RALEIGH, N. C, WEDNESDAY, MARCH II. 1903.
JOSIAH WIlrUAM BAILEY, Editor
f
VOLUME 68, NUMBER 36.
WHERE LIBERTY HAS BEEN LOST.
Deeper Tights than the right to vote or to be
president are the rights that the right to vote was
given to protect the right to work, the right to
burn coal, or to buy food without paying tax to
any baron of the realm or of finance, and the right
to worship God. If one is taxed with representa
tion as a citizen but is taxed without representa
tion as a consumer of food or a producer of en
ergy, or if one may have his vote counted with
13,000,000 others but cannot stop work to rest or
worship on Sunday, he should not be greatly
blamed for taking no extraordinary joy in his
f rcedom.
The average man would rather live freely than
vote freely; and, we venture, all but a very few
would give up voting before they would give up
living. And so when you give a man unlimited
freedom to vote, but put his coal, his food, his
money, his work, his body's and soul's necessities
in the hands of other men, you do him small favor
and leas honor. There are ten thousand chances
lhat his life his necessities, his absolute need of
food and work and life will slaughter his vote be
fore his vote can make way for his life. For, af
ter all, it is not one vote that counts, but the ma
jority 6,000,000 or more. And how is the man
to subsist while 6,000,000 fellows get in mind with
him, many in no such condition as he, and some
more immediate need? Bread comes before
in
citizenship as a necessity of life. Who rules my
broad is my king.
The attack upon American liberty has not been
made at the point of the ballot. Oh, we have
guarded that with the jealousy of children. Ilad
if been made at this point, it would have been like"
murder in the ..market-place... But the attack has
been made at the point of the necessaries of life.
Instead of taking life, they gained control of the
necessaries of life; instead of taking liberty, they
took charge of the conditions that govern liberty;
instead of taking property, they have merely ar
ranged to fix its value to suit themselves.
This attack made at the point of the neces
saries of life has succeeded. If we have the neces
saries of life, it is by grace and high prices. If
we art; not in the midst of a terrible panic, it is
because Mr. Morgan not we does not wish for
one just now. If we get ten cents for cotton or
tobacco, it is because the men that control the
market are willing to pay so much. While citi
zens have taken their liberty out in voting the
ticket and hurrahing for the candidate, in shoot
ing off fire-works the Fourth of July and raising
children for the presidency, the essential condi
tions of liberty have been stolen away. They
went with the oil supply, the food supply, the meat
supply, the coal supply, the work supply, the
money supply they went in the fall of the market-place,
the citadel of civilization.
But it is only an eclipse. Democracy will come
out on the other side, brighter than ever. One
cannot be blind to the fact that our country has
fallen into the hands of several monopolies; but
that we have yet the power of recovery and that
we shall recover, we have no doubt. Only let us
neither blind ourselves to the fact that monopo
lies do exist and that they are a menace and a
wrong, nor go wild with foolish notions and
schemes. This is no time to make political capi
tal. The men who relieve this evil will not do it
aa politicians. A steady and a thoughtful line of
action, relentless opposition and vigilance and
careful selection of our leaden will surely carry
us back to the purposes for which our government
wa9 formed. For the present the land is prosper
ous and conditions not as bad. by anymeans.as
they might be. We may take pleasure in this, but '
it should not solace us for the real loss of funda
mental human rights. Already we have been too
easily content with superficial conditions, or too
easily aroused by mere variations of the same.
We must look to the profounder conditions of life1
if we would guard our civilization; and neither
prosperity nor adversity should deter us from our
inspection of them and our zeal to right them and
improve them.
SENATOR HOAR ON THE SOUTH.
Senator Hoar is the most respected member of
the United States Senate. By length of service
and by a record of integrity, ability and faithful
ness unsurpassed he has commanded the respect
of the entire Nation. He is a typical New Eng
lander, and his point of view is far removed from
that of a Southerner. But as the years have
passed, the Senator has mellowed with sympathy.
In a recent speech he uttered the sentiments sub
mitted below, which should go not only to touch
us with a kindly feeling for the aged Senator, but
also go to reassure us that we are a Nation "one
and indissoluble":
"I know how sensitive our Southern friends are
on this matter of social equality and companion
ship, and I think I might say fairly and properly
and that perhaps I have a right to say it that
it is not wise for the people of the North to un
dertake to deal rashly or even to judge hastily of
a feeling so deeply implanted in their bosoms.
"Time, the great reconciliator, will reconcile
them to that if in the nature of things and in the
nature of man they ought to be reconciled to it.
And if in the nature of things and in the nature
of man time does not reconcile them, it will be a
sign that they ought not to be reconciled to it ;
and that some other mode of life for them must
be devised.- -- -fl.- ,(f...j..
.... jj"ow my fr,'enogf having said what I thought
to say on this question, perhaps I may be indulged
in adding that although my lite politically and
personally ha3 been a life of almost constant
strife with the leaders of the Southern people, yet
as I grow older I have learned not only to respect
and esteem, but to love the great qualities which
belong to my fellow-citizens of the Southern
States. They are a noble race. We may well take
pattern from them in some of the great virtues
which make up the strength as they make the
glories of the free State. Their love of home;
their chivalrous respect for women; their cour
age; their delicate sense of honor; their constan
cy; which can abide by an opinion or a purpose or
an interest for their States through adversity and
through prosperity, through the years and
through the generations, are things by which the
people of the more mercurial North may take a
lesson. And there is another thing covetousness,
corruption, the low temptation of money has not
yet found any place in our Southern politics.
"Now my friends, we cannot afford to live, we
don't wish to live, and we do not live, in a state
of estrangement from a people who possess these
qualities. They are friends of ours, bone of our
bone; flesh of our flesh; blood of our blood, and
whatever may be the temporary error of any
Southern State, I for one, if I have a right to
speak for Massachusetts, say to her, 'Entreat me
not leave thee nor to return from following after
thee. For where thou goest I will go and where
thou stayest, I will stay also. And thy people
shall be my people, and thy God my God.' "
5PRINO. !
"Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers."
FAILURE.
Not always is it he who wins his way
Through proud achievement to his worldly goal,
Upon whose shoulders falls the sacred stole
Of sweet serenity when wanes life's day, , -Oft
times the weary who beneath the sway .
Of so-called failure would give up his role,. '
Has risen through the gloom with strengthened
soul, . ,
And caught the gleam of some diviner ray. ;
Failure, success, are terms but relative; ,.
They are not measured in the Mind Divine
By such poor standards as our earthly are.
Who patient through apparent failure live
Are like the watcher who, at sun-decline,
As daylight fades beholds the even star.
Herman Montague Donner.
niND THE PLOWED O ROUND I
He convulsed his hearers by describing the first
railway locomotive he ever saw. He thought a
railroad was simply a road made out of rails, ne
got in a long cut when he heard the train coming.
He ran like a deer to get out of that cut. He had
often likened himself to a Western boy who had
plowed close up to the railroad track. He had
never seen a tra'in before, and when one came in
sight he took the track and down it he sped. The
engineer blew the whistle and rung his bell, but
the boy would not leave the track. Finally he
stopped, and going up to the boy, who sat puffing
and blowing on the ground, he said, "Why didn't
you get off the track ?"
"I knowed," the boy replied, "that you'd ketch
me if I ever got out in that plowed ground."
From a speech by F. O. McConnelL
THE CITY NEQRO HIS EDUCATION.
The status of the city negro seems to furnish
a contradiction of the prevalent belief that edu
cation will solve the race problems. Experience
seems to show that the problems grow in difficulty
as general intelligence increases. This is no dis
credit to education nor a derogation of its func
tion. It simply shows that the case was wrongly
diagnosed in the first instance. In the city of
Washington, and in a corresponding degree the
same may be said of other cities, the educational
facilities for colored children are practically as
good as any offered the most favored class of chil
dren anywhere on the face of the earth. These
schools have been crowded for a quarter of a
century and have now more than fifteen thousand
in attendance, a higher average than prevails in
the white schools. And yet the race problem at
the national capital is not solved. It is mild
criticism of negro education to say that it has not
had satisfactory reaction upon the mas3 life of the
race.
It is on this account that there has recently
sprung up such a widespread movement to modify
the plan and policy of negro education so as to
bring it into closer relation to those for whom it is
designed. The present programs of instruction
were adapted to the neecU and circumstances of
white youth rather than to those of the negro. It
cannot be considered a compliment to any race to
measure its requirements by that of another, but
its educational programs should be interpretable
in terms of its own needs and circumstances. The
courses of study in city schools cannot be wisely
readjusted until we have made a careful study
of the lines of employment in which negroes are
engaged and are likely to be engaged for yearsto
come. Kelly Miller in the January Southern
Workman. "'
TO THE HERETIC-HUNTERS.
"Who art thou that judgest another's servant t
-To his own lord he stands.ar. fallal From Eaul,!',
the Apostle.
By thy own soul's law learn to live
And if mn" thwart thee take no heed,
And if men hate thee have no care;
Sing thou. thy song and do thy deed,
Ilope-thou thy-hope-and pray-thy prayer.
Packenham Beatty.