Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, July 1899: Volume LV, No. 3, July 1899Various
Religion
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, July 1899: Volume LV, No. 3, July 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The average Southern white man has the idea to-day that if the negro
were permitted to get any political power all the mistakes of the
reconstruction period would be repeated. He forgets or ignores the
fact that thirty years of acquiring education and property and
character have produced a higher type of black man than existed thirty
years ago.
But to be more specific for all practical purposes, there are two
political parties in the South--a black man's party and a white man's
party. In saying this, I do not mean that all white men are Democrats,
for there are some white men in the South of the highest character who
are Republicans, and there are a few negroes in the South of the
highest character who are Democrats. It is the general understanding
that all white men are Democrats, or the equivalent, and that all
black men are Republicans. So long as the color line is the dividing
line in politics, so long will there be trouble.
The white man feels that he owns most of the property, furnishes the
negro most of his employment, that he pays most of the taxes, and,
besides, has had years of experience in government. There is no
mistaking the fact that the feeling which, in some way, has heretofore
taken possession of the negro--that to be manly and stand by his race
he must oppose the Southern white man with his vote--has had much to
do with intensifying the opposition to him.
The Southern white man says that it is unreasonable for the negro to
come to him, in a large measure, for his clothes, board, shelter, and
education, and for his politics to go to men a thousand miles away.
The Southern white man argues that when the negro votes he should in a
larger measure try to consult the interests of his employer, just as
the Pennsylvania employee tries to vote for the interests of his
employer.
The Southern white man argues, further, that much of the education
which has been given the negro has been defective in not preparing him
to love labor and to earn his living at some special industry, and
has, in too many cases, resulted in tempting him to live by his wits
as a political creature, or by trusting to his "influence" as a
political timeserver.
Then there is no mistaking the fact that much opposition to the negro
in politics is due to the circumstance that the Southern white man has
not got accustomed to seeing the negro exercise political power,
either as a voter or as an officeholder. Again, we want to bear it in
mind that the South has not yet reached the point where there is that
strict regard for the enforcement of the law against either black or
white men that there is in many of our Northern and Western States.
This laxity in the enforcement of the laws in general, and especially
of criminal laws, makes such outbreaks as those in North Carolina and
South Carolina of easy occurrence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, July 1899: Volume LV, No. 3, July 1899 — John Shaqi
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