Take the next point in the logic of the political leaders. It is a fact of common knowledge in history that aristocracies cannot long survive when free education is permitted among all classes of people. Education is more potent against oligarchies and aristocracies than dynamite bombs. Every aristocracy that has survived has had to monopolise learning more or less completely--else it went to the wall. It is not surprising that there should have been no effective public-school system in the South before the war where the poor whites could get an education, or that the teaching of Negroes was in many states a crime punishable by law. Education enables the Negro, as Mr. Lane says, to "ascertain his rights and force his way to assert them." Therefore to prevent his ascertaining his rights he must not be educated. The undivided supremacy of the white party, it is clearly discerned, is bound up with Negro ignorance. Therefore we have seen and are now seeing in certain parts of the South continuous agitation against the education of Negroes. That is one reason for the feeling in the South against "Northern philanthropy" which is contributing money to support Negro schools and colleges. "What the North is sending South is not money," says Vardaman, "but dynamite; this education is ruining our Negroes. They're demanding equality." _A Southern View of Negro Education_ When I was in Montgomery, Ala., a letter was published in one of the newspapers from Alexander Troy, a well-known lawyer. It did not express the view of the most thoughtful men of that city, but I am convinced that it represented with directness and force the belief of a large proportion of the white people of Alabama. The letter says: All the millions which have been spent by the state since the war in Negro education ... have been worse than wasted. Should anyone ask "Has not Booker Washington's school been of benefit to the Negro?" the so-called philanthropists of the North would say "yes," but a hundred thousand white people of Alabama would say "no."... Ask any gentleman from the country what he thinks of the matter, and a very large majority of them will tell you that they never saw a Negro benefited by education, but hundreds ruined. He ceases to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water.... Exclude the air and a man will die, keep away the moisture and the flower will wither. Stop the appropriations for Negro education, by amendment to the Constitution if necessary, and the school-house in which it is taught will decay. Not only that, but the Negro will take the place the Creator intended he should take in the economy of the world--a dutiful, faithful, and law-abiding servant.