of our bright hope 
 
 Neath bright and stormy skies ! 
 Wave on, our greatest powers awake 
 
 As rich thy colors fly. 
 
The Negro s Faith. 95 
 
 No greater gift could God give man. 
 
 Or, man to man e er give ; 
 By every hope She s blessed to live. 
 
 Wave on, for every man ! 
 
 Since the days of Washington, the Nation has shown 
 a growing strength of independence, a spirit of progress 
 and an aptitude for right and Justice. At times clouds 
 of doubt have arisen to obscure the light. Men with 
 destructive tendencies have come forth with treason in 
 their hearts and destruction in their minds. But, like 
 the pyramids of Egypt, the foundation of our State was 
 built to stand the test. Scarcely was her foundation laid, 
 when came the onslaught of cannon and fire. But ah ! her 
 foundation work was built upon the principles of self- 
 conviction in the hearts of honest men : hence, it remained 
 secure and firm. And the severity of the test only deep 
 ened the purpose of truthful minds to build higher, nobler 
 and broader. 
 
 The pyramids of Egypt are built of stone, but the pyra 
 mids of the American Government are the noble prin 
 ciples of freedom built upon the hearts and deeds of 
 honest men. The skill of the architect who erected these 
 giant pyramids for the Pharoahs was no greater than 
 the skill of the statesmen who compiled the American 
 Constitution for the American citizen. The former 
 planned with the brains of a thousand preceding years. 
 Their plans were the genius of a pre-historic man. Our 
 plan is the conformation of the world s greatest patriots 
 
and thinkers, and dates from time immemorial. Their 
 structure outlived a thousand generations ; ours will with 
 stand the coming ages. When we gaze upon her mighty 
 columns, we are struck by their grandeur ; when the 
 future generations shall look upon our Constitution, a 
 monument of human greatness, they will be inspired by 
 its magnificence. Let Egypt s pyramids forever stand as 
 an example of her civilization ; and the American Consti 
 tution live through God s eternity. Then let us pay 
 to the world our gratitude ; to the old and to the new. 
 For our victorious struggle for independence, to God we 
 will give thanks ; for a successful struggle for the Union 
 to Him we will give praise ; for our pilgrimage from a 
 slave-ridden British subject to a nation of free thinking 
 men, we shall bow in fervent worship to Him the Ruler 
 of the Universe, and declare Washington, Jefferson r 
 Adams, Monroe, Franklin et al., the builders of the 
 American pyramids ! 
 
 Our great men of today, Theodore Roosevelt, William 
 H. Taft, Booker T. Washington, Andrew Carnegie, Pier- 
 pont Morgan, C. W. Elliott of Harvard, John D. Rocke 
 feller, E. H. Harriman, T. A. Edison, are the exponents 
 of American energy and progressivencss. 
 
 A man should be proud of his birth as an American 
 citizen. He should be enthusiastic as a freeholder of 
 this great estate. It should be his aspiration to transmit 
 to his posterity this inheritance in its entirety, more 
 advanced, freer .and nobler, with not a single act of his 
 
The Negro s Paiih. 97 
 
 life to blight her honor, nor a thought which might 
 recoil against her greatness. 
 
 Jim Crowism, anarchism and all forms of disloyalty 
 should not present a serious problem to honest men. In 
 the future, as in the past, we have "steadily gained an 
 ascendency over mere brutal force ; and irrepressible 
 are the powers of moral suasion which emanate from the 
 grandeur of the Nation s pyramids . 
 
Philosophy of Nature 
 
Chapter X. 
 
 O sing, ye muses sing, for joy! 
 The gladdened springtime praise. 
 
 WITH the Negro this is springtime. A newer life 
 his soul doth sing. Nature bids him come forth 
 again. O, Nations, heed his coming! You may strive 
 with resolute power, you may hope with all of human 
 aspirations, you may portray with genius and paint with 
 sublime touch, but you cannot rob the sun of his glory, 
 nor the stars of their brightness, nor vegetation of its 
 budding beauty. So with the Negro, human strength, 
 all genius combined, cannot destroy the soul that lives 
 within. 
 
 In bondage youth he silent gave, 
 His mind alert on future gaze ; 
 For shackles knew he soon must break, 
 And life anew his soul awake. 
 
 Like the Sun and the Stars, the powers of the universe 
 are behind his efforts, his purpose and his will ; so, there 
 fore, he, too, must thrive. Then, O God, let Thy sun 
 and Thy stars forever shine forth in their glory ! Let 
 each tree and each flower bloom forth in Thy splendor, 
 let vegetation bud forth in Thy sweetness, and at last 
 shall humanity come forth : the white man and the black 
 man with advancing civilization in the fullness of Thy 
 
102 Ou? Inheritance. 
 
 eternal law ! Let race prejudice live in its decaying 
 palace and crumbling walls ! Let it thrive its ill-timed 
 life of vaunted pride in the jungle of small men s brains. 
 Prejudice, unsustained by reason, or principle, is with 
 out support of Nature s simplest rule and cannot sur 
 vive the fixed laws of the universe. 
 
 Its powers dwindle like the light of a fading sun ; not 
 the light of tomorrow, but the one of yesterday. 
 
 It appeals to the emptiness of caste, which sees not 
 the beauty of the Eternal. Neither by its strength nor 
 power shall it sway the opinion of mankind. Like the 
 dimness of the parting sun, its wormeaten sceptre wasting 
 will die. It shall pass away to the skies of the unknown. 
 
 I am bound by the decrees of Heaven to ask and 
 demand Justice as a recognition of merit ! And I ask 
 the wisdom of mankind to confirm that plea! It is not 
 the advancement of the Negro so much as it is the 
 advancement of civilization I ask. Let him go ahead 
 so that he will not hinder progress. A million youth 
 ful eyes today are watching, waiting, eager to bloom 
 forth a new life of usefulness to bless this, earth in the 
 sweetness of their lives. Shall their coming be? 
 
 O cherished sweetness, month of May ! 
 Thy peeping buds have fullest sway ; 
 Our open hearts and loving hands 
 Smile and greet thy coming bands. 
 
 It is not a question of which race will dominate in 
 America, but a question of the principles of the men 
 
Philosophy of Nature. 103 
 
 who rule. The southern white man bears a deep resem 
 blance to the Indian in this comparison. It is said, that 
 when the Indian showed the white man Niagara Falls, 
 he uttered in his dialect the superstition of his race. 
 The southern white man in speaking of the Negro, 
 writing about the Negro, and lecturing about the Negro, 
 repeats in his dialect the superstition of his race. Well, 
 if you compare the Indian s superstition in his ignorance 
 of the great Niagara with the ignorance and superstition 
 of the southern white man concerning the great poten 
 tial poxvers of the black race, we should have enough 
 philosophy to keep us laughing a year. 
 
 Niagara today furnishes light for twenty million people, 
 and motive power for the largest manufacturing center 
 in the world. Its capability is that of many thousand 
 tons of fuel energy of coal every year, which represents 
 millions of dollars annually to the wealth of New York 
 state. The Indian w r as afraid of this abundance of 
 wealth. It required brains and intellect to develop the 
 powders of Niagara, this inexhaustible supply of one-time 
 wasted energy. 
 
 So with the Negro, the southern Niagara, brains and 
 intelligence must come forth to develop this inexhaust 
 ible supply of wasting pow r er. Chain to him education ; 
 control the useful factors of his energies with honest 
 legislation, just as capitalists have proven their wisdom 
 in building levees and machinery to control Niagara. 
 
 It is the vigorous spirit of progression which develops 
 brains instead of fear, that made Niagara one of the 
 
104 Our Inheritance. 
 
 principal wealth creators of the world. It was the appli 
 cation of that intelligence that made the wasting energies 
 of a mighty river the magic power of excessive wealth. 
 It is this characteristic of Xew York state that makes 
 her the world s money market. People go to New York 
 to get ideas. How about the Niagara of the South? A 
 mighty flow of human energy wasting ! They fear it ! 
 They hate it ! The roar of its wasting energies is the 
 nightmare of impending doom ! A thousand times stronger 
 than Niagara, these hardened muscles of ten million peo 
 ple, alert, active, alive, ready for the interposition of 
 useful brains. With this vast power of energy, why not 
 the South, like New York, harness her wealth with brains 
 and steel, and let this energy develop the resourcefulness 
 of her fertile soil ? 
 
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