I'V-

Cb9
376

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Race Problems of the South

REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST
ANNUAL CONFERENCE HELD UNDER
THE AUSPICES OF

The Southern Society for the Promotion
of the Study of Race Condi
tions and Problems in
the South

. . . AT . . •.
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
MAY 8, 9, 10, A. D. igoo

Published for The Southern Society
BY THE

xSALD-
M. Falkner,
-^n Murphy.

B. F. JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY
Richmond, Virginia.

Copyrighted 1900 by
The Southern Society for the Promotion of the Study of Race Condi
tions and Problems in the South.

Ct33'4

THE SOUTHERN SOCIETY.
PRESIDENT.
The Hon. Hilary A. Herbert, Washington, D. C.
VICE-PRESIDENTS.
For Alabama — The Hon. James Weatherley, Birmingham.
For Arkansas — The Hon. Clifton E. Breckinridge, Pine Bluffs.
For the District of Columbia — The Hon. J. L. M. Curry, LL. D.,
Washington.
For Florida — The Hon. W. A. Blount, Pensacola.
For Qeorgia — The Hon. Clark Howell, Atlanta.
For Kentucky — The Very Eev. Charles Ewell Craik, D. D.,
Louisville.
For Louisiana — Professor J. E. Ficklin, Tulane University, New
Orleans.
For Mississippi — Chancellor E. B. Fulton, Oxford.
For Missouri — The Eev. John F. Cannon, D. D., St. Louis.
For North Carolina — The Hon. Henry E. Fries, Winston-Salem.
For South Carolina — The Hon. J. C. Hemphill, Charleston.
For Teiinessee — President Charles W. Dabney, LL.D., Knox
ville. ' _^
For Texas — The Hon. Joseph D. Sayers, Austin.
For Virginia — The Hon. J. Hoge Tyler, Eichmond.
For West Virginia — The Hon. William A. MagCorkle, Charles
ton. SECRETARY.
The Rev. Edgar Gardner Murphy, Montgomery, Alabama. ¦
TREASURER.
Frederick S. Ball, Moses Building, Montgomery, Alabama.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
Francis G. Capfey, Eev. Neal L. Anderson, B. J. Bald
win, Chappell Cory, Eev. George B. Eager, J. M. Falkner,
J. B. Gaston, Charles Moritz, Eev. Edgar Gardner Murphy.

• EXPLANATORY.

The full title of the organization is, "A Southern Society for
the Promotion of the Study of Eace Conditions and Problems in
the South," and, according to its Constitution, "The object of this
Society shall be to furnish by means of Correspondence, Publication,
and particularly through Public Conferences, an organ for the
expression of the varieji and even antagonistic convictions of repre
sentative Southern men on the problems growing out of the race
conditions obtaining in the South; and thus to secure a broader
education of the public mind as to the facts of the situation, and
a better understanding of the remedies for existing evils;" The
Society has, therefore, no "objective" except that education of the
public mind, North and South, which must result from frank and
full discussion. This discussion, however, is not to be merely oral,
as some have assumed. The Society is also to depend for its influ
ence on correspondence and on publication. As represented by its
Executive Committee at the Central Office in Montgomery, it hopes
to deal with the questions of public interest connected with race
problems at the South, through letters to individuals and the press.
It purposes also to issue from time to time papers and addresses
upon different phases of these problems. This literature will be as
representative as the Conference itself.
As it is the desire of the Society to ascertain the truth and the
whole truth, any paper, by a Southern man that seems to be a real
contribution to the subject, will be carefully weighed by the Execu
tive Committee, with a view to its acceptance and free circulation
throughout the South, irrespectiA'e of the agreement of the members
of the Committee with the opinions it may represent.
The object of these publications is to create, within the South
itself, a popular literature on the subject — a literature representa
tive of the soil and the people, a literature which will interpret ,the
South both to the world and to itself.
The address of the Secretary of the Executive Committee
is P. 0. Box 370, Montgomery, Alabama. Those who may wish
to aid the development of the work of the Society may send their
contributions to Frederick S. Ball, Treasurer, Moses Building,
Montgomery, Alabama.

CERTIFICATE.
This is to certify that the accompanying volume is the Official
Report of the First Annual Conference of the Southern Society for the
Promotion of the Study of Eace Conditions and Problems in the South,
and that^this Eeport is duly authorized by the Executive Committee.
[Signed.1 Francis G. Caffey, Chairman.
Edgar Gardner Murphy, Secretary.
Neal L. Anderson.
B. J. Baldwin.
Chappell Coey.
George B. Eager.
J. M. Falkner.
J. B. Gaston.
Charles F. Moritz.

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OF THE
Southern Society for the Promotion of
the Study of Race Conditions and
Problems in the South.
(Approved by the Society at Montgomery, Ala., May 9, 1900.)
On January 4, 1900, the following letter was addressed to about
twenty-five representative citizens of Montgomery:
My Dear Sir — The undersigned take the liberty of addressing you
with reference to a plan which we believe to be fraught with great good to
the South and to Montgomery; and we earnestly request an interested and
considerate reading of the statement which follows :
As Southern men, we feel that any real solution of our race problem
can be best approached by the people of the South themselves, and under the
leadership of those forces which represent the dominant influences of our
own section. We have realized, however, that there is as yet among us no
parliament either of men or of ideas. There is no general organ or institu
tion through which the varied aspects of Southern conviction can gain ex
pression. Believing, as we do, in the value of debate and in the uses of
argument, we think that a conference of Southern men upon this subject
will have a deep and far-reaching influence up6n our public opinion. This
conference, if successful, might be held each year, and might become our
recognized organ for the expression of Southern sentiment in relation to
the most vital of Southern problems. In order that it may command in the
fullest sense the interest and the confidence of our people, we should prefer
to have its sessions open to the abler and more responsible advocates of the
various conflicting opinions which obtain among us. We should like to see
this conference deal with such subjects as the relation of the Negro to the
franchise, the relation of the Negro to education and to religion, and the
relation of the Negro to the social order (including a discussion of the
lynching question). We see no reason why this conference should not
become national in its interests and its influence, and as citizens of Mont
gomery, we see no reason why Montgomery should not become its annual
home. (7)

^ The Montgomery Conference.
If the first conference can be held here in the month of May in the
present year, it will be necessary for us to attempt at once its preliminary
organization. The task is one of magnitude, but we believe that the citizens
of Montgomery, if they will work together in its behalf, can successfully
accomplish it. As an initiatory step, we suggest a committee of twenty-five
to take the general subject under immediate consideration, and we ask you
to become one of this committee. The first meeting of this committee is
appointed for the lecture-room of the Central Presbyterian Church, corner
of Washington and Lawrence streets, at 8 o'clock on the evening of Mon
day, January 8, 1900.
The possibilities' of such a conference to the South ; to the business as
well as to the moral and educational interests of Montgomery, will then be
outlined more fully and more clearly. Will you not at least attend the
meeting in person and give the subject a careful hearing?
Very sincerely, George B. Eager.
Neal L. Anderson.
J. B. Gaston.
B. J. Baldwin.
W. F. Vandiver.
Edgar G. Murphy.
In response to the invitation in this letter, there was a meeting
at the Central Presbyterian Church in Montgomery, on the even
ing of January 8, of which Judge J. B. Gaston was Chairman, and
Professor C. L. Floyd Secretary. Addresses were made by Judge
Gaston, Eev. Edgar G. Murphy, Captain J. M. Falkner, Mayor E.
B. Joseph, Rev. George B. Eager, Mr. Jacob Greil, Professor C. L.
Floyd, Mr. L. L. Gilbert, Col. F. G. Caffey, Major W. W. Screws,
Eev.' Neal L. Anderson and Dr. B. J. Baldwin. It was the sense
of the meeting that an organization should be perfected to carry out
the purposes set forth in the above letter.
Upon motion of Dr. Baldwin, the Chair was requested to
appoint an Executive Committee, including the Chairman as a
member, to arrange for the work of various sub-committees, and
to prepare the details of a definite plan of action. The following
were selected on the understanding that the Executive Committee
was to elect its own presiding officer : Eev. Neal L. Anderson, Dr.
B. J. Baldwin, Col. F. G. Caffey, Mr. Chappell Cory, Eev. George
B. Eager, Captain J. M. Falkner, Hon. J. B. Gaston, Mr. Jacob
Greil and Eev. Edgar Gardner Murphy.
The Executive Committee had several meetings, and formu
lated a statement of plans and policies, and a constitution, which
were submitted to the full committee of twenty-five on the evening
of January 20, 1900. This committee organized itself into "A
Southern Society for the Promotion of the Study of Eace <;iondi-
tions and Problems in the South," and the Society adopted the
following Constitution :

Report of the Executive Cojnmittee. g
ARTICLE I.
name.
The name of this organization shall be: A Southern Society for the
Promotion of the Study of Race Conditions and Problems in the South.
ARTICLE II.
OBJECT.
_The object of this Society shall be to furnish by means of correspond
ence, PUBLICATION, and particularly through public conferences, an
organ for the expression of the varied and even antagonistic convictions of
representative Southern men on the problems growing out of the race
conditions obtaining in the South, and thus to secure a' broader education
of the public mind as to the facts of the situation and a better understand
ing of the remedies for existing evils.
ARTICLE III.
membership.
Section i. Southern men of every creed and political party shall be
eligible to membership in the Society.
Sec 2. Members may be elected at any regular meeting of the Society
or of the Executive Committee. ARTICLE IV.
organization and administration.
Section i. ' The officers of the Society shall consist of a President, one
Vice-President for each State represented in the Society, a Secretary and a
Treasurer to be elected at the annual meeting of the Society.
Sec. 2. The administration of the Society in the interim between
meetings shall be in the hands of a local executive committee of nine
members, to be elected by the Society.
Sec 3. The members of the Executive Committee shall be residents
of the City of Montgomery, Alabama, which city shall be the Headquarters
of the Society.
Sec 4. A majority of the members of the Executive Committee shall
constitute a quorum.
Sec S- This Executive Committee shall have authority to disburse
the funds of the Society, to fix the time and place of meeting of the
Society and of the Conferences, and to prepare the programs and appoint
the speakers for these Conferences.
Sec 6. This Committee shall be authorized also to determine the
.number and qualifications of delegates, and to appoint delegates to the
Conferences, and in every way through correspondence and the Press shall
endeavor to further the interests of the Society.

IO The Montgo-mery Conference.
Sec 7. The Executive Committee shall be empowered further to
perfect its own organization, and to provide such other executive officers as
may be necessary to transact the business of the Society.
Sec 8. This Committee shall make full and complete reports to the
annual meeting of the Society. ARTICLE V.
amendments.
This Constitution shall be subject to amendment only at an Annual
Meeting of the Society, and then only by a three-fourths affirmative vote
of the members present.
The Society also authorized the issuance of an official statement
of its plans and policies, as follows :
OFFICIAL STATEMENT.
At a recent meeting of a committee of twenty-five, selected from the
representative men of Montgomery, it was resolved to inaugurate in May
next a series of annual meetings in this city for discussion, in the interest
of both elements of our population, of various phases of our race problems
in the South. The undersigned were appointed as an executive committee,
and they make the following brief statement of the general policies of the
proposed conference. A SOUTHERN INSTITUTION.
We feel that much of true progress in connection with our racial
difficulties has been embarrassed by the fact that the leadership of
Southern opinion has been too largely attempted merely from the North.
The solution of our problems in the South must come from the Southern
people themselves. We are persuaded that the people of the South are best
fitted by knowledge and experience to deal with these difficulties intelligently
and helpfully. Suggestions from the North, offered with the best motives,
have frequently been based upon inadequate acquaintance with our condi
tions.
A COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAM.
We wish to create a perfectly free arena for the expression of every
serious phas^ of Southern opinion. We shall not expect the speakers in
this conference to agree, for we are not agreed ourselves, on the variqus
questions to be presented. We belieye, however, in discussion. Through
the conflict of opinions, and the courteous expression of honest differences,
we believe that we shall advance the education of the public mind North
and South. If most of the debates revolve about the Negro, it is not
because we are solely bent upon his especial welfare. Our interest is
primarily enlisted for the people of the South as a whole. We are concerned
in the broadest sense for the prosperity and happiness of our Southern

Report of the Executive Co-mmittee. ii
•country. We shall not forget the neglected elements of our white popu
lation. In our general situation, however, the Negro is an important factor,
industrially as well as in other ways, and we feel that the difficulties of the
situation cannot be dissipated by a policy of silence. We hope, therefore,
to secure frank and thorough discussion of such questions as these :
I. — The Franchise. — Should the Franchise be limited bylaw? If soy
how? If Hmitation is desirable, should such limitation be based on educa
tional or on property qualifications, or on both?
2.^The Negro in Relation to Education. — Should the education of
the Negro be .wholly or chiefly industrial? What is the relation of the
JN^gro who has had industrial training to the untrained white laborer of
the South? What is the extent of the need for the industrial training of the
white population? What are the advantages and disadvantages to the
South of the Negro as a laborer?
3- — The Negro in Relation to Religion.. — Should -we advise the
raising of the standard of ordination for the Negro clergy? How much
is expended by the white race in behalf of religious work among the
Negroes? How much of money for religious purposes is administered
"by Negro leaders? How much is administered by white leaders? What
religious work is showing the truest results — that under the auspices of
white agencies, or that administered under the auspices of NegroesJ" How
can we increase and better the religious guidance of the Negro? What is
the religious condition of the Negro to-day compared with that of ante
bellum days? What are the most hopeful lines of progress for the future?
4. — The Negro in Relation to the Social Order. — Is the Negro to
remain as a, permanent element in Southern life? Is there antipathy to the
Negro in the South? If so, is it industrial or racial, or both? Is race
antipathy a curse, or a blessing to both races ? ' How far has the agitation
of the question of "social equality" increased difficulties, and resulted to
the disadvantage of both races ? Is the crime of rape increasing or
decreasing in the South? Is lynching an effective remedy? If not, why
not? Are there adequate legal penalties for the offences often punished
by lynching? How can the legal provisions for the punishment of crimes
against women be improved ? ' What is the effect of lynching, as a remedy,
on the public mind — of the whites? — of the blacks? Has the increased
severity of mob penalties tended to the greater security of the home?
A REPRESENTATIVE ARENA-
As the Committee have explained, they are themselves divided as to the
answers which should be given to many of these questions. They would
also welcome expressions from men who honestly think that nothing
can be done through discussion to aid in t|ie solution of our racial difficul
ties. The qiiestions, moreover, are entirely suggestive, as merely indicating
the general lines which the discussion may be expected to take. As we have
declared, our sole purpose is to represent and to serve the South. We
Expect to find Southern speakers who may ably and fully and fairly give
due representation to all sides of the great questions which are demanding

12

The Montgomery Conference.

a

solution at our hands. In oYder to give general distinction to the gathering,
a few speakers representative of the broader and more sympathetic phases
of Northern thought, will be asked to be present as bur guests. By giving
a just opportunity to the opposing advocates in each debate, we shall hope
to aid in the establishment of the truth and in the education of public
opinion. The South has nothing to lose and everything to gain from a
fearless, scholarly, and patriotic discussion of her own problems by her own
sons. MONTGOMERY'S ADVANTAGES.
There are several reasons why Montgomery is fitted to be the annual
home for such a gathering. There will soon be completed here a beautiful
and spacious auditorium in which the great audiences which will assemble
at the sessions of such a conference can find adequate accommodation.
Locally, there are also reasons why this is peculiarly suited to be the place
for it. Montgomery is the seat of the first capital of the Confederacy,
and therefore it is a city full of historic interest to visitors from every
quarter. Secondly, Montgomery is a place of much intellectual breadth,
where a fair and courteous hearing can be absolutely assured to the Advo
cates of every aspect of serious opinion upon this subject. Thirdly,
although our city is only twenty-nine hours from New York, it is situated
upon the border of the black belt, and at the very centre of that area ia
the South, where all the conditions of the race problem are ' present in
their characteristic forms. . Visitors fr.om the North and South who are
concerned with such questions will, therefore, find much in Montgomery
and its vicinity of deep interest to them.
In sending forth this preliminary statement, the committee ask the
aid not only of the people of Montgomery and Alabama, but of the whole
South. We will gladly entertain suggestions from any quarter. From
the Southern press, especially, we request an interested and whole-hearted
co-operation. We believe that our undertaking is full of possibilities of
usefulness to all our people, and in order that these possibilities may be
realized, we ask a careful reading of our plans, an intelligent appreciation.
of our motives, and — a helping hand.
[Signed] Neal L. Anderson,
B. J. Baldwin,
F. G. 'Caffey,
Chappell Cory,
George B. Eager,
J. M. Falkner,
J. B. Gaston,
Jacob Greil,
Edgar G. Murphy,
Executive Co-mmittee.
It was resolved to hold the first annual Conference under the
auspices of the Southern Society in the Auditorium at Montgomery^
May 8 to 10, 1900, and to postpone the election of ofBcers of the- I

Report of the Executive Committee. 1 3
Society until its annual meeting at that time. The same gentlemen
who had formed the Executive Committee during the preliminary
organization were re-elected and given full authority to complete
the organization of the Society by the election of members, to
appoint sub-committees, and to do such other acts as they might
deem necessary to carry out the purpose of the Society as set forth
in the Constitution and official statement of plans and policies.
Mr. Jacob Greil, who took an active and enthusiastic interest in
the movement from its origin, gave mUch time and thought to its
success until the beginning of his illness, a few weeks after the
organization was completed. In Jiis death, which occurred on
March 19, 1900, the Executive Committee lost one of its best
advisers and workers, the Society one of its most valuable members,
and the State of Alabama one of its most public-spirited, loyal and
useful citizens. Upon the death of Mr. Greil, Mr. Charles F. MoritzJ-
was elected a member of the Executive Committee. Under the
authority vested in the Executive Committee, Mr. H. B. Allison
was elected its Associate Secretary.
The Executive Committee set about carrying out the plans of
the Society, and the work has been done by the following com
mittees : executive committee.
Francis G. Caffey, Chairman;. Edgar G. Murphy, Secretary; H. B.
Allison, Associate Secretary; Neal L. Anderson, B. J. Baldwin, Chappell
Cory, George B. Eager, J. M. Falkner, J. B. Gaston, Charles F. Moritz.
committee on program.
J. B. Gaston, Chairma-n; Neal L. Anderson, Francis G. Caffey, L. L.
Gilbert, Edgar G. Murphy. committee on organization.
Francis G. Caffey, Chairman; J. W. Abercrombie, Neal L. Anderson,
' Charles L. Floyd, Joseph F. Johnston, William C. Oates.
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE.
Charles F. Moritz, Chairman; B. J. Baldwin, Frederick S. Ball, W. F.
Vandiver. COMMITTEE ON PUBLICITY.
George B. Eager, Chairman; Chappell Cory, W. W. Screws.
TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE.
J. M. Falkner, Chair-man; C. G. Abercrombie, F. C. Shepard.
COMMITTEE ON HOSPITALITY.
Alva Fitzpatrick, Chairman; Frederick S. Ball, Phares Coleman,
Henry C. Davidson, Jacques Loeb.

14 Ike Montgomery Cohference.
The Committee on Program has had much correspondence, audi
has met with the most enthusiastic interest in the plan for the first
annual Conference under the auspices of the Southern Society,
which is now in session in this building. They have arranged the
following program for the Conference :
THE MONTGOMERY CONFERENCE.

Under the Auspices of the Southern Society for the Promotion of the.
Study of Race Conditions and Problems in the South.

Montgomery, Ala., May 8, 9, 10, A. D. 1900.

The Conference will be convened on the evening of May 8, in the
Auditorium of Montgomery, at eiight o'clock, the Hon. J. B. Gaston acting
as Temporary Chairman.
At 8 p. m., "Montgomery's Welcome to the Visitors and Delegates," by the
Hon. E. B. Joseph, the Mayor of the City.
At 8.15, "The Welcome of Alabama," by the Hon. Joseph F. Johnston,
Governor of the State.
At 8.30, "The Idea and History of the Conference,'' by the Hon. J. B..
Gaston, Temporary Chairman.
(Introduction of the Permanent Chairman.)
At 8.4s, "The Problems that Present Themselves," by the Hon. Hilary
A. Herbert, Ex-Secretary of the Navy, Permanent Chairmani
of the first Conference of the Southern Society.
Mormng Session, May 9, 10 a. m. to 1.30 p. m.
The Franchise in the South.
At 10 a. m., an Address by the Hon. Alfred Moore Waddell, Mayor of the
City of Wilmington, North Carolina.
At 10.4s a. m., an Address by the Hon. John Temple Graves, Atlanta,
Georgia.
At 11.30 a.m., an Address by Ex-Governor William A. MacCorkle,.
Charleston, West Virginia.
At 12.30-1.30 p. m.. General Discussion ; speeches of ten minutes each..
(See rules.) Afternoon Session, May g, 4 p. m.
The First Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for the Promotion of
the Study of Race Conditions and Problems in the South. Operi
to members only.
Election of officers and transaction of other business.

Progra7tt. 1 5.
Evening Session, May 9, 8 p. m. (Promptly.)
.Popular Education in the South.
At 8 p. m., an Address by Dr. Hollis Burke Frissell, Principal of Hamp
ton Institute, Hampton, Virginia.
At 8.45 p. m., an Address by Dr. Julius D. Dreher, of South Carolina,
President of Roanoke 'College, Salem, Virginia.
At 9.15 p. m., an Address by Dr. J. L. M. Curry, Agent of the Peabody and.
Slater Funds, Washington, D. C.
At 10.15-11.15 p.m., General Discussion; speeches of ten minutes each.
(See rules.)
Morning Session, May 10, 10 a. m. to 1.30 p. m.
The Negro in Relation to Religion.
At 10 a. m., "Expenditures for Negro Evangelization — Principles and
Methods.'' By a representative Methodist.
At 10.30 a. m., "Which is the Wiser Form of Religious Work among Ne
groes — that Controlled by White Agencies, or that Administered /
by Negroes?" By the Rev. D. Clay Lilly, Tuskaloosa, Ala
bama, Secretary of the Southern Presbyterian Board of Negro
Evangelization.
At II a. m., "Which is the Wiser Form of Religious Work ampng Negroes.
— that Controlled by White Agencies, or that Administered by
Negroes?" By the Rev. W. A. Guerry, M. A., Chaplain of the
University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.
At 11.30 a. m., "What are the Religious Conditions of the Negro To-day,
Compared with those of Ante-Bellum Days — the Differences and
their Significance." By the Rev. C. C. Brown, D. D., Clinton,
South Carolina.
At 12 m., "Should We Advise the Raising of the Standard of Ordination
for the Negro Clergy?" By the Very Rev. J. R. Slattery, of
St. Joseph's Seminary, Baltimore, Maryland.
12.30-1.30, General Discussion; speeches of ten minutes each. (See rules.)
Afternoon Session, May 10, 3.30 to 6 p. m.
Lynching as a Penalty.
At 3.30 p. m., "The Punishment of Crimes against Women — Existing
Legal Remedies and their Sufficiency." By the Hon. Alex. C.
King, of Atlanta, Georgia.
At 4.30 p. m., "Is Lynching Advisable?" By the Hon. Clifton R. Breckin
ridge, of Arkansas, Ex-Minister of the United States to Russia.
From 5.15 to 6.15 p. m.. General Discussion; speeches of ten minutes each,
(See rules.)

1 6 The Montgomery Conference.
Evening Session, May lo, 8 p. m. (^Promptly.)
The Negro and the Social Order.
At 8 p. m., "The Sacrifice of a Race." By Dr. Paul B. Barringer, Chair
man of the Faculty of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville,
Virginia.
At 8.45 P- in-, "The Negro as an American Problem." By the Hon. W.
BouRKE CocKRAN, New York City.
Brief Farewell Address, by the Permanent Chairman, the Hon. Hilary A.
Herbert, Ex-Secretary of the Navy, Washington, D. C.
(adjournment.)
The following Rules for the guidance of the Conference, having the
approval of the Executive Committee of the Southern Society, are of force,
and all visitors, members, and speakers are courteously requested to observe
the same: Rule i. — Inasmuch as it is desired to prevent valueless debate, to
make the best use of time, and to give each phase of opinion a hearing,
(a) Speeches during general discussion of a topic are limited to ten minutes
each. This is imperative, and will be enforced by the presiding officer.
(b) Those desiring to speak will send their cards to Mr. H. B. Allison,
the Associate Secretary of the Executive Committee, before the opening
of the session at which they desire .to speak, with a brief memorandum as
to which side or vifhat phase of the subject for the session they desire to
discuss. The presiding officer will announce the names, in the order pro
vided by the Executive Committee, and call the speakers to the platform.
Rule 2. — As the purpose of the Society is to promote discussion
merely, and, not to favor any policy on any of the subjects of discussion,
no resolution or motion of any character will be submitted to the Con
ference by the presiding officer.
Information to Visitors.
Mr. H. B. Allison, Associate Secretary of the Southern Society, will
be at the office of the Society, Room 41, on the fifth floor of the Moses
Building, at the following hours :
May 8, 10 a. m. to i p. m. ; 3 to 5 p. m.
May 9, 9 to 10 a. m. ; 3.30 to 4 p. m.
May 10, 9 to 10 a. m. ; 3 to 3.30 p.m.; 7 to 8 p. m.
Mr. Allison will also be at the Auditorium during the sessions of the
Conference. Members and visitors are requested to record their names
on arrival, in a register to be kept by Mr. Allison. Certificates of attend
ance must be signed by him in order to secure reduced rates of
transportation on return trips. He will give information as to hotel rates
^nd any other matters possible, to visitors.
Mr. L. L. Gilbert will be in charge of the Auditoritlm during the

Program. , 1 7
sessions of the Conference, and will give information to visitors as to the
program and meetings of the Conference.
Any member of any of the Committees named at the end of the
program will be glad to furnish information and aid to visitors.

Subscriptions to Publications of the Society.
Those desiring copies of the proceedings of the First Annual Confer-
•ence of the Southern Society can secure the same by sending one dollar
to the Associate Secretary, P. O. Box 370, Montgomery, Alabama. If
sufficient subscriptions are not obtained to warrant publication, the amounts
collected will be returned to subscribers.
The membership of the Southern Society for the Promotion of the
Study of Race Conditions and Problems in the South now extends through
¦every Southern State. Nominations to membership should be made to the
Executive Committee through its Chairman or its Secretary, P. O. Box
370, Montgomery, Alabama. Descriptive literature will be gladly furnished
on application to Mr. H. B. Allison, the Associate Secretary, during the
sessions of the Conference.

The Committee on. Organization, acting under the advice of the
Executive Committee, determined not to attempt to secure a large
membership in the beginning, but- to get into the membership a few
from each State throughout the South whose interest in the pur
poses of the Society is greatest, and to recommend to the Society
that after holding the first Conference, the increase in numbers
be accomplished through local members in each State in accordance
with plans which the Southern Society may formulate, or authorize
the Executive Committee to formulate. At present the membership
of the Society extends through every State of the South, numbering
316 selected men.
No initiation or other fee is provided for in the Constitution.
The expenses of the Society thus far have been incident to the Con
ference now in session. The Finance Committee have called on the
Montgomery members for contributions to meet this expense, and
responses have been liberal. Substantial contributions have also
been received from generous friends outside the State.
The Committee on Publicity has, by correspondence and the
distribution of printed information as to the Society and the Con
ference, brought our purposes into very general notice throughout
the United States. The local press in Montgomery has given most
generous assistance, and the press generally throughout the country,
North and South, has given our movement cordial notice, and
almost' without exception, hearty endorsement. Friends and mem
bers of the Society everywhere have aided the committee in putting
the organization in a true light before the public.

1 8 The Montgomery Conference.
The Transportation Committee arranged for reduced rates of
transportation to all those attending the Conference over all the
railroads in the Southeastern Passenger Association, and through ^
the courtesy of the latter, reduced rates were also obtained from
other passenger associations. The Committee on Hospitality has
arranged for the entertainment of the speakers and participants
in the Conference in Montgomery homes.
The report of the Executive Committee is made ^ thus full and
complete' in accordance with Section 8, Article IV, of the Constitu-;
tion of the Society, and in order that there may be now made a
permanent record of the beginning of a movement which they
believe to be destined to be a lasting success and a most potent factor
in the advancement of the welfare of our country.
Francis G. Caffey,
Chairman.
~7'' Edgar Gardner Muephy,
Secretary.
H. B. Allison,
' . Associate Secretary.
George B. Eager,
Neal L. Anderson,
Benjamin J. Baldwin,
Chappell Cory,
J. M. Falkner,
J. B. Gaston,
Charles F. Moritz,
Executive Committee.

The Montgomery Conference.

Under the Auspices of the Southern Society foe the Pro
motion OF THE Study of Race Conditions and
Problems in the South.

Montgotnery, Ala., May 8, 9, 10, A. D., 1900.
I The Conference was called to order on the evening of May
8th, in the Auditorium at Montgomery, by the Hon. J. B. Gaston,
of Montgomery, temporary chairman. Judge Gaston introduced
the Hon.- E. B. Joseph, the Mayor of the city, who extended "Mont
gomery's Welcome to the Visitor^ and Delegates." Mayor Joseph
spoke as follows :
Gentlemen of the Conference : — ^Any effort to solve great prob
lems, which enter into the advancement of justice and the happiness
of a people, is momentous. Your task invokes, for its wise' solution,
the exercise df the noblest courage, patriotism and wisdom. You
are here to put in motion currents of public thought and conscience,
which in the end will determine and shape the proper adjustment of
conditions and rights of races — and the millions of those races yet
to be — whom Providence has placed under one flag; to work out,
side by side, economic and governmental problems, the like of which
have never before confronted civilized mankind under republican
institutions. You cannot forget, in your deliberations, the great
law of honor and justice which binds the strong to protect the yeak ;
nor, on the other hand, can 'you forget that the ignorant and weak
cannot be potent factors in wielding the great powers of govem
ment, without the final overthrow of all high purposes for .which it
is ordained. In your deliberations, you will be confronted with the
fact that human wisdom cannot recast nature, nor change rac^ char
acteristics, or the conditions with which an all- wise Creator, for pur
poses of his own— but dimly seen and understood by human vision —
has surrounded the pathway of the two races in "the pursuit Of life,
liberty and happiness," under the protection, and in the enjoyment
. ahd control of a common government. The gravity of your delib
erations makes the civilized world listeners to the thoughts here
.uttered; and it is not for me to presume, in bidding you welcome,
to outline the wisest and best course of action upon which to found
our hopes. (^9)

20 The Montgomery Conference.
The people of Montgomery congratulate themselves that so
distinguished a body of men, from all parts of the Union — ^brought
together to consider, for the first time, such transcendent questions
— convenes on Southern soil, and in a city which was the theatre of
great events that culminated in the changed conditions, and brought
to its present acute stage, the great problem you are to consider.
Here you will see conditions fairly typifying the situation elsewhere ,
in the South. You will see the results and dangers born of the great
experiment of incorporating, with an equal share of power, differ
ent, and, in many respects, widely antagonistic races, into a free
government. Here you will be enabled tq perceive, or trace out from
recent contracts, all the best and all the worst that can come of
things as we find them. Here you can analyze the manner of men
und races, and the customs and modes of thought to be reckoned
with in devising policies for the advancement and happiness of the
country, and the changes necessary to effect it. Conscious ourselves
of no purpose save to advance justice, and to better unborn genera
tions who will have to deal with the problem that now faces us, we
invite counsel and invoke fearless scrutiny. The conditions are not
of our own making, though, in the nature of things, we must be
chiefiy instrumental in taking the initiative to work reforms. If
mistakes are made, we will be the ones to suffer.
You are the guests of a city that was once the seat of empire ;
a city that has furnished Yancey to history, Sims to medicine,' El
more to the bar. Stone to the judiciary and Cobbs to the pulpit; a
city whose men ^nd women in times past have never hesitated to
sacrifice everything upon the altar of duty and conviction, and who
have never deserted a leader in the hour of adversity, or failed to
appreciate the magnanimity of a victor in the hour of triumph; a
city whose peojjle profoundly believe that free speech is the most
precious gift of liberty, and an honest tolei'ance of conscientious
difference of opinion the surest means of maintaining it.
They heartily welcome you to their homes ^ and hospitality,
not only as guests, but also as unselfish participants in the discus
sion of a problem which is about their hearthstones and one of the
gravest ever debated.
At the conclusion of Mayor Joseph's address, Judge Gaston
introduced the Hon. Joseph F. Johnston, Governor of the State,
who extended the welcome of Alabama. Said Govemor Johnston :
Gentlemen of the Convention : — You have met here to con
sider a very grave question, one fraught with good or evil, as it shall
finally be solved, to this generation and many to follow.
it seems strange that this question should be considered for
the first time in any broad way here, where the Confederate govern
ment sprang into existence and was baptized with blood to 'grapple

Josepli F. Johnston. 2 1
another question of whibh this seems to be tlie "illegitimate" off
spring. I am sure that all of us desire a solution that will be just to
both races, and secure to each the blessings of peace and prosperity.
If we are to consider this purely as a local question, affecting
only the States of the South, and touching the Union only as every
member of a common body must suffer when one is stricken, then it
seems to me the people of the South must find the solution.
It is hardly possible for any one, no matter how great his intel
lect or resplendent his genius, to reach a correct conclusion without
understanding the conditions that surround the subject. And yet
many who never set foot in the South are ready to solve this question
without study or reflection. It is very certain that the statesmen
of the North, however patriotic their purposes, have up to this time
done more to embarrass than to aid us in working out the problem.
If we are to consider this question in its larger and broader
field — a field that seems now to threaten us with the govemment
of inferior races in all quarters of the globe — ^then more comprehen
sive measures involving our organic law must be considered. 
In its political aspect all of us are probably agreed that the
goverpment of every State should be administered by its ablest and
most patriotic citizens, and should have its foundfl,tions securely^
resting on the intelligence and virtue of its people. '
That the white men of the South should control its public
affairs will be admitted by the most intelligent Negroes, because
the whites by education, instinct and centuries of training, are the
most capable of governing. We see the white men without any
discriminating law, controlling all branches of trade, commerce,
transportation, manufactures and agriculture, and it would surely
reverse natural law to deny them the right to control their own
government. Some believe that the Negro suffrage is the root of all evil^
and that methods heretofore employed to neutralize this are corrupt
ing the whole body politic.
When we hear of the gross frauds and shameless bribery that
occur in the elections of so many States that never confronted a
race problem, we are disposed to ask what was their parentage.
In the last Presidential election the State of Ohio cast about
one vote for every three of population. No impartial man can be
lieve this was an honest possibility.
It must now be apparent to every disinterested citizen that a
grave and fundamental mistake was made when suffrage was thjust
unsought upon the Negro when he was utterly unprepared to exer
cise it wisely. Had it been conferred as the reward of progress made-
on educational or property lines it would have stimulated great en
deavor. There are others who seem to think that education is the true-
solution.

22 The Montgomery Conference.
Here, in Alabama, considerable progress has been made on
these lines. The school fund, paid .almost wholly by the whites, is
¦distributed impartially for the education of the children of both
races. Our convict records show a steadily increasing number of
colored convicts out of all proportion to the increase in population,
whilst there has been scarcely any increase in the number of white
convicts. If we go back to the days of slavery we find that the Negro
was not disposed to commit crime ; murder and rape and arson were
almost unknown to him. His offences were petty and the punish
ment light.
Now the records show that 89 pei* cent of all our convicts are
Negroes, whilst they constitute scarcely 45 per cent of our popula
tion. We have now confined in the penitentiary, or at hard labor :

White ..
Colored

Men.

Women.

Total.

251

2

253

2038

109

2147

Of these 193 white and 1,567 colored are 'State convicts for the
most serious offences. Men. Women. Total.
For Murder and Manslaughter these are :
Whites  58
Colored  345
For Rape :
Whites  3
Colored  40
For Arson :
Whites  3
Colored  34
For Forgery: Whites  ,7
Colored  41
!For Burglary: Whites  34
Colored  427
It will be observed that of the total of 3,147 colored convicts,
925 are confined for serious crimes. On October 1, 1878, there
were 654 State convicts against 1,760 now. We have now one Negro
in the penitentiary for each 317 of population, and one white for
each 3,270.
We are, however, making progress. Much of ' the political
distrust and bitterness that existed is disappearing. Industrial
education is opening wider fields to the Negro and diverting his
attention from politics. Little by little they are learning to think
for themselves and are being emancipated from vicious leadership.
The Negro who accumulates property becomes a conservative citi-

I
21

59
366

¦ 3

I

41

/4

3
38

7

I

42

34

5

432

J. B. Gaston. 23
zen, ceases to listen to political agitators and desires no return of
irresponsible and corrupt legislation. The more he accumulates the
greater his interest in the reign of law and the preservation of
peace. In behalf of the Commonwealth of Alabama, I extend you a
hearty welcome to its capital city, that has nearly doubled its wealth
and numbers in the last twenty years, although surrounded by a
population that numbers three Negroes to every white.
Governor Johnston's address was followed bythe introduction of
the permanent chairman, the Hon. Hilary A. Herbert, of Washing
ton, D. C, ExrSecretary of the. Navy. In introducing Mr. Herbert,
Judge Gaston spoke briefly as follows on "The Idea and History of
~ the Conference" :
Before introducing the Honorable Gentleman who will pre
side over the deliberations of this body, I desire to state that the
Society which calls you together, has been greatly encouraged and
assisted in its work by the almost unanimous commendation of the
press throughout the country. Such approval indicates that the
time has come when thoughtful men. North and South, recognize
that no man or body of men have such wisdom and comprehensive
knowledge of the many phases of the race problems presented in
the South, as will enable them to speak with authority, and de
termine vBhat is best to be done.
The day of assertiveness and self-sufficiency is passing away,
and the men who are giving most of thought and time and money
to the upbuilding of the Negro are becoming diffident of their
ability to suggest a sufficient remedy for the conditions which beset
us at the South.
Among fair-minded men, there seems to be little doubt that
much of the national legislation in regard to the Negro has not been
wise. The history of our country furnishes some very interesting
and instructive lessons in regard to the attitude of our people
toward inferior races. The Indian, the aboriginal proprietor of
the continent, is on the verge of extermination. The Chinaman,
gentle, law-abiding and highly civilized, has been chased, away and
denied a home on our soil. The Negro, after more than a hundred
years of residence, is in many of the most refined and populous
cities of the North, still denied the boon of equal opportunity with
the white man in the pursuit of happiness and wealth. And the
ruling legal authority, the leading case (West Chester and Phila
delphia Eailroad Company vs. Miles), sustaining the right to
separate whites and blacks on railroad trains and street cars, is
found in the reports of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Notwithstanding these facts, and notwithstanding the further

24 The Montgomery Conference.
fact that wherever and whenever the white man and the Negro have
come in contact there has been irrepressible conflict, the Negro at
the South has been made the ward of the nation, and clothed with
all the privileges of government.
The white man at Washington, without giving evidence of
contrition for these sins against more favored peoples, has dis
avowed and repented of slavery ; and has taxed the resources of gov
ernment to make the most of the Negro at the South, whose ances
tors for forty centuries, during which they have been known to his
tory, have not been able to emerge from barbarism in their native
land. And not only so, but "we are commanded to make good this
change of American policy, which has not changed American pre
judice — ^to make certain here, what has elsewhere been impossible
between the whites and the blacks, and to reverse, under the most
adverse conditions, the universal verdict of racial history."
This our people have not been able to do. They still dis
criminate sharply against the Negro ; but in so doing are influenced
by a keen appreciation of the facts of a situation that imperils good
government and civilization; and at times, as is well known, mobs
have treated him with lawless and inexcusable severity and harsh
ness. In some places, he has been deliberately denied the elective
franchise; and this our people have done, not through wilful law
lessness, or prejudice against the Negro, but because they could not
otherwise protect their property, their persons and their civiliza
tion. Demoralizing remedy ! We are tired of it ; and we are
ashamed of it ; but the rule of the Negro in this section was ruinous,
whilst it lasted, to every interest govemment is established to pro
tect. This is the situation out of which spring most of the ques
tions which will be discussed in this Conference. Can the Amer
ican people solve them with justice to both races, and without plac
ing a shackle on progress, or weakening a civilization which is solely'
the work of the dominant race? There are no encouraging pre
cedents to guide us along the paths in which the law of tl;ie land
would have us to go. The obliteration of the lines separating the
Normans and their conquered co-occupants of England, after inany
generations of social and political antagonism, is considered an ex
ceptional illustration of the complete unification of two peoples
differing in religion, language and culture, and in thought and feel
ing on almost every subject.
They, however, by descent, were one people; and the warp
and woof of their national character had been little, changed by
differences of environment. There were no racial obstacles
to amalgamation; and when circumstances required it, as finally
they did, the union of kindred elements was made easy, under the
softening influences of time, by the existence of common national
traits, inherited from a common ancestry. *

Hilary A. Herbert. 25
It is scarcely necessary to point out the want of parity in the
situations then and there, and now and here — the racial unity and
equal capacity for development and civilization in the two peoples-
in England, and the antipodal racial diversity and the unequal apti
tudes for development and progress in all that constitutes civiliza
tion, between the two peoples whose interests, the demands of the-
cotton field and the fortunes of war, have bound together in the
South. .
Not only is there no precedent to guide, but there is no author
ity to instruct, and certainly none wisely to command in these-
matters. We turn, therefore, to the slow processes of social and po
litical evolution, and invoke discussion as a rational and reliable-
agency in promoting and hastening the final judgment which rea
son and experience, sooner or later, must render.
The society which calls you together makes no attempt to-
offer a solution of the difficult and delicate problems connected with
the questions under discussion.
It invites dispassionate expression and defence of every phase
of opinion entertained by sane and trustworthy men.
It invokes wisdom and a spirit of fairness and moderation in'
debate, so that in the end the lowliest and the weakest may enjoy
complete protection of person and property and the white man and
the Negro may have such, and only such part in government, as-
shall be for the, best interests of civilization, and the highest devel
opment of the industry, power and influence of the American
people. It deprecates assertion without reason, sentiment without
argument, and criticism without knowledge, dignity or modera
tion. Upon his introduction as presiding officer of the Conference,.
Mr. Herbert delivered the chief address of the evening on "The-
Problems that Present Themselves." Inasmuch as Mr. Herbert.
still maintains his legal residence in the city of Montgomery, hav
ing represented the district in Congress for many years, the recep
tion accorded him was particularly cordial. He spoke as follows :
Gentlemen of the Society : — I thank you sincerely for the honor-
conferred in calling me to preside over your deliberations, and I
•hope the time is coming when the country -will acknowledge a debt
of gratitude to you for the formation of this Society. Neither Porto-
Kico nor the Philippines, nor the open door in China, nor all of
them together are of as much import to the South as the problems
that present themselves to us at home. The Negro question is fun
damental — it was with our fathers when the Constitution was
formed ; it was with them when hot deba,tes over slavery ended in the
Missouri Compromise of 1820, and again when another fierce strug
gle ended in the compromise of 1850; it was the. occasion of our-

26 The Montgomery Conference.
terrible Civil War ; it was with us and upon us when the Negro had
become a f reedman in the blighting days of reconstruction ; it has
been with us since, and in one form or another it will abide with us.
All other problems, however momentous, that have been pre
sented to the American people have received at their hands solu
tions, not always, perhaps, the wisest that were possible, but always
solutions that have been afterwards accepted by the public mind
as satisfactory and conclusive; but in the field now before us mis
take after mistake has been made, and all who understand the sub
ject agree that the Negro problem has not yet been solved. There
are those who say that the question will finally settle itself by
means of the immigration of whites, their natural increase, and the
gradual dissipation of the black majorities now in particular local
ities; but this suggestion does not touch the heart of the matter.
It only points to white supremacy, and of that much we feel sure.
The questions remain: How will the Negro affect the white man's
civilization, and to what extent will the presence of each race in
fluence the welfare of the other?
No time so opportune as this has ever occurred for the study
of these questions, for the reasons —
First — We can now study not only the Negro as he was and
is in Africa, in, San Domingo and Hayti and the British and Dutch
West Indies, and the Negro as he was under 200 years of slavery in
America, but we have now before us also the Negro as he has come
to be after a third of a century of freedom in the South and after
many years more of liberty in the Northem States.
Secondly — Science has recently shed much light on anthro
pology and on the history of races, and the Dark Continent has beeU
opened up by explorations. We know now the physical character
istics of Africa and the neglected opportunities that have for. cen
turies laid before the savage tribes that inhabit it.
Thirdly — We know now that the Negro problem is one to be
settled inside of the Union, and under the Constitution; and we
are, none of us, here with any political purposes to serve; in almost
air the discussions of the past the Negro has been but the football
of politics and in those hot struggles for place and power, passion
and prejudice so obscured the truth that often men could not See
even that which lay directly under their eyes. Let us resolve to
keep politics, at least in the sense of parti sanship_, outside of our
, deliberations. Let us forget all criminations and recriminations..
The motives of men or of parties in the past are of no value to us
here ; we should look at the facts of the past only as they shed light
on the facts of the present. It is the present and the future that
concern us and our country.
The fourth and last reason I shall give, why this is the fittest
of all times that has ever occurred for the study of the Negro prob
lem is, that the present is happily an era of good feeling between the
sections — more complete and perfect than any that has ever

Hilary A. Herbert. '2'j
existed — all honor to all the men who have aided in bringing it
about, and especially to the brave soldiers of the North and the
South, who, by their courage and devotion on the battlefield won
the admiration of each other, and thus laid the foundation upon
which statesmen and patriots have since builded" that perfect union
under one flag which the fathers of the republic dreamed of in the
preamble to the Constitution but never lived to see. The Force bill
has been dropped, the Presidential campaign of 1896 w^s fought
and the Negro was not in it; the Supreme Court has decided that
the new Constitution of Mississippi, looking toward the elimination
of the ignorant Negro vote, was not in -violation of our Federal Con
stitution, and we have now the sympathy of thoughtful men in the
North to an extent that never before existed. Sociologists in that
section are studying our situation and are setting it forth. No
, paper could portray more clearly the gravity of the problems now
before the South than an address by Professor Willeox, Chief Statis
tician of the United States Census, on Negro Criminology, delivered
at Saratoga last summer.
I beseech you, my friends, that we do not abuse this oppor
tunity, but that we shall so use it that all of our fellow citizens who
may follow these proceedings shall see that we are not here to seek
any narrow partisan advantage, to gratify any vengeful feelings —
the outcome of past struggles — or to give way to racial antipathies,
but that we have come together to see what can be done towards the
purification of the ballot box, the protection of our women, and the
adjustment of the relations of the two races in such a spirit of
moderation, charity and justice as shall strengthen anew the founda
tions of govemment and perpetuate its blessings to our children.
The two races are here side by side, and together they must abide.
Is it possible for them to live here in separate communities ? That
is one of the questiohs to be discussed. Certainly the deportation
of eight or ten millions of blacks is an impossibility. To defray
the expense of transporting and settling in new homes eight millions
c(f people would cost an incalculable sum, and even if we could raise
the money, there is no country to which the Negro could be sent.
Africa is no longer unknown or without an owner. It is already
divided among the nations of Europe, and little Liberia, so long
looked to by philanthropists as an outlet for the blacks, Liberia,
the centre of, so many hopes and so many benefactions, is a miser
able and confessed failure.
Professor Cope, the distinguished naturalist of the University
of Pennsylvania, a few years ago, after a dispassionate study, of
the differences between the Negro and the white man, in which he
clearly pointed out the inferiority of the Negro and of the mulatto,
concluded by recommending that the Negro, at whatever cost,
should be deported. His fear was that the final outcome of present
conditions in the South was to be amalgamation and the consequent
destruction of a large portion of the finest race upon ^arth. But

28 The Montgomery Conference.
deportation we must dismiss as the dream of a scientist. He had
demonstrated by" a physiological study that amalgamation would.
be an unspeakable horror, and he could see no remedy except de
portation. The best friends of the Negro now admit that as a rule he is-
inferior in brain power to the white man; but there was a time
when many people thought otherwise. July 14, 1867, General
Pope, in charge of reconstruction in Georgia, Alabama and Florida,.
wrote concerning the freedmen : "The marvelous progress made in
education by these people finds no parallel in the history of man
kind ;" and, "if continued," he said, "five years will have transferred
intelligence and education, so far as the masses are concerned, to
the colored people of this district." The prophecy grew in part at
least out of the belief, then quite common, that the differences be
tween the races were only skin deep.
In that day miscegenation was by many looked upon with so
little of horror that even Alabama judges on our Supreme Court
bench decided that no law of the State could interfere with the
right of whites and Negroes to intermarry. But thank God, the
atmosphere has cleared, the Supreme Court of the Union has
spoken. State Courts in the North have spoken, and we shall never
more hear of such decisions.
Public opinion on this race question has undoubtedly made
progress, and I think it now sanctions these propositions. Negro
suffrage has failed. It has brought weakness instead of strength
to the political party that conferred it. It piled up the debt of
every State where it was dominant many millions high and it has
not bettered the condition of the black man or the white. But
cotton mills and iron industries are bringing to the South wealth,
agriculture is looking up, whites are increasing more rapidly than
blacks, and where is the cause for alarm or anxiety about the
future ?
The answer is : We acknowledge with a deep sense of thankful
ness every encouraging feature in the conditions that surround us,
and we are hopeful of the future. White men in every State have
obtained control and they must keep it, if they mean to preserve
Anglo-Saxon civilization; but this is not all of it. Necessity has
compelled us to resort to election methods which we desire to
abandon. Wp have taxed ourselves millons of doUaj-s to educate
the Negro, and the results have been so unsatisfactory that some
of our good people are even ^advocating that Negro schools should
be sustained only by Negro taxation, which means, no more educa
tion for the Negro. The cost of trying Negroes for crime is out of
all proportion to the cost of trying white men, and of late years,
since Negroes who were born freedmen have grown to manhood
they have developed a tendency here and there to commit that
horrible crime against white women which was absolutely unknovvn
among their fathers; this has brought us to lynch law, and lynch

Hilary A. Herbert. 29
law tends to bring our courts into disrespect and the ministers of
ihe law into contempt.
These are questions you are here to discuss. Let me outline
ihem a little more distinctly.
Idleness amopg the Negroes is undoubtedly growing, and crime
^appears to be increasing. Professor Willeox states facts showing idle
ness to a degree that is startling, and he gives census figures to show
that in the South the crimes of Negroes as compared -with whites
were, in 1890, in populations of say 10,000 each, as a little less than
5 to 1, and in the North considerably over 5 to 1, and that Negro
-criminals were increasing faster in the North than in the South.
Negro crimes ought to be much less in the South than in the North.
In the North the Negro is mostly in the slums of cities. In the
South he is largely in the country and it is an admitted fact that in
the South the Negro has a better opportunity to earn his living.
The District of Columbia presents figures some of which are dis
heartening while -others are, relatively considered, encouraging.
Government statistics show that for the ten years beginning 1879,
-of the births among the Negroes of the District, 19.6 per cent were
illegitimate, and that for the next period of eleven years, ending
with 1899 the percentage of illegitimate births was 26.9. As to
¦crimes generally, however, the figures in the District are somewhat
reassuring. The records of the police courts show that for the past
"twenty years the arrests of Negroes as compared with whites, popu
lation considered, have been something over 2 to 1, with a slight
falling off in the arrests of Negroes in proportion to population for
ihe past five years. When we compare these with a little less than
5 to 1 in the South and considerably over 5 to 1 in the North, the
¦difference is marked, and I invite yOu to consider it. Does this
-difference in favor of the District of Columbia come from better
schools or different methods of education, or is it because the Negro
there is not demoralized by the ballot ?
The ' situation becomes graver' still when we consider that
assault by a Ne'gro upon a white woman, which is such an alarming
feature of the present situation, was unknown until a new genera-
iion of Negroes, bom as freemen, had grown to manhood. This
terrible crime has come upon us after all the efforts we have made
io elevate the Negro by education. What does it mean? I have
seen two answers suggested. One is, that these crimes proceed from
^ spirit of revenge. Professor Willeox, who suggests this, says that
this crime during the Middle Ages is said to have frequently resulted
from hatred to the church. The other theory is, that these crimes
"indicate a tendency among these people, whose ancestors some of
them, a very few generations ago were savages, to relapse into bar-
I)arism. The argument for this theory of course does not embrace
all Negroes, but only the most ignorant and criminal, and it may be
put in this way. It was no process of reasoning on the part of the
.iDrutish creatures who have indulged in this crime that brought them

30 The Montgomery Conference.
to it, but simply impulse uncontrolled by reason and undismayed
even by the fear of swift and terrible lyUch law. Biology tells us-
that domestic animals, uncared for by man, tend backward to their
original types, as the dog to the wolf; and as to man himself, taking-
for example the proud Caucasian, the foremost race in the world,
the same law holds good. Fully stated that law is, man must
progress or retrograde. Look at Greece, her civilizations sprang up
within a century; see her poets and her painters, her sculptors, and
how soon they all passed away, leaving behind them works of art,
many of which their degraded descendants allowed to be covered
up by the accumulating soil of centuries and lie there until rescued
by the hands of men, who, of the same race as these degenerate
Greeks, in other climes and under freer institutions, were progress
ing and not retrograding.
So Eome had her fall; and the dark ages came upon the face
of the earth.
Then it may be said that we need not go back to the history
of the past to show that now and then white men of the very highest
type may not only retrograde, but absolutely revert, temporarily,.
it may be true, but nevertheless rcA'ert, to a savage state, as is some
times demonstrated by a mob, when it gets into such a state of ex
citement that it does not and can not reason, and only acts on its
savage instincts. Take, for instance, the case in Georgia, where the
Negro was burned to death and cut up into little pieces. Who can
read the description of that horrible scene and deny that for the
time being the men who did these things had gone wild and were
acting upon the instincts that had come down to them from our
savage ancestors who roamed the forests of Europe thousands of
years ago ? If you tell me that here were Anglo-Saxons becoming-
savages in order to save their civilization, I reply first, it is proof
that even white men are liable to relapse into savagery, and,
secondly, that this is not the way to save our civilization. That
civilization means law and order and justice — a fair trial to every
man accused of a crime, and the severer the punishment that justice-
affixes to a crime, the more reason why we should make ourselves
certain that the accused is guilty before we impose the punishment.-
Whence comes the disposition of our people to take the law into
their own hands ? Does it not proceed largely from a belief that
by reason of delays in trials and of the technicalities of the law,.
courts too often fail to punish crime ? And if such a belief exists,.
is there not reason for it ?
Our courts usually are six months apart. We have taken a
step in the right direction by commissioning a judge to go promptl-v
and bring off the trial. But looking at the criminal law generally
do we not allow too many peremptory challenges of jurors ?
Why should the Supreme Court of the State reverse for a
technical error, unless injury is clearly apparent?
Why should a defendant accused of a capital crime be allowed'

Hilary A. Herbert. 3 1
as they often are, to wear out the prosecution by continuance after
continuance ?
You may put it down that there is a widespread belief that too
many guilty men escape punishment, and that this belief is one of
the parents of lynch law.
Would not speedy justice in the courts, by securing heartier
, co-operation among the law-abiding Negroes, do more than, lynch
law to stop crimes against woinen ?
. Mr. W. Alleyne Ireland, author of an able article in The North
American Review on "Tropical Colonies," who had spent many
years in Jamaica, stated last year that so far as he knew, the crime
of rape by a Negro on a white woman was unheard of in that island.
He attributed it to' the fact that in Jamaica all crimes are punished
by the courts with extraordinary promptness. In God's name, let us
try' in this Southern country of ours a little old fashioned Magna
Charta justice, justice administered by the courts "speedily, without
delay." ¦ Whatever other conclusions may be reached, there is one propo
sition I hope public opinion will settle down, upon when the matter
is discussed, and it is this: that we cannot stop crimes against
women by ceasing to educate the Negro. If this crime comes from
instincts of the barbarian, we cannot prevent it by ceasing to edu
cate ; if it is prompted by revenge, we cannot cure the situation by
ceasing to educate. According to the universal all-prevailing law
of nature, the Negro is to gro^ better, or he is to grow worse; he
is to become more civilized, or more of a barbarian. If the fiat
goes forth, "no more education for the Negrp," then the Negroes
will^ many of them, slide rapidly down an incline plane to bar
barism, and our descendants will have among them millions of
savages. This must not be. It is in our power to prevent it, but
while urging this with all the power that is in me, I would not
have you underestimate" the' task that is before us. The Negro is
not the equal of the white man. Science and history alike proclaim
this truth. The Negro's skull is thicker, his bra^n is smaller than
the white man's and the late Professor Cope, the great biologist of
the University of Pennsylvania, tells us that the sutures of the skull,
which permit growth and expansion, usually grow up, as they do
not in the white man's, at about the age of fourteen. This ac
counts for the fact that while Negro children at school often com
pare favorably with whites, adults do not.
Then again, the Negro has never civilized himself. He has
had in Africa, as we now know, every natural advantage, and yet
he is a savage there to-day, just as he was at the earliest period of
his recorded history. In Hayti and San Domingo, where as a slave
for a hundred years, he had made progress in civilization, during
a century of self-government he has retrograded. In the British
• ftnd I)anish West Indies, where^ he has had good governmenlj by
white men, he has made little or no progress ' during seventy-five

32 The Montgomery Conference.
years of freedom. White men have been few in these islands, and
so have been unable to dominate or mould the Negro character.
I am not advocating slavery. I rejoice that it is gone, yet it
is the voice of history that there never has been any large body of
Negroes anywhere in the world so industrious, so moral, so law-
abiding, so intelligent and so trustworthy, as were the slaves in the
Southern States of America at the moment of their emancipation.
Their faithful care of the white women and children left in their
power while the able-bodied men were in the Confederate army, tes-'
iifies to this in terms that cannot be mistaken, and if since that day,
as freedmen, enjoying the advantanges of education, there has been
any failure to profit by these advantages, it behooves us to look care
fully into the situation to see if we can discover the reasons for
this failure, remembering while we make the inquiry, that if the
majority have failed to be benefited, very many have made satis
factory progress. I for one, do not believe in the miserable teach
ings of those who claim that the Negro is not only of an inferior
race (as, I am sure he is) but that he so far inferior as not to be
man — ^that he, has not even a soul and is outside of the Gospel dis
pensation. Such a doctrine is contrary to the teachings of all our
churches, contrary to the teachings of all science, and if there be
any error, belief in which would damn, then this is the error belief
in which would bring damnation to the Southern people. If we
act upon the idea that Negroes are brutes and let them descend,
for want of education, to the condition of beasts, then God help us
and our children. I remember one Negro whose history, to my
mind, even if it stood by itself, would refute the idea that the
Negro cannot be civilized. Uncle Peter, a slave of my father, was
bom in Africa, and must have been approaching manhood when
he was brought to America. He had given up Fetichism, was or
derly, faithful, and, under the training of my father and grand
father, he was known as a consistent, earnest Christian man. Little
did it occur to me, when, as a boy, I followed the old man to his
.grave', that I should ever read a book, as I have done, contending
that Uncle Peter had no soul.
Never was there a more critical period in the history of any
people than the period following the emancipation of the Negroes
of the South. They had never, of course, been taught to provide
for the morrow — the master had provided ; so that -with liberty had
come responsibilities to which the Negro was utterly unequal. How
best was he to learn the practical lessons of life, retaining at the
same time his habits of industry? It was important that no mis
step be made. There is not one of you, gentlemen, who has not
seen, over and over again, the sad results of a single false step in
education. Ar^ incident that seems insignificant, occurring at that
period in the life of a youth when character is being formed, will
sometimes influence the whole destiny of the man.

Hilary A. Herbert. 33
A pebble in the streamlet thrown,
Has changed the course of many a river:
A dew-drop on the baby plant,
May warp the giant oak forever.
If false teachings may injure a child, so may such teachings
injure a whole body of people, especially where impulse and not
reason is their motive power, and when they are solidified into one
mass by racial ties and common previous conditions.
Abraham Lincoln was a far-seeing statesman ; the Negro never
had a better friend. He well knew that the Negro who had never
yet leamed to take care of himself was not competent to aid in tak
ing care of the State, and he believed that to thrust suddenly upon
the Negro the responsibilities of suffrage, could only bring disaster
to himself and to the State; and Mr. Lincoln's plan for the recon
struction of the seceded States, therefore, was to bring these States
back into the Union with only such voters as were qualified under
the laws, of the several States in 1860. That meant white men.
This excluded the Negro, left the question of when he should vote,
or whether at all, to the States. To carry out this plan, Mr. Lin
coln had prepared and read in his, cabinet, which approved it, the
proclamation for the rehabilitation of North Carolina, afterwards
issued by President Johnson. For this we have the testimony of
Mr. McCullough, a member of his cabinet, and of General Grant,
and nobody now doubts it. If Mr. Lincoln had lived, I firmly be
lieve that though opposition would have been strenuous, he, by his
great influence and wonderful tact, would have been able to carry
out his policy of reconstruction. If that policy had succeeded, the
Negro would not have been thrust, while he was an infant three
years old in freedom, into the political arena to make an unequal
fight with the white man for power in the State, to wage a combat
out of which would have come animosities and prejudices that sur
vive to this day, and in the survival of which, I am sure, are to be
found the most serious obstacles in the way of the peaceful and har
monious relations of the two races.
When Mr. Johnson succeeded to the Presidency, he took up
and issued Mr. Lincoln's North Carolina proclamation. Johnson
un-nisely spoke of this plan as "my (his) policy" of reconstruction,
and in the struggle which followed between him and Congress,
people forgot and indeed many who knew better, even denied, that
Lincoln had ever favored the policy. Johnson had no tact and but
little influence, and so he was beaten and the first reconstruction act
was passed March 2, 1867.
And now, gentlemen, I wish it distinctly understood that I
am not reciting the history of reconstruction for the purpose of
imputing blame to any one. I would not revive the bittemess of
the past, but I wish to inipress a lesson upon you, drawn from ex
perience. We must not forget here, that what occurred in the
Southern States between the assassination of Lincoln and the pas-

34 The Montgomery Conference.
sage of the reconstraction acts helped the advocates of universal
suffrage to -win their fatal victory. Let us remember too, that the
Negro question is still not only local but national in its bearings.
From the spring of 1865 until March 2, 1867, the issue be
tween President Johnson and Congress was universal suffrage.
The Northem mind, when this issue was suggested in 1865, was
clearly not yet ready for so radical a measure; many Northern
States in their Constitutions at that time, denied suffrage to the
Negro, when there were but few Negroes within their limits — not
enough to do harm even if their votes were to be harmful anywhere.
Such were the conditions when Johnson began with his plan
of reconstruction, establishing by proclamation, new governments
under which representatives in Congress- and Senators were elected.
These both houses of Congress refused to admit, the leaders of both
houses demanding reconstruction on the line of universal suffrage.
The Negro must have a ballot, it was said, to enable him to protect
himself. He must have it as a lesson in self-help, and it was needed
too, as Mr. Stevens said December 14, 1865, to "secure perpetual
ascendency to the party of the Union." The issue thus dra-wn be
tween the President on the one side and Congress on the other was
submitted to the people of the North in the Congressional elections
held during the fall of 1866, and it is melancholy to remember how
those elections were infiuenced by occurrences in the South during
the preceding eighteen months. There were the Kuklux outrages.
These were magnified of course and multiplied many times over,
but they were indefensible and lost us many friends. Then there
were the laws passed in the winter of 1865-66 by the different South
em legislatures that had been called together by President Johnson,
on the subjects of vagrancy and apprenticeship. These enactments
were by men who knew the improvidence of the Negro and that strict
regulations would be necessary to prevent idleness. I have else
where compared them and shown that the Alabama statutes, at
least, were quite similar to the laws of Ehode Island and Maine, but
in the excitement of the moment the people of the North forgot
these old statutes which, in their happy conditions, had seldom
been resorted to, and many of them were persuaded that the South
was determined to re-enslave the Negro. It may be, too, that in
some of the Southern States, some of these laws were harsh. The
views of Congress as opposed to the views of Andrew Johnson were
overwhelmingly indorsed in the Northern election of 1866, and
then came reconstruction. In the past there has always been dyna
mite in the Negro problem. Conditions have changed since 1865-66.
This Conference now hopes for a sympathetic response from
thoughtful people throughout the North, but this we may only ex
pect on condition that not only shall our discussions be open and
frank but that the measures we suggest shall be temperate and just.
Never was there such a bliinder as in the theory that suffrage would
help educate the Negro. What the Negro did want above all

Hilary A. Herbert. 35
things, was to know how to take care of himself so that he might
develop. This he might have had from his old master, on terms
that would have been advantageous to both. But he was taught
that he had no friends except those who wanted his vote.
It is sometimes said by well-meaning friends at the North
that the white men of the South made a mistake in not taking hold
of and controlling the Negro vote. I here offer my testimony as far
as it may go, to the effect that this could not have been, done. I
was one of the many who tried it. I endeavored, with all my power,
to prevent three former slaves of my father's from voting at the
very first election under the reconstruction law. I had absolute
control over these Negroes in every other respect, but there I failed.
Later, when I had the honor to represent you in Congress', I often
got Negro votes in precincts where the white man greatly predom
inated, but where the Negroes were in great bddies they could never
be reached. Let me tell you of an incident to illustrate. I was
addressing a crowd of three or four hundred Negroes at Pike Eoad,
in this county, with only about a dozen white men present. I used
all my powers of persuasion. I thought I had made an impression,
and from the responses received, I had. Now listen to what fol
lowed. Asa Barber, a sharp Negro from this city, replied. He be
gan -with all the skill of an orator, by praising me. He said "I
know Mr. Herbert, he is a good man. He is an honest man.
Everybody in town -will tell you dat. If he owes you he is gwine
to pay you right cash down on the day, and he ain't gwine to tell
you anything dat ain't so, dat he don't believe to be so, and I would
vote for him if it wasn't for one thing, and dat is dat if he is
elected, he is going to be elected by the white men and he's got to
do what dey say. He stands for the white man." And so away
went all my speech.
It was the carpet-bagger that drew the color line. The Negro
voted as they said, because the word was sent from Washington,
and many of them believed directly from Abraham Lincoln. The
natural leaders among the Negroes, those who should have been ex
amples of industry, became politicians, looking for a livelihood to
the ballot instead of the. plough. They quitted the fields, took to
the hustings and completely demoralized labor. Ideas imbibed in
early youth with the mother's milk have much to do with the mould
ing of character, and when we consider the deep distrust with which
the young Negro of the present generation regards the white man,
let us remember the false teachings and the bitter and unsuccess
ful stmggles for political power in the midst of which he had his
birth. It is precisely because of these same bitter struggles that the
younger generation of white men dislike the Negro. W. H. Coun-
eill, an Alabama Negro, in an able article in The Forum, said
tmiy, "When the veteran who followed Lee to Appomattox shall
be gathered to their graves, the Negro will have lost his best

2,6 • The Montgomery Conference.
friends." We know and remember, as our children cannot, the
brighter side of the Negro character. ,
But I am extending my remarks too far. Let me conclude
what I have to say about Negro education, by reminding you that
while I have felt it my duty to lay before you the most discouraging
features of the situation so that they may be fairly grappled with,
there is another, and let us hope, more encouraging view. Can it
not be shown that, in what we call the white counties, where the
Negroes are in the minority and so are under the influence and
have the example of the white man, they are distinctly and clearly
improving ; and will not .statistics of crime, when examined with
reference to cause and effect, lead to the conclusion that Negro
criminality is due in large part to poverty, want of education, and
especially to want of home training, thus accounting for the large,
excess of petty crimes committed by minors? If so, cannot some
remedy be found ? Let us study the system of industrial education
as taught at Tuskegee by that remarkable man, Booker Washing
ton. Is not this the key to success ? It certainly is true that many
thousands of Negroes in every State have acquired homes and have
become orderly and thrifty citizens, and that thousands of them,
not only mulattoes, but pure blacks, are increasing in intelligence.
If we are tempted to despair when we contemplate the crimes and
ignorance that so commonly prevail, ought not the thought of those
Negroes who are succeeding in life to convince us that the Negro
is capable of better things, and lead us to the conclusion that much
of the evil we now see is the result of miseducation ?
I have not undertaken to discuss fully, but have dwelt some-
^vhat at length on two questions : the necessity for educating the
Negro, and the wrongfulness of lynch-law, because these two seem to
me to be fundamental, and on them as starting points I hope the
'Conference is to agree.
As to education, the recent Democratic Convention of our State
of Alabama has declared in ringing tones that there shall be no
backward step.
There are other grave questions to come before you. One re
lates to the purity of the ballot box.
While in public life, I felt called upon to study the conditions
prevailing in the so-called Central and South American Eepublics,
¦especially those in Central America. We keep always cruising near
these countries one or more ships. This is necessary for the pro
tection of American property. Neither life, liberty, nor property is
safe in those countries without outside protection. Shall I tell you
why ? It is because there is no such thing known there as pure elec
tions. Every administration is the creature of revolution, or of an
election dominated by force. No one has any respect for the title
by which any official holds his place, and so revolutions come and
go and there neither is nor can be prosperity.
There is no country in the world where elections were purer

Hilary A. Herbert.' 37
than they were in the Southern States in 1860. If since that time
we have departed from the teachings of our fathers, it was necessity
that taught us, the necessity of preserving our civilization. It was
not a desire to get rid of Negro domination that prompted the new
constitution of Mississippi, or the new constitution of Louisiana.
The white nien already were dominant in both States; they were
simply taking steps in the direction of pure elections. It is just I
one step from defrauding the Negro to defrauding the white man,
and we know that as long as matters remain as they now are, we can
never have, as we ought to have, and wish to have, two respectable
parties in these Southern States. Looking in that direction, new
schemes relating to suffrage will be discussed before this body, and
in considering them, it will be well to bear in mind the difficulty
of amending our Federal Constitution. Except those adopted at the
close of the war, and one other, no amendment to that Constitution
has been adopted for over one hundred years. The great proba
bilities are, therefore, that for any relief from present suffrage con
ditions the people of every Southem State must rely upon them
selves and on their. own efforts, subordinated to the XlVth and
XVth amendments.
It will probably be agreed upon by the majority of those in this
Conference that most of our Southern States need changes in their
fundamental laws to adapt them to present conditions. I fully
concur in this necessity for amendments, but it must also be borne
in mind that no changes merely as to suffrage that could be made in
State or Federal Constitution, could of themselves meet the de
mands of the hour. We need better and more harmonious relations
between the races. We will always have more or less race friction,
but we must minimize it. Eace hatred begets such crimes as ma
licious mischief, arson and assassination and probably rape. It
prevents co-operation between the races for the prevention, dis
covery and punishment of crime, and is the prolific mother of dis
trust and perjury. Lynch law but adds to race hatred ; it begets the
feeling that injustice has been done because a trial is denied.
To bring about better relations between ihe races we need more
education, both of the whites and the blacks ; men must be educated
to broader views of the relations they bear to each other. It has
sometimes been said that nobody except the Caucasian has ever at
tained to a high degree of civilization ; that the Negro being one of
the inferior races (a proposition I agree to) can never be lifted from
the plane he now occupies — which is a proposition that certainly
is not proved. .Nobody ever had such inducement to try to raise
him as we have. Here the races are side by side and cannot get
away from each other. We must raise him. Nobody ever had such
opportunities, for we are everywhere intermingling with the Ne
groes, and can, if we will (and we must) lift them up on the right
and on the left. What is there impossible to man, when he deter
mines to accomplish it ? In the physical world he has made many

38 The Mofitgomery Conference.
varieties of the pigeon and the ox and he has made innumerable
varieties of fruits and fiowers. And what has he not done for him
self ? Knowledge is advancing in all directions with giant strides.
New methods of education are being devised, tried and adopted.
Shall we Anglo-Saxons in this age of the world, we who have in
ducements such as men never had before and opportunities such as
men never had before fold our hands in despair ? Shall we say we
cannot accomplish the task of elevating the Negro to a higher plane
simply because it has never been done before? Count if you can
the wonderful achievements that have adorned this now dying nine
teenth century. Will you tell me that all these have been the work
of the Caucasian ? Not so ; the crowning wonder of the century is
Japan. Up to 1853 she was an impenetrable mystery. In that
year an American Commodore forced open her ports and gave her a
glimpse of what she called the outside barbarians. She took a look
at and studied them. Then, some thirty years since, these Japa
nese, one of the brown races which, it is sometimes said, are incapa
ble of civilization, started on their new career. Japan imported
Americans and Europeans to instruct her. people in American and
European ideas, and almost at a bound she has placed herself among
the great treaty-making, treaty-observing, progressive nations of the
world. She civilized herself by calling in help. And so we can lift
up tlje Negro — ^not make him equal to the foremost races of the
world, but improve him till he becomes a better laborer, a better
citizen, and more useful to himself and to the country; and to do
this surely we have both need and opportunity. Experience care
fully and thoroughly studied will lend us light and we will not
repeat the blunders of the past. Sociology will help us. You have
called religion , too, to your help, religion, that carried the torch
that lighted man out of the night of the Middle Centuries on to this
glorious era. Ministers of different denominations have been in
vited to study the problems of to-day and advise with each other and
with you as to how best they can carry the Gospel among the Ne
groes so as to make it really a lamp to their feet, a guide to their
footsteps. In conclusion, my friends, the problem that is set before us is
one in which not only our brethren of the North are, but all hu
manity is, interested, but it is peculiarly ours because Negroes in
millions being among us and among us to stay, we alone have at the
same time the opportunity and the inducement to solve it. We must
work it out, or God only can tell what is to become of us. It is a
mighty task, but it can be accomplished, if we but enter upon it with
courage and faith in ourselves and our people.

Alfred Moore Waddell. 39
MORNING SESSION— MAY 9, 10 A. M.— 1.30 P. M.
THE FRANCHISE IN THE SOUTH.
The Conference having been called to order by Mr. Herbert,
the permanent chairman, the Hon. Alfred Moore Waddell, Mayor of
the City of Wilmington, N. C, was introduced as the first speaker.
Said Colonel Waddell :
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : — I apprehend that the
purposes of this discussion will best be served by excluding from
consideration every form of expression save a plain statement of
facts and conclusions drawn from the observation and experience of
the speakers, and shall govern myself accordingly. It certainly is not
an occasion for the display of fiorid rhetoric, or impassioned decla
mation, but rather for that sincere and candid utterance which best
befits the discussion of matters of > gravest iinportance to the public
welfare. The problems to be especially considered here are but
phases of that greater problem which, however we may flatter our
selves, still remains unsolved — ^the capacity of the American people
for the preservation and perpetuation of self-government.
In this age of new religions, new philosophies, and new theories,
social affd political — if they really are new — there has been much to
excite the astonishment and indignation, the pity and contempt, the
tears and laughter of the reflecting man who has any large acquaint
ance "with human history, and any love for his kind. One only,
however, of the phases of modern civilization — if we may so term
it — has been sufficient to excite all these emotions in succession or
combination. This phase constitutes the drama which for thirty-
fiye years past has been played before the eyes of the world in these
Southem States under various names, ranging from the high sound
ing phrase "Afro-American Problem" down to the plainer, more
correct; and more generally accepted one of the "Negro Question."
The franchise as a part of this problem is the subject assigned to me
for discussion to-day.
The peril which one encounters in discussing this subject before
a Southern audience is his liability to fall into platitudes. I
assume that after nearly forty years of most trying experience there
ijiust now be practical unanimity of opinion among Southem people
upon the subject of unrestricted Negro suffrage; and, therefore, I
shall farther assume that the only proper question for me to discuss
will be, "How Ought Negro Suffrage to Be Limited ?"
It is not my purpose to discuss the constitutional questions in
volved. That straw has been very thoroughly threshed, and the
outcome, by a general consensus of opinion among lawyers, as well
as by decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, has been

40 The Montgomery Conference.
that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right,
of suffrage upon any one— that an act of a State Legislature in
regard to suffrage which does not in terms violate the provisions ot
the Fifteenth Amendment is within the reserved powers of the
States and that a State has the absolute control of the suffrage
within its own territory, provided only that no discrimination shall
be made against a citizen because of race, color, or previous condi
tion of servitude.
Granted the power and admitting the necessity for some restric
tions, the question arises : What is the fairest, wisest and most just
arrangement that can be made in regard to the franchise under
existing circumstances ? In the solution of this question is wrapped
up the future of the Southem States for weal or woe, and therefore
the welfare of the whole country. And when I say the solution, of
this question I mean the solution of it by legal and constitutional
methods. So far as the actual exercise of the franchise by the
mass of Negroes is concerned, it is already settled, at least for some
years to eome; but such a condition is abnormal and must be a
source of perpetual trouble and discontent.
The history of Negro suffrage in this country is interesting and
instructive, but, except as history, the earlier legislation on the sub
ject is of little value in a discussion of the problems which confront
us to-day. It is well, however, to take a glance at the history for a
few moments before discussing these problems.
While during and after the American Bevolution the legisla
tion in the different States North and South was not uniform, it" was
substantially the same. In five of the New England States, to wit :
Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Ehode Island
there was, in form, a recognition of the right of suffrage for all
citizens, but nowhere except in the State of Maine was there a prac
tical exercise of equal political and social rights. In the States of
Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Kentucky,
such recognition as had been given to -the Negro's political status
was withdra-wn, or restricted. He ceased, though a freeman, to vote
anywhere in the South after the year 1835. In not one of the
Westem States, organized prior to 1861, was the ballot granted to
the Negro and in two at least of them — Indiana and Illinois —
Negroes were not only not allowed to vote but were not even per
mitted to enter the State ; and slave-holders were not allowed to take
their slaves there for the purpose of setting them free. In Connec
ticut as early as 1833 the chief justice charged that Negroes and
Indians were not citizens of the United States, which 'was exactly
what the Supreme Court of the United States twenty-five years
afterwards decided in the celebrated Dred Scott case, about which
there was, and is to this day, such gross misrepresentation. Even after
the war for Southern independence, and during the years 1865 and
1867, Connecticut, Ohio, Kansas and Minnesota voted do-wn Negro
suffrage by great majorities, and the leaders of the dominant party

Alfred Moore Waddell. 41
objected to it as unwise and dangerous. Mr. Lincoln, Morton,
Wade, Winter Davis and their school, were opposed to it, and did
not wish to make it an element in the "reconstruction" of the
Southern States. Thaddeus Stevens and his allies, who finally pre- ¦
vailed, openly proclaimed that their chief purpose in demanding
Negro suffrage in the South was to permanently secure the ascend
ency of their party. But there was another and meaner motive for
it, which candid Northern men now freely admit. Among other
evidences of this fact coming from sources that ought to be ctedited,
I cite the testimony of a Northern man living in my own State, who
recently, in an article advocating the pending amendment to the
Constitution of North Carolina, limiting the franchise, used the
following language in regard to the investment of the Negro with
the right of suffrage :
"This we may well be sure was done as a punishment upon the
South by a victorious, overbearing North, desirous of humiliating
and destroying, in a measure, the self-respect and liberty of their
defeated opponents. Of this I am personally cognizant from my
then position as an editorial correspondent of a Northern political
paper." If this be true, as we know it to be, if this cruel thing, done
while the passions of the war were still prevailing, was done not
from any sense of right and justice to the Negro, or of belief in his
capacity for the intelligent exercise of the suffrage, but as a punish
ment upon the Southem people for the falsely alleged crime of
treason and rebellion more than thirty years ago, what justification
can possibly be found for a longer continuance of the punishment,
in -view of the changes that have since occurred in the history of the
country? With a patience little less than miraculous, and a forti
tude unparalleled, and a fidelity to their obligations unsurpassed,
the Southem people have emerged from the jungle of horrors into
which this act drove them with hearts still united, with spirits still
unbent, with the light of triumph in their faces and the goal of
wealth and power in full view.
Whether their Northern countrymen are willing to leave this
blot upon the Cdnstitution or not is a question for themselves, but
it is, and, if it remain there, will continue to be a vain memorial of
their own shame. Unrestricted Negro suffrage in the South is
ended, as it ought to be.
And now let us give some of the reasons why it ought to be —
reasons drawn not from passion or prejudice — but from facts and
bitter experience.
Unrestricted Negro suffrage in the Southern States, if the right
he fully and freely exercised, means the most ignorant, corrupt, and
evil government ever known in a free country. It means' more than
this, for there can be no social security where it prevails. Amongst
white men, political party ascendency is never utilized to affect the
social order. Social disorder invariably follows Negro political as-

42 The Montgomery Conference.
cendency. The Negro has had nearly forty years of freedom aud
citizenship and opportunity for education, and yet, with many hon
orable exceptions, he is quite as incapable of understanding the
meaning of tme liberty and of intelligently exercising political
rights as he was when first emancipated. The Southern people,
amidst all the calamities that have befallen them, have expended
about $100,000,000 for the education of the Negroes since the year
1870, and yet with every succeeding year they have become, as a
race, less fitted for the duties of citizenship, and more and more a
menace to civilization and good govemment. These are not wild or
exaggerated statements, but facts capable of proof. Taking the
allegation in regard to the Negro's incapacity for an intelligent ex
ercise of his rights and duties as a citizen, and making due allow
ance for his earlier inexperience and liability to be misled, it is
still true that his whole political action, from his enfra,nchisement
to this hour, has been exclusively racial and antagonistic to the best ,
interests of the community in which he lives. The ballot in his
hands has been rather a badge of servitude than a credential of
citizenship, and the success of the ticket for which he votes is re
garded by him as ample authority for aggressiveness and insolence
toward his political adversaries. I speak that I do know, and testify
that I have seen. He drew the color line himself from the start,
and has stupidly stood upon it ever since. In the language of the
Northem -writer whom I have already quoted, freedom to the Negro
means "simply that he may go and come as he pleases, and cast his
vote for some question, of the purposes and merits of which he has
no more comprehension than the bob-tailed dog who goes with him
to the voting place."
If this were all, though a travesty upon popular government,
it might be borne ; but, as has happened in every Southern State'
where the Negroes equal, or outnumber, the white men and where
they have voted their full strength, a victory at the polls by their
party has invariably been followed by an exhibition of aggressive
race feeling and conduct on their part, which endangers -the public
peace. Then the welfare of society demands that some restriction
be placed upon their exercise of the voting power.
That such results have followed the triumph of the Negroes
in elections in my own State is a matter of public history. In no
State in the Union were elections more fairly conducted than there,
and in none were the Negroes more kindly and considerately treated,
but that very fact nearly caused our ruin. The Negroes, voting as
they always have done, as a unit, under the guidance of unprincipled
white demagogues, through disaffection and division among the
white people, carried the elections in 1896, and immediately in the
eastern part of the State, where they predominate, the evidences of
race antagonism and a disposition to offensively assert equality
began to exhibit themselves. Nothing of the kind had occurred
except in individual instances, since the days of "reconstruction "

Alfred Moore Waddell. 43
but it at once became common and grew apace. Demands for office,
which their allies dared not refuse, were made and, yielded to, and
these demands increased until in some localities the administration
of public affairs was largely committed to Negro officials, and white
office holders who were, in many instances, more inefficient, ignorant
and corrupt than their Negro colleagues. Crimes of all sorts in
creased alarmingly, and went unpunished. Negro jurors, who sat
in every case that was tried, refused, in the face of the most over
whelming and undisputed evidence to convict Negro criminals
guilty of outrageous offences. The city authorities and police
of some places, including the city in which I live, became a laugh
ing stock to law-breakers, and objects of contempt to all good
citizens. Eastern North Carolina became a Negro paradise, and
immigration to it began from all quarters. Idle and drunken
Negroes infested the streets of Wilmington day and night, and
grew more and more insolent and aggressive. Ladies were fre
quently and grossly insulted and citizens assaulted and robbed in
broad daylight. Burglaries were of almost nightly occurrence,
and no arrest followed. A Negro newspaper was established,
and crowned a series of offensive articles by an attack upon the
virtue of white women in general. Another election was pend
ing and threats of a demand for a still larger share of offices
were made. That election was one of the quietest ever held
in the State, and the Negroes polled about ninety per cent of their
strength, but a large proportion of their former white allies deserted
them because of their conduct, and their party was beaten. Then,
and not until then, the white people asserted their supremacy in an
unmistakable way, and they intend to preserve it at all hazards for
ever. It was not the work of ignorant enemies of the Negroes, but
the long delayed, and spontaneous action of all the white people,
united for the common purpose of preserving their civilization. Of
course there was much misrepresentation of the facts, and much
abuse of the leaders of the movement in certain quarters, but it is
a sufficient answer to say that no man ever saw all classes of a com
munity, including the clergy, armed and walking guard around
their homes when no danger threatened them. In that com
munity to-day there is, as there has been since the tenth of Novem-
her, 1898, such a transformation as has never occurred in the his
tory of any city in America. Nor is it the peace that reigned in
Warsaw that prevails, but a restoration of the majesty of' the law
under -which industrial enterprises have developed as never before,
and .growth in every direction is manifest, and cheerful confidence
has been substituted for paralysis and depression. This remarkable
change for the better is observable everywhere in North Carolina
where there was Negro political domination.
I am here not to philosophize, or to discuss abstractions, but
to tell what I know from observation and experience about unre
stricted Negro suffrage, and I unhesitatingly say that it is disastrous

44 The Montgomery Conference.
to good government and to the peace and welfare of society; and I
go farther and denounce the legislation which accomplished it as-
the greatest political crime that has been perpetrated in the history
of this country. It has been, and will continue to be, made of no-
effect by methods which are of Jhemselves necessarily injurious and
demoralizing, and therefore it is doubly disastrous. The true
remedy for it is to be found in the repeal, or modification, of the-
Fif teenth Amendment. I know that this suggestion will be regarded
by most persons as one the realization of which is beyond rea
sonable hope, but there can be little doubt that the mind of the
country North and South, especially since the acquisition of Hawaii,
Puerto Eico and the Philippines is in a more favorable condition to-
consider such a proposition than ever before. The repeal of the
amendment would not necessarily mean the total disfranchisement
of the Negro. The question of suffrage would be remitted to the
States where it rightfully belongs and I verily believe that the good
people of the South would eventually accord to the better class of
Negroes the right to vote. They, as you well know, cherish no ill
will toward the Negro. On the contrary, the only hope he has is
based upon the foundation laid in the days of slavery, and this
foundation he has been ignorantly undermining at the instigation of
the only real enemies he has in the world. For his o-wn sake, as
much as for the white man's, it is earnestly desired that the process-
shall cease, and the kindly relations between the races shall be re
established. The troubles that have afflicted the South in this
respect, except in the rarest instances, have not originated or been
encouraged by the old heads among them, who remember the past
and deplore the present. But those kindly relations can never be-
restored while unrestricted Negro suffrage continues and is ex
ercised. How shall it be restricted? Fraud and shot guns have no
place in this argument. Legal methods only, and such as will be-
just because they willbest conserve the commonwealth, are to be-
considered. The Legislature of North Carolina at its last session,
after careful consideration and able discussion, passed an act sub
mitting to the voters of the State an amendment to the Constitution'
which it is hoped and believed will settle the question satisfactorily
in that State. That amendment is substantially the same as the-
Louisiana amendment, which in the opinion of some of the best
constitutional la-wyers in the United States, who have carefully ex
amined it, is not in confiict with the Constitution of the United'
States. Without entering into details it will be sufficient to state-
the effect of it. It disfranchises no white man, educated or illiter
ate, who registers as a voter before December 1, 1908, but applies
an educational test after that date. It disfranchises every Negro-
who cannot read and write any section of the Constitution, except
such as are descended from the old free Negroes who voted prior-
to 1835 in North Carolina, or such as have come into the State from

Alfred Moore Waddell. 45
¦other States where Negroes could vote prior to 1867. Under the
fourth section, containing the educational test, there will probably
be 70,000 Negroes disfranchised. Under the fifth section, which
is the "Grandfather" clause, there will be probably 1,000 who can
vote. If the amendment is adopted there will be about 50,000
Negro voters in the State.
It was to have been expected, of course, that demagogues would
pervert the meaning of this amendment for party purposes, but
there are some honest and disinterested people who are opposed to
it upon what seems to me to be both a misapprehension of its terms.
and a process of false reasoning.
It has been charged that it contains a property qualification,
but this is a mistake. A voter is required to pay a poll tax for the
previous year — having about six months in which to accomplish this
feat- — which tax goes to the school fund.
A poll tax is about all that the average Negro now pays for
his education, and in some counties not half the Negroes pay even
the poll tax, but there is no property qualification whatever re
quired. So much for the mistake of fact by these good people.
Now the false reasoning to which I referred consists in this, viz. :
that they say the amendment by exempting certain whites and not
exempting the Negroes from the requirement of being able to read
and write offers a premium on the ignorance and shiftlessness of
the white boy, while it offers the same premium on the education
and thrift of the Negro boy. The fallacy in this a,rgument lies first
in assuming that the exemption of the white boy is a permanent
arrangement, and second, in identifying education with thrift. As
to the first assumption, the exemption ceases in the year 1908, and
therefore applies only to boys over thirteen years of age at this time.
None who come of age, after ,that date can register and vote unless
they can read and write. The same rule will apply to both races
after 1908.
As to the second assumption, it can hardly be necessary to
demonstrate that education — especially such education as the
average Negro takes — necessarily makes a man thrifty or that an
illiterate white man is necessarily a shiftless one. Common ex
perience negatives that. Besides all this, thrift or the want of it,
is not and never has been the basis of the suffrage.
Of course the object of the amendment is to eliminate the
ignorant Negro vote, and assure the supremacy of the whites. This
is honestly believed by the best citizens of the State to be the only
way in which they can preserve their heritage, and escape a repe
tition of their recent experience. I have not dwelt at any length
upon what that experience was, because it would be difficult to do
so without giving to my remarks a tone which I have tried to avoid,
and also because it is unnecessary for the purposes of this discussion
and in this presence.

46 The Montgomery Conference.
There is surely a necessity . for this kind of legislation, and
there is no wrong or injustice in it. The Southern people are forced
to resort to it if they would preserve their civilization — and self-
preservation is the first law for peoples as for individuals. If '^^
were dealing with abstract principles of right as between equals it
would be proper to insist that the limitations on suffrage, where they
exist, should apply to both races alike, but the very basis of our
problem is the inequality of the races. For three thousand years
the one has been a servant of servants in all lands; the other for
centuries has ruled the earth.
It is stupid and criminal to force them to live together with
equal rights and privileges to each, because such a condition means
— first, strife and disorder, and eventually the expulsion or annihila
tion of the weaker race. What does humanity, what does states
manship — which is common sense applied to public affairs — dictate
as the best and wisest course to be pursued under such conditions?
Why can not the American people display the courage of their con
victions on this subject? Do you tell me that education will be
the cure-all for this state of things? I yield to no man in my
estimate of the supreme importance Of popular education, although
I know that in the country where it was, developed first, even by a
compulsory process, there has been and is despotism, and military
aristocracy ; but the experience of nearly forty y^ars in these South
ern States has demonstrated that any other than industrial educa
tion for the Negro simply means, in the homely phrase of Uncle
Eemus, the spoiling of a field-hand, if not the creation of a social
misfit, or something worse. A Negro who, by virtue of industry
and good character has accumulated property upon which he pays
ta^es, is much more sure to be a good citizen and be desirous of cast-
iiig his ballot on the side of good government than one who, without
such substantial interest, regards his so-called education as all-
sufficient for every purpose of citizenship. The latter has merely
adopted a new fetich the worship of which, instead of bringing him
the realization of his hopes, only serves to multiply his disappoint
ments, and embitter his existence. It is, in the light of experience,
a matter of very great doubt whether the little book leaming which
he receives, unassociated with industrial training of any kind,
has not been rather a hindrance than a help to the average Negro, so
far as his usefulness as a citizen is concerned. It is a notorious fact
that the most potent factors in keeping the race politically united in
antagonism to the whites and to the welfare of the States in which
they live, are those Negro preachers who have only the elements of ^
an education ; but they are by no means the only ones who so utilize
their opportunities.
I do not hesitate to express the opinion that (while I would
not apply the test to white men) if it can be done by any constitu
tional method, it would be much wiser to require a property qualifij
cation than an educational one for the Negro voter ; but, until some

Alfred Moore Waddell. 47
better way out of our troubles is provided, the one adopted in
Louisiana and proposed in North Carolina seems to give the only
hope of relief. Belief we must have, as is admitted by all except
the fanatical enemies of the South and its people. We do not want
to get it by fraud or force, and it was a cruel wrong to place us in
a position where we were compelled to resort to one or the other of
them for self-protection. It was not only cruel to the Southern
people, but was injurious to the best interests of the whole country,
because in addition to barring out immigration and obstructing
progress, and otherwise affecting material growth, it has prevented
a display of that honest difference of opinion on all other political
questions which would otherwise have found expression to the ad
vancement of the public good, and has narrowed the view of our
people to the one overshadowing issue which, like the sword of
Damocles, has hung suspended above us.
No people have ever had to wrestle with such a multiform
problem for so long a time, and I believe in my soul that no other
people would have so patiently and so honorably dealt with it as
they have. It must strike the future historian as both astounding
and infinitely creditable to the Southern people that for a third of
a century, though poorer than ever before, they taxed themselves
liberally for the education of the children of the Negroes, provided
them' with asylums for their afflicted, employed them almost exclu
sively as artisans and laborers, sympathized with them in their
sorrows, and helped them in their troubles; and yet every year in
that whole period saw these same Negroes go to the polls with un
failing regularity, and vote as a unit and as a race, against their
every interest, against good govemment, and the welfare of both
races — but still continued to employ them and aid them as before.
It is without parallel in human history.
In the light of such a record, and the results of unqualified
Negro suffrage, no man can justly say that an effort to restrict that
suffrage, whether the restriction applies to others or not, is un
righteous or oppressive. It will not do to say that if the illiterate
Negro is disfranchised, the illiterate white man should also be de
prived of his vote. A very large proportion of illiterate white men
have an intelligent understanding of what they are voting for, and
of the merits of candidates for office.
Leaving heredity out of view entirely (and it ought always
to be kept in mind) they have been accustomed all their lives to
hear political discussions. These things can not truthfully be said
of one illiterate Negro in five hundred. "Doctrinaries" and moral
ists may theorize and dogmatize forever, but they can not convince
an Anglo-Saxon that Negroes ought to participate in the govern
ment of white men and a statesman will always recognize this in
superable fact in dealing with the Negro problem in the South.
What the Negro needs is not political power, but the help and
sympathy of the white people among whom he lives, and which they

48 The Montgomery Conference.
have always stood ready to give, but which he has done his best to
nullify. It was not his natural inclination, but the result of false
and vicious training since his emancipation. He not only needs
this help and sympathy, but will perish without it. He will never,
however, receive it as he has done until he abandons the idea of
political power. White supremacy is absolutely essential to his
welfare, because it means the salvation of those things upon which
his every interest depends. It is madness in him, and cruelty in
those who so advise him, to resist it. There is in every civilized
community a force superior to any written statute — the force of an
overwhelming public opinion — and when this public opinion is
based, as in this case, upon race-pride supplemented by the lessons
of three thousand years of history, it is beyond the reach of any
, legislation to alter, or reverse. For this reason, and for this reason
' only, the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is
a dead letter, and ought no longer to remain a part of the funda-
\ mental law of the country. It can not benefit the Negro, and acts
as a solvent to the bond of fraternal reunion which would other
wise be inftangible.
I am very well aware, Mr. Chaiifman, that in giving expression
to these views upop the subject which I was invited to discuss, I
have simply repeated in a very concise form an oft-told tale. I un
derstand perfectly that no one is responsible for them but myself,
but there can be little doubt that they are in the main but a reflec
tion of the opinions of a vast majority of the Southern people, with
whom at last rests the solution of the race problem in all its aspects.
The next speaker was the Hon. John Temple Graves, of
¦Georgia, who spoke as follows :
Permit me in the beginning, Mr. President, to express to the
citizens of Montgomery and to this committee my high appreciation
of the occasion they have made.
The intelligence that conceived and the energy that has assem
bled this non-partisan convention of representative Americans, in
free and fearless conference upon the most vital of American
problems, has rendered a service which will, I trust, be made
manifest to the republic, to the South, and to both races whose -vital
interests are involved. As a citizen I am impressed -with the far-
reaching results which this Conference may attain, and as an indi
vidual I am grateful for the honor and the privilege of a place
upon the program of to-day.
For twenty years I have been in constant protest against the
¦complacent assertion that there was no race question in the South.
Men of power and influence in my own and other States — politicians
of prominence, skimming the surface of events — have soothed us
with the assurance that there was no problem, and that time and

John Temple Graves. 49
patience and folded hands would settle these great questions in the
perfect way.
This Montgomery Conference is the answer to apathy and to
doubt. The best brain and blood .of Alabama is the host of this
assembly. A cabinet officer of flawless record and conspicuous
statesmanship presides over its deliberations. Your able and dis
tinguished Governor welcomes us to this historic Comonwealth. Our
local greeting comes from the lips of the Chief Executive of the
Capital City of the dead Confederacy. You have summoned from
a thousand miles the imperial orator of New York to discuss with
us the shadow which this problem casts upon the republic.
One of the profoundest and most learned lawyers of the South
is here to tell us how this problem shames justice and defeats the
law. We have with us the statesman and publicist, who filled the
executive chair of West Virginia. A prince of literature, thinker,
scholar and philosopher, is here to speak to us; statesmen,
churchmen, publicists and journalists are here, and you have just
heard brave words and true words from a frank and gallant gentle
man of North Carolina, who has grappled — a practical and heroic
leader — ^with an incident in this problem which made a mockery of
government and a farce of law.
This day and this assembly establishes to the eye and to the ear
of the republic the existence of a race problem — serious, menacing
and supreme. The thinkers and statesmen of the old world have recognized it
long ago. Mr. Gladstone has said that its solution would be the
crucial test of our civilization. Arthur Balfour, the rising hope of
English statesmanship, holds it first among the problems of our
national life. Bismarck declared that the value of republics was at
stake in our capacity to solve it.
The issue of races is not peculiar to America. It is the problem
of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. It burns in India, in Africa and in
America. Nor is it a problem peculiar to these modern times. It is as
ancient as the history of man. The Almighty reached down and
solved it for the Egyptians in the model way when he led the captive
Jews across the Eed Sea to the promised land. The patriarchs who
were nearest to Omnipotence followed the divine example, and
, Abraham and Lot parted in peace — one for the land of Canaan and
the other for the well-watered plains of Jordan. Greece and Eome
and the Asiatic empires solved their racial problems in a human
fashion by the red edge of the sword. The early Britons fell in
another human plan by extermination. The British empire of
to-day boldly proclaims the absolute supremacy of the superior race,
and 150,000 white Englishmen lord it with absolute dominion over
250,000,000 dark-skiUned Aryans — the fellow-servants of their
Christian queen.
Man's views may differ and man's solutions vary, but I call

JO The Montgomery Conference.
you to witness that on the one occasion, in which the skies were
opened for light upon the problem of wrangling races, the Lord
God Almighty led the way through seas of difficulty to the definite
end of  SEPARATION.
And if we to-day shall bow our minds as we bow our heads
to the invocation of the chaplain and follow the ascription that looks
for heavenly guidance, we have the plain example and the perfect
way. Mr. President, if I understand the spirit and the object of this
assembly, it is my privilege and my duty to speak plainly here — to
tell the truth as I see it — to follow the straight line of my con-vie- ,
tions and to seek no merely politic agreement with public opinion
and the popular view.
Within the plan and scope of this discussion the half hour al
lotted me does not permit me to do more than suggest in outline
what I believe, in all humility, I should be able, with greater lati
tude, to elaborate in logical and unanswerable force.
' The topic of the franchise will serve nie as a base. The fran
chise covers the question. The Negro's right to votQ carries the
right to political equality and makes the basis of his aspiration for
social equality. I quote here the vital question of Professor William
H. Councill, of the Industrial School of HuntsviUe, Alabama :
"Will the white man permit the Negro to have an equal part in
the industrial, political, social and civil advantages of the United
States ? This, as I understand it, is the problem."
These words come from a Negro — the wisest, the most thought
ful and the most eloquent Negro of his time — ^s discreet as Wash
ington, a deeper thinker and a much more eloquent man. But for
one hour of the Atlanta Exposition, Councill would stand to-day
where Washington stands^— as the recognized leader of his race.
This question, asked by Councill, as the deliberate representa
tive of his people, is the core of the race question. I adopt it as my
own and I ask that question here to-day.
The answer to it is in every white man's heart, even if it does
not lie openly on every white man's lips. It may be expressed in
diplomacy; it may be veiled in indirection; it may be softened in
philanthropy; it may be guarded in politic utterance, and oftenest
of all it is restrained by ultra conservatism and personal timidity.
But wherever the answer to this vital question comes, stripped of
verbiage and indirection, it rings like a martial bugle in the single
syllabus — no !
This may not be right, but it is honest. It may not be jiist,
but it is evident. It may not be politic, but it is a great, glaring,
indisputable, indestructible fact. I do not stop to defend it. I
do not justify it. I do not argue it at all, but I state it as a truth
that we' may as well in the beginning look frankly and fearlessly in
the face. North and South, the answer, wherever it is honest, is the
same. I agree with Albion Tourgee that there are not twenty thou-

John Temple Graves. 5 1
sand men in the republic who can answer that question in the affirm
ative. Councill knows the answer and states it with the courage of
a man. Bishop Tumer knows it, Bishop Holsey knows it; Blyden
and Bruce and Taylor knew it; the Atlanta Constitution knows it;
your own illustrious Senator, John T. Morgan, knows it; I think
that Booker Washington knows it sadly in his heart, and I believe
that every thoughtful gentleman who strips theory from the bare
form of fact knows it — here and everywhere.
If this question could be answered in the affirmative, then our
problem should be soluble in time and reason. But in the unspoken
thunder of that remorseless "No" we must look further than expe
dients for the solution that we seek.
The problem that confronts us is one of tremendous meaning
to both races — white and black.
It is a problem for our race, because there never has been and
never will be a complete national unity and sympathy until this
vexed issue is removed from national discussion.
It is a problem for us because it halts our material development.
It frightens immigration from industrial competition -with the
Negro. It deters capital from investment in the shadow of an un
solved problem. It makes a standard of labor that prejudices all
our poor against menial but honorable service. It is paralyzing
agriculture on the farms and property in the suburbs, and is driving
all who can make the sacrifice to the safety afforded by proximity
and police protection in the cities.
It is a problem for the white race because it poisons in the
minds of growing youth the conception of a sacred ballot. It stabs
our reverence for the Constitution. It corrupts politics. It throttles
independence of thought and freedom of political action, and forces
us, whether we will or no, into the ranks of one political party.
It is a problem for us, because it weakens law and tempts jus
tice from the jurors' boxes to the judges' bench.
It is a problem for us, because it divides the Church and sets
men of common faith and creed into separate and sectional divisions.
It is a problem for us, because it grows in difficulty -with mar-
velously increasing numbers and is magnified in vitality and danger
by delay. Every vital issue of civilization and development is wrapped
in the shadow of this increasing problem.
It is no less a problem of appalling import for the Negro race.
It is a problem for him, because he can never — North or South
— be received in equal social and personal relations with the families
of the white race, and can never therefore be a social equal with the
white man.
It is a problem for him, because he will never — North or South
— be permitted to govern in any State or county, even where he has
a majority, and he can never therefore be a political equal.
If he can have then neither social nor political equality — and

5 2 The Montgomery Conference.
every fact and all theory and all instinct and every unbroken prece
dent declare that he cannot — then he can never under these condi
tions reach the full development of a citizen or a man, and his suf
frage becomes a mockery and his liberty a farce.
It is a problem for the Negro because he can never compete
with Anglo-Saxon civilization. His is the weakest and ours the
strongest race on earth. Our majority is 60,000,000, and we have
a thousand years the start of him. No race has ever competed suc
cessfully with the Saxon, and where is the hope for the Negro here?
In politics, in society, in industry, and in trade there is no well-
founded hope for the inferior race. History without a break, and
precedent without a variation, proclaims this to be true. There is
not a line of light or ray of promise for him in either way.
This is the core of my contention — the basis of my argument.
All our splendid platitudes are wrecked on this stern fact. All our
brave philahthrophies beat out their beautiful lives on this inexor
able truth ; the Negro confronts a hopeless and unequal competition !
There he stands, that innocent and unfortunate stranger. For
his sake the one difference has widened between the sections of our
common country. Over his black body we have shed rivers of blood
and treasure to emphasize our separate convictions of his destiny.
And yet, as the crimson tide rolls away into the years we realize that
all this blood and treasure and travail was spent in vain, and that
the Negro, whom a million Americans died to free, is in present
bond and future promise still a slave, whipped by circumstances,
trodden under foot by iron and ineradicable prejudice; shut out
forever from the opportunities which are the heritage of liberty,
and holding in his black hand the hollow parchment of his franchise
as a freeman looks through a slave's eyes at the impassable barriers
which imprison him forever within the progress and achievement
of a dominant and all-conquering race.
On the social and political line :
Take Booker Washington. He is the tyne and embodiment of
all worth and of all achievement in his race. His linen is as clean as
yours. His fame is broader than the repute of any statesman in this
hall. His character, stainless and unimpeachable, defies criticism.
His patriotism is clear, his courtesy unfailing. What attribute of
worthiness could you add to his equipment? And yet I challenge
this Conference with a proposition :
What man of you, gentlemen, philosophers, statesmen, meta
physicians, problem-solvers that you are — what man of you would
install this great and blameless Negro in your guest chamber to
night ? If he were unmarried, what man of you would receive with
equanimity his addresses to your daughter or your ward?. What
man of you would vote for this proven statesman for governor of
Alabama ?
Would you do this now ? Would you do it to-morrow ? Would
you do it in ten years ? When would you do it ?

John Temple Graves. 53
And why would you refuse to do it at all ?
Search through all your logic for a reason. Explore all your
theories for a cause. And when you fail to find in reason, in reli
gion, or knowledge or justice, anywhere an answer, you will find at
last the answer — in his skin! Bleach that to the whiteness of
your own, and you have solved the problem by a chemical solution.
But until this leopard shall remove his spots, until this Ethiopian
shall have changed his skin, you may tug in vain to draw out this
leviathan of problems with a hook.
When will we leam that this is, from first to last, a race ques
tion — an issue of race and not politics, an issue of color and
not section; a thing of skin and not of achievement or condition?
Straighten the hair and whiten the skin of the Negro, and the issue
is closed. But the skin and the hair bafSe all theories and mock
every solution that seeks to harmonize elements inherently and in
curably antagonistic. The history of races is the history of race
antagonism and separation. It goes back to Babel and runs through
Hebrew and Egyptian, Jew and Gentile, Turk and Christian, Mag
yar and Hungarian, the castes of India and the Spanish warfare
against the Moors. It never yet ended in amalgamation or was
settled in harmony. Never yet was peace found this side of di
vision !
To treat this question with expedients is temporizing and use
less. You might as well salve a broken limb with vaseline, or treat
a cancer with catnip tea. This is a case for surgery — surgery heroic,
but beneficent; the knife that severs the limb, but saves the life.
Do you tell me that social and political equality are not the
natural resultants of civil rights, and the laudable aspiration of the
Negro ? Then I tell you that you do not know liberty, and you don't
know the Negro. Prom the centre to the circumference of every
intelligent Negro's heart there is the pervading and consuming
desire to be equal in all things to the white man above him. Envi
ronment and conditions may suppress the desire. But at the first
pulse of real liberty this passion leaps to utterance and to action.
It is the highest and most hopeful quality in the Negro race. It
is the one thing that makes him worthy of equality. After all, the
-issue is equality, twist it as you may. Theorize, protest, it comies
back to that at last. If you elevate the Negro you increase aspira
tions and his chances for equality. If you lower him you degrade
your own status in the world. If he has anything to work for, it is
equality. If he has anything to hope for in the civic heaven of his
aspirations, it is equality.
Do you think that the Negro with increasing progress, with
advancing education, developing products like Washington and
Councill, and Turner, etc., will be content to revolve forever in the
inferior scale— to ignore politics, to follow exclusively the indus
trial arts, and never to lift his eyes in aspiration to the homes of
the white man or to the offices of the republic ?

54 The Montgomery Conference.
Does any man in this Convention think so ? Then, sir, you are
the most radiant optimist that has yet burst upon my vision from
the clouds and shadows of this problem. I salute you for your cheer
fulness, I admire you for your courage, and I condole with you for
your inexpressible isolation.
Mr. President, if I forecast the trend of the discussions which
will follow, I foresee three remedies which will be offered to heal the
issue of the races : The Repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment, a Re
stricted Ballot, and Industrial Education for the Negro.
If the Fifteenth Amendment be repealed you may be sure that
it will never be substantially re-enacted in nation or in state. The
enfranchisement of the Negro was the American mistake of the
century. It is best recognized by those who did it, and the number
of those who endorse it would not materially increase the population
of this beautiful capital of Alabama. Let the Fifteenth Aniendment
be repealed, and it will remain substantially repealed. It means
purely and simply the disfranchisement of the Negro. And this
indeefl, will solve the problem — not honorably, not kindly, not
wisely, but will eliminate the Negro from politics ; it will cut the
core from the contention and leave the republic at peace. But even
with the amendment repealed and the Negro disfranchised, there
still remains the Negro laborer — the standard of labor in the South ;
and so long as the Negro remains the standard of labor here, then
the indestructible prejudice of race makes this standard beneath
the dignity of the white race and shuts the door of all menial but
honorable vocations in the face of the increasing number of the poor
and unemployed white men of the South. In the North, -where so
large a number of young men and women earn their livings, and
educate themselves, as waiters and stewards and cooks and hostlers,
without ostracism, it is impossible to appreciate the conditions whicli
shut out Southern youth from vocations wherein they could be
forced to equality and competition with the Negro. This is not my
plan. If the remedy be a restricted ballot, it will not heal the malady.
I lay it dovm as a central proposition that these two opposite and
inherently antagonistic races cannot grow up side by side on equal
terms of law and possession in the same territory. For no re
stricted ballot can ever be fair when the restrictive power is held (as
it will be held) in the strong hand of the dominant race. And a
ballot unfair is corruption to character, a canker to constituions, and
a blighting curse to civilization. A restricted ballot must be just
and equitable. If it be evenly adjusted, it -will disfranchise white
men as it will disfranchise the Negro. And there will be con
flict here. If it eliminates the lower element of Negroes, it
' simply carries race antagonism to a higher plane, and the very pro
cess of elimination will advance the calibre, the self-respect, and in
evitably the self-assertion of the darker race. And there is certain
conflict here.

John Teimple Graves. 55
Industrial education will not solve, but complicate, the prob
lem. Will industrial education raise the moral status of the Negro
when the academic and the classic school have failed ? Will the edu
cation of the hand produce a higher type of citizens than the educa
tion of the mind?
Industrial education is moving faster among the white race
than with the Negro. The supply of skilled labor from the white
ranks will be equal to every demand of the times. Carry every theory
of Booker Washington to its full and perfect consummation, and
you only make a new and deadlier competition between antagonistic
races. The conflict heretofore has been social and political. You will
carry it then to the material things. From the intangible things
of pride and aspiration you transport it to the realm of the bread
winner, and you make the struggle fiercer in the material jealousies
of trade. The battle of the loaf will be the deadliest battle of the,
races. When the "Negro makes what the white man needs," and
the white man makes what the white man needs, the Waterloo of
competition for the Negro is at hand, and not Napoleon hdmself
can save the Negro from the rout and destruction which must follow
the clash of his powers with the invincible industrial race- of the
world. The whole theory too of this last solution rests upon the
flimsy basis that the Negro will supinely consent to ignore politics,
to disclaim social equality, to surrender at your bidding the inestim
able rights which are his by the Constitution, and giving over at
your call the social aspirations which are inherent and inborn, will,
in a mere slavish spirit of acquiescence, sink into the inferiority to
which you carefully invite him.
Pardon me, gentlemen, but this seems to me the baseless fabric
of a dream. On this great question I stand now where I have always stood
— where Webster stood and Henry Clay; where Thomas Jefferson
stood, and Abraham Lindoln, and Henry Grady, and Councill and
Turner and the rest — where in time all men will stand who see the
light and dare to face it.
Separation is the logical, the inevitable, the only way.
No other proposed solution will stand the test of logic and experi
ment. For no statute will permanently solve this problem. No ano
dyne of law, no counter-irritant of legislation will quiet it longer
than the hour of its application. The evil is in the blood of races,
the disease is in the bones and the marrow and the skin of an
tagonistic peoples.
Eeligion does not solve the problem, for the Christ spirit will
not be all-pervasive until the millennial dawn.
Education complicates the problem. Every 'year of enlighten-"
ment increases the Negro's apprehension of his position, of his
merit and attainment, and of the inconsistency betweeu his real
and his constitutional status in the republic. Education brings

5° The Montgomery Conference.
perception, and ambition follows, with aggressive assertion against
the iron walls of a prejudice that has never yielded and will never
¦yield. The conflict is irrepressible and inevitable.
Time complicates the problem by giving increasing numbers
and additional provocation to the Negro, and increasing danger to
the -struggle which logic and destiny render certain.
Politics complicates the problem by bringing times of fierce
civic conflict when the passions and prejudices of faction may be
moved to partisan alignment -with the deep and lurking dangers of
the race question !
We have come in God's providence to the parting of the ways.
In the name of history and of humanity ; in the interest of both
races, and in the fear of God, I call for a di-vision.
We can make it peaceably now. We may be forced to accom
plish it in blood hereafter.
The time is propitious and the country is ripe for separation.
Ispeak this deliberately and from personal and intimate knowl
edge of the trend of sentiment in the country. For ten years I have
been preaching the separation of the races from Maine to California.
I discuss the question almost nightly with representative audiences
North and South in a freedom, a fullness and a reciprocal candor
which few newspapers or indi-viduals have pursued. And I do not
hesitate to say that at this time and in this light, I would be willing,
without reserve, to submit the question and the South's position on
this great problem to the judgment and justice and kindliness of the
great majority of our brethren in the North.
I believe that beyond the politicians the whole mass of the
Southern people will endorse the idea of separation.
I believe that all the- thinkers and the bulk of the followers
of the Negro race endorse the idea. Turner is its prophet, Councill
its mighty advocate, Taylor its eyangel, Blyden its historian.
The representatives of ten thousand Negroes in Kansas ask for
it. Two conferences of the African Methodist Church, representing
a half million Southern Negroes, ask for it. The South is sprinkled
thick -with Negro societies organized to promote it, and I have more
than casual reason to believe that the solid judgment which rests
behind the beneflcent experiment of Booker Washington, teaches
him that neither worth, nor merit, nor achievement will ever bridge
the impassable barrier of race prejudice, and that when the last
arrow of his noble effort has been shot, it must come to this at last.
There is not a hope in fact or reason for the Negro outside of
separation. There is no peace, no purity, no tranquil development, no dur
able agricultural pj- osperity, no political independence and no moral
growth for the white race outside of separation.
It is neither impossible nor impracticahle. The difficulties that
compassit are not so great as those which surrounded the proposition
of emancipation. We have no right to declare that separation

John Temple Graves. 57
is impossible until we have set ourselves once fairly and honorably
and earnestly to find what can be done. The elements are willing
and the way is in reach. This is not a day of impossibilities. To
the genius, the energy, and the necessities of this age all things are
possible. Every day sees the business world, the educational world,
the political world converting the impossible into the possible. The
hand of the Almighty is steadily opening the way.
One-third of the territory of the republic is untaken and unde
veloped, and recent official testimony has declared that stored reser
voirs can redeem in the West a territory equal to the maintenance
of 70,000,000 people. The islands of the seas are ours and may fur
nish a key to the solution. The repatriation of the dark continent
from which the Negro came offers a suggestive remedy. Every year
God multiplies the ways of separation.
If I had one-half hour more, I should welcome the opportunity
to submit in becoming modesty a definite plan for your considera
tion, and then stand upon this platform to defend it against all
opposition. — ^A plan that has stood the fire of heavy artillery before,
and survived the shock of sterner opposition. I have small hope, sir,
that we will solve this problem within this generation. But we can
begin it.
One generation starts a problem. The next may solve
it. I believe that the logical statement of this problem makes sepa
ration the inevitable solution. It is the high and courageous thing
to direct our minds to that great end. It is time to prepare the way.
I know beyond speculation, that separation is a possible and a
practical way. I believe with all my heart and soul/ and mind that
it is the logical, the inevitable, the only way.
Mr. President, no great problem affecting human destiny was
ever solved by theory and indirection. The world's crises have been
dominated by direct men -with brave, straight strokes.
Long ago, in Gordium of Bithynia, there was a problem that
puzzled and defied. Whoever untied the twisted tangle of that im
perial cord was set for the kingdom's rule. Men tried and struggled
over it for years. Strength and skill, subtlety and cunning, theory
and reason were brought to bear upon it in vain. Until one day a
brave, blunt soldier severed the Gordian knot with one straight
stroke of his sword, and marched onward tp the conquest of the
world. Away with expedient! Let us have done with temporizing.
Away with timidity and hesitation ! Let us face the great question
like men ! Let us grapple the mighty issue bravely and once for all.
Let us see the end from the beginning, and go forth to meet it with,
faith in God and in our race.
And Almighty God, the last imminent factor in the destinies
of men, will strike the scales from our clouded eyes and lead to the
kindly light a people who, with earnest, faith and strenuous en
deavor, have sought to help others and to help themselves. "

58 The Montgomery Conference.
The next speaker was Ex-Governor William A. MacCorkle, of
Charleston, West Virginia. Said Governor MacCorkle:
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Conference, Ladies and Gen
tlemen: — By the overkind appreciation of the action of your
Committee, I am asked to conclude the debate on this great question,
which has within it such potentialities for good or evil to this land,
resting under the splendor of the May-day sunshine, a land from
whose kingly plenitude of moral and material worth man can reap
more abundantly and more easily than at any time since, by the
divine command, fruition was crowned with the toil of the hands.
Coming from the mountains of West Virginia, within the sound
of the flow of the Beautiful Eiver, yet I am no stranger to Alabama
or to her traditions and her glory; and when, inclining her proud
head to the inscrutable commands of the Great Euler of govern
ments and armies, she pressed to her pure lips in the day of her
agony and sorrow the cup filled with the bitter waters of Mara, I
and mine, from the same chalice of suffering, drank the consuming
draught of humiliation and distress.
This fair city, pulsating with busy life, hallowed -with memo
ries of the past, laden to-day with the sweet luxuriance and redo-
lency of springtime flowers typical of that resurrection which will
not wither with the pasinsg of their fragrance, where amidst your
foliage-embowered streets I seem to hear the thunderous tread of
a mighty spirit, is to me the Mecca of a pilgrimage which I approach
with bared head and unsandaled feet. Holding views as to this g-reat
question under discussion differing somewhat from those of the dis
tinguished and honored sons of the South who have preceded me,
yet I yield to them nothing, not a hand's breath, in love for the
South, reverence for her glorious past, and glowing hope for the sure
consummation of her splendid destiny.
Seeing first the light of day and passing the springtime of life
in the town where sleep, under the soft shadows of our mountains,
Lee and Jackson, words untrue to the South uttered on this classic
scene would blister the tongue of him who gave them birth. Every
tradition of my people, their joys, their sorrows and their loves, have
their resting-place on the spotless and consecrated bosom of old Vir
ginia, and my every hope and ambition for the future is intertwined
in the welfare and good of the South. The limpid sunlight of the
South and the azure of her sky hold me in a spell which appeals to
my soul with a vritchery far more potent than happier material con
ditions amidst other associations and surrounded by other peoples.
For her sake, the old home, fragrant with precious and unspeakable
memories of the smile around the hearth and rich with the sunlight
of the gentle voices in the wide halls in other and happier days,
echoes to the footsteps of the alien master ;_ and our fields, under the
divine ordering of Him who, with impartial hand, distills the dew
and scatters the sunshine, yield their treasures of rich grain to the

William A. MacCorkle. 59
hand of the stranger. For her sake, without repining, I have sat
at the widow's board, where the barrel of meal wasted and the cruse
of oil failed ; and whilst differing on this question with possibly a
majority of the audience before me, yet in the sweet words of affec
tion, old as the love which crowned with glory of surpassing light
the tall pines on the lonely mountains of Moab and gladdened the
ripening grain in the harvest-fields of Judea, "Entreat me not to
leave thee or return from following after thee, for whither thou
goest I will go', and where thou lodgest I will lodge."
Appreciating the importance of this great question to our
country, and well recognizing my poverty of experience and ability,
I approach the discussion with that diffidence born of a desire that
no spirit except the love of my country shall guide my statements and
direct my thoughts. On the threshold I pray to the good God of
our people that we may reason with each other in a spirit of calm
ness which -wiU lead us to that high plane where we can put away
all feelings less holy than the love of country, and from the sublime
heights of true patriotism look down on every unworthy ambition.
The settlement of thp Eace Question, in the present acute con
dition of the public mind, will take its true direction within the next
few years; and the South deserves to have the true expression and
the honest action of her sons, unclouded and unbiased by personal
ambition or untrammeled by partisan command. Never before did
modern civilization have such deep and abiding interest in the ulti
mate action of a portion of its elements as it has now in the action
of the people of the South. Here, I pray and believe, will be wit
nessed the sublimest consummation of true sta-tesmanship and reali
zation of popular government by a people, who, though prejudiced
by local conditions, hampered by another and alien race, and vexed
by social and economic conditions such as never before beset a peo
ple, yet rising above the complications of the hour, are honestly, im
partially, without prejudice and with full justice, soMng this ques
tion to the glory of the whole people. Surely, it -will take all of our
strength to close rightly the only question which has kept apart the
people of this mighty Eepublic and which has given anxious thought
to those who look towards our land for the blessed realization of a
government by the people. Only in a spirit of compromise, as ex
emplified by the Fathers, who gave up cherished convictions that all
might meet on a plan on which a govemment could be inaugurated
and successfully conducted, can we to-day succeed. "And thus the
Constitution which we now present, is the result of a spirit of amity
and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity
of our political situation rendered indispensable." The obeisance
which we owe the glorious traditions of our past and the command
ing position of the South in this marvelous and splendid cycle of
material development, demands that sobriety of action, tolerance of
spirit and charity of opinion which has evei* characterized a free
people in the solving of the great questions- which meet every people

6o The Montgomery Conference.
designed by Providence for a permanent place among the nations-
Says Mr. Hume:
"There are enough of zealots on both sides who kindle up the
passions of their partisans, and, under the pretence of public good,
pursue the interest and ends of their particular faction. For my
part, I shall always be more fond of promoting moderation than
zeal; though perhaps the surest way of producing moderation in
every party is to increase our zeal for the public. Let us, therefore try
if it be possible, from the foregoing to draw a lesson of moderation
with regard to the parties into which our country is at present di
vided; at the same time, that we allow not this moderation to abate
the industry and passion with which every individual is bound tO'
pursue the good of his country."
In the solution of this great problem, surely we can rise above
the heat of political discussion, and show td the world complete
abnegation of previously formed opinion, and allow our spirits to be
touched by that charity which comes alone from Him who, amidst
the complexities of change and despair of our future, has always
guided us in those ways best for His people.
I shall not attempt to discuss the minor and infinitely various
details of this important question. I shall rather briefly, and in my
humble way, found my argument upon the basic principles of our
national existence, and upon some general principles, and not waste
your time in assaulting the outworks of the citadel.
The settlement of this franchise question lies deep upon the
very foundation-stones of the Eepublic, and only by laying bare to
the people's view those mighty substructures can we here efficiently
serve our country.
Every historic State is underlaid with a fundamental principle,
from which it breathes its life and through which it has its civil
existence. Each of our colonies had its peculiar idea of govern
ment ; but after they were bound in one glorious, shining union of
States, that great principle of civil philosophy, the right of the peo
ple to govern through its own suffrage, shone as the glory of heaven.
The State became the sovereign through the power of its own
people, and the preservation of its liberty was predicated upon the
people. Therefore, I assert that the constitutional exercise of the '
right of franchise is the vital and underlying principle of the life
of this free people, and that the infraction of this principle is surely
attended with ultimate ruin to our system of republican government.
"In democracy, there can be no exercise of sovereignty but by the
suffrages of the people which are their will."
Sir, this is fundamental, and, in this splendid presence, it but
needs expression to receive assent. Stripped of every covering, it
is but the annunciation of the right of the people to choose their
servants, indicate their policy and live under the laws they them
selves have created. When you depart from this principle, you for-

William A. MacCorkle. 6i
-sake the underlying principle of national government ; and when
this is done, surely you drop out of the nations which exercise an
abiding power upon civilization.
To enable our country to consummate its destiny, this vital
principle, at ^he risk of weariness of expression, must be kept close
io the hearts of the people. It is the golden thread, which at every
stage of our national existence, through storm and battle and change,
has_ been held by the patriots to inhere into the very texture of
national life. When this principle is abandoned or impaired,
"Our own
Like free states foregone, is but a bright leaf torn
From Time's dark forest, and on the wide gust thrown
To float a while, by varying eddies borne ;
And sink at last forever!"
Says Montesquieu: "It is plain, then, that if the government,
whether state or federal, controls or disposes of suffrage, or allows
it to be disposed of, without warrant in the constitution, it strikes at
the very vitals of the republic from which it derives its entire exist-
¦ence and power."
In all the ages, the ruin of free nations has been wrought through
ihe insidious sapping and impairing of the fundamental principle
vitalizing the government. I appeal to the historic past as the un-
•erring guide to the future. I am reminded that the power of the
Great Eepublic stretches this year into two hemispheres; that in
ships and money and all of the elements of power and grandeur and
civilization since the morning stars sung together, she has not had
her equal. Permit me, sir, to recall to you that the real impairment
of the integrity of the governing principle of every historic State
. dated from the brightest splendor of its existence and not from the
hour of its weakness. I call from the solemn past the phantom
memories of Greece and Judea and kingly Eome. When the silks
and purple and fine linen of Tyre and Sidon were in every market
place, and the light of the star of the Blessed Eedeemer was already
touching with its holy fires the lofty towers of the Temple of the
Living Jehovah, Judea was stricken. When the genius of Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes and Euripides held in mortal/ thrall
ihe intelligence of the world, and the statue of Pallas Athenae and
the columned Parthenon looked down on the Piraeus, filled with the
«hips from the Euxine, the ^gean, and from beyond the Pillars of
Hercules, and when the glory from Salamis and Thermopylae
.ihrilled the people and lighted up the beacons of Democracy on
Naxos and Delos and the Islands of the Sea, Greece was stricken.
When her arms extended from Dacia to the Desert of Libya, and
ihe thunderous tread of her legions shook the known world, and her
mariners plucked the fruit from the mystic Garden of the Hesper-
ides, and the oar beat of her triremes shook the mist of the Hyper
borean Seas, and Gaul and Scythian and Christian appealed to her
royal power, Eome was stricken.

62 The Montgomery Conference.
But, sir, the student of the philosophy of government points to
the important distinction that Eome and Greece were guarded by
the genius of the philosophers, and Judea by the patriarchs, the pro
phets and the la-v\'givers, but that Greece, nor Eome, nor Judea were
illumined by the Master, upon whose teachings are founded the prin
ciples of the modern State. In reply, sir, Holland, a modem State,
is an illustration of the immutable rule that whether under the
teachings of the brows encircled by the chaplet of ivy and laurel
or by the Crown of Thorns, the basic principle of civil life con
trolling the State cannot be impaired without ultimate ruin. Under
the inspiration of religion, uplifted by the genius of freedom, grasp
ing the great principle of representative union of Hancetown and
Provence, defying Spain, establishing her colonies in all the earth,
bidding fair to become a great, abiding, historic people and divide
with England the control of the commercial and civilizing influencea
of the world, Holland, intoxicated with power, forgot the basic prin
ciple which made her great, and sunk to the rank of a lesser national
power having no future historic importance.
Then, sir, reasoning from the past, with all the intensity of my
life, I plead for the maintenance, in its original integrity, of the un
derlying principle of our Eepublic. It is supremely vital to liberty.
Dethrone the principle from its high estate, and the temple qf Lib
erty is already tottering. Political apostasy is terrible in its reach
and grasp of power and in the quick emulation of its example. The
infraction of the right of franchise, the impairment of the constitu
tional right of the citizen to exercise the franchise in South Carolina
or in Alabama, provoke the desire and willingness to commit the
same wrong in the populous city of New York or in Pennsylvania.
The passing of enactments at Montgomery or Charleston, interfer
ing with and restricting the franchise against the spirit of the Consti
tution- and its amendments, provokes the terror of the Force bill in
the National House and Senate. The impairment of the constitu
tional right in the State causes equal emulation for the destruction
of our constitutional guarantees by laying the hand of political apos
tasy upon the Constitution of the United States.
"Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and you pre
pare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on ihe-
'rights of others, you have lost the strength of your own independ
ence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who-
rises among you."
Men desiring to grasp unconstitutional power heed little the
cry of a people that any infraction of that great instrument by them
was caused by .the overweening necessity of preserving their civili
zation from destruction. At this transition period of the world's
history, the conservative forces of the coimtry should be on their
guard to save the Eepublic from any impairment of its fundamental
principles. The times are surely propitious .for such injury to our
governing principle, and the example of its infraction' too recent to

William A. MacCorkle. 63
brook denial. The growth of the sentiment that the Constitution
is what the majority of the people wish it to be, the growing power
of wealth and class in the elections, the increasing control of the
central government and its gradual infringement upon the rights
of the States, the overweening power of the federal courts upon every
pretext seeking to control State tribunals and exercise jurisdiction
never contemplated by the Constitution, the lessening respect for the
elective franchise, and the want of regard for the dignity of the
States, sadly illustrated to-day by the warring governments of a free
commonwealth, all show the vital demand for the jealous care of the
Constitution in all of its original vigor.
Now, sir, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, "That
the right of the citizens of the United States -to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account
of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," is as much a part
and parcel of the organic law governing this country as any section
of the Constitution. Whether wisely or not this amendment was
ratified, I will not discuss, but under its provisions the Negro has
with you and me an equal right to exercise the franchise. If we are
an honest and constitution-loving people, we will give him his con
stitutional right. His privilege of franchise is as sacred as ours, and
should be as sacredly guarded. This is the only principle which
should animate the life of a free republic and upon which its con
tinued existence can be predicated. I challenge any transgression
whatsoever without ultimate and grievous hurt to the Constitution,
and as grave injury to the white man as to the black. It is, I repeat
and urge, the most sacred and solemn principle of the Constitution.
With whatever earnestness I may have, I "declare that this ark
of our political covenant, this Constitutional casket of our Confeder
ated Nation, encasing as it does more of human liberty and human
security and human life than any government ever founded by man,
I would not break for the whole African race." '
If we have, under the trying exigencies of the days of Eecon-
struction and new citizenship, wandered away from the spirit of the
Constitution, let us ascend the mountains where we can see the
tables of the law. Here, in this sacred city, consecrated with the hfe
and blood and treasure of our people to the Constitution of our
Fathers, I call upon our people to again gather within its majestic
portals and hear the law and give full heed to its commands.
There can be but one response upon this question from those
who have communed in the sacred temple of the Constitution with
the mighty beings who builded the sacred edifice. I answer for them
that this question cannot be settled until it is settled right. I base
my statement upon the eternal foundation of historic precedent and
universal experience. I appeal to the facts of your own history
which culminated in this city in the great drama which fiercely
rocked the walls of civilization. I appeal for my argument to one
higher than Caesar. The deepening and broadening sense of eternal

64 The Montgomery Conference.
justice in the human heart decreed that slavery was wrong. The
institution was surrounded by powers which never before girdled
a civil institution. It was held in the letter of the law. It was
hedged about by a patriotism unquestioned. It was jealously pro
tected by the party which for sixty years had fought the battles of
the Eepublic and which had added to it an imperial domain and
which was deeply intrenched in the affections of the people. It was
supported by the most supremely equipped statesman who ever
dazzled the world by the power of human intellect and statescraft.
It was settled as the law of the land, by the binding decisions of the
highest courts from whose decrees there was no appeal except to the
supreme forum of the human heart. At the sacred birth of States,
around whose bedsides sat the armed and panoplied and watchful
hosts of the institution, it was settled. By solemn compromise of
North and South, sealed by the House and Senate, by friend and
foe, it was settled. By every human relation it was settled. Men
walked in apparent security. Yet, sir, in that greatest forum under
God, the eternal, immutable, unchangeable forum of human right,
it was not settled. Before its bar the decrees of the highest earthly
tribunal were dissipated as the morning dew. In the splendor of its
court solemn enactment of Legislature and Senate and State was
devoured as by consuming fiames. Under its fiery ordeal com
promise of statesmen shriveled to ashes. It was not settled right;
and not until decree of court and act of law and compromise of
statesmen were deluged in blood, was it settled. I speak with no
unkindness but with unspeakable tenderness of the memories of
other days ; and not for your imperial State, with its fields and flow
ing rivers and glowing furnaces, would I say aught unkind of the
motives of the men who gave their sacred lives for what they be
lieved was right. It illustrates, beyond the power of my tongue of
weakness, that which I am striving to accentuate, that no question
can be settled by a free people until it is settled in the forum of
eternal justice. So I insist that until this question is settled right
and in strict accord with the letter and spirit of the Constitution
it will disturb our political relations, hold apart the North and
South, hamper our development, degrade our civil liberty, pollute
our franchise, endanger our freedom and pillory us before the world
as a people who do not do full and exact justice.
Sir, I beg that you will not understand for a moment that these
words are a concession that the real letter of the Constitution has
been carelessly and wantonly violated by the South. I deny this
charge with all my soul. I spurn with unspeakable contempt the
reports of the frauds, violence and intimidation with which the
enemies of the South asperse her fair name. Her glory and her
honor are to me as dear as life. Lay the book of nations wide open,
and in all of the days there is none which through temptation and
humiliation and sorrow has "walked so steadily along the road of
good govemment as has the South. Goaded with the bayonet,

William A. MacCorkle. 65
hedged about with the soldier, hounded by the alien, despoiled by
the robber, her statehood decrowned and deflowered, since the morn
ing of the world show me a country which emerged from suffering
with garments as spotless and with so little of the smell of the fire
about her. Yet, sir, while rejecting -with disdain the calumnies
against the South, still the time is upon us when we should com
mune with each other in a spirit of absolute fairness and most out
spoken candor. It would be false to the spirit of truth pervading
this Conference for me to deny that the South, appealing to a higher
law than the Constitution or the statute, has never intended that the
Negro should rule,' or largely participate in the rule, of her broad
States and shape the destiny of her civilization. The time is here
for plainness of speech, and he who would palter with the truth on
this great occasion in its present portentous shape, loves not his
country. It is our duty to stand before the world and not swerve
from the open light of discussion. If such has not been the inten
tion of the South, then we are asked why this State Constitution pro
vides the rule of understanding to be interpreted by the ballot com
missioner as he may wish ? Why this Constitution has inserted in it
the ancestral clause ? Why this Constitution provides a complicated
election machin'ery? When you answer these insistent questions,
your only reply can be that the great paramount reason for such
action has been to preserve the State in the rule of the intelligent.
With this reply there arises before us a broken and impaired Con
stitution, which has unloosed from its Pandora's box the foul
vultures of coming woe, which are always ready to flap their wings
about the dying body of free people. It is from this anomalous
condition of political affairs that the South must be released; and
every Southem man, without regard to his political future, should
rise to that height of love for country where, caring not for the
clamor of the hour, despising present utilitarianism, he can eon-
template a country unbroken in its love, rich in material glory and
domestic peace, over whose happy, contented and united people is
the shadow of a Constitution which, under the mercy of God, needs
not to be broken to serve the higher law. If ther6 are any faint
hearted and who would shrink, I would remind them that the day is
surely propitious for the coming change; that there is upon the
South one of those great cycles where
"All are raised and borne
By that great current in its onward sweep,
Wandering and rippling with caressing waves
Around green islands with the breath
Of flowers that never wither."
This cycle of industrial glory and regeneration, broadening
like a golden river through the South, is assisting, with resistless
power, the coming change. When the South was practically sta
tionary in its development, when the planter waited for the rain to
5

66 The Montgomery Conference.
distill its drops into the cotton and the grain to imprison the gold of
the sunshine, political anomalies, comparatively speaking, were un
important. To-day the old South is being resurrected in a new
form and exceeding glory. New peoples are clasping our hands,
and, as bone of our bone, we are bidding them welcome to the dear
land. Millions of dollars start the music of the machine and the
engine. Mills are distilling their cloudy incense over our increas
ing fields. New cities lift their towering walls to the glory of our
prosperity. Golden genii rise from the dark mines of the earth
and hold out to us their offerings of commercial greatness. Our
waterfalls are enthralled to add to our fullness, and the unerring
winds of modern commerce have filled our harbors with the ships of
the world. The flrst demand of this industrial regeneration is the absolute
settlement of political complexities. Its demand is even now in
sistent and we cannot, if we would, longer deny its potential request.
The State which does so delay will not march abreast with its fellows
in the industrial progress. This demand is as absolute and certain
as any condition which ever touched a commercial and industrial
existence. Then arises the crucial question, how can we remove
our political complexities, give the Negro his franchise ahd preserve
the Constitution and at the same time not imperil our civilization ?
I reply that it s'eems to me by far the best to adopt an honest and
infiexible educational and property basis administered fairly for ¦
black and white.
I crave your indulgence for a short time whilst I discuss this
idea of an educational and property franchise, not in any detail,
but in some of its higher and more general aspects. It appeals to
the elements most needed in good citizenship. It will cultivate the
desire for the acquisition of property and of education; and whilst
attaining these two great ends of good government it will accom
plish the immediate purpose for which we are striving, the settling
and composing of our anomalous system of franchise. All of us
hail the day of highest intelligence in those who control the govem
ment. Ignorance is the bottom of our woe. With the Negro made
intelligent he is no longer dangerous to the State. He is no longer
prey to the demagogue. With this system' walks education with its
uplifting and splendid effect upon the people. It is a necessary
and vitalizing concomitant of the restricted franchise. This plan
will not destroy the so essential self-respect of the Negro. It will
allow him, through the open door, to see the play of the brightest
light which touches the brow of any man, the splendid sun of Amer
ican citizenship. He can grasp it, if he wishes it, without delay or
wrong. It is his if he complies with the law, whose equal and fair
provisions- compel him to be a better citizen of his country, and a
more intelligent and potent factor in his place. I believe that it
would be an incentive to the aqquisition of intelligence which could
be attained so quickly in no other manner. He will no longer be

William A. MacCorkle. 67
the mere flotsam and jetsam of politics. My experience of political
affairs is that as the Negro becomes intelligent so surely does he
become a higher voting element, owing allegiance to no party as a
mere matter of course. More than this, the adoption of this plan
will bring to the South a fair, quick and honest trial of the question
of the Negro franchise. It will bring it in a manner which will
cause no apprehension in the minds of any fair citizen. The ques
tion of Negro franchise has never yet been fairly tried. Let us a
moment discuss this question. It is most important. The objec
tion has been strenuously made against the adoption of a fair fran
chise system that we cannot safely proceed in the change. Is this
a fair objection? I reiterate, sir, that it is not. WiU the civiliza
tion of the South be affected or impaired? Will the N^egro vote
overwhelm that of the white ? Is there necessity for the appeal to
the law of the Higher Defence? An investigation of the status of
the franchise shows that after the adoption of an intelligence and
property basis the political control of the South will be entirely
under the domination of the white man. A fair intelligence
basis will practically do so. An intelligence and property basis
will give numerical control to the white man entirely in every
State, congressional district, and, with only few exceptions, in
. every county in the South. There is no shadow of suspicion that
this fair franchise amendment will again give the Negroes control
of the South. Day by day, even the spectre of such contention dis
appears before the industrial growth of the South. Within the last
few years from every county is seen the line of immigration into
the South. Along our roads, in the streets of our cities, over our
once quiet fields, is heard the tramp of the thousands of feet of those
coming amongst us for the occupation of their lives. Further, the
white man is increasing in a far greater ratio than the Negro. Aye,
sir, we appeal to the populations as they stand to-day, and, vsdth all
of the earnestness demanded by the importance of the question, I ask,
how can ten millions of comparatively ignorant Negroes overwhelm
the civilization of twenty millions of white people with the in
telligence of all the centuries behind them? Let us be fair, Mr.
Chairman. Let us look the facts squarely in the face, and not listen
to our prejudices and our fears without foundation for either. I
am reminded that we have once drunk of a bitter cup ; that we have
tried the Negro franchise; that upon the consideration of a fair
franchise there arises before us the horrid phantasmagoria of the
Eecpnstruction. Sir, every intelligent man, submitting himself to
the calm, cold light of, reason, must admit the absolute change of
circumstances between then and now. There is no need for argu
ment on this proposition. Consider yourself the status, of affairs at
that day, and you must admit that the Negro franchise was not
fairly tried. The South prostrated, the boom of the cannon yet
reverberating over the land, passions inflamed, men yet wearing the
blue and the gray, the sword not yet turned into the scythe and the

68 The Montgomery Conference.
pruning-hook, the fields unplowed except by the furrow of war, your
State government in the hands of your then enemy, your citizens dis
franchised, with bound hands, standing about the ruins of their
homes, the Negro only five years out of slavery and a citizen, I ask
you, Mr. Chairman, in all fairness, are not the conditions changed
as no conditions have ever been changed in any country wil^hin that
period of time? Under this impartial view, I earnestly urge that
no fair-minded man can say that a fair franchise in the South will
bring back the days of Negro rule or the horrors of Eeconstruc-
tion. A careful investigation of the figures by Mr. Gannet, a most
careful and able expert, fully maintains my contention. Let us
appeal to the figures.
The three States of the South in which the Negro element is.
in greatest strength are South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana.
If, by restricting suffrage in these States to the literate or to the
property holders, or to the literate and property holders, it would
leave the whites in numerical majority^ such restriction in other
States would certainly have a similar effect.
First, then, as to the matter of property holding. I find that
the owners of farms and homes in the three states in question are
as follows: Farms and Homes.
Louisiana :
White owners  48,660
Colored owners  14,602
Mississippi :
White owners  61,500
Colored owners  16,956
South Carolina:
White owners  42,982
Colored owners  21,101
Prom the above, it is seen that, if the suffrage were restricted
io those owning their farms or homes, the whites of South Carolina
would outnumber the colored two to one ; of Mississippi, nearly four
io one; and of Louisiana, three and one-half to one.
The next question is on the matter of illiteracy, and here I pre
sent the following table, showing the total males and the illiterates
over twenty years of age :
South Carolina. Whites. Colored.
Males over 20  106,665 139,479 ^
Illiterate  15.814 91,387

Literate  50,851 48,110

William A. MacCorkle. 69
Mississippi. Whites. Colored.
Males over 20  125,457 157,202
Illiterate  13.932 106,463

Literate  111,525 50,739
Louisiana. Whites. Colored.
Males over 20  136,106 125,194
Illiterate  24,161 90,487

Literate  1 1 1,945 34,707
Here we see that, if the suffrage be restricted to the literate, the
whites of South Carolina would outnumber the colored nearly two
to one; those of Mississippi, more than two to one; and those of
Louisiana, more than three to one.
It must be remembered that these figures represent the situa
tion as it existed ten years ago. Doubtless, the Negroes have gained
upon the whites in literacy to some extent during the decade, but
certainly not sufficiently to change the general result.
In the light of these figures, can the arg-ument of fear of Negro
domination be sustained ?
If it is true that our first duty is the preservation of the civili
zation of the South upon the lines of our race, then this franchise
provision does so upon the firm basis of justice and fairness. Then,
sir, should we remain longer chained to the past ?
Let us consider a most practical and potent reason why, as soon
as possible, this or some other plan of settlement should be adopted
which -will hurry the Negro along the road of intelligent and settled
citizenship. In this day of industrial and financial change, the
South, in the adjustment of the commercial affairs in the next
twenty-five years, will be the chief factor. We caii no longer devote
ourselves to the one and sole idea of holding ourselves solid on the
Negro Question. Believing in the Southern leaders and trusting to
their guidance in the past, still with the most absolute earnestness I
believe that the time for change is upon us. The South has other
things to occupy its attention. The great objection to the present
system is that it demands our absolute attention and effectiveness
to the exclusion of all else. We are busy. We are growing rich.
We are the seat of a great commerce. Wealth is coming among us.
This demands that we should have freedom of action to take advan
tage of our opportunities. How can we proceed on the grand march
of industrial progress when our whole attention is absorbed with our
inherent political complexities? Surely this settlement must be
made and this question gotten off our hands, so there will be nothing
to distract our attention from the great question of developing the

70 The Montgow.ery Conference.
South in the manner which it deserves. That problem behind us, how
easy will it be for us to grasp our imperial opportupities. The
tyranny of the solid vote to be maintained on the question is the most
burdensome and exhausting which ever afflicted a people. Let us
now cast it off.
More than this will arise out of the commercial change of to
day. As surely as we live, this marvelous industrial transformation
of the South will sooner or later produce a division among us on the
great question of commerce. It is sure to do so. In every progressive
Southern State, it has already made a division of the white voters.
In my State, it has made an absolute and almost equal division 6f the
vote. Under this condition of affairs, the Negro vote will count,
and will surely be consulted. It is inevitable. We can not put.
off the day. Then let that -vote be intelligent' and carry
with it the dignity and confeideration of property-owning and
intelligence. Let the status of the voter be settled and the question
out of the way and behind us. We do not wish to emulate the con
dition of affairs exemplified by the monarchies of Europe and be
compelled to entirely devote our lives to the public safety.
Believing in the preservation of our civilization and holding
to all the time-honored sentiments of, the South, yet I believe that
the changed condition of affairs to-day demands that the South
should settle emphatically and once for all this great political ques
tion. Should prejudice stand in the way when almost rising to our
splendid destiny ? Should time-honored opinions interfere with our
progress ? Out from the shadows of the cloud, how glorious would
be the light of our day ! Believed from its paralyzing effect, what
country could equal our achievements! In the words of a great
English statesman : "Or shall we expect from time, the physician of
brutes, a lingering and uncertain deliverance? Shall we wait to be
happy till we can forget that we are miserable, and owe to the weak
ness of our faculties a tranquillity which ought to be the effect of
their strength ? Far otherwise. Let us set all our past and present
afflictions at once before our eyes. Let us resolve to overcome them,
instead of fiying from them, or wearing out the sense of them by
long and ignominious patience. Instead of palliating remedies, let
us use the incisive knife and the caustic, search the wound to the
bottom, and work an immediate and radical cure."
A fair and honest franchise will once for all settle the question
of Negro domination, the mere fear of which has been so great a
blight to the South.
Delaying the settlement of the status of the Negro -will, under
the circumstances, but lose us precious time. The Negroes will in
time become voters, full and free voters, and with our absolute and
ultimate approbation and consent. Delay will not affect the final
result. This may seem a bold statement, but if you will indulge me
I will appeal to our experience for my justification.
Every argument of memory and experience teaches us that this

William A. MacCorkle. 71
question is surely solving itself in the ultimate direction of broad
political liberty for the Negro. It is useless to controvert it. To-
'day, beyond denial, it is nearer a liberal solution than ever before.
Under Providence, excepting the first great shock of civil franchise
granted to the Negro, the other steps towards the broader enfran
chisement have proceeded step by step, and under the assimilating
and soothing process of time, they have been without jar to our
feelings or wound to the body politic. There has been no back
ward movement. It has been purely forward all the time.
I challenge contradiction to this statement. I mean political
and civil advancement. I adhere to social and racial sep
aration as earnestly as any one to whom I speak. Social
and racial separation is the salvation of both race's. Loose Memory's
chain and wander with me over the South, enter the court-house and
legislature and the marts of business, and you yourself will be
amazed at your unconscious change of sentiment in the direction of
liberality towards the Negro. When he was a slave, we gave our
fathers and sons to death, and deluged with blood this fair country
to retain him as a slave ; and yet within the sound of my voice there
is not a man who, for all the land between the swelling seas, would
rivet a fetter on the arm of a Negro. Stand with me in the sacred
halls of Justice. I remember when a Negro's oath was not taken.
Yet to-day an intelligent Negro on the witness stand is accepted
without question; and if he has been an honest man, no difference
is made between him and a white man of equal character.
That which has distinguished the Anglo-Saxon in all times is
the right of jury. The juryman must be a free man, and under the
sun of Australia or the snows of the North, the jury has gone as the
badge of the Anglo-Saxon. I remember when a Negro darkened no
jury in my State ; yet, to-day, Negro jurymen have been found by
those experienced in the work of the court-house, to be, without ques
tion, safe and conservative.
In my town, with a prescience of the future beyond the wisdom
of his day, Stonewall Jackson taught a Negro Sunday-school, at
times against vehement protest and under threats of prosecution.
To-day we have spent a hundred millions upon the Negro school,
and not for the wealth of the Indies would we close them to him.
In your business life his every step has been against a protest but he
has made his place within the march of affairs, and as great as the
changes have been, they meet your and my approbation, showing
the sure and almost unconscious progress to a widening sentiment
for a most liberal solution of this political question in the direction
I plead. Then, sir, if the result of your experience points to the future
as I have indicated, does not every reason of an intelligent and far-
seeipg statesmanship demand that we settle this status at once in
the direction of an intelligent voting power? Does not the spirit
of the day abroad in the land demand our -wise and liberal action ?

72 The Montgomery Conference.
Now arises an important question. If the South, far-seeing and
liberal in its policy towards the Negro, should adopt a liberal
franchise provision, can the Negro on his part ever become imbued
-with the American spirit ? Will he ever become a citizen sufficiently
intelligent so as to become a substantial integral portion of the
American voting population ? Will the progress shown on our part
by the adoption of this free and equal basis of franchise meet any
progress on the part of the Negro?
Are his feet on the ascending steps of a good citizenship ? Is
he improving in character, in religion, in material prosperity, in
self-respect ? Sir, I appeal to that tribunal which is more powerful
for enlightenment than gathered statistics. I summon here as
proofs the result of your own observation. • I point to the spires ris
ing heavenward all over this land and sheltering an increasing num
ber of dusky and intelligent worshipers. I call here in -witness
the homes, where under their own fig tree and vine, li-^ in plenty^
and sweet contentment increasing numbers of the Negro race. Yea,
Mr. Chairman, I point \o the thousands of intelligent students
crowding the halls of learning in the South and filling every situa
tion open to them' with credit and character. I call to your atten
tion a greater increase within the time in material prosperity than
falls to the lot of any other race excepting the Anglo-Saxon in the
wide world. I appeal to your own experience as to the vast change
for the better in the horde of unlettered and ignorant Negroes
within one generation. Within three generations mark his improve
ment from the barbarian, bound and gyved, and thrust over the side _
of the slave-ship and given to us. There has been disappointment
and discour-agement, it is true, but the progress has been substantial
and on the right line. I will not take your time with the discus
sion of the detail of a proposition which is obvious to all. I have
given somewhat of study to the question of his improvement, and
a careful investigation of the only people whose shackles within our
time have been broken, leads me to the conclusion, and it is the
conclusion of every careful student of the emancipated serfs of
Eussia, that the Negro has infinitely out-progressed the freed white
serf in every element of an enlightened citizenship. Surely he has
improved. This has been the general consensus of opinion and the
observation and experience alike of the statesman, the scholar and
the man of business of the South.
. When I see the progress of the Negro and the sure improve
ment of the conditions surrounding him, the darkness which tinges
the bright skies of the South brings me no despair. Out of the
cloud should not come despair, but the sweet gladness of hope
brightening our every difficulty. The evidences of His supreme
care over us are too unmistakable for despair, and the cloud-of wit
nesses that His care encompasses thi-g nation, and that with the
fingers of His wisdom He has placed these people among us, will
admit of no question. When commerce languished and its utmost

William A. MacCorkle. 73
gates lay behind the white sails, and the rivers of India no longer
gave their gold and the fields their gems, and the cunning hands of
the East no longer wove the silk and garments of mankind, the
treasury of plenitude of this new land yielded richer gems and gold
more plentiful than ever glistened in Indian rivers or burdened
-with the glory of wealth the mines of Golconda. When the golden
belt and the steel armor were the sole tokens of rule, when the king
was the State and the people his servants, He gave to the world our
country, where the only king is Freedom and where the People is
the State. When under the rule of King and Cardinal and Noble
the creed of the people was the voice of the Conclave, under the oaks
of New England and the pines of Virginia there arose a thunderous
song of a new people who cared not for the creed of Conclave, Diet
or Cardinal, and who heeded not the command of Princes. When
the swarthy Spaniard, in leathern jerkin, found not the Fountain
of Youth, for* us its sweet waters waited lovingly and to-day are
caressed for our good by the soft airs of our South. When Spain's
covetous eyes, under casque and helmet, failed to find the gold of the
West, and by its mighty power change human destiny, it was given
to us to enrich our freedom -with its plenitude beyond the wealth of
kings. He gave us vast rivers on whose shores in the one season
the fleecy cotton, the yellow corn, the golden wheat, the wine and
the oil, the fruit and the flowers, the seed time and the harvest, shed
their glory. He flooded this land with the sunshine which on the
prairie and beside the mountain kisses from the fertile field the
grain and the fruit, and from His exhanstless plenty He has filled
our land with the mighty agents of civilization waiting but our
touch to garner them into the rich treasuries of our commerce. He
kept for this people the play of the lightning and imprisoned for
us the giant arms of the steam. He has planned for us mighty con
tinents and seas and lakes and rivers and harbors and capes, by
.whose power we can grasp in our strong hands the Ultima Thule of
commerce. He strengthened the hands of tyrants that people from
all countries forsaking their homes should give to us their best and
their bravest; and He broke to pieces the kings when they would
shackle the progress and curb the holy aspirations of freedom and
religion in this newest continent. In all the hoary ages He has
filled the earth with tyrants and kings and has laid Africa close to
their hands; yet for reasons, known only to His wisdom, He has
reserved this free country as the land where the sigh of the slave and
the rattle of his chain were more frequent than in any since the
years began their race. For them He made peaceful fields in
carnadined with the blood of a free people, yet over the carnage
He made His Son to walk, and after His, "Peace, be still," as on
the troublous waters of Galilee, tenderness touched the heart and
peace and unity and love passing all understanding reigned with the
people. Then surely His mighty arms are around us and His
Providence is with us. This thing, which we understand not and

74 The Montgomery Conference.
which our mortal eyes do not fully see, is for the ultimate glory of
our people. Whether this race surrounding us as a cloud, educated and
strengthened to its full stature through our trials and our sorrows,
shall, on the shores of the Tanganyika, raising the sweet songs of
praise learned on the banks of the Tennessee, the Kanawha and the
Mississippi, lead the Dark Continent to the light of the brighter
day, or whether as our helper here in fashioning this newest and
best land, is not yet for mortal man to know. But, sir, -with all
my soul, I believe that this people has been placed here so as in some
inscrutable manner to glorify this civilization so surely touched with
the Master's fingers and so certainly fashioned with His hands. Ah,
sir, there is no despair. The witnesses cannot fdil.
Again, there is another reason why you should hurry the settle
ment of this franchise system and convert the Negro vote into an
intelligent one as quickly as possible. With the exigencies of
national life we, of the South, will ourselves shortly need the Negro
vote. I look for the South to be as anxious to have the Negro vote
counted as is the North to-day. The Negro vote heretofore has been
allied to a political organization the bulk of whose existence is in
the North and West. He has been generally opposed to the people
among whom he lives. This has arisen for several reasons, that the
Southern people were the people to whom he belonged as a slave,
and for the further reason that he fell in the hands, during recon
struction days, of those who preyed upon his credulity and ignorance
and made him believe that the Southern people were his enemies..
These impressions are rapidly losing their force and a newer and
more intelligent class of Negroes is taking the place of the old. It
is to me as plain as, the open day that when the Negro is impressed
with the idea that the white Uian of the South will treat him as
fairly in politics as he does in business, that he will gradually and
surely incline to the support of the Southern people. It is inevit
able. If this is not the case it is against the experience of all of
the years. The Negro is drawing his living from the South. His
every relation of life is with the Southern man. His existence is '
tied up with the Southern States. The laws generally enacted in
the South are predicated upon the idea that the Negro will always
vote against the Southern white man. This is a mistake. He will
not. Nothing can be more certain than that he will ultimately be
come 'entirely affiliated with, and interested in, every policy of the
Southern man. If the Negro does not become in time a good
Southern man in every fibre of his being, he simply belies universal
experience and breaks political precedent. When a question arises
of sectional difference in the way of local policy in this country, as
they are sure to arise in the Eepublic's life, you will need the
Negro's vote and most surely you will get it. This condition "is
arising. It is rapidly coming. The South is no longer a great
agricultural section, but it is becoming a great competitor with the

William A. MacCorkle. - 75
North in all the commercial affairs of our national life. You will
need every vote you can get to sustain your great commercial
policies. The North will surely experience, as we have already ex
perieneed, the effect of the solid Negro vote. The South, most cer
tainly, will be ultimately insistent that the Negro vote be counted.
Then let the vote be an intelligent vote and let the question be
settled and out of the way, and the Negro will be on the way to
give us the assistance we shall certainly need.
This system will allow a different status of franchise in the
.different States of the Union according to the general condition of
education and property-holding in each State. , It will not act upon
every State as an infiexible national constitutional provision. In
one State, according to the rate of illiteracy and property-holding,
it will exclude a larger element of the population than in another
State. In the other State, if there is a different ratio of illiteracy
and property-holding, then a fair ratio of the population, of that
State would be touched by its provisions, thus acting fairly and
equitably upon the peculiar conditions of each State.
There is another and higher aspect of this question to be con
sidered. By the ancestral clause in many States you pull the white
man down, and with an educational franchise you push the Negro
to the highest educational exercise. You place a premium upon ,
the ignorance of the white man of the South. You say to him that
there must be a high educational basis' for the Negro, and yet the
white man can attain the highest rights of American citizenship
and at the same time wallow in ignorance. It is a wrong to the
white man, which will surely bear its fruit. I have not understood
in my investigation of the Anglo-Saxon that he needs to have any
handicap put on any other race.
Mr. Chairman, the franchise system, as it is at present con-
'stituted in many of the States in -the South, is to say the least,
practically the policy of repression. Eepression has been tried at
every age of the world's history and always with the same unvarying
result, utter and tremendous failure. It leads nowhere. It raises
no man. It demands no education. It holds ignorance as dense
as ever. It drives away intelligence. It breeds discontent. It re
presses any rising aspiration of the heart. It leaves the land at the
end of the cycle just as it found it at the beginning. It is the policy
of deadly inaction overridden by discontent. It has filled the rich
empire of Eussia with the nihilist and the anarchist, where your
brother is a spy upon your life and the highest official of the court
touches arms with the serf to plot destmction to the government.
It has gangrened and' filled beautiful Ireland with seething discon
tent. In every country the system has borne the same terrible re
sults. In our country, where every man, white and black, feels that
he has the right to. equal law, under such a system the effect is in
creased a thousandfold. Only the other day I stood in the little
room where the mighty spirit of Stonewall Jackson wrestled in its

76 The Montgomery Conference.
last conflict with the Great Euler. The scene which occurred there
in the old troublous days arose to my mind. With his life-blood
ebbing, his thoughts were still on the battlefield in the conflict for
his beloved country. As his immortal spirit left his body, those
around him were thrilled by his last commands here on earth, "Gen
eral, you must keep your men together and hold your ground !"
My fellow-countrymen, under this system, can you hold the glory
and the civilization of the South together? I ask you who believe
in exact justice, in representative government, can youjinder the
present system hold your ground ? Would the kindly eyes under the
old worn hat countenance the continuance of the system of political
government where even if it was once necessary, that necessity in
the change of affairs in this Eepublic has long since departed ? \ The
answer coming from every true patriot and far-seeing man of the
South is, there is but one wa)!- for the South to keep our men
togethei; and hold our ground, and that is behind a fair, honest and
equitable system bearing alike upon every one.
Is not this course demanded by the plainest dictates of pru
dence ? Does it not appeal to the most elemental principles of fore
sight ? We have the alternative plainly presented to Us. Place the
franchise on a fair and wise and permanent basis or leave it in its
present condition of unrest. Which is best for the South ? Which
plan does true patriotism prescribe? Which appeals to statesman
ship and which appeals to the Hour? The train of evils waiting
on the present condition is too apparent for controversy. The open
demand in high places for the absolute disfranchisement of the Ne-,
gro, leaving ten millions of people without hope in the midst of our
nation; the argument presented for the repeal of the Fifteenth
Amendment, which would again rend in twain this great nation;
the natural discontent resulting from the growing intelligence of the
Negro; the reiterated resolutions presented to Congress unfairly
representing us to the world of commerce and justice ; the demand
for the reduction of our representation, are all practical results of
the unsettled condition of our franchise. What do we gain by de
lay? Nothing. We will only miss our opportunity to grasp the
decisive moment for action, and with the opening of the new era
of industrial change to reorganize oiir franchise system. When it
begins and is under way, it is too late.
"Ne-w times, new climes, new lands, new men, but still
The same old tears, old wrongs and oldest ill."
Shall we longer wait ? Is not the fair settlement of this ques
tion in the manner I have indicated far wiser than any attempt to
repeal or modify the Fifteenth Amendment, which has been so ably
pressed by a respected member of this Conferene* ? Will you allow
me an additional moment to oppose, with all the earnestness of my
life, this last proposition? At the risk of overtaxing your in-

William A. MacCorkle. j"]
dulgence, I beg your further attention. This proposition is too
powerfully and seductively urged by my friend, Mr. Murphy, to be
passed in silence. We are striving to close the gulf between the two
great sections. This demand wo-uld again open wide the bitterness
of the olden days. It would say to the North, as Abraham of old
said to Lot, "Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt
take the left hand, then I will go to the right; but if thou wilt
depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." It would be
a step backward. It would be practically a revolution. It would
loose from its moorings the crystallized sentiment of a third of a
century. It would practically again raise the issues of the war.
It could only result in evil by agitation, for it could never be ac
complished. It would require the affirmative vote of the majority of
the legislatures of three-fourths of the States to repeal the Amend
ment. It would require two-thirds of the vote of the Senate of the
United States and the House of Eepresentatives. The majority of
one branch of the legislature of only twelve States can defeat its
modification or repeal. One-third vote in the House or Senate
would defeat the repeal. No human right in all the history of
govemment is so absolutely guaranteed as the rights under the
Amendments to the Constitution. The practical effect of the repeal
would be to wrest from the South a portion of our representation,
which we could not consider in this day of industrial progress and
need. Sir, there is a higher reason than the loss of representation.
The repeal or modification of the Fifteenth Amendment means the
practical turning over to the South of the Negro Question as a local
question. Are we able to bear it? Is not the question of the
political status of ten millions of a different race, living amidst us,
burden sufficient for the whole nation, which can only be settled,
under the providence of the Almighty, by the earnest, hearty and
loving co-operation of the North and South? This action would,
as nothing else, destroy that kindly co-operation.
With all our strength and pride, is not the burden too great for
us alone to bear ? We have trodden the -winepress so long and our
feet are worn with the weary round of the threshing floor. I know
that it is fashionable to say, "Hands off ! the South -will settle its
race troubles in its own way !" It seems to me that those who echo
this cry know not what they say and do not understand the burden
which they would impose upon our strength, and surely the love
of our reunited country has not yet flooded their hearts with its
tender beauty and power. It is true that the fructification of our
h,opes seems almost a dream touched with the radiance of the glory
of that Blessed Land where alone the sunshine is brighter and the
day more translucent than that which illumines and glorifies our
own South. It is true that with a robe radiant and gorgeous with the
waving grain, the fragrant hemp, the snowy cotton and the ripened
grape, we have clothed the nakedness of the dear old land. We

78 , The Montgomery Conference.
have filled the desolate places with laughter and happiness and
plenty, and with the sweet alchemy of the passing- years as our
gentle handmaiden, have poured the healing nepenthe upon the
broken heart. Amid the fatness of our fields and beside our rivers,
whose waters, like the minor strains of sad music, incessantly voice
hallowed associations, and whose shores are redolent with the
memories of sorrows endured and trials overcome, we are again
erecting a majestie civilization. Yet, notwithstanding this glory
Of our labor, do we not need all of the tender sympathy and loving
interest and wise counsel which our brother of the North holds out
to us with an open hand and a generous heart ? This is the question
in the economy of our governmental life which cannot be local. Its
settlement concerns all of the country. North and South alike. The
South more immediately and acutely, it is true, but equally in its
far-reaching consequences it touches all the people. It should not
be left to the South to work it out alone and unaided. I am as in
sistent as any son of the South can be upon our supreme right to
settle in our own way' our social affairs, and I insist that in our
social and racial treatment of the question, our hands should be
free to fend as meets our need. That aspect is local and personal.
However, upon the great question of its final settlement in its
national aspect, it will take all of the united wisdom and resources
of the whole people. Why should not this supreme question have
the undivided labor of our reunited and loving people, rendered
almost omnipotent in the grandeur of its accomplishment, because
the endeavor is crowned and glorified by the Brotherhood which,
with each fading sunset, grows sweeter and dearer as the sullen
crimson lights of the sad past
"Tinge the sober twilight of the Present
With color of romance."
Well remembering what in our nakedness and emptiness we
have accomplished in the settlement of the Eace Question, yet I
make obeisance to those of the North who by their assistance have
rendered it possible for the South to have accomplished so much.
With all my soul I plead that with us no narrow spirit of sufficiency
or suspicion of untoward interference on the part of the North
should prevent the intertwining of our Hves and our energies in
the unraveling of the coinplexities of a situation which more vitally
affects modern civilization than any question of the present day.
For us to do so was for Theseus to refuse the sword of Ariadne, and
to cast aside the skein of silk proffered by the loving hand of the
daughter of Minos.
On one of the carnage-stricken fields of old Virginia an officer
of a Massachusetts regiment lay wounded to death. His regiment
had passed on, leaving him alone with the fading light and amid
the quickly-coming shadows. He was lying iri the linepf the march

William A. MacCorkle. 79
of the Southern troops, and as a.Southern soldier hurried by he
called and asked him to pray with him. "Oh, I am sorry I cannot,"
he said; "'I have never leamed to pray for myself." Yet with soft
hands and tender sympathy he placed the dying officer under the
grateful shade, pillowed his head, and cooling his fevered lips with
water from his canteen, he left him with words of cheer and hurried
away to the battlefield. Soon the ears almost in hearing of the
majestic music of that better land and rendered doubly acute by its
near approach, again heard coming footsteps, and as another South
ern soldier passed by the pleading lips called out, "I beg you to come
and pray with me." Seeing the dimming eyes and thc broken form,
the Southern soldier knelt down beside his erstwhile foeman and
poured over that battle-stricken field his prayer for the guidance of
one about entering the encircling shadows, and for the sweet and
divine consolation of those dear ones he had left at home. As the
man of the South prayed there came to the wistful, fast-closing
eyes a vision of the homestead in the North, -with the old mother
looldng down the fiower-bordered lane and listening for footsteps
too long in their returning ; the well, with its sweet water, under the
shadow of the waving elms; the sweet tneadow, "with its fragrance
of newly-cut grass and flowers ; the children at their little play ; the
evening table and the vacant chair, and the sweet-faced waiting wife
with the little one in her arms; and with each supplication and
sweet reminder of life and loved ones and of the nearer and other
life, the weakening arms, clothed in their uniform of blue, wrapped
themselves around the gray-clad soldier. Nearer and nearer crept
the wounded form in blue, and as the last tender supplication went
out to the Throne from the lips of the Southemer, the spirit of the
soldier of the North went on its journey and left its mortality, hold
ing in close embrace the gray-clad soldier of the South.
And here, my countrymen, in this splendid presence, I invoke,
as a touchstone to our lives and a guide to our feet, often wandering,
that spirit of unity of love and action which touched the battlefields
with the tenderness of unseen hands and gave amidst the lonely
pines of old Virginia a foretaste of the spirit of better days yet to
come. Then, sir, let us approach this supremest question of our civil
life with hearts touching and arms about each other and strength
ened by a consecrated union of purpose and interest, and we will,
as conquerors, ascend those imperial heights of self-abnegation,
patriotism and true statesmanship, where amidst the blooming of
swe.et flowers of love and perfect trust we will contemplate a happy
people undivided by internecine confiict and unshaken by sectional
difference. Yea, we will not approach this question with broken
bodies clothed with the blue and the gray over fields sti^ewn with the
ruck of a despairing civilization, tinged with the dun colors of sec
tional confiict and difference ; but rather as brothers whose endeavor
is illumined by the golden sunlight encompassing the rich cities.

8o The Montgomery Conference.
the fields abounding with fertility, the advancing commerce and
civil glory of a united people. Conscious of the ultimate rectitude
of an enlightened nation and touched with the spirit of Him who
taught as never man taught the unchangeable principles of right
and justice to all men of every condition, we, together, the North
and the South, will work out to its finality this great problem, in
love, in justice and in moderation, to the glory of our civilization,
and leave to our children's children the priceless illustration of a
people forgetting the sorrows and hatreds of other days, surrender
ing sectional advantage, doing equal justice to every man of every
color and condition, and resolutely turning the face to a day of
wid^r and better and brighter and more glorious national life which
will hasten the time when justice will be the delight of our people
and the chiefest glory of our free government !

Election of Officers.

AFTERNOON SESSION, MAY 9, 4.00 P. M.
The First Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for the Pro
motion of the Study of Eace Conditions and Problems in the South.
Open to members only.
Election of officers and transaction of other business.

This meeting was for the purpose of perfecting the permanent
organization of the Society, and was called to order by Colonel F. G.
Caffey, the Chairman of the Executive Committee, who nominated
the Hon. Hilary A. Herbert for temporary chairman and Mr. B. H.
Allison for temporary secretary. On his putting the question, they
were elected.
Colonel Caffey then read the report of the Executive Com
mittee. This report will be found printed in the introductory pages
of this volume.
The Executive Committee then nominated the following officers
who were unanimously elected by a rising vote, after Colonel Her
bert had, by his own motion, changed the place of his residence from
Washington, D. C, as mentioned in the report, to Montgomery,
Ala. Mr. Herbert explained that his home was in Montgomery, and
would always.be. This statement was applauded and the change
cheerfully made. The following are the officers elected for the first
year of the Southern Society :
President — Hon. Hilary A. Herbert, Montgomery, Alabama.
Vice-Presidents — Alabama, Hon. James Weatherly, Birming
ham; Arkansas, Hon. Clifton E. Breckinridge, Pine Bluff; District
of Columbia, Hon. J. L. M. Curry, Washington; Florida, Hon.
W. A. Blount, Pensacola; Georgia, Hon. Clark Howell, Atlanta;
Kentucky, Eev. Charles E. Craik, Louisville; Louisiana, Professor
J. E. Ficklin, New Orleans; Mississippi, Chancellor E. B. Fulton,
University; Missouri, Eev. John F. Cannon, St. Louis; North Caro
lina, Hon. Henry E. Fries, Winston-Salem ; South Carolina, Hon. J.
C. Hemphill, Charleston ; Tennessee, President Charles W. Dabney,
Knoxville; Texas, Governor Joseph D. Sayers, Austin; Virginia,
Govemor J. Hoge Tyler, Eichmond; West Virginia, ex-Governor
William A. MacCorkle, Charleston.
6

82 The Montgomery Conference.
Secretary — Eev. Edgar Gardner Murphy, Montgomery.
Treasurer — Mr. Frederick S. Ball, Montgomery.
The report of the Finance Committee was made by Mr. Charles
Moritz, the chairman, setting forth the financial needs of the Society
and suggesting plans for the future. It was found that all expenses
of the first annual Conference had been fully paid. The Eeport
was adopted. The following Executive Committee was unani
mously elected for another year: Francis G. Caffey, Chairman;
Edgar G. Murphy, Secretary; H. B. Allison, Associate Secretary;
Neal L. Anderson, B. J. Baldwin, Chappell Cory, George B. Eager,
J. M. Falkner, J. B. Gaston, Charles P. Moritz.
The Society was thus formally organized, and will have its
permanent headquarters at Montgomery, Alabama.

Hollis Burke Frissell. 83
EVENING SESSION, MAY 9, 8.00 P. M.
popular education in the south.
Mr. Herbert, the presiding officer, having called the Conference
to order. Dr. Hollis Burke Frissell, Principal of Hampton Insti
tute, Hampton, Virginia, was introduced as the first speaker. Said
Dr. Frissell :
I feel that it is almost an impertinence in me to say anything
upon this subject when I stand in the presence of the gentleman who
is to follow me in this discussion, a man who has made a long, pa
tient persistent struggle to further the cause of popular education
in the South. May God grant Dr. Curry many more years of
service and raise up other Southern gentlemen to carry on -the work
to which he has devoted his life.
I feel also that it is presumptuous for a Northem man to speak
to you of the South in regard to the problem of Southem education.
We of the North can never understand this problem as you do.
Although I have been a citizen of the Old Dominion for more than
twenty years I have only begun to realize the difficulties under which
the South is laboring. If I have any fitness for the task that has
been assigned me it is because of my sincere admiration of what you
have already done, and my sincere sympathy for you in the work
that is still before you. I am grateful for the honor which this
Conference has bestowed upon me in asking me to address it. I am
still more grateful for the opportunity which the Conferenpe affords
of leaming the real thought of Southern men upon some of the
greatest problems which any country has ever been called' upon to
face. Co-operation is the watchword of the hour, and no Confer
ence can be more useful than one which is calculated to help the
South and the North understand one another so that they may work
together for the common good.
I have accepted your invitation to speak to you to-night, not
because I feel that I can tell you anything that you do not already
know on this subject of education, but because I am glad of the op
portunity to convey to you the greetings and the kindly sympathy
of the North in your efforts to provide a free arena for the discus
sion of race problems. Although the question of race adjustment
must be settled by the South, yet in a sense it belongs also to the
whole country. For many of the difficulties under which you labor
are quite as much ours as yours. I have no sympathy with those
who consider that the South is wholly responsible for slavery and
its attendant evils. Great Britain forced slavery upon the Virginia
Colony. No less than twenty-two public protests were made by the
House of Burgesses against its introduction. The slaves were often

84 The Montgomery Conference.
carried in New England bottoms, and the North as well as the South
benefited by slave labor. We are all glad now that our country is
really "the land of the free," — that no man can be bought or sold —
but it is only fair to call attention to the part which the South per
formed in the education of the barbarous people forced upon her.
The Southern plantation was really a great trade school where
thousands received instruction in mechanic arts, in agriculture, in
cooking, sewing, and other domestic occupations. Although it may
be said that all this instruction was given from selfish moti-ves, yet
the fact remains that the slaves on many plantations had good in
dustrial training, and all honor is due to the conscientious men and
still more to the noble women of the South who in slavery times
helped to prepare the way for the better days that were to come.
Those of us who have to do with the education of the blacks,
to-day, do not fail to notice the influence which some of the best
people of the country have had upon their black servants. This
country has had to deal with two uncivilized races — the Negroes
and the Indians. When the children of these two races are placed
side by side as they are in the school-rooms and workshops, and on
the farms, at Hampton, it is not difficult to perceive that the train
ing which the black had under slavery was far more valuable as a
preparation for civilized life, than the freedom from training and
service enjoyed by the Indian on the Western reservations. Por
while slavery taught the colored man to work, the reservation pau
perized the Indian with free rations ; while slavery brought the black
into the closest relations with the white race and its ways of life,
the reservation shut the Indian away from his white brothers and
gave him little laiowledge of their civilization, language, or re
ligion. As a consequence the Indian gains the habits of civilized
life mueh more slowly than the Negro.
In a recent Conference at Capon Springs, Dr. Curry gave
figures which surprised some of our Northern friends, showing the
number of colleges and higher institutions of learning maintained
in the South before the Civil War. He said that according to the
Census of 1860, "When the North had a population of 19,000,000
and the South 8,000,000, the North had 205 colleges, 1407 pro
fessors and 29,044 students, while the South had 262 colleges, 1488
professors, and 27,055 students. The North expended for colleges
per annum $1,514,688, and for academies $4,633,749, while the
South expended for colleges $1,662,419, and for academies $4,328,-
127. Thus before the war the South, though it had no public school
system, was carrying on an educational work which cannot rightly
be overlooked by any one who wishes to give a correct history of
education or to understand the problem which presents itself to
day. For the non-slaveholding whites before the war little provi
sion was made. The plan which Thomas Jefferson proposed — a
free school for every white child in every district of the colony — was
never carried out. In several large cities a system of common

Hollis Burke Frissell. 85
schools existed and much was accomplished by private effort as well
as by the church.
In 1865 came the collapse of the Confederacy and the whole
system of Southern education was apparently a ruin. Buildings
had been destroyed or had fallen to decay ; teachers and students had
been killed in battle ; endowment funds had been lost. The people
returned from their great struggle to find everything disorganized.
I need not dwell here on the conditions wliich those returning sol
diers found. A Southern writer says: "The Southern States lost
everything — their slaves, their crops, and all the profit of their in
dustrial efforts for three years ; their public debt ; nearly all of
their railroad and steamboat property; fifty per cent of their home
steads; their farms, fences, mills and gins. Following upon the
heels of this utter destitution and the consequent prostration and
despondency, came the period of reconstruction which increased the
confusion that prevailed, re-excited the passions of war, and added
to it all, a race feeling that for a time was at a white heat, a feeling
that was a new experience to the people of the South. Out of this
extreme of general poverty, out of this race feeling and political
passion and prejudice, order was slowly evolved and with it came
the steady growth of a healthy public sentiment, favorable first to
public education and then to the education of the Negro."
The soldier went back from the battlefield to the cornfield; he
laid down the sword and the gun and took up the plow. He not
only had the task of bringing order out of chaos on the plantation,
but also that of adapting himself to a new order of things. He
found himself surrounded by an ignorant black population that had
been set free, but knew nothing of the duties of freedmen ; who con
founded liberty and license ; who thought that freedom, especially
when accompanied by education, was to liberate them from all work
of the hand. That in the midst of all these difficulties, amidst the
horrors of the reconstruction period, the South should have
inaugurated and carried into successful operation a public school
system for both races that is to-day as firmly established as in any
part of the country, is one of the remarkable facts in history. That
in these States where forty years ago it was a crime for a white man
to teach his black slave to read or write, there should have been
voted since 1870, very largely from the pockets of Southern white
men, one hundred million dollars for education of the blacks, shows
a kindly feeling on the part of the whites toward the blacks that
cannot be gainsaid or denied. All praise is due to those Southern
States that have resisted every suggestion to apportion the school
1 fund according to the taxes paid by each race, and also to the just
and brave men who have pleaded the cause of the ignorant and
the degraded in every Southern legislature.
Allow me to call your attention to a few statistics that show
better than anything else the work, done by the South during the
past thirty years in building up its public school system. In 1870-71

86 The Montgomery Conference.
the twelve Southern States, including Virginia and Kentucky on the
north, had an actual attendance in the public school of 772,411,
while the attendance for 1897-98 was 2,784,277, an increase of
over two millions. The same report says thai; the average number
of days' schooling given to every child from five to eighteen years
of age has advanced from less than twenty to over forty. The
expenditure for public schools has gone up from $6,316,923 in
1870-71 to $18,686,136 in 1897-98, and the expenditure per capita
for white children from $2.07 to $4.21, while for colored children it
has risen from 49 cents to $2.34.
These figures speak volumes, but to one who is able to visit
the best schools of the South, the improved schoolhouses in the
cities, the devoted men and women who are endeavoring to employ
the best educational methods, the crowds of earnest children who
appreciate their opportunities, mean more than any figures. I
should be glad to mention the names of a hundred Southern men
who as heads of institutions, or as State, city, and county superin
tendents, have done a work for which the whole country should be
¦grateful. In the face of discouragements, often with little apprecia
tion of their work by the communities in which they have lived,
they have made a brave fight for popular education. In the higher
institutions of learning men have lived on meagre salaries 'and led
lives of self-denial in order that the poor youth might have an
opportunity for an education.
Here and there have gro-wn up institutions of superior merit,,
admirably adapted to the conditions that now exist. These schools
are in almost every case the result of the thought and energy of
some one man. These men are the real heroes of the South to-day.
I had the pleasure of visiting, not long since, in one of our Southern
States, an institution for the industrial and normal training of white
women. At its head was a man who, at his own expense, with no
selfish end, but with a strong conviction of the absolute necessity
of giving the Southern white woihan a chance, had carried on an
educational crusade throughout his whole State. He had gone into
the country districts, had gathered men and women in the school-
houses and churches, and insisted on the education of the white girls.
One result of his work is one of the finest normal colleges for
wbmen in this country, from which there are going out broad-
minded, strong teachers, with trained hands as well as heads, able
to reconstruct not only the schoolrooms, but the farms, the homes,
the communities in which they live. No one can estimate the value
of that man's work.
Many of the men who fought bravely in battle for the principles
that they believed to be right, have put their lives into educational
work for the uplift of the masses. Many women of high birth and
broad culture have erected schools that are beacon lights through
out the South. These men and women deserve honor. We raise
monuments to our soldiers all over the land. These quiet workers

Hollis Burke Frissell. 87
neither seek nor need monuments, for they have such returns for
their work in changed lives and improved communities as come to
a few people in this world. But it is, of importance to this country
that its citizens realize who its greatest benefactors are. Nor ought
we merely to honor them. They need public confidence and the
financial support of the people. The whole community needs to
feel its indebtedness to the man or womlan who does good work with
the rising generation.
All honor also to the men of this country, both North and
South, who have given of their great fortunes to make the education
of the common man possible — men like Peabody and Slater, Mc-
I^onough, Hand and Williams, who have realized that their money
was given them not for themselves, but to bless the country in which
their great wealth was gained.
But while we rejoice in the auspicious beginning that has been
made in providing schools for all the people, we must not fail to
realize that much still remains to be done. In spite of all that has
been done since 1870, it is still true that but a small proportion
of the children of school age in the Southern States are receiving
anything like an adequate public school education. Fair provision
is made for the city children, but in the great country districts,
where eighty per cent of the Southern' people live, there are in
many localities miserable schoolhouses, school terms that do not
average more than three months, and school teachers who are often
but poorly equipped for the important work that has been given
them to do.
The problem of illiteracy among both whites and blacks is the
great problem of the South to-day, — the problem which every intelli
gent man must face. What does illiteracy mean? It means, in
the first place, that so long as it continues to be a factor that must
be considered, there can be no real, lasting, financial prosperity.
Much is said about the new South and its promising outlook. We
all rejoice in the coming of the cotton mill and iron foundry. We
all rejoice that the resources of this great land, of which we are so
justly proud, are beginning to be developed; but he is a short
sighted seer who does not realize that without trained, educated
labor there can be no lasting prosperity.
The struggle between the North and the South was fought by
the South against tremendous odds. The North, -with its great
resources developed by free and intelligent labor, could command
through its wealth the nations of the world. The struggle of the
future will also be an industrial one, not merely between the
South and the North, but between the South and the whole world.
The South needs to call to its aid the trained labor of every country
of Europe, as the North has done, but these laborers are not
coming to a community where the schools for their children are of
the poorest. There is in the South to-day a white population of
good stock and immense possibilities, which has been spoken of by

88 The Montgomery Conference.
a recent writer as our "contemporary ancestry." What does that
expression mean? It means that there is ainong us a people who,'
on account of their isolation and the lack of common schools, are
living to-day as their grandsires did a hundred years ago. We need
to set those peeple free, to call them forth from their Eip Van
Winkle sleep. Wherever schools have been established for them
they have been quick to take advantage of their opportunities, and
have shown a sturdy independence that is most promising.
There is still another class — the black population. More
valuable to the South, I believe, than its mines and its cotton mills
is its Negro labor, if it can be properly trained. These black masses
can be made industrious, self-respecting citizens of untold value to
the white population if they are educated in the right way. I
have dwelt upon the valuable training which the best element of the
South gave to the black man in slavery days. Slave labor was the
most expensive labor in the world. If through industrial training
in the colored schools there can be given to the black man what
every progressive nation of Europe is giving to its laboring classes,
we shall be possessed of laborers that can compete with the best iu
the world. Even slavery showed the capacity of this race to make
good mechanics. I have been told that when the dome of the
Capitol was to be constructed in this city that it was, the black man
that was called to do it. '
We have made many mistakes in our dealings with this race.
The training of the hand has not always accompanied, as it should
have done, the training of the head. The colored man has sometimes
been led to believe that his advancement was to come through
political preferment, and has sought and been given the training
which he thought would fit him for political life. The emphasis
in his , education has often been placed on the 'knowledge of books,
when it would much more wisely have been placed on the knowledge
of things. He has not always been given the training which would
make him love his home and his land, and help him to improve
them. But the sort of education which produced a Booker Wash
ington has almost completely e.xtinguished crime in certain counties
of Virginia, has revolutionized certain communities in Alabama, has
increased the land holdings of the country Negroes in Virginia
one-third in the last six years. That sort of education is capable of
producing a class of hand-working, docile Negroes, which will
place the South in the foreground among the industrial countries
of the world. The Czar of Eussia realized that with his land full
of ignorant serfs it was impossible to compete with other countries.
He set them free and initiated a system of popular education.
England is realizing that her lack of free schools is fast causing
her to lose control of the markets of the world. The Franco-Prus
sian war taught France a lesson which she is not likely to forget.
Norway and Sweden, with their systems of free industrial and
agricultural schools, have made surprising progress in the last thirty

Hollis Burke Frissell. 89
years in the face of the greatest difficulty. This country, with its
wonderful fertility, its inexhaustible mines, its great forests, has
before it a future which no man can predict if it only shakes itself
free from the slavery of ignorance under which the great masses
of its people are groaning.
But not merely because of its economic value, but still more
in account of its social help is the public school to be encouraged.
The enemy which this country needs to fight in the North quite as
much as in the South is barbarism; that barbarism is largely the
result of ignorance, and the great safeguard against ignorance is
the public school. The Church has done, and is still doing, a grand
work in the enlightenment of the masses. Its work is only just
' begun, but with its division into sects, not always working in har
mony, it is impossible for it to take up the task of public education.
That belongs to the State, and should have the support of every
loyal citizen.
That education is a safeguard against crime does^ not need to
be argued before this intelligent audience. Mr. E. C. Wines, than
whom there is perhaps no greater authority on the subject, in his
book on the "State of Prisons and Child-Saving Institutions," says
"Ignorance as a crime-cause, proximate if not ultimate, is con
spicuously shown in the statis-tics collected and published by the late
International Prison Congress of London. Carefully compiled
statistics for the State of New York show that one-third of the
crime is committed by one-fiftieth of the population. In other
words, that the criminality of the illiterate, as compared with that of
the educated, is as sixteen to one ; so that the man with some
education, including, of course, the moral as well as the intellectual
part of his nature, is sixteen times less likely to be convicted of
crime than he who has none. Now it is the interest — that is, the
d-uty — of the State to furnish the needful education to all her chil
dren. This is a duty which the State owes to her children, to
herself, and to posterity."
That mere book knowledge is not an antidote for crime, that
there is great need in our whole public school system of a larger
¦ infusion of moral and industrial training, is scarcely open to
question. Professor Wilcox is right in saying that "the desire
and ability to support one's self by legitimate industry is the best
safeguard against crime." There are those who are inclined_ to
attribute the increase in crime among the Negroes to the education
that is given them in the public schools. Certainly, the three
months' schooling or less which is given the average Negro in the
country can hardly be responsible for much of either good or bad.
If industrial training could be introduced, as many of our superin
tendents recommend, if the child could be taught to love nature,
and to work with his hands, there might be hope of some good
results. The average Negro country school at present, with almost
no supervision, with poor teachers and buildings, is certainly a

90 The Montgomery Conference.
wretched affair. There are, however, enough Negro teachers of
country schools who teach the children well, who buy and cultivate
land, who lead the people by example into decent ways of living,
to prove that race antagonism is not a necessity. There are certain
counties where through the leadership of those who have received
industrial training, just that "desire and ability to support oneself
by legitimate industry," of which Professor Wilcox speaks, has been
inculcated among the blacks. In some of these counties crime
has been reduced to a minimum, the Negroes have become self-
respecting, ta.xpaying citizens, and there is almost no friction
between the races. Mr. Booker T. Washington, in an article pub
lished in the Atlantic for November last, asserts that no Negro
educated in any of the large industrial institutions of the South
has been charged with any of the recent crimes connected with
assault upon women.
In a recent article. Dr. Barringer, though taking, as it seems to
us, too dark a view of Negro conditions, made some very wise sug
gestions. He declared that the Southern white man ought to take
more part in the education of his brother in black. It is noticeable
that in those institutions where Southern whites have had a promi
nent part as instructors, there have gone out young people who
have had little difficulty in dealing with their white neighbors, the
contact with his white teacher having given to the colored student a
confidence in the kindly feeling of the whites. There can be no
possible solution of the race problem except in the improvement of
the morals and intelligence of both races. While there are certain
parts of the country wliere it has been sho-wn that intelligent, indus
trious whites and blacks can live together in harmony, there are
certain others where suspicion and mob violence have grown
naturally out of ignorance and superstition. The question at issue
between the whites and blacks is really no other than that which is,
demanding solution all over the world — the question of how the
employer and the employe can live together in harmony. It is best
solved where there is most of Christian spirit and intelligence.
I have tried to show that there can be no permanent financial
or social prosperity without improved public schools. It is certainly
clear that there can be no political stability without enlightened
suffrage. So long as ignorant masses, either white or black, are
allowed to vote, republican government is a mere farce, for the
voter becomes of necessity the tool of the designing politician.
But I must hasten in the time that remains to me, to make
some practical suggestions as to what needs to be done in the
solution of this problem of public schools. In the first place, there
is need of creating a stronger public sentiment in behalf of popular
education. There are those who do not believe in schools for the
common people, white or black. The aristocratic idea, which Eng
land is only just beginning to lay aside, that education is intended
only for the favored few, still obtains largely in this country. It

Hollis Burke Frissell. 91
remains for those who believe in popular education to become
apostles in its cause, to hold up the hands of the teacher, and to
hasten forward the day of universal intelligence.
Secondly, we must stmggle for better school buildings. Certain
of our State and county superintendents have demonstrated what is
possible in the erection of comfortable school buildings, and the
provision of proper equipment. A fine illustration of this is to be
found in the school report of the State of Georgia, in a paper by
Hon. John A. Saye, the school commissioner of Morgan County.
The Commissioner says : "Six years ago there were only two com
fortable schoolhouses in Morgan County for white children. Madi
son, the county-seat, a city of three thousand population, had for a
schoolhouse an old barn, which was a disgrace to the town. . . .
There were thirty-eight schools for white children. These schools
were in log cabins, churches, and in various other kinds of houses.
A school had no fixed location. The first term — January, February
and March — would be taught on this side of the creek for the
benefit of Sam Smith's children. The next term — July and August
— ^would be tatight on the other side of the creek for the benefit of
Bob Brown's children. I soon leamed that we had too many
schools. Our money and our energies were too widely scattered.
Our first school building cost the Board of Education eighty dollars.
The work -was done by the patrons of the school, who also furnished
part of the material. We have built nineteen new schoolhouses,
have repaired five, have put patent desks in twenty, and twelve have
been painted. Our houses are comfortable, and we have reduced
the number from thirty-eight to twenty-four. These houses are
so located that no child in the county is more than two and a half
miles from a schoolhouse. The buildings of the nineteen new school-
houses, the repair of the five, the patent desks in twenty, and the
painting of twelve have cost the Board of Education $3086.53.
These buildings and the furniture are worth to-day $17,500."
In his address at Capon Springs last June, Eev. G. S. Dicker-
man, after quoting from the report of the Georgia superintendent
in regard to the need of schoolhouses, says: "We have come to a
point where the improvement and proper equipment of school build
ings are vitally essential. The school must be made a local
institution, with stability and character to command the respect and
interest of the people, and it can hardly attain to this without a
schoolhouse." Thirdly, it is essential also that an endeavor be made to
lengthen the school term. It is absurd, as has already been inti
mated, to hold the public school responsible for anything, good or
bad, when its session only lasts three months. In the nine months
that intervene a child will forget all that he has learned.
A matter closely connected with the lengthening of the school
term is the procuring of competent teachers. These cannot be
obtained where the school term lasts only three months. Mr.

92 The Montgomery Conference.
Dickerman, in his paper, speaks of a superintendent who said to
him, "This is the way people look at it. There is so much school
money coming from the State, and the question is to get some one
to teach it out." That expression "teach it out" is a revelation of
the feeling of many communities in regard to the work of the
teacher. They have no conception of the importance of his work.
Dr. Barringer, in his paper on "The American Negro: His Past
and Future," makes a very serious charge against the public schools
of the South. He says : "This present school system of the South
is but a forcing bed for racial hatred and antagonism. I do not
harbor any antipathy to the Negro school teacher. I simply deny
his capacity for the task in question."
'While the plan of educating and' uplifting men of other races
by those of their own people who have been properly educated, is the
accepted one throughout the missionary world, there is need of con
tinual help from the race that is' ahead. A superintendent of public
instruction in one of our Southern States declared that he had been
converted to a belief in public schools by the earnestness and ability
of a Negro school teacher in the community where he lived. A
professor in one of the white universities of the South declared at
a recent conference that the work done by the Negro teachers of
his town was most excellent. After twenty years of work closely
related to Negro public schools in a number of the Southern States,
I have failed to find the conditions which Dr. Barringer describes.
I have known hundreds of Negro teachers who have helped the
young people of their race to lead industrious lives, who haVe taught
them regard for the white people of the communities in which they
live. If the best white people of the South do not try to influence
the character of public school teachers, is it surprising that
politicians make use of the schools for selfish ends, or that the
character of the teacher is not always what it ought to be? In
certain of the Southern States, men like Dr. Mclver and President.
Alderman have gone from county to county interesting the people
in the schools, and rousing them to the need of local taxation for
school purposes. Until this local interest is everywhere aroused,
and the people appreciate the importance of good teachers and the
best school advantages for their children, little can be done.
It is doubtful if there is in any part of this country a more
earnest, hard-working body of school superintendents than is to be
found in the South. The name of Dr. W. H. Euffner, who per
formed heroic pioneer work in the cause of popular education,
ought to be known in every Southern home. He has had many worthy
successors. The reports of the superintendents of public education
in the South have not only given evidence of hard work in the
interest of improved conditions ; these men are the first to recognize
the need there is of greater supervision of school work. Nowhere
is wise supervision more needed than in a system of schools where
there are teachers of different grades, or where the teachers are

Hollis Burke Frissell. 93
deficient to any extent in the art of teaching. Germany ,«ets us an
example worthy of imitation in this matter.' In that country there
is not only a perfect system of supervision in charge of professional
educators, but school inspectors, supervisors, committees, boards,
and principals are in close co-operation with one another, and the
teachers are obliged to reach the standard set bv the school officers.
Without similar supervision the teachers of our schools will never
do their best work.
Co-operation is also needed between different classes of schools,
-Northern and Southern, private and public, church and State
institutions labor side by side, often with little understanding of
one another's , work, and sometimes at great loss of money and
energy. Certain favored spots have a superfiuity of schools,' while
vast districts are utterly destitute of them.
The representatives of undeserving small institutions are often
most clamorous in Northern cities, while deserving ones are little
known or, helped. Men who might be interested in problems of
Southern education are disgusted by the frequency of appeals that
come to them from unworthy sources; colored men go into the
North with strong recommendations from white men who have never
looked into their schools, but have been led through a kindly wish
to help, to praise utterly undeserving Negro schools. Certainly it is
time for the South to strengthen the hands of the excellent men
that, they have placed in power, and to see to it that there is more
supervision of schools, public and private, white and black. Vast
amounts of Northem capital are coming into the South for the
building of railroads and factories. The men connected with these
great enterprises ought to be made to feel their responsibilties for
the education of the forgotten white man. If they are interested in
the blacks, they should be made to feel that the education of the
poor white is necessary to the uplift of the black, for only as one
is raised can the other rise. There is need of a more hearty
co-operation between the North and the South in all the work of
education. Schools established by Northem philanthropy have often
been too much like forts in an enemy's country. There ought to be
the closest relation between these schools and the superintendents of
public schools. More Southern workers might with propriety be
introduced into such institutions. It is also of vital importance that
the schools of higher learning make their influence felt on the
side of popular education. It is a cause for deep regret that a
man like Dr. Curry, whose fight in the interest of public education
has commanded the admiration of the country, feels obliged to say,
as he did not long since, that he has not always been able to count
upon the support of the higher institutions of learning for help in
his work. These institutions can neither demand nor maintain a
high grade of scholarship except as the public schools are improved.
It is a glory to Harvard University that its president, feeling that
the common school must advance side by side with the university.

94 The Montgomery Conference.
has thrown himself heart and soul into the cause of popular educa-.
tion. The South always has been, and it is hoped always will be,
very largely an agricultural country. When scientific farming
becomes the rule instead of the exceptioP, the South can enter into
successful competition with any country in the world. It is much
to be hoped that the South may be saved from the rush of her
agricultural population to the cities, which has brought desolation
to such large portions of the North. But if the public schools of the
country are not improved the same movement will become general
in the South.
It is about a hundred years since Thomas Jefferson proposed
a scheme for the education- of the people of Virginia, which it
would be well for the whole South to consider and adopt with some
modifications. He proposed to emancipate the slaves, to fit them
by industrial training for freedom, to establish a free school for
whites in every district of the colony, and to support an academy
for boys within a day's horseback ride of every home in Virginia.
There are to-day thirteen hundred counties in the South. Is it too
much to plan to give to each of these .counties at least one good
school for each race which would influence and improve the teaching
in all the others? It might in some, perhaps in most, cases be
located at the court-house -village of the county. Such a school might
be a centre of social and intellectual life for the county ; it should ,
have a neat and attractive building, with a small library, which
would be a power for good too great to estimate. It would not
then be necessary for the best families of the county to move to
town in order to educate their children. Such a school would set
a stand.'ird of teaching that would influence every other school in
the county. How could it be supported ? Partly by local taxation,
partly by voluntary gifts of the people, partly by those who had gone
from the county and accumulated wealth in cities, partly from
philanthropic friends all through the country. Are there not other
apostles of public school education who will arise, as Dr. Curry and
Dr. Mclver have arisen, and make possible these thirteen hundred
county schools?
'\Ve have already alluded to the importance of industrial educa
tion in connection with our public school system. Some years since
there "ivas appointed in England a royal commission to investigate
the English schools and the schools of other countries. The com
mission was convinced that "there was a deterioration in the quality
of English workmanship ; that nothing had taken the place of the
apprenticeship system; there were no schools to train the rising
generation to carry on the industries of the country." After visiting
the schools of this country, one of the members of this commission
wrote as follows: "Our national system must not be permitted to
drift to the literary side alone, as it is doing in the United States.
The character of the teaching in American schools tends toward
creating a distaste for manual labor. The effect of the public

Hollis Burke Frissell. , 95
schools and colleges supported by the taxation of the people is more
marked in general education in the literary branches than in any
special acquaintance with natural science, and in this direction their
influence is not altogether a benefit. Too large a class of young
people of both sexes in America are seeking pursuits not requiring
manual labor. Their education as given in the high schools and
colleges tends rather to unfit them for the active industries of life
tu a country where the vast resources of nature are waiting for
trained and willing hands to utilize them. The American boy would
cease to regard manual labor as drudgery if his hand and mind were
industrially trained through the school period." The dissatisfaction
which existed in England has extended to this country. The Pratt
Institute, the Boston Mechanic Arts High School, the Drexel
Institute of Philadelphia, and hundreds of other institutions, have
been the answer to this call. Already, as I have stated, manual
training has been started in a number of the Southern cities, but
there is need that a system of industrial and agricultural education
be introduced into every public school of the South. The most
advanced of our superintendents of public instruction are loud in
their call for its immediate introduction.
Its value has already been demonstrated in the South. Thirty-
two years ago. General Armstrong was called to start a school for
freedmen at Hampton, Virginia. He had been reared on the Sand
wich Islands, where he had realized the defects of a merely literary
education in the training of the Hawaians, who are in many respects
like the Negroes of this country. When he came to Hampton he
insisted upon the training of the hand and heart as well as the
head. The Hampton School has its workshops as well as its school-
rocmis, its farms and saw-mills as well as its church. It is really
an industrial village where a thousand young people are being
trained in life's industries. Commencing in the kindergarten the
children are instructed in the use of the wash-tub, and the ironing-
table, the hoe and the rake as well as in music and reading. The
work habit — love for the labor of the hand — is created and cultivated
throughout the whole course. Every boy is taught agriculture, work
in wood, iron, and tin, as well as history, geography, mathematics,
and other English studies. The girls are taught sewing, cooking,
and the care of cows, chickens, and the home, as well as bench-
work with wood. The result of this industrial training has been
most satisfactory. Southern white men instruct in the trade depart
ments alongside of men from the North. The students are taught
, that the Southem white man is their friend. All of them work
for their own support and learn that labor must be. What is the
result of this method of instruction ? Scores of letters from South
ern county and State superintendents bear witness to the induistry
and thrift of these young people, and their kindly relations with
the Southern whites. If one will go into the black belt of Virginia
he will iind scores of Hampton graduates and graduates of other

96 The Montgomery Conference.
institutions engaged in the industrial and agricultural leadership
of their people, and commanding the respect and confidence of the
best men of the white race. He will find a wonderful increase in
the land holding among the blacks, and a corresponding decrease
in crime. If he comes to this State of Alabama, he will find Mr.
Booker Washington, a graduate of Hampton, who, with the help of
forty other Hampton graduates and representatives of other schools,
has built a second Hampton at Tuskegee. He will find him honored
and respected by every citizen of this State. If he goes to Calhoun,
in Lowndes County, of this State, he will find a group of Hampton
graduates, with the help of Southern white men and Northern
teachers, bringing the blacks out of the serfdom of the lien system
of crops into the happiness and self-respect that come from the
ownership of homes and land. If his eyes are open to the work
which these and scores of other schools are doing, he will not take
a hopeless view of the Negro problem. The words of Dr. Glenn,
the distinguished Commissioner of Education in Georgia, in his
report to the Peabody Educational Fund, gives strong emphasis to
the value of industrial training for the black. "I believe," he says,
"that the proper education of the Negro is not only the right solu- •
tion of the question for him, but for the white people as well. It is
said that the Negro was safe and law-abiding as a slave, largely be
cause the brain development he got came through his hands. He was
universally a producer of something, and was constantly kept
employed. I believe that if we now had compulsory attendance upon
well-organized manual training schools everywhere in this country,
we could find in a few years the right solution to all of our troubles.
Certain it is that brutality in any race cannot be removed by shot
guns nor the lyncher's rope. It cannot be tortured out, nor burned
out. If the teachings of our Christian religion and civilization are
the correct teachings, it can only be educated out.''
This leads me to remark again that one of the great wants
in our situation here is the right kind of a teacher for the young of
the colored race. It goes without saying that a vast majority of the
colored teachers among the colored people are at the best very
poorly equipped for their work. In many cases it is the blind
leading the blind. While there has been in recent years a great
improvement among the teachers of the colored race, we must
reinember that not more than ten per cent have as yet had any
adequate preparation for the work of training the young.
It is a notable fact that ought to be stressed over and over
again, that these colored schools in the South that are properly
provided with the right kind of teachers have kept records of all
the pupils that have gone out from under the influence of the
school, and in the case of, a great majority of the schools, not a
single graduate has gone to the bad. This only intensifies the
argument, that with the right kind of teaching we could redeem the
race. One of the most hopeful signs of the times is the recognition

Juliui D. Dreher. 97
by the Negro race of the value of industrial training. The revolt
from labor which was a natural accompaniment of freedom after
the forced labor of slavery is giving place to sounder ideas. And
not only among the blacks, but among the whites, there is a changed
feeling as to the dignity of the labor of the hand. The Miller
School in Virginia, the Normal College for Young Women in North
Carolina, the Winthrop School in South Carolina, as well as the
admirable agricultural colleges throughout the South, are doing
noble work along this line.
In closing, I cannot do better than quote from the words of the
foremost colored man of this country, himself the product of
'Christian industrial education — a man whom South and North
delight to honor, Mr. Booker T. Washington. In his Atlanta
speech, he says: "There is no defence or security for any of us
except in the highest intelligence and developinent of all. If any
where there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the
Negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and
making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort or
means so invested vrill pay a thousand per cent. These efforts will
be twice blessed — 'blessing him that gives and him that takes.' . . .
Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you pulling the load
upwards, or they will pull against you the load downwards. We
shall constitute one-third and much more of the ignorance and
crime of the South, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we
shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity
of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating,
depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic."
The problem of Southern education is not a hopeless one, but
a hopeful one. It is a different one from that given to any other
people, but it is most interesting. The native white population of
the South bears about the same ratio to the black that exists between
the native and foreign population of the North. The great problem
pf this country is as to how the people of different races can live
together in harmony and mutual helpfulness. The North has its
o-wn special difficulties, and so has the South. Each needs the
others' help in overcoming them, but if both work together to give
to every man, be he native or foreigner, white or black, the light
which God means that he shall have, this will be God's own country.
At the conclusion of Dr. Frissell's speech. Dr. Julius D. Dreher,
of South Carolina, President of Eoanoke College, Salem, Vir
ginia, spoke as follows upon the subject of "Public Libraries as a
Means of Popular Education."
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: — After an interval of
more than twenty years, I am happy to be again in Montgomery to
enjoy the cordial welcome and gracious hospitality extended to your
guests, to -witness the numerous signs of growth and development in
7

98 The Montgomery Conference.
your city, and to offer you my heartfelt congratulations on the pros
perity not of your city only but of the State of Alabama also. From
what I have heard at this Conference and from what I had learned
before, it seems to me that Alabama and the South generally are
actually thriving on "race conditions and problems."
If I understand the purpose of our meeting in this historic eity,
however, it is not that we may exchange congratulations on the prog
ress we have made, however creditable that may be, but rather that
we may study the great problems that still lie across the pathway of
our further progress. As I shall speak of several of the problems of
providing popular education in the South, it may be well to say bj'
way of introduction that under adverse circumstances the Southern
people have done a tremendous work since the Civil War in provid
ing schools for the masses and in building and strengthening insti
tutions of higher education. No other people ever projected and
developed an educational system in the midst of such inauspicious
surroundings, and that, too, with the consciousness that a race re
cently in slavery and hence able to contribute little in taxes, was to
share equally with themselves in schools supported at public ex
pense. Considering all the difficulties of the situation, there is
reason to be encouraged by the progress made. In thirty years the
sixteen forpier slave-holding States and the District of Columbia
have expended for the education of both races about $608,000,000,
of which about $492,000,000 was for schools for white children,
and about $116,000,000 for schools for colored children. The an
nual expenditure is now about $25,000,000 for the former and about
$7,000,000 for the latter. I mention these facts to the credit of the
Southern people, because, as a Southern man by birth, education
and residence, 1 know how to sympathize with them in their effort?
to educate both races in this part of our common country. And if
I show by a few comparisons how far we are behind other portions
of our country in some respects, I trust that I -may be credited in
doing so with the simple desire of stimulating our people to greater
efforts to remove existing deficiencies.
It is my purpose to speak mainly on the value of free public
libraries as a means of popular education. This is not one of the
"burning questions" in the South, simply because so little attention
has been given to it ; but for that very reason it seems to me that it
ought to be discussed at this Conference. Before we can have
public libraries, however, our people must realize their need of
them; and before such libraries can be of any considerable value,
the children in the schools must be prepared for the intelligent use
of books. Let us see, then, whether our public schools are giving
this preparation. If our first inquiry be to ascertain the average length of the
term in our public schools, we shall at once find ourselves face to
face with one of our most difficult problems ; for the average in the
South Atlantic States (including Delaware, Maryland and the Dis-

Julius D. Dreher. 99
trict of Columbia) in 1897-98 was only 112.7 days and in the South
Central group only 98.6 days. For the Southem States proper the
school year scarcely averaged five months. The average number of
days' schooling given, compared with the school population, was in
the first group of States 44.2 and in the second group 41.3; that is,
only a little more than two months for every child of school age.
The average years of schooling (of 200 days each) given in the
public schools of the United States is 4.46. In the North Atlantic
States it is 5.71; in the South Atlantic States, 2.87; in the South
Central States, 2.68; and in the North Central and the Western
States, 5.25; from which it appears that the average number of
years of schooling in the South is only about half the average in the
North and the West.
If we next inquire into the matter of school revenues, we shall
find that the two groups of Southem States taken together average.
as much for each taxpayer in State taxes for schools as the North
Atlantic States and double the amount in the Notth Central group ;
but the two groups of Northern States raise for schools by local
taxation four times as much as is raised in that way by the Southem
States. The problem then is to increase the local revenue in the
South so that the school term may be lengthened. In order to
accomplish that result, people must be convinced that it is necessary
to the welfare of society to give good school advantages to both races,
and that no investment pays a larger dividend than that in brains.
With a term averaging about half what it should be, satisfactory
results in our common schools cannot be obtained. For short terms
mean low salaries and the two together mean that many persons
teach as a mere make-shift and few for the love of it as a noble
profession. Already in many of our towns and cities good schools
are maintained for from eight to ten months in the year, mainly by
local taxation. To create a public sentiment that will not be satis
fied with schools of less than seven or eight months throughout the
country and that will aim at nine or ten months everywhere, is the
duty of the press and the pulpit and' of legislators, educators, and
other leaders of public opinion in the South. If the Negroes, in-
spir,ed by the Tuskegee Conference, can lengthen the school term, as
they have done in many communities, the white people should be
ready to make further sacrifices for the public good by levying local
taxes to lengthen the term of the schools for both races. That must
certainly be done if the common schools of the South are to be made
effective. With longer school terms and higher salaries a larger
body of good teachers will devote their lives to the public service,
and thus the efficiency of the schools will be still further increased.
Of the 15,000,000 children in common schools in 1898 only one
in twenty-four entered a high school and only one in 104 went to
college; and of our eptire population in that year only one in 116
was in a secondary, school and one in about 800 in college (not in
cluding those in professional schools). Such comparisons serve to

lOO The Montgomery Conference.
emphasize the immense importance of the common schools in the
education of the people.
Even with long school terms and well qualified teachers the
public schools can do little more than lead their pupils into the
"vestibule chambers of education;" for these schools can scarcely
carry their pupils far enough to prepare them well for the broader
education which comes mainly through the medium of the printed
page and contact with the problems of real life. To give such sound
elementary training in the schools as will enable the pupils to read
and understand books and papers, is to furnish them with the key
to the knowledge of all the ages, and open to them doors of oppor
tunity to become educated men and women. To do this ought to be
the principal aim of the schools, and hence the teachers themselves
should be readers and lovers of good literature; for unless a taste
for good reading is acquired in the schools, comparatively few people
will ever acquire it. It is all very well to tell boys and girls that
they are the heirs of all the ages ; but it is a far better thing to put
them in the way of appreciating, claiming and enjoying that
splendid inheritance. And here we are confronted -with another
problem. How shall the people of the State have access to books
when there are so few libraries ?
According to the report of the Commissioner of Education,
there were in 1896 in the Uhited States 7,184 libraries of more than
300 volumes each. The total number of volumes was 34,596,358.
Of the 7184 libraries the thirteen Southern States have 806 and of
the 34,596,258 volumes, 2,670,541; that is, the Southern States,
which ha-ve more than one-fourth of the population of the United
States, have about one-ninth of the libraries and only about one-
thirteenth of the total number of books. Massachusetts has 630
libraries and New York 854. More than half of all the books are in
the libraries of the North Atlantic States (including New England,
New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania). Massachusetts has
5,526,438 volumes and New York 5,411,471, each of these States
having more than double the number of books in the libraries of the
thirteen Southern States. The Boston Public Library and the Lib
rary of Harvard University have each more volumes than are con
tained in all the libraries of any one of the Southem States. The
little State of Ehode Island, which is one-forty-seventh of the area
of Georgia, has 589,112 volumes in its libraries, while Virginia^
which leads the States of the South in the number of books, has only
388,715 volumes, and Georgia only 283,883. Only three States in
the South (Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky) have more books
than the new mountain State of Colorado.
Of the 353 municipalities in Massachusetts only four lack
public libraries from which every man, woman and child is entitled,
without cost, to take books to their. homes. The number of books in
these free public libraries is about 3,750,000 and 'the annual circula
tion about 7,666,000 volumes,, or a little more than three volumes to

' Julius D. Dreher. lOi
each inhabitant. Very few people in that commonwealth live too
far from a free library to make regular use of its books ; and public
libraries are so common and so generally used in connection with
school work that there is little need to provide libraries of any con
siderable size for the common schools.
New York is the foremost State in making use of traveling
libraries. In 1898 as many as 259 issues of these libraries were sent
to 117 places and, besides, 281 extension libraries were also sent out.
This work is under the direction of the Eegents of the University of
the State of New Y'ork, a corporate body which exercises some con
trol over the educational matters of the State. Besides the travel
ing and extension libraries, there are 143 library and institute cor
porations under the care of the University, distributed among forty-
nine counties and having in all 475,059 volumes, not including the
State Library and the libraries of 595 teaching institutions. Under
the New York system not only may any school or circle of readers
have the use of a traveling library, but any citizen may have even a
single book sent to him in the remotest corner of the State.
No Southern State would of course be able to do nearly so much
as the two rich commonwealths of New York and Massachusetts;
but even in its comparative poverty the South ought to do much
more than it has done to provide books for the people. It may be
said that the extension of the school term and the establishment of
public libraries would impose too great a burden on the Southern
people; but, in reply, it may be urged that these things must be
done in order to have an intelligent citizenship, or the illiteracy of
both races may impose still heavier burdens in the future. Even in
places where it is not practicable at present to build and support free .
public libraries, traveling and extension libraries, which are inex
pensive, could be used to great advantage in connection with our
public schools. Something of this sort has been done for three years
with increasing success in schools in Georgia.
In all of the Northern and the Western States, where the school
term is twice as long as in the South, there are free libraries in the
cities and in most towns of any considerable size. The laws of these
States encourage the building of libraries by allowing the levying of
local taxes for this purpose and in some cases by appropriations
from the State treasury. In the South we have, as has been said,
comparatively few libraries of any kind, and we have only begun to
build free liljraries. Of 637 libraries of more than 3000 volumes
each entirely free to the public in 1896, there were only thirteen in
the South, an average of one to each State. Since that time, how
ever, some progress has been made, and it is worthy of mention here
that last year Mr. Andrew Carnegie gave more than $200,000 to aid
in building free public libraries in the South, an example which it is
to be hoped will be follo^^-ed by men of means in this part of our
country. Probably some public spirited citizen of Montgomery will
perpetuate his name by giting to the people of the city a free public

I02 The Montgomery Conference.
library. Only two Southern States — Mississippi and Texas — have
passed library la^vs of a liberal character. Kentucky allows only
cities of the first and the second class to establish public libraries.
Other States have made provision for libraries in high schools,- and
in this respect considerable progress has been made in the South.
The fact that so little legislation has been devoted to this question
shows that our people do not appreciate the value of libraries. And
the confession may as well be made that the Southern people read
less than those of any other part of our country. They buy fewer
books and take fewer periodicals and newspapers than the people of
the North and the West ; but I am glad to believe that popular edu
cation is gradually producing a wholesome improvement in this re
spect. The editors of Southern papers pay too little attention to
educational matters, especially to libraries, far less than is given by
papers in the North. As the press is so powerful in promoting all
popular movements it is greatly to be desired that our editors should
take up this subject for most earnest discussion. As a great many
people confine their reading almost wholly to the issues of the daily
and the weekly press, the editors of our papers, especially in the
South, occupy the responsible position of being the principal teachers
and educators of a considerable portion of our poi^ulation.
It should also be said that our colleges and universities are not
always in active sympathy with the lower schools and that they often
fail to promote the interests of popular education. As leaders in
educational work, college men, who are supposed to know the value
of good books, may do much to foster the taste for good reading and
to encourage the establishment of libraries. But a good many college-?
and some institutions bearing the jDroud title of university, in the
South, have libraries of only a few thousand volumes, and some have
even a more meagre supply of books. Especially is there a great
lack of library facilities in our institutions for young women.
So great is the interest in libraries in our country that there
are now some fifteen schools (including four summer schools) for
the special purpose of training librarians. There are also journals
devoted to the interests of libraries, and a Library Bureau which
furnishes various devices and aids to facilitate the use of large
collections of books. The American Library Association, organized
in 1876, has about 900 members, and not only at its meetings but
also at various educational conventions much time is devoted to the
discussion of matters pertaining to libraries.
Public libraries are now considered as a part of the educational
system in many States, and, as comparatively few pupils go through
the high school and fewer still through college, it is evident that a
large part of the education and culture of our people must be
gained, if gained at all, through libraries. "Even a college degree,"
says Hon. Eobert C. Winthrop, "is but the significant A. B. of a
whole alphabet of learning yet to be acquired. The great work of
self-culture remains to be carried on long after masters and tutors >

Julius D. Dreher. 103
and professors have finished their labors and exhausted their arts.
And no small part of this work, I need hardly say, is to be carried
on under the influence of good reading and by the aid of good
books." The support of free public libraries by taxation is, there
fore, to be justified on the same grounds as the maintenance of free
.schools. The work of the teacher is to be supplemented by that of
the librarian, who becomes in an important sense the mentor and
guide of the people, and especially of the young, in their search for
knowledge and culture, a sort of John the Baptist crying in the
wilderness of books, a true preacher of righteousness in the ministry
of good literature.
If the public school is to be a nursery of mental growth, good
morals, and patriotism, so must the public library inspire its readers
to love good books, to be loyal to country and all high ideals, and
teach in its silent way that true liberty means obedience to law,
human and divine. It is interesting to notice that there are two
Latin words of exactly the same form, though of different deriva
tion: "liber," meaning "a book," and "liber," meaning "free."
Books do indeed make men free; free in thought and purpose and
action; free from the influence of narrow environments and still
narrower prejudices; liberal in the best sense of that word; broad
enough to be in sympathy with all that is best in literature, philoso
phy, and art, in the wide domain of human experience, and in the
wider sphere of human endeavor and aspiration. To be thus in
sympathy with the great world of humanity about us is to be ever
illustrating the beautiful lesson which Matthew Arnold finds in the
orbs above us :
"A world above man's head, to let him see
How boundless might his soul's horizon be.
How vast, yet of what clear transparency."
We have advanced far beyond that dark intellectual period
when books were chained and guarded, or when they were the
precious possession of the few, or were to be consulted only by
scholars. Our age says, "Let there be light," by building schools
and churches, by founding colleges and universities, by opening free
libraries, and by multiplying printing presses. Gutenberg's mova
ble types have indeed emancipated mankind, and the printed page
has become the mightiest engine of civilization and modern progress.
If a new book is indeed a "miracle," as it has been called, then we
are living in an age of stupendous miracle-working power for at
least 50,000 of such new miracles are produced every year in
America and Europe, and more than a hundred million copies of the
various editions of the new works and of other books are issued in a
year. I often wonder whether the writer of Eccleslastes grasped
the full significance of his words when he wrote, "Of making many
books, there is no end."
With all the treasures of the past and the increasing literary

I04 The Montgomery Conference.
product of our own times to draw upon, the managers of libraries
may well feel bewildered as they think of making the best selection
of books and the proper use of them. For "it is not simply the
mission of books that they are charged with, but the mission of good
books." Whatever light the past can throw on the present must be
derived from history in its broadest sense — not simply the bare
skeleton of history, the story of kings, their intrigues and their
battles; but the life-blood of history, a true record of the civil, in
dustrial, social, intellectual and moral progress of mankind.
Whatever sheds light on the complex problems of our modern civil
ization, whatever aids in the edueatiop of the citizen in his private
or public capacity, in stimulating his patriotism, in increasing his
intelligence and capacity for his profession, business, or occupation,
or in enhancing his value as a member of society — whatever books
will help to accomplish these worthy objects should have a place in
the library. Whatever is wholesome in general literature ; whatever
appeals to taste, memory, and imagination in the realms of poetry
and fiction, or to man's higher nature in the sphere of philosophy
and religion ; whatever tends to refine the taste, to strengthen char
acter, and to elevate the soul — all this may claim a large place in a
well appointed library. Diodorus Siculus tells us that over the
great library of Thebes in Egypt (b. c. 1400) was inscribed, "Food
for the Soul." Let this motto of the ancient time remind us in the
present day of rapid industrial development, of splendid material
triumphs, and of the multiplication of physical comforts, that in the
hidden chambers of the soul life's greatest battles are fought and its
noblest victories won. The true "ministry of education," as George
William Curtis says, "is not to make the body more comfortable, but
the soul happier." And Goethe tells us that "whatever emancipates
our minds, without giving us the mastery of ourselves, is destruc
tion." It is well for us to remember especially at this time that the
real greatness of a country does not consist so -much in the vastness
of its territory, or in the size of its army and navy, or the extent of
its commerce, or the wealth that is reckoned by billions, as in the
spirit and character and aspirations of its people and their unselfish
devotion to lofty ideals of private virtue and public service.
In his address at the opening of the Chelsea Library, James
Eussell Lowell said : "The law calls only the earth and what is im
movably attached to it real property ; but I am of the opinion that
those only are real possessions which abide with a man after he has
been stripped of those others falsely so-called, and which alone save
him from seeming and from being the miserable forked radish to
which the bitter scorn of Lear degraded every child of Adam. The
riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and
outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or
rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot be alienated.
But they may be shared, they may be distributed, and it is the object
and office of a free public library to perform these beneficent func
tions."

J. L. M. Curry. 105
Dean Stanley once warmly eulogized the people of our country
for their "extraordinary munificence" to institutions of higher edu
cation. We certainly have reason for just pride in the number and
extent of such benefactions, and we may recall to-day with special
satisfaction the fact that princely gifts have also been made to
found libraries, appropriately called the people's universities, the
most efficient form of school and university extension. In the
North a great many libraries have been built by the gifts of benevo
lent persons, the amount thus given in money by individuals in
Massachusetts alone exceeding $6,000,000. It is one of the cheer
ing signs of the times that the fortunate possessors of wealth in
nearly all parts of our country are thus providing for all classes of
people the opportunities for mental and moral improvement. There
can surely be no more effective way than this to deal with the dis
content of the laboring classes of both races, a discontent, which,
although often decried and disparaged, has at all times been one
of the mightiest forces in the social evolution, emancipation and
elevation of the human race. The highest mission of wealth is to
contribute to the public good. We are rapidly coming into the
kingdom of enthroned benevolence where wealth and position and
power will be regarded as honorable, not for what they confer on
their possessors, but only in proportion as such gifts are dedicated
to the nobler service of humanity. In no other period of the world's
history have men so generally believed that "it is more blessed to
give than to receive," that he who would be greatest must indeed
become the servant of all, and that he is rnost honored who is per
mitted to render the noblest service to his fellow-men. And this is
the supreme lesson of education.
At the close of Dr. Dreher's speech, Mr. Herbert introduced
the Hon. J. L. M. Curry, of Washington, D. C, Ex-Minister of the
United States to Spain, and Agent at present of the Peabody and
Slater Educational Funds. Dr. Curry spoke as follows :
' Ladies and Gentlemen : — The invitation for a Conference of the
friends of peace, justice and good government championed Mont
gomery as the fit place for assembly, on the ground of interesting
reminiscences connected with the Confederacy. Of the members
of the Provisional Congress who assembled here on the fourth
of February, 1861, to lay the foundation of a new government,
only Judge Campbell, of Mississippi, and myself, survive. Three
historians are guilty of the strange statement that the object of the
Confederate Government, though sedulously disavowed until an
opportune season, was the reopening of the African slave trade.
This partisan fabrication has not the shadow of a fact to sustain
it. I denounce it as a wilful and baseless assertion. Not a single
member favored such a scheme. Not a proposition, nor a vote, nor

io6 The Montgomery Conferetice.
a speech, hinted at it. The Congress unanimously forbade the
importation of African Negroes, and required Congress to pass laws
that should effectually prevent the trade. Nor is it true, as more
plausibly alleged, that slavery was the corner-stone of the Con
federacy. That institution, peculiar to the South, guaranteed by
the organic law, equal in money worth to $300,000,000,000,had been
ruthlessly attacked by State Legislatures. The Constitution and
Federal legislation, protective of it, had been openly, defiantly
nullified. The bitter hostility had grown into an "irrepressible
conflict," and the alleged impossibility of continuance of two classes
of States in the same Union became the frequent occasion of insult,
injury and injustice. This fired the Southern heart to the assertion
and maintenance of the rights of the States and their_ correlative
equality. The arbitrament of arms, fortunately, failed. The ideas
of the North, so contrary to those of the framers of the Constitution,
by the exigencies of war, avoirdupois of numbers, and dominant
public opinion, became controlling. Slavery was abolished and the
freedmen were citizenized and enfranchised. Emancipation was a
gigantic revolution. After freedom, the Government abdicated all
responsibility, cruelly disregarded the resulting obligation to pre
pare for citizenship and suffrage, and contented itself with an
attempt to control the Negro vote, and use the Negro as a power in
the disreputable game of politics. Suffrage is not all of citizenship ;
other privileges, immunities, functions, follow.
Grave problems are upon us, to the despair of some of our
best citizens. These are little understood, little heeded, and they
go to the very foundations of society, government and religion.
I am chilled to the bone at the absolute indifference among men
and women to these problems, at the off-hand, nonchalant manner
with which seekers after high office treat them. They are national
problems, affecting every citizen, every neighborhood, demanding
the wisest thought and best patriotism of the whole country;
but to us here of the South, they are intensely local also. It is our
duty to rise above all prejudice. Slavery is dead. And laying my
hand upon my heart, I can say, with truth, that no abolitionist in
the North rejoices more heartily than I do that no man, woman or
child in this country is now legally a slave, with will and labor and
locomotion subject to a master. Secession is dead. The Negroes
are free, unalterably, and are here to stay ; they have been made citi
zens also, citizens to the end of time. When slavery was abolished
there followed two things which were neither legal nor constitutional
consequences of abolition, — one was citizenship, the other was
suffrage. Neither was the logical nor the necessary consequence
of emancipation. We ^are confronted with the problem that the
white man and black man are co-occupants of the same territory,
with the same constitutional privileges, two races variant and
immiscible, witli heredities producing deepening and widening
cleavage.

/. L. M. Curry. 107
In ante-bellum days, as the first gentleman who spoke to-night
— and I pause parenthetically to say, that if this Conference shall
have produced no other results than the speech of the honored Presi
dent, and the able, lucid, masterly paper presented Ijy Dr. Frissell,
of the Hampton Institute — if nothing else shall be produced, this
Conference may be written down as a grand success. My friend.
Dr. Frissell, has called attention to the fact that in ante-bellum days,
colleges and academies in the South were numerous and excellent,
but there was no public free school system for both races, and
naturally could not have beep while slavery existed. After the war
the Constitution of every State recognized education as of funda
mental import, and commended the establishment of public schools.
Those schools have been established, with an expenditure of
$13,000,000 in 1875 and $29,000,000 in 1895. It has been repeated
here twice, that since 1870 the Southern States have, from their own
pockets, raised and paid out more than $100,000,000 for the educa
tion of the black race. Write down what you please about the
South, magnify her faults, rake in the ashes of the dead and
reproduce every slander and obloquy against our beloved land, and
I assert that there is nothing on page of romance or history which
parallels the magnanimity and the liberality of the Southern people
in providing the means of education for those who were recently
their slaves. Each State carried out partially the mandate, not
satisfactorily, of course. Two causes, not yet removable, have made
existing provisions inadequate : (a) the necessity of two public
schools in every neighborhood, one for each race, involving double
cost — one-half for white, one-half for black. Some of our good
friends may desire to break down the wall of partition between the
white and colored people in the schools, but that wall will remain
until you and your children and grandchildren are all dead and
buried. (&) Another cause, but serious one, of difficulty, is the
sparseness of population, preventing a sufficient number of pupils
for a well-graded school, and unfortunately we have not yet, as
Sweden, provided a scheme whereby these schools shall be con
solidated. Apart from these difficulties, there are needs which can be
supplied. The fundamental principle is that education is a matter
of State concern, and not of local preference ; and secondly, efficient
supervision and inspection, State and local, so as to stimulate
increased interest and avoid the deadening routine of mechanical
uniformity, is essential. The platform of the Convention recently
assembled in this hall declared : "We pledge the people of Alabama
that no backward step shall be taken in the matter of public educa
tion, and that every effort possible shall be made to establish and
maintain within the reach of every child, both rich and poor, the
means of obtaining, absolutely free of tuition fees, such instruction
as shall qualify him for the intelligent performance of the respon
sible duties of citizenship." That ought to be written in letters

io8 The Montgomery Conference.
of gold ! But you will fail utterly in accomplishing it unless you '
have efficient inspection and supervision, and unless you get rid of
that wicked, indefensible, inexcusable, monstrous, absurd practice,
prevailing here in Alabama, of rotation in office, by which a superin
tendent, as soon as he learns the duties, and is acquainted with his
work, is turned out to put in somebody else who has, perhaps, been
more active in a political campaign than he. If you want your
public school system maintained, put in charge competent men
and women, familiar with school history, legislation, methods,
friendly to public schools, secure in their offices, not appointed nor
removable for political or ecclesiastical favoritism.
Another and perhaps the chiefest need is better teaching.
Nothing too strong can be said in reprobation of the criminal waste
of years, resulting from lack of professional training of teachers,
from careless or wicked appointments and from inadequate salaries.
Longer sessions and better schoolhouses and equipments are also
essential. Eudimentary and academic education should be associated with
industrial and manual training. This is often the means of saving
children obviously deficient in literary quality. Children slow or
dull in reading, in history, in arithmetic, are often stimulated by
opportunities of the school workshop. Many who are thus deficient
are quick in natural history and drawing and the workshop. This
quickening awakens self-confidence, self-respect, arouses ambition,
stimulates generally. Professor Adler, after twelve years of observa
tion, says: "Eegular work of the school, especially the English
work and the composition, are strengthened by manual training.
It also encourages respect for labor, accustoms the pupil to a respect
for squareness in things which is not without relation to squareness
in life;" What we want also is a largely sustaining public opinion.
We hear much in political speeches about a "campaign of educa-'
tion" to reach the masses, but we should not stop there. The
campaign ought to go beyond, and reach not merely the masses, but,
those who aspire to be leaders of the masses, whom it is more
important to reach, because the masses desire their children to be
educated. The paramount question before the American people is,
universal education by means of public schools. We talk of the
ratio betwixt gold and silver, — the ratio between illiteracy and'
those who are competent to put votes into the ballot-box is a thou
sand times more important. A man who stands on the streets or on
the stump to criticise public schools and teachers, and never goes.
near a public school nor darkens its door, is not a safe judp-e or
adviser as to what has been done or should be done. I have very
little respect for the intelligence or the patriotism of the man who
doubts the capacity of the Negro for improvement or usefhlness.
The progress made by the Negroes in education, considering their
environraents, their heredity, the abominable scoundrels who have
come here from other quarters to seduce and lead them astray, is

J. L. M. Curry. 109
marvelous. I only ask that you will some time or other go to the
school of Mr. Patterson, of this city, or to the school of Dr. Frissell,
in Hampton, one of the great institutions of the land; or to the
school of one of the most distinguished and worthiest men of this
State, Mr. Booker T. Washington, and then come out and say you
doubt or question the capacity of the Negro to be instructed. It
is not just to condemn the Negro for the education which he
received in the early years after the war. That was the period of
reconstruction,, the saturnalia of misgovernment, the greatest pos
sible hindrance to the progress of the freedmen, an immitigable
Curse, the malignant attempt to use the Negro voter as a pawn in
the corrupt game of manufacturing members of Congress. The
education was unsettling, demoralizing, pandered to a wild frenzy
for schooling as the quick method of reversing social and political
conditions. Nothing could have been better devised for deluding
the poor Negro, and making him the to.ol, the slave of corrupt task
masters. Education is a natural consequence of citizenship and
enfranchisement, I should say of freedom and humanity. But with
deliberate purpose to subject the Southern States to Negro domina
tion, and secure the States permanen-tly for partisan ends, the
education adopted was contrary to common-sense, to human
experience, to all noble purposes. The curriculum was for a people
in highest degree of civilization; the aptitude and capabilities and
needs of the Negro were whoUy disregarded. Especial stress was
laid on classics and liberal culture to bring the race per saltum
to the same plane with their former masters, and realize the theory
of social and political equality. A race more highly civilized, with
best heredities and environments, could not have been coddled with
more disregard of all the teachings of human history and the necessi
ties of the race. Colleges and universities, established and conducted
by the Freedmen's Bureau and Northern churches and societies,
sprang up like mushrooms, and the teachers, ignorant, fanatical,
without self-poise, proceeded to make all possible mischief. It is
irrational, cruel to hold the Negro, under such strange conditions,
. responsible for all the ill consequences of bad education, unwise
teachers, reconstruction villainies and partisan schemes. To educate
at all, slowly, was a gigantic task. That Southem men, conscious of
these muliplied errors and wrongs, should misjudge the Negro and
draw such false conclusions is not creditable to us. Education, in
its evolution, has produced extraordinary phenomena. It is pro
claimed ad nauseam that the relation between education and crime 1
is so casual that wherever colored schools abound there crime in the
race abounds. Where it has been so thoroughly false in ideals and
methods as to encourage idleness, insolence, and racial assumptions,
such a result may have been produced, but ordinarily this reasoning
is purely fallacious. Why to unfetter the faculties, giving wider
intellectual horizon, developing the true manhood and womanhood,
should have a different ethical effect upon a man with a black skin

1 1 0 The Montgomery Conference.
than upon one with a white, the pessimists have not condescended
to explain. Education tfiJids to restrain men from vice and crime
and low animal appetites and instincts. Victor Hugo said, "Open
a school and you may close a prison." Crime may come from
poverty, physical degeneracy, immoral parentage, ill ventilated and
crowded hovels, evil companionship, intemperance, low saloons. It
has been repeatedly suggested in the public prints that the catalogue
of crimes contains many unknown in times of slavery, and certainly
not then punished in the civil courts. One of the best preventives
of idleness, unproductiveness, vicious habits, is to convert the Negro
into an integral and intelligent part of the industrial community.
It may be assumed that the industrial problem lies at the heart of
the whole situation which confronts us. Into our public and other
schools should be incorporated industrial training. If to regularity,
punctuality, silence, industry, obedience to authority, there be
systematically added instruction in mechanical arts, the results
would be astounding.
Are these public schools right? Are they a legitimate tax on
property ? Promotion of public interest is as just and as legitimate
an object of legislation as the protection of the rights of property.
I read recently iii a newspaper a declaration of this sort: "Let the
Negro educate himself by his own resources." Who has ever been
-educated by his own resources'? I venture- the assertion that the
expenses of no college for boys in the land are met by the tuition
fees. There is not a man, woman or child who hears me to-night
who has been educated by his own resources. This is a world of
interlacing relationships, of mutual dependencies, where we touch
elbows and helpfulness prevails. Every blessing we have comes
through vicarious suffering, from maternal agony up to Calvary.
The bread we eat is obtained from the sweat of the brow of others ;
every atom of knowledge has been wrung out of nature's secret by
the toil' of others. Let us take into consideration what there is in
libraries, in public buildings, in scholarships, in endowed professor-
Ships, in the immense sums expended by States for education, and
then we can see the silliness of the man who proclaims, "Let the
Negro be educated by his own resources." Free schools for the
whole people is the grandest, most forceful and fruitful idea of this
century. It is a work too gigantic for private capital, too
momentous for the mischances of private judgment. It is a result
ing corollary that these schools should be provided with the best
teachers. Normal schools are as necessary as medical colleges. The
training of a teacher requires more vigilance and wisdom and wiser
legislation and instruction than the training of a soldier or a
sailor. Dr. Channing said it required more wisdom to educate a
child perfectly than to govern a State. From the. narrow circle
of teachers and mothers go forth the infiuences which form the
minds of men in the aggregate and determine the course of affairs,
destinies of peoples, the fate of institutions, the happiness of the

/. L. M. Curry. 1 1 1
human race, and hence the dignity and value of the profession. It is
only the educated man or woman who is the true man or the true
woman. The powers and faculties are in embryo, awaiting unfold
ing. Ours is a civilization of railways, telegraph,, newspapers, and
one must reinforce his wisdom, observation and refiection by the
inventions, the discoveries, the attainments of others of his race.
The interconimunication, especially through the , daily press, puts
within our command the intelligence of the inhabited world. By
cheap postage and the telegraph, eity and country are brought into
neighborhood and the human race is lifted to a higher plane of
civilization. The illiterate has a narrow horizon; he is shut out
from the world, is provincial, lives within the sphere of his own
experience and ideas, is unenlightened, and of little worth.
We have a constitutional representative democracy, and there is
no safety except in intelligence. An ignorant people can be gov
erned; only an educated people can govern themselves. The
elective franchise belongs to the best. A distinguished citi
zen of Massachusetts, once in the Cabinet, said that suffrage was
a natural and inherent right. That is a natural and inherent
humbug. No one has a. natural right to vote. If so, when
and where? No philosophy nor statesmanship can explain why
a man of twenty-one can vote, but a man of twenty years, three
hundred and sixty-four days and twenty-three h(3urs cannot. Suf
frage is a holy trust, a boon given to intelligence, integrity and
property, and no man in a free representative government, nor
woman either, has a right to vote, unless that woman or man can
read the vote which i^ put into the ballot-box. We are trying, in
the face of all political history, in opnosition to every other great
political organization, to govern iipon the theory that every man is
a political expert, entitled to have an opinion upon all economic,
social and political questions, and that a majority, told by the head,
whether that head be covered with hair or wool, is the voice of God.
The principle is, that one man's opinion upon the most important-
national and international questions, finance, currency, ,coina^,
tariff, territorial expansion, imperialism, is as good as another's,
and that the voter has sufficient knowledge and patriotism to make
it safe to trust to him the most important of all human businesses.
Is it not a just inference that where every citizen has a voice in
govemment, education should at least be coextensive with suffrage ?
Education is closely allied to material prosperity; it is the
best investment for the community, the greatest force in the accumu
lation of wealth, and the average productive capacity is greatest
where the school age is longest. That is shown in the State of
Massachusetts, which gives more years of schooling on an average to
the population than any other State, and produces in manufacture,
commerce and agriculture an aggregate of wealth per inhabitant
which is nearly twice that of the average product of the nation. The
wealth of the South is not alone in soil or mines. She is far richer

112 The Montgomery Conference.
in what lies in the intelligence, industry, energy and character of
her people. Society cannot afford to sacrifice one-half of the
best by allowing that proportion to go uneducated. A man is worth
wha,t the amount of his intelligence is worth. Children belong to
the community as well as parents. An enormous amount of
ignorance, poverty and crime is thrown upon the community by the
helplessness, avarice or brutality of parents. We have heard much
already, and, will hear more before we. adjourn, of slavery. It was
an economic curse, a legacy of ignorance. It cursed the South with
stupid, ignorant, uninventive labor. The curse in large degree
remains. The policy of some would perpetuate it and give a system
of serfdom, degrading to' the Negro, corrupting to the employer.
The Negro is a valuable laborer; let us improve him and make his
labor more intelligent, more skilled, more productive. Employers
estimate that a knowledge merely of the elements of a primary
education, reading and writing only, adds twenty-five per cent to
the value of a simple laborer. The average wealth per capita of
the population of a State is in the inverse ratio to its illiteracy.
Waste of brain power is more hurtful than waste of material
resources. I have been much delighted with some references to the present
status of the South. We have been crying out in our prayers, — How
long, Oh, Lord, how long? When the war closed, the bottom fell
out of the South. Banks closed, railways dismantled, manufactures
ceased to exist, chimneys standing without houses, women in weeds,
children fatherless, the world a blank, dreary, hopeless desolation.
Our people betook themselves to the work of rehabilitation, recog
nized the fact that in order to regain their lost position, they must
educate their children, and they taxed themselves to the extent of
their ability to reopen colleges and universities, and provide public
schools for both races. There has been a turn in the wheel, and we
see an enormous expansion in all lines of business except agricul
ture — factories taxed to their utmost capacity, wages increased, the
iron and steel trade increased one hundred per cent. In 1900, in
the South, 5,000,000 spindles, with an investment of $125,000,000 ;
mortgages cleared off, savings in bank deposits increased, output of
coal taking the front rank, clearing-houses in the United States
running up from $69,000,000 in 1898 to $93,000,000 in 1889;
cotton gone up from four and one-half to nine cents per pound,
outlook hopeful and inviting, and yet -we are confronted with this
great Negro problem, and other problems growing out of expansion,
imperialism, etc., which I am forbidden even to hint at. How are
you going to settle the greatest of these questions ? Settle it right,
or it is not stated at all. Settle it permanently, upon high prin
ciples. Be just, be upright, be honest, be noble. We have heard a
great deal to-day about race and about inferiority of races. Much
of it is speculation, much of it is founded on fact. I am a white
man, and, with open field and a fair fight, dread no foe, shrink from

J. Z. M. Curry. 1 1 3
no encounter. Every advance of our race has been the result of a
conflict, every liberty secured the hard-won prize of sacrifice and
blood. Free institutions were achieved by years of courage, faith and
prayer. There are no superiorities of our Southern woinen, in purity,
nobility, the graces that adorn and illumine, which are not the
triumphs of a chivalry , which feels a stain like a wound, and in
knightliest courtesy recognizes and respects, always, in every field,
the just claims of the lowest and the humblest. We hear much about
the unparalleled and the unbroken ascendency of the Caucasian, of
triumphs in government, in civilization, Christianity, science,
literature, invention, discovery, and, with pride, have mai'ked his
course through the centuries. Shall that race, in timid tearfulness,
cowardly injustice, wrong an inferior race, put obstacles to its
progress? Left to itself, away from elevating influence of contact
and tuition, there will be retrogression. Shall we hasten the retro
gression, shall we have two races, side by side, equal in political
privileges, one educated, the other ignorant? Unless the white
people, the superior, the cultivated race, lift up the lower, both -will
be inevitably dragged down. Look at these roses on this platform.
They have been developed from an inferior plant by skilled culture
into gorgeous American Beauties. So it is with other flowers and
fruits; so with animals, and so it is with man. Eight hundred
years ago our ancestors were pirates, careless of laws either of God
or of man, and yet by culture and education, and discipline and free
institutions, and liberty of worship, they have been made the grand
people they are to-day., God's throne is justice and right and truth.
Unseat him from that throne and He becomes a demon ; and so will
sink our Southern civilization into infamy, if we are guilty of
crudest injustice to an inferior race, whom God has put into our
hands as trustees for their elevation and improvement, and for His
glory.

114 The Montgomery Conference.
MORNING SESSION MAY lo, lo.oo A. M.
THE NEGRO IN RELATION TO RELIGION.*
The first speaker was the Eev. D. Clay Lilly, of Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Colored Evan
gelization. Mr. Lilly spoke as follows :
Which is the wiser form of religious work among Negroes,
that controlled by white agencies, or that administered by Negroes ?
I have been asked to present this subject to you to-day. The
invitation amplified these words so as to have me understand that
the question was to cover the subject of the wisdom of turning all of
the work for Negroes into their own hands by entire separation of
white and colored organizations. We shall be concerned with this
phase of the subject. It was stated that what was desired was "a
positive contribution to the discussion from the ground of my own
judgment and experience." I am glad of an opportunity to speak
in this unfettered way. I speak as the representative of no church
or society. I ask to be separated for the time being from my office
as Secretary of Colored Evangelization for the Southem Presby
terian Church and to be regarded as a pastor having an interest in
the colored people and a limited experience in the work for them.
Tf what I shall say is to have any acceptance with you, let it be
because the positions taken are founded upon the truth and not that
they come to you with the seal of any ecclesiastical body upon them.
With this understanding I shall speak the more freely, knowing that
those whom I address are able to discern between the evil and the
good and that you will not be misled by any false position which I
may occupy. I may here say that I have been brought face to face with this
question constantly for three years. The church which I serve as
secretary of work for Negroes has proposed for years to set off her
colored ministers and churches into a separate organization, into a
body which was to be self-governing and self-directing. Three
years ago steps were taken to effect such an organization. I was
then a member of the Executive Committee of Colored Evangeliza
tion for our church. Two years ago the organization was effected
in a partial way. About one-half of our colored ministers united
in this organization and the, other half declined to enter it. At the
same time I was elected secretary and entrusted with the adminis
tration of the work df our church for the Negro. I found myself
confronting a situation which caused me to begin to seriously study
this subject, and as this situation has not changed in our colored
* The Committee regret that the representatives of the Baptist and Methodist Churches
¦who were invited to address the Conference found it impossible to attend, on account of
other engagements.

D. Clay Lilly. 1 1 5
ministry, I have had my attention called to this question in more
ways than would have been possible under any ordinary set of cir
cumstances. I may say that while from time to time I have seen the
force of the arguments on each side with varying degrees of vivid
ness and appreciation of their worth, I have yet been of the opinion
throughout that that system of work for the Negro which provides
for contact between the two races is the wiser and better.
I shall endeavor to present those considerations- which appear
to me to establish this proposition.
I desire to avoid any special pleading or partial representation
of the subject. I hope that I am more concerned to arrive at the
true conclusion than to establish any particular proposition, how
ever much it might commend itself to me. I shall therefore canvass
both sides of this question and try to fairly weigh the arguments
which may be properly advanced for either method of work.
It is held by those favoring entire separation of the colored 1
from, the white churches that it lays the whole responsibility for the |
work on the colored people, and calls into service their best gifts in \
carrying it on. This is seen in the case of a congregation which is
separate from all white superintendence. It has no one to look to for
help. It is forced to meet all its own obligations. It cannot
depend upon the committee or board. If the window glass is
broken or the foundation decayed or the roof leaky, there is some
thing more to be done than to write to the committee and have them
make an appropriation to cover the case. They must devise ways
and means of doing it themselves. This brings into play their
executive ability, creates the necessity for some activity on the part
of the stewards or deacons, and exercises the people in the grace of
giving. This church has a pastor who is supported entirely by his
own congregation. He is not hampered in his work by the superintendence of a
committee of white men. He must do his work with zeal or his
.su.pport will not be, forthcoming.
Preacher and people alike feel that it is "our church," and an t
esprit de corps is developed which renders them an effective organi- I
zation. Then as to the courts and assemblies of the church : The
minister goes to the conference or presbytery and is not with one.
or two others of his own race overawed and kept silent by the large
number of white ministers and church' officers, but meets with a
number of his own people and feels free to speak his opinion and
take part in the business of the assembly. It is claimed that the
actual doing of the work in a church court composed of Negroes
is of vastly more advantage to him than the mere sitting as an
onlooker in a court composed of the two races. It is also repre
sented that in the matter of church work which is usually carried
on by the executive committees or boards, such as foreign or home
missions, it is worth a great deal mofe to the colored people if they
have their own committees to carry on the work, on the principle

1 1 6 The Montgomery Conference.
that more interest is taken in the work if they can feel that it is
their own. It is well if they can feel that their church, being an
independent body of colored Christians, is successfully doing a
certain work, such as the support of a certain number of foreign
missionaries or the successful conduct of a home missionary enter
prise. Again, it is urged that those charged with the administra
tion of these works are thereby developed and made capable leaders
and superintendents of the church's work, and these men being of
the Negro race, are enabled to visit individual churches and enter
into their life and arouse their interests as no white man can pos
sibly do. It is further claimed that this separate existence with
its necessary activities develops the spirit of independence and ag
gressiveness. It promotes confidence in themselves and their ability
to do such work. The preacher being his own leader, becomes ac
customed to determine questions for himself, and, in determining
them and acting, he is made more capable of doing what is de
manded of him. He thus develops a method of church work more
suited to his people than any other which white leaders would sug
gest or perhaps approve, and is thus enabled to build up the church
more rapidly and successfully than if directed by white agencies.
And it is furthermore alleged that this entire separation does away
with any friction arising from differences of opinion on the part
of whites and blacks as to the proper conduct of the work. This
is so obvious as to need no word of comment.
There are other considerations of a social character urged on
behalf of this plan but I do not deem them of sufficient importance
to engage our attention at this time. Only let me say, do not be
confused by the question of social equality. Society has the right
to draw its lines, and there are benefits arising from its doing so.
Socialism is an error, but do not be drawn from the true issues by
these false ones. This is a religious question, not a social one, and
while those two departments of life may be and often are closely
associated, they are not inseparable, and this is an instance
where the wisdom of their separation is seen. But spiritual contact
can be had without any danger of social amalgamation. Social
equality is not desired by either race. Do not pillow it to obscure
the real question.
The principles underlying these claims are (1) that re
sponsibility calls out the best that is in us; (2) that direction of
affairs of importance develops power for leadership; (3) that ac
tivity and interest act and react upon each other, and are mutually
developmental. Of these principles, I freely say that they are sound
principles, principles which are always employed in successful de
velopment and training of character.
Of great importance just here is the question as to whether
these principles are applicable to the character and condition of the
Negro. In order to determine this, let us make this exhibition of
them. It is a fact which no one will doubt that a son in a home

D. Clay Lilly. 1 1 7
will develop a better character if these principles are employed at
the right time in his career, if responsibilities are laid upon him
and if .his activities are properly employed. But it is also a fact
that there is a time in his life when his powers ought not to be taxed
in this way, and at which time responsibilities laid upon him could
not be met. To attempt to apply these principles in his case would
work injury to him and shipwreck to the interests committed to his
care. Much will depend then on what estimate we have of the Ne
gro's endowments and possibilities. Let us consider him. The
black race is not a newly discovered one. It has been on the stage
of human activities since the awful curse fell upon Noah's irreverent
son. But at no time has it been a dominant race. In no clime
has it reared an empire. The expert linguist deciphers on the
tablets the records of the past, but we listen in vain to hear him read
of mighty conquests by the black man. The spade of the arch
aeologist is daily unearthing the splendors of the world's dead civili
zations, but it reveals no evidences of the handiwork of the sons of
Ham. In all its history it scarce furnishes a single heroic figure.
It has contributed nothing to the world's material progress and has
brought nothing to its store of learning or of art.
These facts may be explained by a statement of some of the
general characteristics of the black man. We find that he is not
investigative. He does not pry into nature's secrets. He does not study his
own environment. He does not think seriously about his origin
or his destiny. The problems of our existence here which have been
of such intense interest to the minds of other peoples have never
engaged him at all. To him all nature is a closed volume. He
does not seek to break the seal and to open the book. All life if it
be a problem to him at all, is not one whose solution he seeks.
Again we find that he is not aggressive. Starting under any
given set of circumstances he is content with them as they are.
When he has gone forward it has been because he has been aided
by the strong hand of the white man. I might say that even when
thus assisted, the force of the help has marked the measure of the
progress. He is not inventive. Of course I do not mean merely that
he is not well represented in the patent offices of the civilized world,
but that placed under conditions which were severe enough to bring
out the ingenuity of any race he has remained for ages without
ameliorating the hardships of his savage existence by learning to
use what was all about him, as the white man has done. The white
man has made all nature tributary to himself. The black man
has been content to do the least thing in the poorest way, viz., to
feed his body meagrely upon what earth offered spontaneously or
yielded to the rudest cultivation. Again he is not executive. Or
ganization beyond the simplest forms has always transcended his
powers. To look forward, to lay plans to put them into execution

1 1 8 The Montgomery Conference.
by careful attention to minute details has been to him an impossible
task. No plans looking to the development of the people or the
country were ever devised by him. Even in those activities in
which his powers would give most promise of success, i. e., those
of a warlike kind, he has not excelled. His weapons were chiefly
such as nature supplied. His armies only straggling bands. His
tactics in battle haphazard and uncertain.
I desire to speak further of the endowment of the Negro as
we are familiar with it in this country. Considered intellectually,
the mental constitution of the Negro is not such as the white man
has. This is not noticeable in the children of the two races. In
childhood when only the acquisitive powers are employed, the Negro
child is the equal, sometimes the superior, of the white. This often
misleads the friends of the Negro and raises great expectations as
to the future success of the rapidly learning child. Expectations
which are all too often doomed to disappointment. It is in the later
stages of mental development that the difference appears. When
demands are made upon his powers of reflection, judgment, mental
projection and invention, the higher and more valuable mental gifts,
he is seen to be deficient. But these are the mental powers which
contribute success in life. Enter a school room of fifty pupils and
ask the teacher to show you the children who can not acquire
knowledge. He can not show you more than two or three dullards.
Nearly all can learn and learn rapidly. But, if asked to point out
the ones who would not succeed in life, if he were gifted with
prophetic vision, he would include by far the majority of his pupils
in that list^ for perhaps not more than one-third will succeed in
life. The explanation will be found in this fact — ^that the powers
of mind which give success will not be found in the later develop
ment of the pupils. Now, it is here that every one who has had
any experience with the Negro, knows that he fails. In those in
tellectual exercises which devolve upon him in mature life we find
a poor quality of work done. In teaching he is more of a drill mas
ter than an educator in the highest sense of the term. In preach
ing' he is an exhorter rather than a master of argument or a clear,
forcible preacher.
He does not project business enterprises. He labors for others
or else in a very small way for himself.
Further there seems to be in the constitution of the Negro a
moral deficiency as compared with other races. He does not seem
to have the same conception of morality which other peoples have.
This is seen in the two spheres where moral life is most clearly ex
hibited, the social and the religious.
In social life, there are no standards. No line is drawn be
tween the pure and the impure. Men and women whose lives are
openly and shamefully sinful are not denied recognition in their
social world. There does not seem to be light enough with them
to recognize this, or if so, not strength enough to cast out the

D. Clay Lilly. 119
offender. In one county in Mississippi there were, during twelve
months, 300 marriage licenses taken out in the County Clerk's office
for white people. According to the proportion of the population
there should have been in the same time 1,200 or more for the
Negroes. There were actually taken out by colored people just
three. Their ideals are not such as white races have nor their social
aspirations such as ours.
In their religious life, while they have many evidences of
progress such as considerable church property and much visible
organization, it can not be denied that trae religion is given a very
much preverted expression by them. We find that with them
church membership means very little. Probably as large a per cent
of them are members of churches as among the white people, yet
moral disorders among their membership are grave and abundant.
I will enlarge upon this later. My point now is that with this
limited endowment and seeming deficiency in moral matters the
Negro is not equal to the grave responsibilities which are by this
plan laid upon him, and that he would be injured rather than helped
by having them forced upon him. It is a mistake to apply those
principles to him which might be properly applied to a stronger
and more richly endowed race.
And what do we find to be the practical results of such applica
tion when it has been made. In what I say now, I speak as a friend
of the Negro. It will be better to look at the conditions as they are
and not as we would like to have them. In traveling about over
the South, I have often asked the question of people in different
cities and towns, "Are your colored people well supplied with
churches and ministers?"
"Oh yes, there are plenty of churches for them here," is the
answer. "What character of Negroes have you here ?" I ask. "The
worst in the world," they reply. What a strange condition ! Of
my own observation I know that often the leaders of the demi-monde
are likewise the leaders of the church, giving most liberally to its
support, singing loudest in its service of praise, most conspicuous
everywhere. Notwithstanding the fact that so large a per cent of
colored people are members of churches we find that three-fourths
of all the crimes of the South are committed by Negroes and it is
my opinion that by far the greater part of the sinfulness of the
Negro is not represented by the number of crimes with which he is
charged in courts of justice. I do not know how far the grave
charges so often made against their ministers are true, but such
charges are frequently made by those who are in positions to know.
The evidence seems to point conclusively to the fact that as
yet the religion of righteousness has not entered largely into the
life of the race. And this seems doubly strange when we remember
the triumphs of this'same gospel among cannibal races of the islands
of the sea. Why is it that a handful of missionaries should so
evangelize the Sandwich or Fiji Islands as to completely change the

I20 The Montgo-mery Conference.
moral life, of the people, and yet this people cast into the lap of a
Christian nation should give such evidences of its failure to regen
erate them. We know at once that it is not the fault of the gospel
itself. It can not be explained by the differences in the people for
they are not in such striking contrast of character as that. I think
that the explanation is found in a different set of circumstances.
The islanders were won to the truth and then watched after. Care
ful superintendence on the part of the missionaries was given to
every part of the growing work. Their hands were there to direct
everything according to their own conceptions. In other words
the religious ideals of the white man were substituted everywhere
and at all times for the religious ideals of the heathen. But with
our Negroes it is different. They have been set off to themselves.
As soon as they were numerous enough and before their church life
had been given its fixed character by white infiuence they were set
adrift and their own standards have been erected and their own
ideals followed. The spiritual iife of the Negro to-day is the ex
pression given to the truth by a weak and deficient race who have
been largely left to themselves to develop religiously. I do not doubt
for a moment that had the islanders been left to walk in their own
light as soon as they began to embrace Christianity and not been
carefully nursed that they would have at once begun to degenerate
and in a short while have given a hideously deformed expression of
the truth, or relapsed into barbarism entirely. And I further do not
doubt that had the Negro Christian of this country been kept in
touch with white people, and accepted their religious and social
standards, that the sad spectacle which confronts us now would
be instead a picture of brightness, good to look upon.
The Negro churches have grown too rapidly. The very aggres
siveness which separate existence has developed has been a source of
trouble to the church. Instead of a considerable number of
churches which would be real bearers of light to the race, there are
a great multitude of them with the line so poorly marked between
the church and the world that it is difficult to tell where one begins
and the other ends. It is a fact worth mentioning that of the Pres
byteries in which the church I serve as secretary is interested,
those which have been in organic connection with our white synods
are composed of a class ,of men superior to those in those Presby
teries which have had for a number of years an independent ex
istence. I think that their having been in touch with the white
synods has helped them to keep up their standard. The Negro is
not a strong race. Neither sentiment nor legislation can exalt him
to such a position. His best friends will appreciate this and regard
ing him as a subject of missionary work, endeavor to help him here
in the same way that we would help him in Africa. In my judg
ment the spiritual condition of the Negro is in its worst possible
stage. It is a condition which calls loudly for some action on the
part of white people. The question comes again with renewed force.

D. Clay Lilly. 1 2 1
is it better to help them with money contributed to them, or with
money and personal attention, with close superintendence, with lov
ing sympathy, with wise counsel, with the benefit of our own ex
perience, with help at first hand ?
I have thus far regarded the positions of those favoring sep
arate organizations only in the light of the practical application
to the Negro of the principles upon which they rest. I hope that in
exhibiting this I have not overdrawn the picture. I desire now to
oppose these principles with the ones which are commonly advanced
to support the position I advocate.
Before I do so let me say that there is a presumption in favor
of this position in the fact that God, in His Providence, brought this
people to us. They were weak, ignorant and helpless. Who will
say that it was His purpose that they should work out their destiny
alone and unaided ! And what friend of the Negro having a
knowledge of the facts will claim that he has made such progress
as to warrant us in the assumption that he is now equal , to the
task ! But I proceed to speak of the principles.
The first of these is found in the gospel representation of man's
duty to man. It is that if any man have need of me, he must re
ceive at my hands that which I am able to give. If he be naked
I must clothe him. If hungry, I must feed him. If oppressed,
I must relieve him. If sick, I must minister to him. If wounded
and half dead, I must bind up his wounds, pour on mollifying oint
ment and not leave him until he be safe within the inn, nor cease
to care for him until he be able to care for himself. The details
of this great truth could be multiplied, but these are enough. Their
application to the question before us is not difficult. The conclu
sion from such application is that as long as the Negro's spiritual
need is so great and so evident, white Christians can not enjoy
their Opulence of spiritual privilege and fail to minister to him,
without falling short in the most important duties which God re
quires of us. By ministering to him, I mean personal attention to
his needs. This duty rests upon every intelligent Christian and no
ordinary circumstances can relieve him of it. If this personal
touch, this contact is demanded from individual to individual, can
we not say that certainly it is due from one organization to another.
If personal spiritual contact between a benighted soul and an en
lightened one is recognized as a God-imposed obligation, may we
not understand that the system which provides for spiritual contact
and intercourse between a number of the stronger with the weaker
is in accord with the spirit of the gospel ? The force of this argu
ment can be broken in only one way i. e., by proving that the iSTe-
groes are in as good a spiritual state as the white Christians of this
land. If there is a contrast in favor of the white man's religious
condition, this of itself is a call for the very attention for which I
argue to-day. Is there anywhere a man with such slight knowledge

122 The Montgomery Conference.
of the facts as to claim it to be the case that the spiritual life of the
Negro is on the same plane as that of the whites ?
The second principle from which I argue for this is the mission
of the church. The mission of the church is seen from the char
acter of the work and teaching of the Head of the Church. The
work of atonement He finished in His own person. His work of .
ministry He committed to His church. To her He gives the keys.
Whosesoever sins she remits they are remitted, that is whomsoever
she saves by her work of ministry and testimony they are saved.
Whosesoever sins she retains they are retained, or whomsoever she
loses, by neglect or false doctrine, they are lost. She is the de
positary of the truth and the guardian of souls. Her work is for
all classes, the rich and the poor. But her care of the poor is es
pecially emphasized, because more likely than any other to be
neglected. Hers is a work for the helpless and the weak. In doing
this work she is discouraged from making any adventitious distinc
tions among men. She is debtor to the wise and the unwise, to the
white and to the black. Her plans of work must embrace all men :
in their mighty reach. Her sympathies must not be given to one
and withheld from another. Now if the Negroes have lower stand
ards and have made smaller attainments in the divine life than
white Christians, is not the conclusion inevitable, that here is an
opportunity for the white churches to exercise themselves in min
istering to that need? The church is the nursing mother of new
born souls, and we are warned against despising or neglecting one
of these little ones. What immeasurable advantage it would b6 to
the Negro churches with their weaker spiritual life, if the white
churches with their greater" strength should exercise a loving sym
pathetic ministry towards them, kindly showing them their mis
takes, pointing to a better way and lending a hand to help them up
the difficult ascent to the heights of a purer, healthier church life.
Is not this the work of the Lord in which we are commanded to
abound ? Is not this the following Him which He asks for from His
disciples ? Is not this the sacrifice which He has chosen ? Is not this
the mind of Christ which we are exhorted to have in us ? Whether
viewed as the fruit of God's Spirit, or the witness of His truth to
men, or the agency by which He vrill publish His redeeming love, or
as those whom His Spirit dwells within — seen in any light in which
the true church of God may appear, the truth is still clearly dis
cerned that she has no authority or power to cast off any destitute^
soul or withhold her ministry from any needy one. To set off a
great number of such into a separate organization and to declare
that here her responsibility for them ends, is to do what I conceive
no church of the Lord Jesus has a right to do, and goes contrary
to the letter and spirit of the church's commission. In order to
avoid this conclusion it will be necessary to make a. different repre
sentation of the church's mission. But though this may be done
in some small measure, it seems to me that any adequate presenta-

D. Clay Lilly. 123
tion' of her work will at least include those features mentioned
above. The third principle upon which we rest is that of the unity
of the church. I am not one of those who hopes for or desires a
mechanical binding of all Christian denominations into a hetero
geneous bundle. I believe in each church standing for what it holds
true and giving emphasis to its testimony, by maintaining a separate
existence. But here the matter is very different. In the case of
any denomination having a separate organization for colored people,
there are two bodies of Christians occupying the same territory,
holding the same articles of doctrine and polity, yet maintaining a
separate existence for no other reason than that the skins of those
in the two organizations are of different color. The prayer of Jesus
that His people should be one could not be realized in the sense that
they should all be of uniform creed or confession. Men see truth
from different view points and it presents different aspects to them.
But where differences in view do not exist and where the territory
covered is the same, can any considerations of a practical kind be
weighty enough to overcome the force of the great truth expressed
by the Head of the Church when He speaks of the oneness of His
church. He attaches great importance to the thought. He says
that the unity of His people is of wonderful apologetic value — "that
the world may know that thou hast sent me." 'When you think of it it
is really a very striking proof of the truth of the gospel as it is an
evidence of its great power. What force beside it could weld into
ohe the confiicting opinions of men of every clime? What but it
could bring together the rich and the poor, the leamed and the un
learned, the old and the young, and make them of one heart, one
purpose ? And what a striking exhibition it would be of the power
of God's grace if the world should witness the hand of the stronger
grasping the hand of the weaker race in a brotherhood born of the
spirit of God, and lovingly, patiently and sympathetically helping
him to a better life ! It would be so powerful a testimony that the
whole world could not but be struck -with it. Hardly a greater
contrast in ch^aracter can be imagined than that which exists be
tween the Negro and the white man of the South. They differ in
every detail of character. And now if some power is seen to over
come all this natural antipathy and bring the two together, both to
work for the Spiritual good of the weaker, must not the world look
on -with astonishment and ask how can these things be? Nor could
the explanation be founded upon any other theory than that this
is the great power of God. By such an exhibition, the world may
indeed know that the Father hath sent the Son.
Let me now call attention to two facts which will help us to
a conclusion. The first is that those principles which are put for
ward to establish the wisdom of entire severance of ecclesiastical
relations between the two races are not applicable in every case. It
is an open question as to whether they may properly be applied to

1 24 The Montgomery Conference.
the Negro in his present state. His present spiritual condition
seems to indicate that it has been a mistake to apply them to him.
It is doubtful whether those churches which set off their colored
people into separate communions long ago, would have done so had
they foreseen the present spiritual conditions. It ought to make us
hesitate, then, to apply to this people principles which, by theory,
ought to be applied only to the strong, and which, in their actual
outworking, have exhibited such gravely doubtful results.
And the second fact to which I call your attention is that when
the two set's of principles • used on the two sides of this question
are compared, we YiH see that one set of principles is important,
but not of first rank. That responsibility calls out our best;. that
direction of affairs develops power for leadership ; and that activity
and interest act and react upon each other — these are not principles
of prime impprtance in the kingdom of God. They have their ap
plication in the sphere of practical efficiency. They cannot be
shown to be of vital importance to religion.
But those principles that every form of distress must be min
istered to by the one able to give it ; that ignorance must be enlight
ened by wisdom ; that the strong must bear the burdens of the weak ;
that all men are equal before God, and that the oneness Of believers
is something prayed for by Jesus the Lord and by Him pronounced
to be a powerful Christian evidence — these are principles which
arise from the nature of God's work in redemption and are vital
to the kingdom of heaven. These have to do with man's relation
to man, the church's relation to a lost world. Is it too much to say
that these latter far outweigh the former, and that that system
which provides for contact between the stronger and the weaker race
is the wiser and better, and more fully exhibits the genius of the
gospel of our Lord Jesus.
In relation to the same subject, the following address was then
delivered by the Eev. W. A. Guerry, M. A., Chaplain of the Uni
versity of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee:
The best answer to this question is to be found in the condition.
of the Negro during slavery. Brought to this country from Africa,
in less than five generations under the tutelage of his white masters,
he has been raised from a degraded savage to a state of civilization
which places him far in advance of any representatives of his race
in the world. It is an undeniable fact, and one well worth consid
ering, that the Negro in the United States is better educated, more
intelligent, makes a better citizen, and has absorbed more of the best
elements of the Anglo-Saxon than he has anywhere else. In the
Eepublic of Liberia, or in the so-called Eepublics of Hayti and the
,West Indies, he is distinctly inferior to the Negro, as we know him,
in the South and East. This fact would seem to point irresistibly

W. A. Guerry. i 25
to the conclusion that what progress he has already made in edu
cation, in the arts of civilization, and in the social amenities of life,
has been due to his contact with the white man. Nor is this all.
The best and most respectable class of Negroes in the South to-day,
with a few notable exceptions, are those who were once slaves.
The Negro came into the most direct and immediate contact with
the slave-holder, and the butler, the coOk, the housemaid, the nurse,
the seamstress, the coachman, the foreman, and all that class who
felt the personal influence of the master and the mistress, in habits
of industry, in self-respect and courtesy, and in all the finer quali
ties of gentle breeding, is a distinctly finer product of his race than
that which has grown up since the Civil War. By this I do not mean
to say that the Negro under freedom is incapable of producing a
higher type of manhood and womanhood than under slavery; it
only proves this : that when the Negro, after the Civil War, was
taken from under the fostering care and oversight of his white mas
ters he missed the stimulus of their example, and the moral sup
port which came from their infiuence, and the result was that he
immediately began to deteriorate. We have only to consult the rec
ords of our criminal courts, as has been abundantly sho-wn, for proof
of this assertion.
Who are the Negroes who most largely recruit our criminal
classes ? Are they not those who, in point of time, are farthest re
moved from the institution of slavery? Are they not taken from
that shiftless, corrupt class that infests our cities and towns, known
as the "educated Negro," who considers himself above the menial
tasks and occupations of his forefathers, and whose education con
sists in a smattering of book-knowledge, without any manual train
ing or equipment, to make him a self-supporting and self-respecting
citizen? 'Under whose administration and influence, has such a
Negro been produped? Largely under the teaching and tutelage
of his own race, or of strangers and aliens of the white race who
came South after the war with no knowledge of the Negro character,
and with no appreciation of the social, political, and industrial
needs of the situation. The result has been disastrous in the ex
treme. The Southern Negro, after his emancipation, was as little
prepared for the Herculean task of teaching and developing his race
along proper lines as he was for the exercise of the new power and
responsibility of the franchise. Instead of teaching him, as is being
done with such marked success at Hampton and Tuskegee, the dig
nity of labor, and the value of industrial training, the funds of the
State have been spent in a misdirected effort to give him an educa
tion which is of little service, and whose chief end has been to make
him dissatisfied with his lot, without providing an outlet for his
newly awakened ambition and race pride. Small wonder that the
result has been unsatisfactory, and that many of our Southern
people look askance at any system of education which tends to make
"ladies and gentlemen" out of the black race before they have passed

126 The Montgo7nery Conference.
through the intermediary stages of progress and civilization ! The
remedy, however, is not in denying education to the Negro, but
in giving it a right direction, and — what is more important still — •
putting it in proper hands. Moreover, I would be false to the best
traditions of the South, and to the plainest facts of experience, if
I did not believe that the Southern white man, who is most deeply
concerned in the future development of the Negro race, is better
qualified than anyone else for the task of educating him. — Not his
Northern friend, nor his English friend, as able and as consecrated
teachers and missionaries as many of them have shown themselves to
be, but the former slave-holder himself, or his descendants, who
after all that has been said and done for the Negro by those from
abroad, understand him best, and are to-day his truest friends. But,
granting that this is so, yet it may bCv objected that while th'e people
of the South have contributejd millions of dollars through taxation,
to the education of the Negro, they have shown no disposition to
•give themselves, in any great numbers, to the work of uplifting and
educating him in that direct personal way which was the case dur
ing slavery. With a few exceptions, such as General Armstrong's
great work at Hampton, and certain normal and industrial schools
established under religious auspices, the Southern white man has
left the work of industrial training and religious instruction almost
entirely to the Negro himself, or to those who are strangers to the
South, and who directed theif efforts, in too many instances, to edu
cating him above his station and' his surroundings. But, while I
think that this is very much to be deplored, still, it is only fair to the
South to say that there was very much in the attitude of the Negro
after his emancipation, towards his former master, to discourage
and even to make impossible, any such attempt to educate him. The
Southern lady, who, during slavery, considered it both her duty
and her privilege to teach and instruct her servants in household
arts, in habits of cleanliness, and in the first principles of morality
and religion, was not always influenced, as many have supposed,
by purely selfish considerations. She would have continued to do
the same for her servants after the war, if conditions had been dif
ferent. What is true of the mistress is equally true of the master.
The slave-holders of the South, many of whom erected costly chapels
on their plantations, and employed clergymen — and in one instance
that I know of, brought a clergyman from England, to teach their
slaves — were influenced, many of them, by the highest motives of
duty to the black man, and of responsibility to God for his training.
The following inscription, placed upon the walls of a chapel in
1847, in St. Andrew's Parish, near Charleston, South Carolina, by
Mr. S. J. Magwood, will show what was the feeling among the best
and most representative men of the South :
"This house is dedicated to the Almighty Giver of all good,
with the humble prayer and hope that it may prove an ark of safety
to those for whose special instruction it is erected, so that at the

W. A. Guerry. 127
final day of retribution, when we shall be brought before our judge,
we may each, master and servant, stand acquitted in His Awful
Presence." If the Negro, immediately upon his freedom, had not been
granted the franchise, except as we have it now, upon condition of
an education and property qualification, and the "carpet-bagger"
and corrupt politician from the North had not come among us to
stir up the embers of sectional strife and race prejudice, and to
make the Negro a political factor which threatened to subvert the
entire social and political structure of Anglo-Saxon civilization in
the South, I believe that the slave-holding class and their children
would have taken up much more generally than they have done, the
work of christianizing and training the Negro in all that goes to
make him a useful and respectable member of society. But as long
as he was treated as a ward of the general government, and "Force
Bills" were introduced into Congress to secure him political rights,
at the point of the bayonet, the Southern man's first thought was
naturally one of self-preservation, and it is not altogether to be
wondered at that he has left to others the work which had much
better have been done by himself. Not only do I believe that the
Negro has shown greater progress under the tutelage of the white
teacher than under any system of instruction given him by the mem
bers of his own race, but I contend that the best teacher for the
Negro is the Southern white man, who thoroughly understands him,
and who is more deeply concerned than anyone else in his welfare.
Wherever the Southern people have given themselves to this '
work in earnest, the result has been most satisfactory. I recall one
school in my own native State of South Carolina, taught by a lady
of much culture and refinement, the success of which has been con
spicuous. Its pupils are spoken for long before they grad-uate, for
positions of trust in families and in business houses, by persons who
know the reputation of the school. Her experience can be corrobo
rated by numbers of others engaged in the same work. I know of a
clergyman of the Episcopal church, who for years has been doing
mission work among the rice-field Negroes on the coast of South
Carolina, and who has under him, besides three colored congrega
tions, several parochial schools, a hospital for the sick and one in
dustrial school. He gives it as his testimony, after years of expe-»,
rience, that the children taught by two maiden ladies, who, before I
the war, owned slaves, were better taught, made better servants, and I
in every way showed a marked improvement over the children ,^
taught by the best colored teachers that he could employ. It would,
indeed, be surprising if such were not the case. Since the most ,
powerful factor in all education is the personality and character |
of the teacher, it is not to be wondered at that the highest type of
the Anglo-Saxon should prove a more potent influence in moulding
and directing the mind and character of the Negro child than any
that could possibly be wielded by the more ignorant, and often '
wholly incompetent, teachers of his own race.

128 The Montgomery Conference.
But there is one characteristic of the Negro, however, which,
I think, renders him peculiarly amenable to personal influence and
direction, making it all the more important that his education
should be in the hands of the white man. I refer to the element of
hero-worship, which is deeply rooted in the race. Where his affec
tions have been enlisted, and where he has learned to trust and to
obey, he has shown himself capable, under white leadership, as was
shown in the late war with Spain, of a courage and fortitude that
would do credit to his Anglo-Saxon neighbor. Those of you who
have read the life of David Livingstone will remember how this racial
trait was brought out in the loyalty and devotion which the natives
who formed his escort on that last fateful journey into the heart
of the "Dark Continent" felt for their white friend and chieftain.
No man has ever received a greater tribute than these poor, unen
lightened heathen paid Livingstone. After his death they bore his
body to the coast, braving every peril, flinging aside all prejudice,
at times fighting their way through hostile tribes, until they gave
up their sacred charge, into the hands of the English Consul. It
was the greatness of the man's personality which won their hearts,
and his personal influence and daily contact with them that secured
their confidence and converted them from half-civilized savages
into a band of heroes. ' This same power of personal attachment
to one who has won their love and esteem is borne witness to in
every part of the mission field, and constitutes a very important
factor in their evangelization. No one has understood this feature
of the Negro's character better than Thomas Nelson Page, and in
charming sketches of plantation life in Virs-inia before the Civil
War, he has preserved for us in "Une' Edinburg's Drowndin,"
"Marse Chan," and "Meh Lady," the faithful old house-servant
and slave, who is fast passing away. The value of such a character
' sketch for our present purpose is that it shows the extent to which
the white man may mould and influence the Negro, and how much
of the spirit and genius of the Anglo-Saxon he is capable of ab
sorbing. These ¦ strong personal ties between master and slave that
survive to the present, and which nothing but death can ever sever or
destroy, grew up not so much out of the institution of slavery as
they did out of the superiority of the white race, joined to that kind
ness and consideration for the slave which has always characterized
, the Southern people. Under the dominant spell of a stronger per
sonality and a higher civilization, the Negro became as clay in the
hands of the, potter; but even the overmastering influence of the
.Anglo-Saxon could not have produced the best type of ante-bellum
Negro if he had not himself been capable of the greatest loyalty
and devotion, as was abundantly shown by his behavior during the
Civil War. Now, it is just this trait which we need to make greater
use of in the work of educating and training him. We must leam
to depend more upon the power of personality and .personal attach-

W. A. Guerry. 129
ment which operated so powerfully during slavery, and less upon
mechanical methods and appliances. The education of the Negro in
the public schools is too much a matter of routine and of business.
The methods adopted are the methods of the drill master. The
black child, far more than the white child, needs the personal care
and attention of the teacher, and that sort of moral and religious
inspiration which comes from one who stands far above him in
point of intelligence and character. In other words, it is in the edu
cation of the Negro, as it is in all kinds of primary and rudimentary
training, that we need the best and most devoted teachers to lay
the foundations of intellectual and spiritual life. I make no sweep
ing indictments against the teachers and preachers of the colored
race. I know that many of them are doing a most useful and noble
work among their own people ; but it is nevertheless the fact, which
the experience of every Southern man will go far to confirm, that
the Negroes themselves are often strangely distrustful of their own
guides. In too many instances, it is the ambitious Negro, the un
scrupulous, the merely clever, who takes advantage of the ignorance
and superstition of his o-wn race to advance his private inter-
'ests. Men like Booker T. Washington, who are moved by a deep
love of their own people, and by a sincere desire to labor for their
truest good, are the exception and not the rule. But, if he is fairly
and honestly dealt with, the Negro is willing to put every confldence
in the white man, and will look up to him and trust him ; whereas,
it is rare indeed that he has the same confidence in one of his own
color. His political and religious leaders undoubtedly wield a great
influence over him, and often intimidate and mislead hiin, but when
he wants the soundest advice and the safest counsel, it is to the
' white man, and usually to the ex-slave-holder or his children, that
he goes. Of course, we all look forward to a time when the Negro
shall have arrived at such a state of progress and enlightenment
that he can perform these offices for himself, but that time has not
yet come, and is not likely to come in the near future. If, therefore,
we leave the work of education to strangers and aliens or to the
Negro himself, we are nourishing in our midst a condition of things
which will tend inevitably to increase race antagonism and pre
judice, and when the present ex-slave dies off, there will be none left
to hold in check the more turbulent and restless spirits of the rising
generation, and little will remain to remind either race of those
kindly relations which once existed between them. Everything
points to the fact that the education and training of the Negro is
"the white man's burden" here, as it is elesewhere throughout the
world to-day, and I believe that we owe it to the purity of our homes,
and to the preservation of Anglo-Saxon civilization in the South
to undertake this work in earnest.
One who is thoroughly competent to speak on this subject
writes :
"Not yet can the Negro race be cut adrift from the tutelage

130 The Montgomery Conference.
of the white. And less now than ever, because he is in that critical
condition of boyhood bumptiousness which always precedes the time
of one's real majority."
This testimony of a Southern white man deserves to be placed
alongside of this statement of Booker T. Washington on this same
subject :
"We have now reached the point in the South where I believe
great good could be accomplished by changing the attitude of the
white people towards the Negro, and of the Negro towards the white
teachers of high character.
But if, in this discussion, I have seemed somewhat to confuse
the educational and religious aspects of the subject, it is only because
I believe that it is impossible to draw any distinct line between them.
Education is one department of religion, and I agree with Mazzini,
who said that in our time "every political question is rapidly be
coming a social question, and every social question a religious ques
tion." The final solution to the Negro problem, as of all other social
and industrial problems, must be sought for in the Christian reli
gion, and in the principles which the divine founder of Christianity
laid down. If, therefore, I believe that the best teacher for the
Negro is the Southern white man, still more am I of the opinion
that in the matter of religion he needs the fostering care and wise
leadership of his Anglo-Saxon neighbor.
You are, doubtless, aware that I represent a church in which.
there are Negro bishops, clergy and congregations. From the first,
the Episcopal Church has adopted the policy of including the Negro
in the same ecclesiastical organization with the whites. Most of the
representative Christian bodies in the South have left the Negro
to shift for himself, and to develop his religion in his own way. I
am not here to refiect upon my Christian brethren of other churches-
nor do I wish to seem to speak of my own church's position in any
spirit of boastfulness. For, while we stand for the great principle
of unity among all branches of a divided Christendom, yet no one
is more painfully conscious than I am of how far short we have
fallen in our duty as a church towards the black man. But of the
righteousness and wisdom of the Church's course I have not sort of
doubt. What, exactly, is the status of the Negro in the Episcopal
Church, inay be made clearer to those who are unfamiliar with our
system of church government if I give briefiy some account of the
work that is being done :
We have at present two bishops of the African race at work in
the foreign mission field ; these are Bishop Ferguson in Liberia and
Bishop Holly in Hayti. In nearly every Southern diocese there
are colored presbyters in charge of colored congregations. The
bishop usually appoints over this work an archdeacon, who is gen
erally a white man ; but in some dioceses, as in North Carolina and
in Southern Virginia, he is a Negro. I only state these facts to show

W. A. Guerry. 131
that it is possible to include the Negro in the same church organi
zation with the whites, and to give him all the religious advantages
which come from the higher wisdom and learning of his Anglo-
Catholic brethren.
The result of the religious isolation of the Negro after the Civil
War was most unfortunate ; for, nowhere has he shown such a dispo
sition to revert tothe original savage as in his religion. Who does not
know something of religious revivals among the Negroes, their ex
travagant emotionalism, the ease with which their religious teachers
and leaders work upon their credulity and upon their fears, their
strange and perverted notions of conversion — ^that curious mental
and physical condition which so closely resembles the hypnotic
trance ? Their implicit faith in certain occult practices, known as
"Hoodooism," and finally, their total misconception of the plainest
scriptural teaching conceming the incarnation and the work of the
Holy Spirit ? If £ver a people needed the firm and intelligent sup
port and guidance of those who are able to teach them, the Negro
is that race. And yet, what have we done? We have left him
largely a prey to his own ignorance and superstition, and to the
guidance of a native clergy — many of them ignorant and morally
unfit for the task before them. Many of these colored preachers
are godly men and are able leaders of their race, as we can all
testify. The African Methodist Episcopal body, and the African
Baptist Church, with their immense membership, their admirable
system of church discipline, and their excellent organization, show
what the Negro has been able to accomplish in a religious way,
with but little aid from the white man. But, while this is true — ¦
and the race needs to be congratulated upon what it has accom
plished — it is also true that in many instances the Negro preachers
have proven themselves unsafe and dangerous guides, and have
fanned the fires of race prejudice, and influenced the Negro to be
come the political enemy of the white man.
I believe that there would be a better understanding between
the races, less aiitagonism, and more of the spirit of co-operation,
if the Negro, in his religion, had remained under white tutelage.
He might in that case have listened to his white bishop, and have
looked to his white rector to guide him when he would have turned
a deaf ear to appeals which came only from those whom he saw
separated from him socially, politically and religiously. The Epis
copal Church has, from the beginning, recognized that the Negro,
more than any other race, by temperament and inheritance, stands
in need of the restraint and the chastened discipline which comes
from a reverent ritual, a liturgical service, and systematic in
struction, not only in doctrine but in morals.
Contrary to all predictions, it has been found by actual expe
rience that the book of Common Prayer, with its ancient Christian
formularies, its wealth of devotion, and its excellent summaries of
the moral law — as set forth in the Church Catechism — is admir-

1 32 The Montgomery Conference.
ably adapted to the ethical and religious needs of the colored race.
If it were necessary, I could produce many statements here to prove
the truth of this assertion, and that the standard of morality among
Negroes brought up in the faith and discipline of the church is
much higher than that which obtains among them under their own
teachers and leaders. Archdeacon Eussell, a colored presbyter of'
the diocese of Southern Virginia, and principal of St. Paul's Nor
mal and Industrial School of Lawrenceville, Virginia, writing under
date of May 2d,gives it as his opinion that "wherever. the Church has
been planted among the Negroes the standard of morality is high."
"It is my honest conviction that if we had the men and the money
to support them in their labors among the colored people the day is
not far distant when our Church will have the numerical strength
just as she has to-day the moral strength."
The difficulties in the way of supplying the colored race with
a native clergy are very great, and are due, no doubt, to the fact
that the Church is, as Archdeacon Eussell says, not numerically
strong among them, and the source of supply is therefore neces
sarily small; and also to the fact that the race itself has as yet pro
duced but comparatively few men who have been able to comply
with the canonical qualifications for priests' orders.
But small and inadequate as the Church's work is, compared
with the vast" extent of area to be covered, and the immense numbers
to be reached, still, the moral effect of her influence, and the signi
ficance of her position — standing as she does for the principle that
the Negro is bound up with the white man in the Catholic bonds
of the One Body of Christ — can, I think, hardly be overestimated.
Such association with the whites in the same ecclesiastical organi
zation gives the Negro just what he most needs, namely, the over-"
sight and spiritual leadership of the Anglo-Saxon, joined with the
wisdom and leaming of the Church's long Mstory and experience.
It is not necessary nor at all desirable that this idea of
Christian fellowship should result in the Negro's mixing socially
with the whites; indeed it is far preferable that they should have
churches and congregations of their o-wn, under the control, as at
present, of the bishop and of the diocesan and general conventions.
The time may come when it shall be the policy of the Church to erect
the colored work in the South into a missionary jurisdiction; but
that time is, as yet, far distant. In the meanwhile, we may learn
something from the foreign mission field regarding the inability of
the black man to stand alone without the moral support and super
vision of the white. The Christian wprld has yet to see an inde
pendent autonomous native church among any of the dark races.
Even so intelligent and progressive a people as the Japanese, and
the Hindoos of British India, with their million and a half of
Christian converts, and ' their able corps of native teachers and
evangelists, have not been able as yet to cut themselves adrift from
Western aid, and to establish independent churches of their own.

W. A. Guerry. 133
And^ can any one believe that the Negro, within thirty-five years
of his freedom, even though surrounded by a Christian civilization,
is capable of doing successfully for himself what the most ancient
and enlightened nations of the Eastern world have not been able to
do for themselves ? ^
I do not think that the South has begun to measure the pos
sibilities of the Negro under the tutelage and religious training
of the highest type of the Anglo-Saxon. And here, again, the mis
sion field furnishes us -with some interesting and instructive ex
amples: Witness Bishop Tucker's remarkable work in Uganda.
. Study the truly marvelous career of a man like Williams in Poly
nesia; and of Paton in the New Hebrides. Take the example of a
Negro like Samuel Cro-wther, late Bishop of the Niger — all these
as showing what contact with the -white man may do for the ignor
ant savage. Crowther was rescued as a boy from a slave gang in
the heart of Africa. Educated in the English school at Eegents-
town, and afterwards at the Church Missionary College in London,
he returned to Africa as a missionary to his own people; was or
dained deacon and priest, and, later. Bishop of the Niger. He
received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford, and,
whenever he visited England, he drew large crowds by his native
eloquence and earnestness. This man's life is an object lesson. Of
course, he was an exceptional man, and yet, his career may be
paralleled both in this country and abroad.
In the South to-day, it is a simple fact and one familiar to you
all, that the Negroes who have achieved the greatest success as
preachers, teachers, lawyers and industrial leaders, have been those
who derived their early training and education from the whites.
Booker T. Washington, himself, in his book on "The Future of the
American Negro," makes grateful acknowledgment of how much of
his success is due to his early training in General Armstrong's school
at Hampton, Virginia, where, to use his own words: "I was sur
rounded by an atmosphere of Christian influence and self-help, that
seemed to have awakened every faculty in me, and caused me tb
realize for the first time what it meant to be a man instead of a
piece of property."
To put it on no higher plane than a proper self-interest, and a
desire to see an adequate , return for the money expended annually
in the Negro's education, 'the only safe policy for the white man is
to take this "foundling of the State" into his own hands, and make
something worth saving and worth educating ou-t of him.
As Doctor Barringer, in his able pamphlet on the "American
Negro," says : "If we will remember that the discipline of the whites
in the army applied to the adult Negro, gave us the much boasted
Negro 'regular,' and that the discipline of the whites gave us the
respectable Negro of to-day, and of all days behind us, we cannot
go far wrong as to the principle. We took the cannibal and made
a man of him, and we did it because our grandfathers and grand-

134 The Montgomery Conference.
mothers were not ashamed to give themselves to his guidance.
There are in' the South to-day the same people, and in this day of
national peril — for it is national — hard as it will be at first, they
will not be found wanting." This is not only the soundest advice,
but the truest religion.
And, ih conclusion, let us reinember that no question is settled
right until it is settled on a Christian basis and in accordance with
the principles of the Divine Founder of Christianity. The Negro
problem, like a great many other problems of our day, is at the bot
tom of human brotherhood He is our brother, for whose spiritual
and temporal welfare God will hold us of the stronger and superior
race responsible. And however much the political and social ex
igencies and necessities of the situation may tend to alienate and
separate him from the white man, yet certainly in the Church of
God the fellowship of Christian brotherhood should be recognized
and acted upon. The Negro must be taught to honor and respect
himself for the same reason that the white man honors and respects
himself; because he is a child of God for whom Christ died, and
that God's purpose concerning him is not that he should become a
white man, but the best black man he is capable of becoming.
Mr. Herbert, the Chairman, then introduced the Very Eev. J.
E. Slattery of St. Joseph's Seminary, Baltimore, Maryland, who
spoke as follows upon the subject : "Should we Advise the Eaising
of the Standard of Ordination for the Negro Clergy ?" :
Apropos of my subject. The colored man in the ministry. — It
pre-supposes that the Negro is a moral being, for his ministry in
the Christian Church bespeaks manhood, with all its privileges and
responsibilities. Hence then, if the Negro is capable of the min
istry, he is also qualified in some measure to fulfill its duties.
Now, the moral responsibility of the Negro is recognized both
in Church and State. Alabama, for instance, has the same code of
laws, the same courts of justice, the same legal punishment for the
black man which she has for the white. Moreover the ownership
of property, the right to make wills, as well as to inherit, the guard
ianship of children ; one and all are upheld for the black man as for
the white man by the same laws.
It is the same in the Christian Church. The Church requires
of her black children that they believe in the revealed truth of holy
religion; they must learn the same prayers. The "Our Father"
ascends from the lips of black men to the same God to whom that
universal prayer goes from those of white. Baptism; Holy Com
munion; the sacred rite of marriage; the anointing of the sick;
the burial of the dead, have all the same ceremonies for the Negro
which they have for the white. And when he goes forth from this
world the consecrated ground of the cemetery covers his remains

J. R. Slattery. 135
like those of his white brethren. To-day, then, we do not consider
in this address the Negro as a wage-earner, or as an element in the
commercial and industrial development of the South, or from the
standpoint of general education. All this does not concern us, save
in so far as gro-wth in them will help towards the moral raising up of
the black man. The Catholic priests of the Negro missions labor to
build up his moral character; to the State and to the various de
nominations they are willing to leave his industrial development.
The more he advances along these lines, the better ground-work he
becomes for the superstructure of the faith. In a word, the more the
Negro knows, the better workman he is, the more conscientious
citizen he becomes, the better hope we have of seeing him a Catholic.
For as Boniface VIII. said: "The worst enemy of the Church is
ignorance." Let us then, for a moment, look at the work of the Church in
the South. The Catholic Negroes, if we may use the expression,
are bunched; they are to be found chiefiy in Maryland, Louisiana
and Kentucky, States largely settled by white Catholics. At the
present time there are over tliirty priests who labor exclusively
among the Negroes, and they have over one hundred and ten schools ;
almost all of .which are in charge of various sisterhoods. At the pres
ent time every corner of the South sees the Catholic Church labor
ing for the colored man ; in fact it' may be safely said there is
scarcely a Catholic Church in the South which does not number at
least a few colored people in the congregation. The only national
collection of the Catholic Church in the United States is taken up
yearly for the benefit of the Negroes. The Cardinal of Baltimore,
the Archbishop of Philadelphia and the Archbishop of St. Louis
form a committee to whom is entrusted this collection for distribu
tion. The second and third Plenary Councils of Baltimore, held in
1866 and 1884, respectively, gave weighty 'consideration to the ques
tion of converting the Negro. The Society to which I belong de
votes itself entirely to them; we have missions in Alabama,
Arkansas, Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Virginia and
after November in Tennessee also. We have nearly one hundred
boys studying for the priesthood, of whom six or seven are colored.
Next November we propose to open a college in this city, in which to
train colored boys for the work of evangelizing the race. With
this in view, we lately bought a place near the town.
Now let us turn to the reasons why we should have Negroes in
the ministry and their qualifications therefor. We must recall the
practice of the Church from Apostolic times. She has ever laid
down as. essential and absolute requirements in the work of con
verting a race— first of all, the Episcopal succession, and in the next
place a native clergy.
When St. Paul started forth on his work he took Barnabas, a
Cyprian bom, but quickly discarded him ; henceforth in his travels
he invariably had for his companions the natives pf the countries

136 The Montgomery Confer eitce.
into which he entered. He put Titus at Crete, Timothy at Ephesus ;
and when returning from Jerusalem on his last visit his companions
were Sopater the son of Pyrrhus of Berea ; and of the Thessalonians,
Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and
of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. (Acts xx. 4.) Nor must we
forget that these converted Gentiles were very much disliked by the
Jews. At the first Synod of Jerusalem, St. Paul got into a great
row over the presence of Titus an uncircumcised Gentile, and in
his last visit to the Holy City he was mobbed because the Jews sus
pected that he had brought Trophimus the Ephesi'an into the temple.
We must not suppose that because these men all belonged to what
nowadays we call the white race that there was no prejudice against
them, far greater was the contempt of the ancient Jew for the Gen
tile than we are cognizant of. Again : The haughty Eoman thor
oughly despised the victorious Goth; yet the Eoman missionaries
who evangelized Gaul took their clergy from the inhabitants of the
country. We do not read that St. Patrick ever sent to his native
France for priests to help him to evangelize Ireland where he him
self had been a slave and had learned in slavery the awful desolation
of that pagan race. Likewise St. Augustine in England. So too,
when St. Boniface went to Germany, St. Willibald to Holland,
Saints Cyril and Mithodius to Bohemia, they made the natives
priests to push forward the building up of the faith.
Among the many bright spots in Eusebius, the father of Church
history, we may mention his reference to the last labors of St. John
the Divine, who traveled through Asia Minor and the isles of the
iEgean Sea, everywhere establishing a native Church and Epis
copate. Up to the time of the Eeformation there was never any ques
tion of the native clergy or Episcopate; it was taken for granted.
Of old the Benedictine monks received the serfs of the neighborhood
into their cloister, and on their ordination as priests emancipated
them 'from .the yoke of serfdom, for by the laws of the Catholic
Church the priest could not be a slave and on ordination a serf was
a free man. Francis of Assist is credited with the final destruction
of the feudal system by his establishment of the third order of
Franciscans, for once admitted to its privileges, although remaining
in the world and following its ways and customs, its members were
emancipated by the laws of the Church from any obligations to carry
arms. We may add here that John Fiske, our American historian,
does not hesitate to ascribe the first foundation of the American
Eepublic to the movement inaugurated by the Poor Man of Assist.
Since the Eeformation there has been more difficulty because
of the fact that the missionaries from Europe have looked with
suspicion on the natives of Asia, Africa and Oceanica. They seem
to have wished to make them not merely Christians, but Europeans.
But Eome has always raised her voice in solemn injunction that the
natives be ordained priests and consecrated Bishops. One of the

J. R. Slattery. it,?
golden fruits of the labors of St. Francis Xavier was the conversion
of Japan, but his labors went to pieces because when persecutions
arose in the Seventeenth century and the European clergy were cut
off or banished there was no native clergy to keep alive the faith,
although when in 1857 Bishop Petit- Jean landed at Nagasaki he
discovered 20,000 Catholic Japanese, the last remnants of the ,
Church of Japan after two hundred and fifty years of widowhood
without bishop or priest. The present Pope, Leo XIIL, has gone
- much further than any Pope during the past three hundred years.
He has forbidden the Latin language to be imposed upon the natives
of the Eastern countries as a vernacular, but only for church use,
and has required that the language of the country in every case be
the language of the school. Ten or twelve years ago he established
the Hierarchy in Japan with one archbishop and four bishops.
This is the final step towards the permanent Japan native ministry.
In Africa we have the same efforts going on towards establish
ing a native clergy. Cardinal Massaja, lately deceased, spent thirty-
five years of his life in Ethiopia, and he does not hesitate to say
in his memoirs that he owed all his success to the native priests.
In fact the European priests under his jurisdiction nearly all went
astray, while the native priests continued steadfast to the end.
¦What is true of the clergy is true also of the Episcopate. Once
the Catholic Episcopate is established in a country we find it always
lives. But what has all this to do with the Negroes as ministers ? It
shows the position of the Catholic Church on the subject. "When
a world-wide organization like it recognizes the need of a priest
hood who shall be taken from the people among whom it labors, j
the question whether we should have Negro priests or not is for"
Catholics a settled one.
Turn now to our own country ; we have the stubborn fact before
us that the two Protestant denominations to which the Negro chiefly
belongs, viz, the Methodist and Baptist, form distinct organizations
in which every member from the highest to the lowest is black. ,
The African Methodist Chuch has its bishops, ministers, itinerants,
deacons, elders, exhorters, class-leaders, as well as congregations, all
Negroes. Likewise the African-Baptist Church, except bishops,
-with perhaps a large number of followers — all black. In the hands
of these Negro churchmen are the finances of their respective con
gregations which are never laggards in the support and maintenance
of their clergy. The white ministers, whether professors or teach
ers, male as well as female, confine their labors to the universities,
seminaries, colleges, normal and industrial schools for the Negro
race. Not a corporal's guard of white Protestant ministers can be
found in charge of Negro churches.
Furthermore the standing of Negro preachers is recognized,
they enjoy the same railroad privileges as white ministers; they re
ceive ordination and confer it according to their rites as do the

138 The Montgomery Confe-i^ence.
whites, and we have yet to hear of either the Methodist or Baptist
Church, North or South, taking any exception to the presence of
these black men in the ministry.
We know that some of their own bishops have not been ashamed
to bring into publicity the shortcomings of Negro ministers ; one of
them declaring in the New York Independent that two-thirds of
them were immoral; yet, notwithstanding, no one questions their
right or power as ministers of the gospel.
Our Blessed Lord, speaking of a king going out to battle tells
us that the wise man will sit do-w;n and count the cost to see if he
is able to cope with his adversary ; it may be well for us now to con
sider the elements which go to show the fitness of a Negro ministry.
The first is, they are men of the same flesh and blood; they know
their people ; they are in sympathy with them ; they have their tradi
tions; then too, they enter into their aspirations; rise with their
hopes and sink with their fears; there is, in a word, nothing that
concerns the colored man which does not interest them.
How often have we seen the advice of white men of intelligence
and capability set aside for that of their own race, no matter how
ignorant nor unqualified. They prefer their own. That is our ex
perience. The Negro, we must confess, looks with suspicion upon the
whites; too often he has been duped by artful transactions and been
the prey of the low vices of artificial life. Indeed the impressions
left from slavery, the many dishonest transactions upon them; un
paid wages, "store pay," bad titles to lands, unjust mortgages upon
their crops, these and similar wrongs make the Negro suspicious of
the whites. During two and twenty years we have been in the closest rela
tions with the black race, have had their confidence in countless
ways ; are now constantly consulted by them in their little troubles,
financial and otherwise; yet, we are not afraid to say that there is
no white man living who has the Negroes' entire confidence.
During the present war in Africa we have often read how the
English were led astray by guides or by the natpre of the country,
whereas never once has it appeared that the Boers mistook their way
or forgot the whereabouts of the enemy. 'Why so ? They stand on
their native heath; the land is familiar, the mountains and defiles
have often been trodden by them. Now, in some such similar way
the Negro guide of his race stands on familiar ground; he appeals
to them even by his black face ; they see in it a reflection of them
selves. For, however, such guides to be successful they need to be
brim full of the spirit and hopes of their race. The Boers would
not trust themselves to Boer guides who were known to favor the
English and to have had dealings with the invaders. Just so we
can not expect that the Negro race will be guided by any one of the
number who does not in every way enter into their hopes and aspira
tions. On the other hand it must be confessed that these Negro

J. R Slattery. 139
leaders should be men of discretion. They should study their en
vironments, for their black disciples live not apart but surrounded
by whites. There is then danger in indiscreet leadership, there is
more danger in bad leadership, and we know that the Negroes have
often had bad leaders of their own. All of us are familiar with
th'e evil influence of Negro leaders unworthy of their trust, while
their own experiences have proclaimed this aloud.
While, however, we recognize these difficulties on the score
of Negro leadership, that would not justify us in refusing to grant
them the ministry, or for the Catholic Church to deny to them the
priesthood. Those who fall away from the high standards of the
Christian priesthood do not hurt those standards or their race;
rather they drop out of sight; nor must we ever admit that
"Ichabod" may be said of the hopes of the Negro priesthood.
Here in Montgomery we propose to train Negro catechists
from the age of fifteen years and upwards. They will be selected j
by the missionaries in different missions, who have first tried them I
for some time, and afterwards will send those fitted for it to the /
school. There they will follow a course of study in English,/
mathematics and kindred branches; Christian Doctrine and Latin'
will also be taught. This will cover about three years, during the
last of which they are to master logic. The second course of three
years will follow in theology. Sacred Scriptures, the Catechism of,
the Council of Trent, which is the official text-book of the Catholic '.
Church for her ministers, and of the Douai and Eheims testaments, '
especially the four gospels serving as text-books. It will be the I
duty of the professors to adapt themselves to su'ch standards as the
Negroes may be capable of. Throughout the whole course, manual |
labor for about two hours daily will be a feature, all the work about
the house and premises shall be done by the students. When grad
uated, these youths will be received as catechists -w^ith an appropri-.
ate ceremony, and then assigned to various missions, teaching in the 1
schools and attending to the religious exercises in the absence of the I
priests. Those who marry may continue on as catechists, while |
those who remain single will be advanced step by step to the priest- ¦¦
hood. In this college the main stress will be laid on uplifting the \
moral character of the Negro students. We cannot expect to succeed
in every case, but no doubt a fair proportion will become catechists,
and a still smaller number will be ordained priests, who will live and
labor among their own people. When Negro catechists are scattered
up and do-wn the South, the effect cannot but be productive of much
good. Their labors will implant that stiffening process whence the
backbone of virtue and morality will develop in their followers.
The Negro race may be compared to the wounded traveler
whom the Jewish priest and Levite passed by and' left to his fate.
The wine of strength and the oil of compassion are both needed for
them, and as of old, the sympathetic hand of the Good Samaritan

140 The Montgomery Conference.
furnished both the one and the other ; so we may rest assured that all
. the wounds of our black countrymen will receive health and refresh
ment at the hands of those devoted catechists, if Only they are loyal
to the teachings of the Church whom they call Mother.
The Negro has qualities something like our Southem climate,
genial and cheerful, humid and long-suffering, and as this sunny
land puts forth its beauty and attractions, often to be followed by
storms and distress, so may we look for similar traits in that race
whose millions are spread over its soil. There is not, indeed, among
us a race whose history is more like that, of the Son of Man than
that of the children of Ham. Of the Saviour of the world the pro
phet declared that he was a worm and no man ; a very scorn of men
and an outcast of the people ; he was poured' out like water and all
His bones out of joint ; His heart also in the midst of His body like
melting wax. All this may be truly said of the Negro race, and
no better preparation perhaps, since it was that of the Eedeemer,
may be desired for their uplifting.
Fully aware are we of the Negro shortcomings. Vices he has,
fiagrant and many — the daily papers never tire of keeping them,
truthfully or falsely, before us. But we can build nothing on a
man's evil traits ; to do good with him we must take him at his best.
Now the Negro has his good side; if not, then this Conference at '
Montgomery would be a mere farce. He is not wholly bad, but has
qualities which justify the Southern States to spend millions of dol
lars in educating him, and his white countrymen millions more in
his religious and industrial training. Total depravity holds not for
the Negro any more than for the white, and it is his good side that
we propose to develop. Hence, let nie add a word which greatly
affects the well being of the Negro, that the whites, high and low,
rich and poor. Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Gentile, owe the
Negroes a duty of good example ; they must draw them then by the
cords of Adam. Be honest, therefore, in dealing with them, pay
them their wages; observe in their regard the golden rule. While
all this ennobles the whites, it will also tend to bring out in the
blacks those traits of character upon which all morality exists.
The Negroes feel silently but acutely ; they need very much encour
agement before the good they are capable of is to be developed.
Nor must we ever forget the universal feeling that the Negroes
of the United States have a mission for the land of the fore
fathers — Africa. As far back as 1829 was this thought formulated
in the shape of a colonization society, and while Liberia has not been
the success which was expected and desired, still it has held its own
and continues to this day a free and independent republic. In 1853,
Hon. Edward Everett made the declaration . that the American'
Negro was destined to evangelize and Christianize Africa. In 1867,
C'ardinal Manning, speaking at the opening of the English Foreign
Mission College, re-echoed the words of our American statesman,
which again were taken up in 1889 or 1899 by Cardinal Lavigerie,

C. C. Penick. 141
the Primate of Africa, to whose efforts more than to any other man's,
was due the Congress of Brussels, which blotted out the slave trade
in Africa. This indeed seems a long way off, but a thousand years
are in His sight but as yesterday which is past, and we may look for
ward to the Negroes of the United States, not indeed as a body,
or by Congressional enactment, but one by one, under the inspira
tion of God's Holy Spirit, setting forth for the country which is now
called "Europe Writ Large." They would carry, in the words of
Cardinal Satolli at the Chicago fair, the Constitution of the United
States in one hand and the Bible in the other, to win to civilza-
tion and to Christianity the land of TertuUian, Cyprian and
Augustine. Following Father Slattery's address, the Et. Eev. C. Q. Penick,
formerly Missionary Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in
the African field, addressed the Conference at the special request
of the Executive Committee.* Said Bishop Penick :
We stand confronting an awful issue. When the last gun
boomed at Appomattox, and the smoke of the conflict cleared away,
what did we see ? We saw millions of men's bones bleaching beneath
the stars. We sa-w a debt of twenty billions of dollars incurred, we
heard the wail of the widow from the waters of the Gulf to the
thunders of the Niagara. There were 4,500,000 of the African
race in this country. Only three hundred years before, the first ship
landed on the Eastern shores, and no man dreamed of such terrible
results. Now, my friends, the one thing that keeps me from being
pessimistic is this, that God Almighty never paid and never will pay
a big price for alittle thing. God has paid the price of a million
lives, and decimated a country, ahd spent billions and billions of
dollars, in order that He might bring about the conditions that con
front us to-day. Whether we like it or not, that is not the question.
God makes no mistake. The wheels which Ezekiel saw in his vision,
sometimes they roll, crushing empires beneath them, and sometimes
they roll along heaven's bending blue, but always and ever straight
forward — and so we stand with not an old family in the land whose
faces have not been bathed in tears, and whose hearts ache not over
some soldier's grave on some battlefield, and all their sorrows caused
by the strife over the Negro.
What did the Negro gain? I have been in Africa, I have
seen the Negro in the jungle, and have taught thirty-two different
tribes of them and should know something of what he was before
and after coming to America, and he has gained by coming. I want
to say first he has been weaned from the love of slavery. The Negro
¦"The following addresses were delivered at the special request of the Executive Com
mittee in order to provide for the unoccupied time of tlie fibsentees at this session of the
Conference. While some of .these addresses have no direct bearing on the religious discus
sion, they are of interest and value in relation to the general subject of tlie Race Problems
of the South.

'42 The Montgomery Conference.
was not only a slave, he was the greatest owner of slaves that the sun
ever shone on. Africa is in slavery to-day, wherever the Negro
reigns. Were a man to steal that piece of paper from me there, I
could place any value on it I pleased, one hundred thousand dollars,
and they would say, all right, sir, it is your paper, that man stole
it ? Yes. How much money has he got ? He has only ten dollars.
Very well, that paper was worth one hundred thousand dollars, he,
his wives and, his children are my slaves forever. That is Af
rican law, and the slave can never redeem himself.
What can I do with my slaves in Africa ? I had five sons of a
king in my school, and the whisper came to me that the king had
previously burned a man at the stake. I went to one of the young
men and said : "Gus, they tell me your father had burned a man,
what did he do ?" He said : "We took and burned that man — took
him and put down two forks in the ground and wrapped the slave
to a pole and laid it in the forks and then put plenty of wood under
him and poured palm oil over it and set fire to the pile — he did not
holler but two times and died." I said: "Gus, wasn't your father
afraid to do that thing?" The boy straightened himself up and
said : "Bishop, my father is a gentleman, and in Africa when a gen
tleman wants to burn his slave it is nobody's business but his own."
That IS Africa's idea of slavery.
There are 8,000,000 Negroes in this country to-day; their hearts
beat as the heart of one man against slavery, and nowhere else under
the blue heaven are there 8,000,000 of the Negro race set against
slavery. You have that, and that is worth something to the nobility,
manhood and hopes of a race.
Another thing gained. They have one language. That is a
great gain. I had boys from 400 miles of coast in my schools in
Africa. How niany languages dp you suppose they had? Thirty-
six. Now when God wants to scatter a people, and make them weak.
He breaks up their languages. That is what He did with Babel.
When God wants to make a great people He gives them one lan
guage. One hundred years ago the Anglo-Saxons had but twenty
millions speaking their language, and their tongue was fifth from
the top in the family of languages. Now one hundred and twenty -
millions are speaking this tongue and it is a long way ahead of all
others. Now it is the tongue of the Anglo-Saxon man, my friends,
that God has given the Negroes here. What tongue is that ? It ife
the tongue in which the great business transactions of the world are
done. Said a German sea captain to me on the African coast : "If I
could speak English I could clear my ship from any port on God's
earth." It is the language of conquest — ^the men who speak this
language carry their ships the widC'Seas over, pa,st fortifications and
from port or field they come back victorious in commerce and in war.
It is the language of progress. There are one hundred inventions
by the people who speak this language to one of the people who
speak any other. It is the language of liberty and justice, freedom

C. C. Penick. 143
and material conquest for overcoming the world and subduing it.
God Almighty has given the Negroes here that tongue and they have
not paid too big a price for it in servitude, for though they paid a
big one it is worth it. And with that tongue they have the ideal, the
conception of the Anglo-Saxon man, whether they have the grit
or backbone to go with it or not — that is another question — they
themselves only can settle that. They have an insight into life as
the Anglo-Saxon race see it. They look out upon the world from
the standpoint of the Anglo-Saxon man, and their hopes a,nd fears
are rising and falling with the race. Another thing he has given
them. He has given them the idea of One God ! Africa has almost
as many gods as it has tribes, and it does not worship any of them.
Do you know what Africa worships? It worships the devil. I
asked a devil priest — what is this thing you do, worshiping the
devil ? He said : "Bishop, yes, I worship the devil." Why ? "Why
don't you worship God ?" He said : "God is good, God is love and i
don't hurt anyobdy — do as you please, God don't hurt you ; but do
bad and the devil will get you, sure ! We need not bother about
God, but we try to keep on the good side of the devil." You laugh
at that my friends, but that is true. I have seen fragments of sacri
fices -with my own eyes. I saw a man put to death, and who passed
the final sentence, the judge? No, sir, the devil doctor. After
everything else is said and done the devil priest is consulted and
the man does not die unless he approves it. When the clouds of
war rolled away the Negroes here looked dimly, it is true, but still
they looked towards the God Jehovah, the God of the Bible, and
my friends this is worth worlds ! I have but little time, and there
are so many things I -wish to say. Eight here on this platform I
want to place myself in antagonism to the bitter end to some of the
things I have heard preached here — not perhaps intentionally ; but
certainly inferentially. Time after time has rung out here the
doctrine that civilization could save a people. Did ¦ any civiliza
tion ever save a people? Is not this world one vast charnel-
house of dead civilizations ; I ask you that ? What is civilization ?
A little monster that gets big eating other monsters until it gets so
big it begins to eat itself, and then another monster comes and eats
it, and down it goes. Where is the Greek, where is the Eoman,
where is the Persian? They had civilizations. Where is old
Babylon ? They had civilization. What is happening to China now
with the oldest civilization of the world ? No, my friends, I say it
warningly, do not spend the time in preaching that civilization will
save or can save a race. If it would God would never have sent his
Son into the world to die that the world might live. What will save
it ? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. He
does not say believe in this creed or that creed, it is believe in the
Lord. Jesus Christ, the living Christ, the Son of the Living God,
born ih you, living in you, incarnated in your fiesh, breathing in your
breath, loving with your love, thinking with your thought, poured

144 The Montgomery Conference.
out in your life until you do die — and the Christ-life lives in you —
that is all there is about it. When the black man really believes
in Jesus Christ he will be saved — saved here and now — if he is not,
then our God is not true, that is all.
I wish I had time to speak of many things that ought to be
spoken of, but under dire pressure I can only give fragments of
thought and truth here and there.
There is another thing I wanted to say here especially; it is
this; This is a Conference of Southern men on "Eace Conditions
and Problems." I protest against making this a sectional question.
I am a Southern man, my father sleeps in a Southern soldier's
grave, from Sharpsburg's battle. I am an old member of Pickett's
Divisioh. Four years in the Southern war, we lost everything, we
had and I came back home and there were a widowed mother and
four fatherless children. I had neither overcoat, overshoes nor un
derwear for four years after Lee surrendered; and I think I am a
Southern man. I know I have a right to speak to Southern men,
and I am going to speak as one Southern man to another.
I say it is not a sectional question. Why? In the first place
no Southern man brought the Negro here. Northern men brought
him here, and are responsible for his being here. Well now.
Northern men set them free. I know the Southern man has one
Negro to every two of him, the Northern man one Negro to every
fifty-eight of him. Therefore the Negro ought to have fifty-eight
times better chance North than South. But has he? Let us take
the census statistics of three large .States North and South and com
pare them: Louisiana has one Negro prisoner out of every 451
Negroes. Massachusetts has one Negro prisoner out of every 137
Negroes. I utterly deny the right of Massachusetts to make three
times as many Negro prisoners as Louisiana — and in the name of the
Southern people, and in the name of the cause for which I fought I
demand of Massachusetts what answer she has to give to that ques
tion! Mississippi has fifty-seven ,per cent Negro population, and
yet m'akes but one prisoner out of 701 Negroes. Well, in New York
there is one Negro prisoner out of every 100. I deny the right of
New York to make seven-fold more prisoners of its Negroes than
Mississippi. Look out for New York, colored man, don't go up
there if you can help it ! South Carolina has sixty per cent colored
population. Very well. South Carolina has to grind out 647
Negroes to get one prisoner, and yet Illinois can get one out of every
126. I deny the right of Illinois to grind up its Negroes into
prisoners so much faster than South Carolina. So I say it is npt a
sectional question. I demand that they shall "tote fair" and help us
to carry this burden that they put upon our backs. Let us take
Negro homicides. Louisiana one to every 2134; Mississippi one to
every 3887; South Carolina one to every 5065; New York one to
every 1208; Illinois one to every 1118, and Massachusetts one to
every 3590 ; all north of Mason and Dixon line things run somewhat

C. C. Penick. 145
the same way. The great census divisions show that the North
Atlantic, North Central and Western divisions furnish, as a whole,
one pnsoUer for every 143, and one homicide for every 1679 Negroes,
where the South Central and South Atlantic give one prisoner for
every 355, and one homicide for every 2925 Negroes in them.
Surely the North has a Negro problem ^s well as the South. Well,
now, to get at the solution of this problem— I am not stating these
figures to hurt anybody's feelings, but I am speaking the truth—
— I am trying to get on scientific foundations for working out this
terrible problem, and I ask to know the causes that make the Negro
three times as criminal in the North as in the South, and I do it
because the Northern civilization and conditions are rolling south
ward to supersede Southern conditions, and if the Negro is to mak^
a winning fight and live in this country it must ultimately be in
these very oncoming Northern and not in these fastgoing Southern
conditions. I would burn this truth into the brain and heart of
every student of the problem and lover of the race. The Negro, if
he is going to live in America, must get ready to do it with environ-'
ments that the Northern ideals bring. This is being strangely over
looked, and yet, not to recognize it, is surely to fail in premises and
conclusion. If you will permit me I will tell you in the language of the
Negro himself what ought to be done, for lack of time forbids my
doing more. I made a study of the Negro folk-lore in Africa, and
here is a little gem : They say that in the heart of Africa there is a
place where there is a great big tribe of men, and by the side of that a
very small tribe, and the curious thing about it is, every time a king
has to be made, he has to come out of the little tribe — the big tribe
never furnishes a king. The reason of it is said to be this : Once upon
a time it was all one tribe, and the king got sick, in his head — that is
crazy, and he broke out all over with sores, so the people left him to
die, and he was starving to death. One day a man came and-
touched his body and it healed, touched his head and his mind came
back, gave him a little drum to beat and at the roll of the drum all
the. people came back and he was installed king again. Everything
went well for a month or so. Then one day the king was lying
back resting on the plaza of his palace and a beggar man came
towards him all covered over wi.th sores,, then the king called out,
"Drive that fellow a^way, get sticks and beat him." The boys, ever
quick to obey such orders of the king, ran upon and whipped him
and drove him out of town. As he was going out a poor man rushed
out and said, "Stop, this is a sick man, go away, you shall not beat
him," ahd he drove the boys away. He said to the stranger, "I am a
poor man, and you are a stranger, I want you to come into my house
and eat and rest, and I will do the best I can for you." He said to
his -wife, "Give this man some water to wash" — an old Eastern habit
to give water to bathe. Presently the wife, from the house where
she was watching, said to her husband : "Come, quick, this man is

146 The Montgomery Conference.
doing strangely." He ran, and, peeping through a crack, saw the
stranger pouring the water out slowly, and, as he did so, was trans
formed into a man of perfect power and flnally stepped out robed
royally and crowned with jeweled diadem — magnificent to behold.
Addressing the poor man he said : "I want you to go with me to the
king." The king saw hiin coming, and ordered his attendants to
bring out another throne, ordered the guard turned out and all honor
shown this great man coming to visit him. The king himself ad
vanced, bowed low and invited him in, but the stranger said No ; I
cannot come into your house. "Do you remember the time you were
sick in your head and a man touched you and healed you ? Yes. Do
you remember being covered with sores and a man came, touched
and cured you? Yes. Do you remember being forsaken and left
to die alone, and one coming and giving you a drum, whose beat
called your subjects back and let you reign, as king again. Yes.
I am the man who did it, and I came to see whether you were king
or not this day. You are no king, but a craven hearted slave,
-without a kingly thought in your brain or impulse in your heart.
You have no sympathy for weakness or affliction, to protect the
helpless and nurse them into power, and to let them uphold your
government, but you ordered me, a sick and suffering' stranger,
beaten and driven from your town. Never again shall ruler come
from your loins." 'Turning to the poor man, he said : "Here is
a king, and he and his posterity shall rule this tribe forever, for he
feels with the suffering and helpless, and knows how to protect and
nurse them into health and power. So by nature he is royal and by
my decree shall reign for all time." Thus speaks Africa's need to
America's power. Are we wise and good enough to hear and reign ?
The following address was made at this session of the Con
ference by Professor John Eoach Straton, of Mercer University,
Macon, Georgia, who also spoke at the request of the Committee.^
As a further illustration of tendencies, let us turn to the
conditions in the North alone, where the Negro has had his liberty
for some generations longer than in the South, where he is far
better educated, and is freest to follow his natural bent, by reason
of at least a partial absence of the idea of Negro inferiority which
holds him in check in the South. It is held by the advocates of
the educational solution that, if the Negro is but given the oppor
tunity, he will grow and improve in all respects. It may also
be thought by some that it is too early to reach a judgment as to
these tendencies in the South, since the Negro has had but a short
time there since slavery to demonstrate what he will do. The
record of the Negro in the North, now, meets both of these condi
tions, and should shed, therefore, a valuable light on what may be
I Professor Stratoii's address is reprinted in part, by courtesy of " The North American
Review." The paper will be found, in full, in that review for June, 1900.

J. R. Straton. 147
ex;^cted of him in the future. Turning to the North, we will
find that the evil tendencies prevail there in even greater degree
than in the South. The number of Negro criminals in the North
IS much larger, in proportion to the Negro population in those
States, than in the South. In the North Atlantic States, there
were, m 1890, 7,547 Negro criminals to the million of Negro
population; in the South Atlantic States, there were only 2,716
to the million. Now, the proportion df illiteracy among the
Northern Negroes is but 21.71 per cent, whereas it is 60 per cent
for those of the South. It is apparent, therefore, that the Negroes
of the North, despite the advantageous conditions there, are
almost three times as criminal as those of the South, although they
are also about three times as well educated.
The consideration at this point, however, is not how much
blame is to be attached to the Negro for these things, but what
effect our remedies are having. Though the foregoing statistics,
like all other statistics, are liable to the criticism of a lack of
absolute finality as indicators of conditions and tendencies, still
there must be some strong element of tmth in them when they are
so decisive; and, judging from them, the educational work for
the Negroes does not seem to be realizing the expectations based
upon it. Education may not be the cause of these evils, as some
go so far as to claim; but the facts seem to warrant the con-
elusion that it is not checking them and therefore is not solving the
problem. If we accept the foregoing facts, one or two inductions can be
made from them: either that the Negro has received the wrong
sort of education, or that there are causes which prevent the bene
ficial effects which usually arise from education from prevailing in
his case. The movement for industrial education, with that great and
good man, Booker T. Washington, as its chief champion, has arisen
as a result of a widespread, though not specifically expressed, opin
ion that the first of the above conclusions is true.
While industrial education may be the best present policy, and
worthy, for that reason, of support, pending the final solution of
the problem, there are reasons for fearing that its effect on the
ethical condition of the Negro — the vital element of the problem —
will not be sufficiently marked to compass the needed reform.
These considerations warrant our taking up the second possible
induction. Before considering it, let us note certain parallel
tendencies to the ones before examined, which may give us further
light. There are some indications that, in connection with the seeming
ethical degeneracy discussed, there has set in a physical deteriora
tion among the Negroes equally marked. It is claimed by some
students of the question that it is capable of scientific demonstra
tion that the Negro is weakening perceptibly in his physical man-

148 The Montgomery Conference.
hood year after year. The death rate of the Negroes in cities
is nearly double that of the whites. The ravages of pulmonary,
venereal and other diseases among them is something distressing.
Parallel with the greater ethical dfecay in the North, the ten
dency to physical degeneracy there also seems to be more marked
than in the South, as illustrated by the fact, deducible from
statistics from several States North and South, that, while the
birth-rate is greater than the death-rate by about two to one in the
South, it is' actually less than the death-rate in the North. That is
to say, the race is not sustaining itself in the Northern States.
There are also some indications that the Negro is degenerating
as regards thrift and industry. Such students of the problem
as Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Bruce have reached this conclusion. The
complaints so frequently heard about the "trifiingness" of the
younger generations of Negroes may be indications of this tendency
toward lessened industrial efficiency; while the School Commis
sioner of Georgia stated in his last annual report (1898, p. 10)
that, upon careful investigation, he had found that ninety per
cent of the property owned by Negroes in Georgia was acquired
by ex-slaves. This fact is rendered the more significant when it
is remembered that the ex-slaves constitute less than twenty per
cent of the Negro population of Georgia (Census of 1890). The
Commissioner says further : "Most of the property owned by the
Negroes was acquired prior to 1890. Very little has been added to
the tax books since. The younger class, or the educated class, does
not seem to be adding much to the property-holding of the race.''
Do not these apparently well defined tendencies toward decay
among the Negroes, despite the educational efforts in their behalf,
point to the conclusion that there are causes which prevent the
beneficial effects usually arising from education from prevailing
in their case? Is this an unreasonable conclusion, in the light of
the nature of the Negro and the Conditions surrounding him here ?
In our educational work for him have we not overlooked, more
or less, the real nature of racial advancement ? The true civilizing
process is not a sudden and artificial development from without,
but a gradual and harmonious growth from within. Plato's
dwellers in the cave could not be suddenly transferred from their
accustomed darkness to the dazzling light on the outside. The
African cannot be lifted to the plarfe of the Anglo-Saxon by the
ufee of either logarithms and Greek roots or formulse for cultivating
a field or constructing a pair of shoes. The Anglo-Saxon has
reached his present high civilization after a long and laborious
struggle upward. Through a series of well defined steps, he has
risen from barbarism to his present plane. The system in which
he now dwells is the logical outcome of all that has gone before, and
consequently the white man of to-day is thoroughly suited to his
environment. . Now, it is reasonable to think that, since Anglo-
Saxon civilization is thus the culmination of a series of steps, all

J. R. Straton. 140
the steps must be taken before it can safely be" reached. To sud
denly introduce another race, therefore, to any step near the top
belore it has taken the preceding steps in the series, and then to
attempt to hurry it over the other steps in the hope of having it
reach and occupy the culminating one, must be a hopeless
undertaking. The evolutionary process cannot be supplanted by
artificial stimulants. Should we wonder, then, that our educational
efforts in behalf of the Negro seem to have failed of their intended
purpose ? Nay, more— does not the history of races show that the
effort on the part of a superior peOple to lift up inferiors at a
single 'stroke not only fails, but establishes conditions which lead to
the actual destruction of the weaker race? And is not this the
largest element in the cause of the seeming faikre of the educa
tional movement among the Negroes ?
The theoiy here suggested is not invalidated by the advance of
individual Negroes. We must not confuse the rapid development
of exceptional individuals with the eyolution of a race. Picked
individuals, strengthened often in mental vigor by infusions of
white blood, may grow rapidly ; but the evolution of the race comes
slowly — a part of each new element of strength being transmitted
by the laws of heredity from father to son, and on to succeeding
generations; and so, slowly and painfully, a race advances. It is
not a matter of decades, but of centuries. The Negro race as a
whole, however, may go forward higher yet in outward forms, but
still deep down beneath these things may lie the tendencies which
give color to the fear that they are a decaying people.
Now, it might be thought that, because these tendencies seem
to have developed only since emancipation, they arise simply as
a result of the inclination toward license which comes as a natural
result of sudden liberty, and that the tide will turn. The sudden
liberation of the Negro doubtless hastened the development of these
tendencies, but it scarcely accounts for their existence. If we
could believe that the pendulum had swung to its limit on one
side and was destined now to s-wing back, there would be grounds
for an optimistic outlook in many refspects. Unfortunately, such
a hope is discounted, however, by the fact that there has been
no such swing back in the North, but that, as a result of tho
Negro's longer freedom there, these evil tendencies have grown
steadily stronger and become more clearly defined. The same
thing is tme of the West India Islands, where the Negro was fully
eniancipated in 1838. To believe that these evil tendencies are
merely temporary, and will be corrected in the future, would be
to ignore the history of all the weak races which have perished
as a result of their contact -with superiors. When once the cold
hand of degeneracy is laid upon a people, it seems as remorseless
and unyielding as the hand of death. In the case of the Tas-
manians before referred to, every affort was made to save them,
but, despite good treatment and all advantageous conditions, the

150 The Montgomery Conference.
race slowly but surely died out. The same has been true of the
natives of Australia. Mr. Sutherland, in his able work on "The
Origin and Growth of the Moral Instincts," says (p. 120) :
"The colony of Victoria was not occupied at all by white men till
1835; and the early founders had among their articles of association most
humane rules in regard to the blacks, rules which were strictly carried out.
. . . . The authorities appointed five protectors of aborigines, who
lived among the blacks, and reported once a year as to their condition, and
who were especially commissioned to report on any outrage committed
by white men. . . . Yet the aborigines of Victoria are practically
a vanished race."
Just when this tearing-down process within the colored race
began is unknown. We understand little about the workings of
these ethnological tendencies, and consequently cannot say what
subtile, though unseen, forces may have been at work during
slavery, preparing the way for the manifest decline when the condi
tions were ripe for it to set in. That the tendencies seem to have
been delayed in manifesting themselves in the case of the Negro
might be accounted for on the ground that his physical well-
being was carefully guarded during slavery, while his ethical side
was protected by his peculiar situation. He was isolated from
temptation and danger, in large measure, by his peculiarly
subordinate position, his simple life, and the rigid restraints upon
him. Are not these, then, things which all wise and eamest thinkers
on this vexed problem should keep in mind with their other facts
and theories, educational and otherwise? Must not the theory
here suggested be included as a trial factor in any equation for
the solution of the race problem? We cannot say finally that it
lies in the realm of truth; but it would scarcely be the part of
wisdom to ignore the facts upon which it is predicated. Nor does
the theory necessarily mean despair of the Negro race as a race.
The question is not. What of the race? but, What of the race
under its present strange ar\d abnormal environment? There are
many elements of strength in the Negro's nature. The rare sense
of humor and the homely wit of the old-time Negroes are signs
of latent capabilities; while, for intuitive knowledge of human
nature and rugged native eloquence, they are scarcely sur
passed by any race. The Negroes in their unalloyed nature are
hard workers and are faithful to a trust. It is possibly true, too,
that they are the best natured people on earth; and this is by
no means the smallest element in the foundation of racial great
ness. What the Negro would do if he were removed from the
environment which seems to be sapping his racial life, it is impos
sible to say; but an optimistic hope for him would find strong
foundations. What the final solution will be, time alone can tell. We can
only wait, watch and hope. In the meantime, as before remarked,

/. R. Straton. 1 5 1
Mr. Washington's plans appear to be the best tentative policy,
and are -worthy of all support. His industrial idea is a recognition
of the significance of the evolutionary process in racial develop
ment. The question is, however, whether even industrial
education goes back far enough, and whether the temptations and
dangers which environ the Negro here will not prevail over his
weakness before his judgment to choose and his strength to over
come have developed. If time and further experience demon
strate the applicability to the Negro of the theory here presented,
we will then be confronted with the question of what action
philanthropy as well as civil policy calls for. If the present rela
tionship between the whites and blacks points to the permanent
degeneracy and ultimate racial death of the Negroes, it will become
our duty to save this simple-minded and in many respects worthy
people, who are not here through any choice of their own, who
served our fathers faithfully and well, and who in many ways
contributed to the upbuilding and wealth of our country. If
racial contact is seen to prove disastrous to the weaker, then
segregation must be effected. It -will then be no longer a question
of what can, but what must, be done. The enlightened conscience
of humanity would see it so. Nothing is impossible to this age
and this people. We have spent over $5,000,000,000 in bringing
the problem up to its present stage of uncertainty — we might say
chaos; we could spend a few millions more in carrying it out
to a wise, just and humane solution. No plan for picking up
the Negro race en masse and moving them from the country, or
to some isolated portion of it, is "practicable. But by establishing
conditions elsewhere which would invite the Negro there, and then
assisting him to go, the problem might be solved. As many
foreigners as there are members in the colored race have come
to this country within the past few decades, on account of the
inviting conditions here. It is possible, therefore, for the Negroes
to go elsewhere if conditions invited them there. All of the
Negroes would not go, nor is it heedful that they should do so.
The old Negroes are rapidly passing over to a country which lies
much nearer our shores than Africa or the islands at our Southern
doors. But by granting any government assistance on the age-
limit plan, a sufficient number of the Negroes could and would
go to ease the present strain in this country on the one hand, and
to insure them a racial future on the other.
Until the solution of the problem is found, the whites have
a great responsibility on their shoulders in the presence of this
simple-minded, impressionable and imitative people. The best
elements of both races must co-operate in every legitimate way
to better existing conditions, to devise ways and means for wisely
lifting the Negro up. The dealings of the Anglo-American with
the Afro-American must be characterized by sympathy, tolerance,
justice and absolute fairness. The infiuence of the self-seeking

152 The Montgomery Conference.
politician must be destroyed, and in our strength and wisdom we
must lead this weaker people's steps aright, giving them examples
of honesty, sincerity and righteousness, not of- duplicity, chicanery
and injustice. At the request of the Committee, Professor W. F. Willeox,
formerly of Cornell University, and at present Chief Statistician of
the United States Census Office at Washington, also contributed to
the discussion. Professor Willeox said:-
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — On coming here
from Washington, it was my firm intention not to speak. I felt
that in a Conference like the present, composed of persons from the^
Southern States, it might be unwise for a New Englander by birth
and ancestry to address you, and it would certainly be ill advised
to speak without the careful preparation which such an audience
and such a theme require. But at the request of some friends
whom I have had the pleasure of meeting, and also in recognition of
the generous hospitality I have received in your city and your State,
I have consented to occupy a few moments.
The questions you are facing, while of primary interest to the
South, are in my judgment of almost equal importance for the
country and the world. In the efforts to solve them the public
opinion of the country and the world must be considered, and there
fore the' point of view of a Northern student may be entitled to a
place, although only a subordinate place, in your proceedings.
i" During these two days I have heard mueh with which I could
;' agree, and in only One case do I wish to register a protest. In the
North, as I know it, there are few, if any, "implacable enemies" of
the South. The danger you have to fear in that quarter i^s the
danger from ignorance, not from enmity, but in its results the one
may be as serious as the other.
It is with this conviction that I prepared the paper to which
your presiding officer has referred with such cordial but undeserved
commendation. For some years I have been speaking to university
classes upon the subject of race questions in this and other coun
tries, and am convinced that serious evil has resulted from Northern
misconception of the facts at the South, and of the actual relations
between the races. I believe it is a teacher's duty franldy to state
to his classes the facts and tendencies, and, so far as they may be
disentangled, the causes at work in our present social structure.
In fields so complex he should not be an advocate, but rather a
judge, who sums up the evidence, both in matters of fact and in
matters of tendency, and lays it before his class somewhat as the
judge does before the jury. As a citizen and man I might say
"Amen" to nearly every word of Dr. Curry's masterly address, but
as a student I cannot read the evidence as he apparently does.

W.F Willeox. 153
There is no time this morning for me to sum up the evidence
on so intricate a subject, and therefore I prefer to lay before you
what may perhaps be called my creed— creed because it is in part a
matter of faith and not of demonstration. The positions taken are
those warranted by the balance of the evidence, as I read it, but
m some cases the dip of the balance is slight, and many another
would judge it differently.
Eaces, like nations, exist to serve humanity, and come and go
in the long run according as they meet or fail to meet this test.
The importance of race here at the South, where two races of
widely different present value to humanity meet on the same soil,
is far greater than in the North, where the babel of tongues, the
variety of features and of hues, the multiplicity of countries of
birth, emphasize the racial complexity of our population. You
naturally think and speak in terms of the Anglo-Saxon race. To
us of the North, such a conception is less familiar, and I doubt that
the phrase is justified by what we know of physical anthropology.
One of my friends has recently printed perhaps the most scholarly
book published in this country upon the races of Europe, and in
that bulky volume there is hardly a mention, ^rom cover to cover,
of the Anglo-Saxon race. The Anglo-Saxon is perhaps best described
as a branch of the Teutonic division of the Caucasian, or white or
Aryan race, and it seems doubtful whether the physical and mental
traits of this branch can fairly be assigned the permanence com
monly associated with race characteristics.
The history of races m'ay be divided roughly into two periods,
one before and on after the, year A. D. 1500. During the early period
the ocean was usually a barrier; during the second period, it has
become more and more a highway. The first period may be charac
terized perhaps as the period of race formation and of competition
confined mainly to the borders of the territory occupied by the
competing races. The second period may be characterized as the
period of race interpenetration and of race competition of increas
ing universality and intensity, though slowly modified in form from
a militant to an industrial competition.
During the period prior to A. D. 1500, the varieties of men, like
the varieties of animals and plants, were developed from similar to
divergent forms. in the relative isolation of the several continents.
From the point of view of plant and animal life the Asiatic conti
nent is that region north of the Himalayas and east of the desert and
the Altai Mountains, extending northeast from the east end of the
Himalayas, the 'territory occupied by the great Mongolian race;
and Africa is bounded northward not by the Mediterranean, but
by the Sahara. These diverse races of men may be roughly graded
according to their value to humanity and their ability to improve.
In any effort so to arrange them, the least serviceable and least
progressive people are found to be those whose habitat secured the
greatest isolation, freedom from competition and lack of incentive

1 54 The Montgomery Conference.
to improvement. Such peoples were found especially in the islands
of the ocean, in the continent of Australia, in America, and in
Africa. When the highest or most serviceable race acquired the means
of ready transportation across the ocean, it brought upon the lower
races, which had been living in relative isolation, a competition
before which many of them sank and gradually disappeared. 'Where
races near the extremes of development have been brought into
competition, and climate has not protected the lower race, it has-
usually faded away. The Tasmanians are extinct; the Australian
aboriginps still have a few thousands left, but are apparently decreas
ing, and destined soon to perish, either b-v death or by absorption
of the remnant. The Maoris of New Zealand, the Hawaiians, the
Fijiians, and many other natives of the South Sea are going or gone.
Our antagonists in the Philippines, while meeting and withstand
ing the competition of the superior Chinese, Spaniard, and now of
, Anglo-Saxon in the Archipelago, have nearly exterminated the
inferior Negrito aborigines. On this continent, north of the Eio
Grande, the Indians have become a remnant destined ere long to
disappear as a separate factor in the citizenship of Canada and this
country. •
The problems, social and political, growing out of this inter
penetration and competition of races are. problems in which the
whole civilized world is concerned, but no country so deeply, perhaps,
as the United States. We have now under our flag numerous
representatives of all the great races of the world, and we count
by millions representatives of those two backward races, viz., the
Negro and the Malay, which have thus far shown no tendency to
disappear in face of the white man's competition.
'W'here higher, and lower races meet and interpenetrate, only
two permanent solutions have thus far b.een recorded in history.
Either the lower race has disappeared, or the two have fused, and
in the case of especial moment to us all, and to the future of this
country, I cannot believe that looking down through the centuries
any other permanent solution than one of these two can be found.
During 'the period of slavery the Negro race in the United States
was protected from competition with the whites, somewhat as it
would have been by local isolation, or somewhat sis domesticated
animals are protected from the dangers nature throws about them.
Only since emancipation has genuine competition between the races
in this country existed, and during the early years after the Civil
War the conditions were such as to favor the Negro race and to
handicap the whites. I do not wonder that the reconstruction period
has left bitter memories. It was cruel of the victors to aim at
uprooting the tree of your Southern civilization, and, reversing the
order of nature to expose the roots to the sunshine and bury the
flowers and leaves in the soil. It was a danger to the roots, and the
leaves and flowers were grimed and stained in their struggle back

W.F. Willeox. 155
to their natural heritage of sunshine and free air. But even this
wrong was done by most of us in the North ignorantly. The blun
ders of twelve dark years after the Civil War were blunders for
which the party in power was primarily responsible, but the party
which controlled the Government before the war must share with us
in the responsibility for the war and these results.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Negroes were aided and the
whites downcast during these dark years, the white population has
grown with great and increasing rapidity. The agricultural and
industrial conditions here have diversified and become more attrac
tive to white immigrants from the North and from abroad. The
conditions to which the white race is subject will probably never
again be so unfortunate, the conditions to which the Negro race is
subject will not soon, if ever, be so favorable as during the years
after the Civil War. Yet notice some of the changes that have
occurred during the thirty years from 1860 to 1890, brief span -as
this is in the life of a race.
The black belt may be defined as those counties in which the
Negro population outnumbered the white. In Maryland in 1860
there were five such counties, and in 1890 only two. In Virginia
there were forty-three and in 1890 only thirty-three. In North
Carolina there were nineteen and in 1890 only sixteen. The group
of adjoining counties in southeastern Maryland, eastern Virginia
and northeast North Carolina, which formed the most northerly
outpost of the black belt in 1860, has decreased in thirty years from
sixty-two counties to forty-six, or almost exactly one-fourth. In
1860 Kentucky had one county belonging to the black belt, while in
1890 it had none. In 1860 northern Alabama had two counties
belonging to the black belt, but in 1890 both of these had disap
peared from the map. In the cotton-growing regions of the more
southerly States there has been an increase of the counties belong
ing to the black belt, but not enough entirely to offset these changes.
It seems that locally the Negroes have begun to yield ground to the
whites in the regions most favorable to the latter, and that such a
change is likely to continue.
I have no time to go into the complex statistical evidence bear
ing upon the vitality of the Negro race, and its power to meet
successfully the increasing industrial competition, to which it must
be exposed, as these States fill with people, as cities spring up and
prosper, and as industry, trade and agriculture become diversified
and more complex. The balance of the evidence, however, seems
to me to indicate for the future a continuance of changes already
begun, viz., a decrease in the Negro birth-rate decidedly more rapid
than the actual present or probable future decrease in the death-
rate. This would result obviously in a slackening rate of increase,
and then in a stationary condition, followed by slow numerical
retrogression. If this anticipation should be realized the Negroes
will continue to become, as they are now becoming, a steadily smaller
proportion of the population.

156 The Montgomery Conference.
The final outcome, though its realization may be postponed for
centuries, will be, I belieye, that the race will follow the fate of
the Indians, that the great majority will disappear before the whites,
and that the remnant found capable of elevation to the level of the
white man's civilization will ultimately be merged and lost in the
lower classes of the whites, leaving almost no trace to mark their
former existence.
Where such a lower people has disappeared, the causes of their
death have been mainly disease, vice and profound discouragement.
It seems to me clear that each one of these causes is affecting the
Negro race far more deeply and unfavorably at the present time
than it was at the date of their emancipation. The medical evidence
available points to the conclusion that they are more than ever
afflicted -with the scourges of disease, such as typhoid- fever and eon-
sumption, and with the'physical ills entailed by sexual vice. I have
argued elsewhere to show that both in the North and in the South
crime among the Negroes is rapidly increasing. Whether the race
as a whole is as happy, as joyous, as confident of the future, or
thoughtless of it, as it was before the war, you, my hearers, know
far better than I. I can only say that in my studies I have found
not one expression of dissent from the opinion that the joyous buoy
ancy of the race is passing away ; that they feel upon them a burden
of responsibility to which they are unequal; that the lower classes
of Negroes are resentful, and that the better classes not certain
or sanguine of the outcome. If this judgment be true, I can only
say that it is perhaps the most fatal source of race as of national
decay and death.
The concluding address of this session was made by Mr. Herbert
W.elsh, of Philadelphia, the Secretary of the Indian Eights Associa
tion. Mr. Welsh also spoke by special request of the Committee,
and his address was as follows :
In addressing to you the few words which 1 shall speak, I
should like, with your perm ssion, to choose my own platform.
I have heard many here, during the exceedingly interesting
meetings of this .Conference, speak of themselves as Southern men,
or as Northern men. It seems to me that it would be a' fortunate
thing if you would permit me just for a few inoments to address
you neither as a Northerner or Southerner, but as a man and a
citizen of a common country. We were generally told, a very short
time ago that the w'ar with Spain had had one very great advantage
— and while I think it has had some disadvantages, I am willing to
acknowledge that that which was pointed to its credit was a very
great advantage indeed, — the wiping out of the sectional lines
between the North and the South. Now suppose we can look for a
moment at this question from that broader point of view. It has

Herbert Welsh. i 5 7
been advocated from this platform this morning that the Southern
man was best fitted to teach the Negro. I am willing to acknowledge
that many Southem men are well fitted to teach the Negro, but it
seems to me that .the facts show also that from both sides Mason-and-
Dixon's line there are those who can contribute much that is of value
to this cause. , Take Dr. Curry as he spoke here last night. Who
could fail to be impressed by the magnificent truths which he, a
representative Southern man, pointed out and emphasized. And
then look on the other side of the line. I ask you to go to Hampton,
Virginia, and to study there the great work of General S. C. Arm
strong. See what he has done for the solution of this problem
which has influenced not the South alone, but the whole nation.
Booker Washington and Tuskegee were the outgrowth of the Arm
strong idea and work. Dr. Curry commended Booker Washington's
work in the strongest terms. I ask you if these two men — Dr. Curry
and General Armstrong-^are not representatives of the fact that
there may and should be a splendid union of effort between the
North and South towards the solution of this problem ? I, for one,
believe this with all my heart. I think that education of the very best
practical sort should be given to the black man, and that the North
and South should join together to build up the best and strongest
education for the white man in the South. Let the North, with her
larger money power, and her larger institutions — let the finest brain
and heart of the South — join together in establishing a sound educa
tional system, which shall include industrial training for the
building up of the more depressed sections of these United States.
Then the sectional line will be forever wiped out. Let us not think
of ourselves as sections, but as, what I believe we really are, a
strong and united Nation.
I desire here to make one more point, and then I have done.
We have been told that the weaker race disappears as the stronger
one touches it. On the basis of my practical experience, from my
knowledge of Indian affairs acquired during seventeen years' expe
rience, in which I have been thrown in closest contact with the
Indian people, there is a partial truth inthat dictum, but I think
only a partial truth. If you want the whole truth, get closer home
to the facts. The Indian was presented to us to-day as a most
igUominious failure. My mind travels back to Indians whom I know,
with whom I was brought into contact only one year ago in South
Dakota. You will find thousands of converts from heathenism to
Christianity — men, women^ and children, leadihg decent Christian
lives; some of them preachers of the Gospel, whose consistency of
faith and conduct seems to me to be evidence enough that race should
not divide us in that respect. One address which touched me deeply
this morning was that of the Eev. Dr. Slattery. As he spoke I saw
one year ago in memory the good works not only of the missionaries
in my own communion — I am an Episcopalian^but those of the

I S 8 The Montgomery Conference.
Sisters of St. Francis, at Eosebud Agency, South Dakota. I desire to
state that the work of love and devotion which made the founder of
that Order, St. Francis himself, so illustrious, seemed to me to mark
the daily life and labors of these devoted Christian -vj-omen. I can see
before me in imagination hundreds of Indian boys and girls coming
out of barbarism by their efforts. Do you not see in such examples
the power of this Gospel of Jesus Christ, if rightly applied, to
elevate and save a weak race? Civilization without the gentle
infiuence of practical Christianity is cruel. It is like a railroad train
which moves along the track to the utter destruction of everything, in
its way, as Bishop Hare once strikingly said.
It is not true that the Indians must of necessity be crushed by
contact with our higher civilization. If Christian charity and
wisdom shall guide our onward course, the Indian, while as a race
he must become extinct, can be saved as an individual, being grad
ually merged in the civilization which otherwise would destroy him.
The view has been advanced in this Conference that the Negro
problem can be solved by colonizing the Negro in a separate State.
This view was once held and acted upon in relation to the Indian.
Early in the century the Indians of the Southern States were
removed to a tract of country west of the Mississippi, and the
so-called Indian Territory was formed, with the hope and belief
that this indeed inight prove a successful Indian State, into which
all other Indian tribes might gradually be merged and lifted from
barbarism to civilization. The experiment has proved ^a complete
failure, as the present breaking up of the Indian Territory and its
government shows. The theory which substantially all the friends
of the Indians now advocate is precisely tbe reverse of this; it is
that the Indian, instead of being segregated and kept apart from.
our civilization, mUst be incorporated into it. This is the only pra-c-
tieal means for his salvation. Is it not true that the same general
plan, with some modifications, of course, must obtain in regard to
the Negro? He must remain, as he ever has been, in some shape
or form a member of our national life.
Laying for the moment disputed questions aside, is not our wisest
plan that which aims to build liim up, beginning with instruction in
all forms of rudimentary and useful toil, accompanied with moral
and intellectual training,. until he is able naturally to work out his
own salvation, and to reach such a point of development as time
may prove that God and nature designed him for? In this, as in
other problems, close acquaintance with facts bearing upon the
subject is the best preparation for arriving at sound conclusions. I
think, if studied carefully, the facts which Hampton Institute and
Tuskegee have to shoAv will justify the hope, that I entertain, of
a steady, quiet and hopeful improvement of Negro character in
usefulness, respectability and dignit}', if such unobtrusive and wise
methods be employed. What the future may bring forth' we cannot

Herbert Welsh. 159
confidently predict; but we can truly say that industrial training,
accompanied by instruction in Christian morality, has a powerful
influence in developing the better nature of the Negro, and in
restraining his faults and vices. Though we may differ on other
points in the problem, cannot we unite both North and South in
traveling forward along this safe and level highway ?

i6o The Montgomery Conference.
AFTERNOON SESSION, MAY ic, 3.30 P. M.
LYNCHING AS A PENALTY.
The Conference was called to order by Dr. J. L. M. Curry, of
Washington, D. C, Mr. Herbert having been slightly delayed in
reaching the Auditorium. The Hon. Alex. C. King, of Atlanta,
Georgia, was introduced as the first speaker. Mr. King spoke as
follows upon the subject, "The Punishment of Crimes against
Women, Existing Legal Eemedies and their Sufficiency" : .
The discussion of crimes against white women perpetrated by
the Negro- inist^he South is to be approached with much diffidence
and many inisgivings.
When such a crime is perpetrated, it presents to the Southern
mind so many elements pf horror that its calm and judicial con
templation becomes almost a matter of impossibility. The
investigator who does not recognize the difference in the Anglo-
Saxon mind — at least that portion of it which resides in the South,
and, which must of necessity administer the remedy — ^between
assaults on white women by men of their own race and those by men
of a race deemed so inferior that voluntary relations with it, if
lawful, would be considered the deepest degradation to which a
white woman could descend, will utterly fail to meet or appreciate
vital conditions in the problem.
It is needless 'to say that the Southern mind has been pro
foundly stirred on this subject. The tales of swift punishment .
inflicted on the perpetrators of these crimes which so often chal
lenge our attention, the discussion of the subject in the public
prints, and the fact that bodies like this deem the subject one
demanding separate treatment, all evidence it.
Furthermore, there seems to be a considerable opinion that
these crimes must be dealt with in some different way, by some more
speedy method, and by different criminal processes than are used
in dealing with the perpetrators of other grave offences.
A consideration of the subject — "The Punishment of Crimes
against Women : Existing Legal Eemedies, and their Sufficiency" —
of necessity involves the consideration of lynching from the point of
view of a punishment for these crimes.
Of course, any punishment of any offence, however heinous,
which is not administered by the appointed organs of law, is an
illegal act, and cannot technically have any legal side to it.
But, in a wider sense, where a certain course of treatment of
a crime has become, if not customary, at least not unusual — and
when there is, if not an expressed, at least an implied assertion on
the part of a respectable party, that the law should not 'suppress

Alex. C. King. i6i
this course of dealing with these offences, but that the public welfare
requires it to be winked at — then in considering the practical reme
dies suggested for the suppression of this crime, the remedy of
instant punishment by the community without judicial procedure
demands consideration.
As lynch law is meted out to the party believed to be guilty of
an offence of this nature, as well in one Southern State as in
another, a comparison of the laws of such States would not shed
any light on the question we are discussing.
If any difference is to be observed in localities, it will be found
that in those communities where by reason of there being few whites
ahd many ignorant Negroes, and no police, as in the plantation
counties in the South, the peril to women is thought greater, there
Judge Lynch is more certain to dispense with the services of his
slower and more judicial brethren. It is where the dominanpe of
the white race seems most insecure and the menace of the black
criminal greatest that we find this method of punishment supported
by the most unanimous public opinion.
A fact worthy of note in regard to this class of crimes in the
South is that it seems to grow in importance with the passage of
time since the abolition of slavery, it would have seemed, if some
thinkers are correct, namely, that education is to elevate the Negro
and solve the race problems now confronting us, that the thirty-five
years intervening between this time and the close of the Civil War
would find at least no worse condition in this regard than existed
just after the war.
During a four years' war, which involved the freedom of the
Negro, then a slave, the white wo'men of the South lived on planta
tions and farms, surrounded by their Negroes, secure and unharmed.
While their fathers, husbands and brothers fought in the armies of
the Confederacy, no fear of assault or harm from the Negroes dis
turbed either the women at home or the soldier in the field. During
the fierce days of reconstruction, when the strife of politics was high
and the Negro, newly clothed -with citizenship and the ballot, was
having poured into his ear by designing men, the wrongs of his race
at the hands of the whites, there was no serious development of this
class of cases. It has been left to a later day and another generation
of Negroes to develop this condition of assaults on white women
th^ has caused the reproach of lynching as a fixed practice to be
laid at the door of the South.
This may seem somewhat foreign to this subject, "The Punish
ment of Crimes against Women : Existing Legal Eemedies, and their
Sufficiency." But before we can ascertain whether an existing law
is sufficient for its purpose, or if insufficient, wherein it should be
amended, we must discover what are the conditions of the crime
and the relations both of the crime and criminal to the communities
in which both exist.

1 62 The Montgomery Conference.
We find, first, that the slave-trained Negro did not -perpetrate
it when released from slavery.
Second, that in the generation which has succeeded to the slave
are to be found the perpetrators of these crimes.
In what I shall have to say in regard to the perpetration of
assaults on women, I wish to be clearly understood as not including
a majority of the Negro race. In my opinion a vast majority of
them are entirely free from any such criminal tendency.
Nor, in describing lynching, do I mean to be understood that
the Southern people' as a whole approve it. I believe that a great
majority of them decry it, and that all, except an insignificant few,
regard lynching, except as a punishment for a clear case of rape,
as without excuse. It is essential, in considering any question
arising between the races in the South, to clearly understand the
changed relations in which the two races now regard each other.
A white man felt a certain duty of protection resting upon him to
his former slaves; their very helplessness appealed to him, and in
all matters affecting their individual and ori vate (not political)
rights, he felt the duty of seeing that they were -not imposed upon.
But with the new race of Negroes, and the younger men of the
South, this relation, and its corresponding responsibilities, do not
exist. On the one hand is felt the incubus of this undeveloped race;
a race which must for centuries be behind the whites in all of the
manly virtues and independent qualities which distinguish a, self-
governing people.
They feel that with the race in the South, if the whites do not
remain stationary, there must remain this gulf in evolution between
them. '
Added, is the gulf of social and race separation, or the abhor
rent alternative of a distant amalgamation and miscegenation,
which means the degradation of the white through the existence in
the South of the Negro.
With the lower classes and lower order of the whites, the pros
pect of having Negroes better educated, richer and better equipped
for the struggle of life, menaces their social standing, wliile Negro
suffrage obliterates that distinction which, before the war, made the ¦
poorest white man a citizen in the sense that the richest free Negro
could never become his political equal, and placed him where the
Eoman citizen stood to the provincial in the days when Eoman citi
zenship was the heritage only of the Eoman.
On the other hand, the Negro feels in different walks of life,
this growing estrangement and this tension of relations. He resents
the fact that the white man insists on his subordination.
An emotional race, belonging to that which the German Blunt-
schi styles the childish races of the world, he resents what he deems a
denial of his rights. I« the lawless this incites a tendency to strike
to damage, in order to show their power for revenge. To criminal

Alex. C. King. 163
tendency Is added race animosity, and this in the brute with passions
of the lowest order, incites to the assault on women of the other
race. He will triumph over the other race in the person of a woman
of that race.
It is an evil for any indivisible political organism to have within
it races which cannot be at last assimilated into one people.
The instinct of this country has shown itself in this regard in
dealing with the Chinese question.
But to attempt to combine such races into one political body
is to create the conditions of conflict and race antagonism. It is not
surprising that' they occur.
The greatest difficulty which exists in dealing with this subject
is that it does not present, at least to the Southem mind, the ques
tion alone of a mere crime against the individual. It is also an inter
racial question.
To the white race, in such sections of the South as this crime is
most likely to happen, namely, rural districts, where the white
women are exposed to assaults in the absence of the men of the
family, the question is distinctly dual, and the general question of
race protection is clearly involved.
Another difficulty lies in the attitude of the Negro race as a
whole to the perpetration of the crime on the white. The Negroes,
too, recognize a race question, and as a result, their attitude is one,
a least of passive, if not active concealment of the criminal.
According to their code of morals and standard of civilization,
men and women who are personally law-abiding will not give any
information looking to the detection of the criminal, and, on the
contrary, will suppress what they know and connive at his escape.
Their sympathies are against his punishment.
This causes the white mind to associate the criminal with his
race, and engenders a feeling of racial irritation.
One reason why I think this occurrence of crimes against
women has more in it than ordinary criminality, although operative
through criminal impulses and tendencies in the individual perpe
trator, is, that the instinct of the white race deals with it, not as a
crime alone, but- as an attack on the integrity of the race, and the
ordinary processes of the law are not deemed adequate for its
remedy. Even some of those who decry lynching, and wish to have
punishment meted out according to law, are clamoring for some
new method of procedure and punishment; which shall not only
swiftly annihilate the criminal, but strike terror to the ignorant
and criminals of the race. '
It is a superficial view to suppose that this tendency to lynch-
law by certain elements, and the desire for radical judicial methods
is confined to dealing alone with crimes against women. Its ten
dency is deeper. It is to deal with all inter-racial crimes to the
person in this way. It is true that there are fewer sympathizers
with, or advocates of, lynch law as a punishment for any other

164 The Montgomery Conference.
crime. But this is consonant with what has been said. No crime
strikes at the integrity of race or so insults its purity as the crime
against women. , Where the tendency to deal summarily with inter
racial crimes is not found is in those communities where the white
population is so large that its dominance is not at present a vital
question, and where the elements of conflict above alluded to are
confined to a small number of the whites themselves.
As an instance of this tendency to deal with inter-racial crimes
in this way, I would cite that a larger number of lynehings have
taken place in recent years for murder than for assault upon women.
it is true that, as has been well urged by Professor Booker
T. Washington, the practice of lynching blunts the moral sense of a
community, and tends to weaken a respect for the ordinary processes
of law, and thus in turn crimes deemed not so shocking as to merit
lynching become the subject of lynch law, as lynch law ceases to
shock the community. But, after all, lynch law is but the expres
sion of the feeling which inspires its exercise, and the feeling which
is behind it in this case is that an inter-racial crime to the person
is an inter-racial and not an individual question, and must be
stamped out, not to punish so much the individual offender as to
protect the white race.
From all this it will be seen that I deem, the question of "Crimes
against Women" perpetrated by Negroes as a branch only, although
the acutest and extremest instance, of a much wider subject — inter
racial crime, in the South, and that the punishment of these crimes
is interwoven with and takes tone from the elements of race
(antipathy and race confiict which lie behind the relations between
two races of unequal development, capacity and morality, and
clothed by law with equal rights,' political and personal, and entirely
incapable by nature of assimilation or being evolved into one homo
geneous people.
Of course, as the Negro develops in moral sense, as well as
improves in education, the temper of the race vrill have its effect
on its own criminal classes, and so we may hope for the dying out
of such offenders.
But the greatest effect that could be produced, not only on the
criminals of their own race, but upon the temper of the white race,
in dealing with them, would spring from a different attitude of the
Negroes toward criminals who are guilty of these and other inter
racial crimes.
When the Negro regards such a criminal as a disgrace to his
o-wn race, to be brought to punishment by his own color for its own
credit, I believe a great change will take place in the feeling of the
whites, and race feeling in respect to crime willbegreatlyobliterated.
Eace feeling is not confined to the South, nor to the Negro
race ; it breaks out in different parts of the country, and of the world,
between different people under the saine govemnient. In no coun
try has the same burden been placed upon a people that has been

Alex. C. lUng. 165
placed on the South in the elevation of the Negro race by law to a
plane of equality from a condition of slavery. It is to the credit
of the white man that he treats the Negro with perfect justice
except when the Negro by an ignorant ballot or by criminal act
threatens the integrity of white civilization.
It is not within the proper province of this address to discuss
the political or social problems which exist because of the presence
of the Negro in the South. Other discussions, during, this Con
ference, have dealt with the franchise and kindred topics.
Suffice it to say that the settlement of, these vexed questions is
essential to the final elimination of the race question from the minds
of both races when they come to deal with crimes against the person
perpetrated by Negroes upon whites and vice versa in the South.
This consideration adds its weight to the many reasons which
give- the South so vital an interest in the solution of these questions.
What has been said has not in any wise been intended as a jus
tification of lynching ; but in order to conduce to an understanding
of the subject.
The man, or set of men, who will write down lynching in the
South as the mere outbreak of lawlessness, and who fails to appre
ciate the position of the scattered whites in the black belt, with their
unprotected wives and daughters, who does not realize somewhat the
feeling that a white man of this section has when he learns that his
neighbor's wife or daughter has been assaulted by some brutal Negro
and who sees in it the menace of his own home, before undertaking
to discuss the problem — will have failed to put himself in a position
to fairly judge before he condemns.
From this point of view, however, recognizing that such condi-
^ tions exist and realizing how many who now condemn lynching
would fail, in the event of an experience brought home, to refrain
¦from swift punishment of the offender, we cannot, afford for the sake
of ourselves and for the future of the two races to accept this ultra
legal method of punishment or any legally enacted methods which
are akin to it, as a remedy for the evil.
That punishment except after a fair trial by the regular courts
should be repudiated as a proper remedy for any crime will, I think,
on reflection be conceded.
First — It utterly discredits the courts and the laws. It implies
either that the laws are inadequate or 'that the courts cannot be
relied on to enforce them.
Second — It distracts attention from the crime, by directing
attention to the lawlessness of the punishment. It creates a certain
S3rmpathy for the victim of Judge Lynch even among those who
abhor the crime and the criminal. Among the members of his own
race there are but few who do not regard the lynched rapist as a
victim and not a felon and who. do not forget his offence in the
menace to their race.
Third — It brutalizes the white community which indulges in it.

1 66 The Montgomery Conference.
Fourth — It stirs up race antagonism even with the law abiding.
Fifth — It breaks down every safeguard against confounding
the innocent with the guilty, and imperils the luckless victim of
circumstances or of the mistake of a terrified woman and an in
furiated mob.
Are then the existing legal remedies for the punishment of
inter-racial crimes and especially those against woinen sufficient, and
can any change be made in them which would satisfy those who
advocate lynching to rely on them and on the courts for punishing
those who violate these laws?
The punishment for rape in all" the Southem States, so far as I
am informed, is death. Certain it is that such is the punishment in
States where lynching occurs. No greater punishment — that is no
punishment attended with circumstances of cruelty — ought to be
adopted. Eespect for the opinion of the civilized world and care
for the brutalizing effect to be produced on our own people would
forbid. Besides, where punishment is too extreme, it defeats its own
end, and juries and judges either shrink from inflicting it, or sym
pathy with the suffering of the felon makes the crime appear less
grave. ' The two great reasons urged for the resort to extra-judicial
means are:
First — The delay of legal punishment.
Second — The protection of the victim of the assault from the
ordeal of the witness' chair.
A certain amount of delay is essential to the proper judicial
ascertainment of any fact. .
A fair administration of justice is more important to the com
munity in the respect it creates and teaches for law and order than
any other factor of our civilization.
It is true that in many of the Southern States, if not all, pro
visions of law exist enabling the judges of the Criminal Courts to
call special terms to try criminals and indict offenders, but often
such laws are not mandatory, nor is provision made for supplying
the place of the regular judge in event of his absence or other inabil
ity to act immediately. Where such laws do not exist or are not put
in motion, often long periods elapse between regular terms of the
court, and delay ensues in the trial of offenders. Where such laws
do not exist, they should be enacted, and in all cases of rape, murder
or arson they should require the calling of a term to promptly try
the accused. It is now the general law of the Southern States tjiat the ac
cused, except on his own application for change of venue, must be
tried in the county where the crime occurs. Often the judge will be
holding court at the time, or in a few days, in another county con-
yeniently near the county where the crime is committed. The laws
might well provide that such offender could be indicted and tried

Alex. C. King. 167
m any county of the judicial circuit where court was pending, or
Would be held within a short time, in the discretion of the judge.
Ihe objections which suggest themselves to this course are not
serious,, and could be easily obviated.
The judge in whose jurisdiction such crimes occur, should of
his own motion, or on notice from the Governor, convene the court
to try the cause within a limited number of days after notice of the
crime. If he be absent or unable to preside, another judge could be
designated by the Governor. The judge, at the time of calling the
term of court, should assign counsel to defend the accused in the
eivent he had not employed counsel.
Provision might be made for an application to the appellate
court in the first instance, if then in session, for a change of venue,
or continuance because of public excitement, if the reason for such
course existed ; and if the appellate court was in session and the ap
plication was not made to it, the decision of the lower court on such
application to be final. All other motions to continue should be
addressed to the trial judge and his decision on such motion not to
be subject to appeal. (This is now the rule of the Federal courts
as to continuances.) All writs of error to the appellate court
should be made and perfected within twenty days from the date of
trial, unless the trial judge for cause extends the time ; the same to
be heard as preferred cases by the Supreme Court under such rules
for speeding the hearing and decision as they should deem fit.
These suggestions as to the time within which writs of error
should be taken in criminal cases are now in the main idea,, the law
in the State of Georgia. The Supreme Court of that State is required
'to dispose of criminal appeals as preferred cases. A calendar of
criminal appeals is made up every two weeks while the court is in
session and suspending the civil docket, the court hears and decides
the appeals so docketed. All criminal cases reaching the court since
the last calendar was made up, are put on the succeeding calendar
and heard, so that criminal appeals are frequently heard and deter
mined in a few weeks after the trial in the court below.
Of course a rapid machinery for criminal trials does not do
away with the right to insist on continuances nor does it dispense
with the' right of a lawyer to demand that the prisoner be confronted
with his alleged victim, if her testimony is to be used. Nor can it
prevent all delay. It can, however, take away one of the alleged
reasons for extra-legal methods of dealing with crime, and by a
course of intelligent and rapid administration, in cases where it is
not interfered with for reasons essential to securing a fair trial, aid
in securing reliance on it in all cases..
Another reason assigned for not allpwing the ordinary criminal
procedure to deal with assaults on women is that no white woman
should be subjected to the ordeal of' rehearsing the crime committed
against her by a Negro, before a court and jury.
This plea will not carry the same force to one who does not fully
understand the feeling of the Southerner toward race purity.

1 68 The Montgomery Conference.
But the trouble with it is that it assumes that it is better that
an innocent person should be convicted than that an outraged
woman should suffer by the rehearsal of her -wrong.
The Negro race has caused her undoing and to a certain extent
the race should bear the consequences, is an implied argument grow
ing out of the inter-racial nature of the crime.
It is a terrible ordeal, however, to require of any woman and
while if justice to the innocent demanded it, it would be necessary
to permit it — if it can be avoided without injustice or sacrifice of
essential principles, it should be.
Provision might be made that on application of the party
assailed, or of the State's attorney, the judge might have her testi-'
mony taken before him; the prisoner and his counsel and the
prosecuting attorney alone being present, and such testimony so
taken to be read to the jur;^.
The prisoner could not complain of this, as it would be to his
advantage. He would be confronted with the witness in the pres
ence of the judge, who could rule on all legal questions raised, and
yet the absence of the female assaulted from the court-room would
tend to allay prejudice against the prisoner.
As a means of securing the punishment of criminals of this class
according to law, it is important that measures should also be taken
to prevent, if possible, their falling into the hands of bodies of men
who are not under the control of officers of the law. The sheriff and
other arresting officers should be required to take charge of the
search for and arrest of such criminals. Where different bodies of
men go in pursuit of a fugitive, the sheriff or his deputies should
accompany each body, and it should be required that said bodies
should be formally sworn in as posses and a memorandum of the
names of the persons composing each body made by the officer
accompanying the same. In this way, it would be known who consti
tuted the respective bodies searching for the offender, and by whom
he was arrested.
Where a person was arrested by any such body of men and wag
not delivered into custody of a jailer, it might be well to provide
that the sheriff suffering a prisoner to be taken frdm the hands of
himself or deputy, or of the jailer, after delivery, should be removed
from office by the Governor upon the ascertainment of that fact.
It has been attempted in some States in the South, notably in
South Carolina, to secure the punishment of criminals of this char-
actei^ through the courts by providing penalties to be recovered
against the county in which a lynching occurs, these penalties to
be recovered by a suit in the courts. Experience has shown that this
law, however, does not act as a remedy, for the reason that the juries
will not bring in a verdict against the county on such a cause of
action. I do not know of any other State in which a similar law
prevails, and therefore it is impossible to say whether this state of
affairs is peculiar to the localities in which the South Carolina law

Alex. C. King. 169
has been called into service. It would seem, however, that a much
more feasible remedy would be to provide that the Governor should,
with the assistance of the Comptroller-General and the Treasurer
of the State, upon the ascertainment of the fact that a party had
been lynched in a county, assess a tax upon said county of a certain
per cent upon its last taxable return, provided that such per cent
would raise a sum of not less than $5000, the minimum amount
raised in any event to be $5000, and collect the same in the ordinary
methods used for the collection of State taxes ; such sum so collected
to be added to the educational fund of the State.
This method would not require the parties who are paying the
tax, nor the community in which the lynching has occurred, them
selves to levy it, which is the practical result of the South Carolina
law. It would vest it in the hands of officers who rely upon the State-
at-large, and not upon the particular communities for their support,
and it would be very much more certain of enforcement than would
be any system of penalties to be enforced in the local courts.
Beyond endeavoring to render the ordinary machinery of this
law prompt, certain and efficient to deal with criminals of this
character, and beyond endeavoring to remove particular objections
to the use of ordinary processes of criminal law, where the same can
be done without infringing the fixed principles of civil liberty, it
would be unwise to attempt to create any special procedure in this
class of cases. Such remedies as permitting local officers to summon
a jury of bystanders and summarily try a party accused of this griev
ous crime, would be simply to legalize lynch law, and would be more
disastrous in its general results, both upon the body politic and upon
the relations between the two races, than the recurrence of such
crimes as now occasionally shock the public mind. These last are
recognized crimes, and do not evidence the action of the public
through its official organs. The other' would be the action of the
whole people, and would commit them to a policy in dealing with a
crime which shocked the public sense, in a way that would invite
the extension of the summary system to other cases whenever a
supposed public necessity demanded it. It would be a species of
drumhead court-martial established by law as a permanent legal
institution. It is better that a people exasperated by an atrocious
crime should occasionally deal with it by extra legal methods than
that methods which in themselves attack the .guarantees of personal
liberty should find lodgment in our legal system. I do not belie-ve
that it is possible to treat one class of Crimes against the person in
any radically different, manner than is applied to all.
I appreciate as keenly as can any one the menace hanging over
the lonely farmer of the South, who feels when he leaves his home
that he may return to find that done, to which death woUld be
merciful, t have endeavored to show that the final outcome is
involved with the solution of the general Negro problem, and have
made a few suggestions, applicable mainly to all causes, and to our

170 The Montgomery Conference.
judicial system, w,hich might ameliorate some conditions and con
duce to a reliance on our courts of justice. Beyond such remedies I
do not think we can safely, go.
We owe it to ourselves, to our children, to the progress of the
world, that we should, in all things, so conduct ourselves and our
dealings with the rights of each individual of all races, that it may
be said of us, that our State governments are bulwarks of liberty,
and are "governments not of men, but of laws."
At the conclusion of Mr. King's paper, the following address..
was delivered by the Hon. Clifton E. Breckinridge, of Arkansas,
Ex-Minister of the United States to Eussia:
Mr. Chairman and Gentleman: — Before beginning the discus
sion of the subject upon which I have been requested to address the
Conference, I wish to say that it affords me peculiar pleasure to
contribute whatever may be -within my power toward the solution-
of the very grave questions for the consideration of which this meet-~
ing has been convened. Within a generation the rela,tions between the
white and black races, especially in the South, have undergone such
sudden and extreme changes as necessarily to shock and disorganize
society to a very serious extent. All realize that the time has come
when we should have a better understanding of our difficulties and
differences and enter upon a sounder and more constant policy.
Indeed, much has already been done in this way — so much that we
are encouraged for the future; and I think this Conference most
timely as an ai'd in shaping and crystallizing public sentiment in
right directions.
Mr. Chairman, I think that perhaps the most useful and
important part of the work of the present Conference will be not
so much what we may advocate in the way of specific measures as in
elucidating the general situation, in setting forth, in the light of
our close observation and practical experience, the nature, character
and capacity of the races, and the effect and tendency of past and
present policies. A clear, correct and general conception of these
elements must constitute the foundation of all, safe action ; and, if
we are happily given such knowledge. We shall not long fail to
adopt in our varied exigencies a course of wisdom and duty.
Sir, it is not always or long that thoughtful men have been able
to look with even a moderate degree of hope for a satisfactory solu
tion of the race problem in the South, and I believe I, do not
overstate the case when I say that the race question, as we have it
-with us, and of which lynching is an essential as well as the most
passionate and difficult feature, is as grave, as dangerous and as
painful a problem as ever confronted an intelligent and high-
minded people.
' A brutal people could and would solve the question very
quickly. Fanatics would not long dally about a remedy, and both,

Clifton R. Breckinridge. 1 7 1
with_ their passion, zeal and narrow limitations, might survive the
application of their customary remedies, and grow to a better state.
Of such, in the main, are the examples of history.
But the case is different with us, for the white people of the
South — the people of our whole country, are an enlightened, a
humane, a Christian, a noble people. They are well instructed in
the doctrines of human rights and in their practical application.
The most glorious, as well as the most numerous, pages of our his
tory record the sacrifices we have made for these principles. We
have now long reaches of history, covering almost every conceivable
phase of human experience. 'We have had impulsive legislation,
even vindictive legislation; legislation which did not distinguish
between rights and privileges, and which wholly disregarded the
essential character, capacity and differences of the races. We have
had violence, both individual and bollective. All of these have been,
perhaps, unavoidable -"incidents in the great and protracted race
drama, which has been inherited by us. But when we consider the
far greater extremes to which other peoples under less provocative
conditions, have gone, we can truly say that at every stage of our
experience, no matter what its irritations, there has been a saving
preponderance of restraint, of wisdom, and of good-will.
One thing, however, we should carefullv note, and that is that
we have never failed, as g. locality. State or nation, to pay the
penalty of our crimes or follies. We see, therefore, that we must
solve this problem, and every part of it, in the light of our own day
and generation and knowledge. We see that the chief responsibility
,is upon the superior, the white race. We see that we can only save
our civilization, our homes, our country and our honor by a policy
consistent with the steady wellbeing and uplifting of the black race.
We see that our fate and theirs are interwoven ; and it is in this
light and sense of the fate of both races, clearly joined together, that
I approach every material question affecting either.
As the policy of lynching can only be rightly considered in the
light of general conditions, and of its effect upon the peace and
security of society at large, let us briefiy consult our experience to
determine the essential character of the elements with which we have
to deal. Then let us consider the effect that policy is having upon
those elements.
Take the period of slavery. For generations, and under condi
tions generally considered the most trying, the races lived together
in peace. If we had reason to believe that, with the great and per
manent racial differences which exist, the nature of the races, or the
nature of either of them, were truculent, then, indeed, would the
future be dark. But during all that peripd the relations of the races
were not only peaceful, but, in the main, they were most kindly.
Side by side with the assured power of the law, there were the asso
ciations of childhood, the sports and domestic service of later life,
the care of sickness and old age, uniform consideration for good

172 The Montgomery Conference.
character and old age, and the respect and fidelity which were fit
reflections of the manly honor, womanly care and refined and
elevated rule which generally marked the domestic authority of the
times. All had their infiuence. All were developed under an
enlightened construction of the Christian religion, and the
aggravated crimes of later days were absolutely unknown.
I have nothing to say in defence of the institution of slavery.
In the light of the present day it is indefensible; and its merits,
real or supposed, have nothing to do with this argument. The
history Of that protracted period is at present fruitful to us only
to prove the essential character of the two races, to remind us that
peace, security and concord did once exist; and to guide us in our
discussion to those A-iews and policies best calculated to safeguard
thei future. But, Mr. Chairman, we have had another test of the, essential
gentleness and docility of the black race, savage and incorrigible
as recent exceptions may be, and, as we know, marred as they are
as a whole by modern teachings and practices. In the mutations
of affairs there came the Civil War. For four years our cities, to-wns
and vast country districts were stripped bare of white men. Armies,
symbols of the black man's freedom, swept back and fortlj over the
land. Strong camps were places of refuge, and incitement was not
lacking to crime. Property was exposed; and women and children
and helpless old age were left without an arm for their defencie.
They were left virtually in the care and keeping of the Negroes.
Some white men proved recreant in ,the hour of trial. They insulted
.women and tortured for gain. But I say what every Southerp
man knows to be true, what must stand to the everlasting credit
and hoiior of the black race; what must and will appeal to us to the
end of time, and what the history of the world cannot match — ^that
throughout all these terrible years, and throughout the whole vast
extent of the South, there never was committed by a Negro a single
murder or a single crime that could properly be called an outragCj
The period of reconstruction came, the most bitter, and by far
the most mischievous, in all the history of our land. The great
statesman, the pure and good man who stood at the head of the
dominant power, was stricken by the hand of a vile, if not an insane,
assassin. The time for peace had come; but worse passions than
'ever were let loose upon now a helpless people. Men thought the
Negro question settled. No. A greater question than slavery, it
had just been opened ; and the strong hand and great heart of Lin
coln, which alone could have guided us safely in those stormy
times, were stilled in death. Only now are we recovering from the
loss we all sustained in Lincoln's untimely death, and in his spirit
and teaching we find to-day our best inspiration and instruction
for the future. Generations will pass before we fully recover from
the evil effects upon both' races of that unhappy period.
Eace rivalry, race interference, active race contact, these are

Clifton R. Breckinridge. 173
the conditions which infiame race differences into race strife If
peoples are not m the main homogeneous, they must be separate, or
one must be quiescent to the other. The Negro was freed in the British
West Indies with, but little shock beyond a disturbance in the labor
market. The serf has been freed in Eussia with results of no
greater degree. In neither case was the freedman taught false
social ideas or clothed with power beyond his capacity or rights.
Unfortunately for us, the temper of the times did not lend itself to
so moderate a course. Unfortunately for the Negro, he was forced
into confiict with the superior race. Had the black freedmen of the
West Indies or the white freedmen of Eussia been made a social
or political factor, as the Negro was with us, disturbances exceeding
ours must have been the result. The Negro, utterly unfitted to
govern himself, removed from barbarism only by mildness of dis
position, was set to govern, not only himself, but 'also to exclusively
govern us. For this task he needed, of course, a special class of
leaders. Then the locusts of Egypt were sent upon the land. The
¦ professional patriot, the , mountebank, the harpy, the carpet-bagger,
the scallawag, sometimes the bold, always the unscrupulous, were
the aspiring and appointed leaders of the ignorant Negro. Instead
of the healing infiuence of peace, the spirit of enmity, disorder and
strife was systematically sown. The courts of justice became courts
of injustice. Taxes and public debts were piled one upon the other,
and the proceeds stolen and squandered until confiscation and ruin
seemed to be the order of the day. The Negro was taught to hate
the Southern white man, to reject his infiuence, and conflicts were
incited that outside power might be invoked to perpetuate the
system. Can we wonder that the Negro disposition and character
at last showed signs of perversion and decay ?
Yet, what did we witness ? Few of the older Negroes were led
into positively evil ways; but the younger generation, with the
docility of the race, were largely perverted. Occasional outbreaks
occurred. But, in the main, in a country practically without law,
there was security for life, and the more shocking forms of crime
were rare. Throughout all that period of strife the personal rela
tions of the races were for the raost part kindly; and the han'd of
the white man, though sometimes forced to strike, yet fell -with
reluctance upon the Negro, and was limited in its severity.
When this carnival of misgovernment was over, and responsible
people were permitted once more to participate in public affairs,
they came to an inheritance of social and civic disorder. The whole
condition was that of a wreck. The voting franchise was lodged
-with the incompetent as well as with the competent; and in many
localities the ignorant and incompetent were the inore numerous.
The statute and organic law was encumbered with vicious provi
sions, and outside sentiment, long absolute in its assertion and
exercise of authority, was still a mischievous restraint upon reform.
But, above all, evil times had existed long enough to miseducate

1 74 The Montgomery Conference.
and demoralize, in great part,, a rising generation. The Negro
race, long released from the restraints of law, from personal influ
ence and authority, and actively taught every evil thought and
practice, was ripe for the outcropping of crime to the full extent
of their capacity for crime. The white race had acquired in great
measure irregular ideas and methods of correction and redress. A
new organization had to be effected. Proper influences and
restraints must be forged anew.
A formative period, a period of transition, when the old author
ity, public and personal, has largely been removed, and a new
authority has not been established, is always a time of at least
individual disorder and crime. We have -witnessed this. We have
a race, the most ' negative and tractable of which we have any con
siderable knowledge; but, when it does produce a desperado, he is
the worst desperado in the world. 'When it produces a brute, he is
the worst and most insatiate brute that exists in human form. Its
fierceness, its ferocity, is chiefiy exhibited by the few in the perpetra
tion of crime.
Upon the other hand, there is another race, the most positive,
the most masterful that the world has ever seen. It has the govern
ing sense to the highest degree. It is industrious, enterprising and
accumulative, but charitable. It is forceful, but just. It is brave,
but gentle ; and it rarely exhibits ferocity except in the punishment
and repression of crime.
From these two races, during the period stated, we have wit
nessed the rise of the practice of lynching. We need not, go into
the philosophy of crime. We have dealt at length with the character
of the peoples. We need not enlarge on the objects of punishment.
We know that the origin of lynching was unspeakable rage at
unspeakable crime. It began when the officials were often little
better in character than the monste,rs of guilt against whom the
people vented their rage. We know it was bound to rise from the
planting we had had; and perhaps no reason or power on earth
would have sufficed at the time to prevent at least some of the
expressions of wrath. The motive was twofold — vengeance and
security. Death was meted to a crime worse than death; and
security was sought by removing a human monster from the society
of men, and by impressing the ignorant mind with the assurance
of extreme, prompt and certain punishment.
We know that in primitive communities lynching has at times
risen to the dignity of law ; and men have there sat in righteousness
in open "court in condemnation to death of their fellow-men. Com
munities, like individuals, possess the right of self-preservation.
No human law is high enough to grant it. No human law is high
enough to justly take it away. But in jwhat does our civilization
consist? Where does our security rest?
So long as popular .executions were confined to the most hein
ous crimes, so long as the courts and officers of the law were untrust-

Clifton R. Breckinridge. 175
worthy and not of our own making, so long as such executions were
conducted with the care that protects the innocent, and with the
regulated and passionless character that befits a civilized community
and so solemn an act — so long as these conditions prevailed, few men
will say that they were not excusable, necessary, beneficial and right.
Of the hand that strikes death in the black heart of guilt, I do not
speak. How can a true man live or let live and witness such crimes ?
Of the father, brother, husband of the victim, we cannot speak. We
speak of people in the custody of the law. We speak of the care to
protect men under false or uncertain accusation. We speak of men
not under the duty that arises in the presence of the crime, and not
necessarily so bereft of reason and control as to be incapable of
regarding the obligations and interests of society. We speak of all
men who belong to a masterful race, and know that however grave
our duty, however extreme our act, it must be met and done without
barbarity, in a calm and contained spirit, and with a profound
, regard for the far-reaching effects of our course.
In the light of these facts and considerations we can answer the
questions I propounded. The very keystone in the fabric of our
civilization is the removal of causes, crimes and irreconcilable dif
ferences from individual or popular, to judicial tribunals of settle
ment. It is the lawful, orderly, responsible and dispassionate ad
ministration of justice. This is our security. Without this, "the
crimes of individuals are succeeded by the crimes of communities.
The crimes of communities are condoned. Crime begets crime,
society falls into decay, and the very evils we would prevent are
multiplied upon us.
Have we not seen this? Has not the practice of lynching
spread ? Has it not been taken up by ordinarily good men and citi
zens, from passion and insufficient causes ; and by low and bad men
for low, mean, vindictiVe and bad purposes? Have we not been
shocked by the awful extremes to which men have gone, extremes
that we thought impossible for men of our ra'ce in any possible state
of rage? And what has been the result of all this? Society and the law
have practically lost their power to discriminate between, if I may
use the expression, justifiable and unjustifiable lynching. A gen
eral lowering of the moral and civic tone is noticeable all along the
line. Irregular and lawless methods of settlement grow in favor.
Ag the law is less looked to for protection, men become less careful
in their choice of the officers of the law, and utterly demoralizing
methods and practices are permitted to obtain in their selection.
The lower orders of society are made accustomed to exhibitions and
examples of brutality, passion and lawless proceedings. Disregard
increases of the rights of the weak. Lawless methods seldom, have
a chance to be heard. On their face they are wrong, and if accom
panied by passion, cruelty or barbarity, they exhibit the very quali
ties and are the very acts which laws are framed to suppress and pre-

176 The Montgomery Conference.
vent, and for which individuals are punished. Can we wonder,
. then, that such acts have a bad moral effect and multiply the very
crimes they seek to repress ? Can we wonder that the ignorant be
lieve only a part of what the intelligent say, and are easily taught
that innocent Negroes are the victims of prejudice and passion?
Do we not see that this course is simply cultivating crime' and lay
ing the foundations of a far more serious race hatred than that
which was builded uppn false premises ? That we cannot substitute
force for law ? And that society is being sacrificed by the excesses
of its own defenders ?
Mr. Chairman, I have sought to group leading facts and prin
ciples with which we are familiar. We do not need to travel afar,
or to recite details. This is a home question. We know of what, we
speak, and the chief trouble in the past has been that men from the
outside have sought to settle these differences, for which task they
were, of course, wholly unfitted. That interference, however, was
largely based upon the belief of right-meaning men that we would
not deal justly with the Negro. They have witnessed the fearful
failure of their plans ; a failure that of necessity aggravated every
evil they sought to avert, for, acting without adequate knowledge pf
the fundamental conditions, and without due regard for the welfare
of both races, they are bound to fail. But what should be said of us
if we fail ? — We whd profess to understand the situation, who ought
to understand it, who do understand it, and who have our own fam
ilies and homes as a hostage for the performance of duty ? What of
us if we fail to meet seriously, wisely and bravely, nay, successfully,
every exigency as it arises ?
It is propitious that we have this Conference, non-political,
non-sectional, yet called in the midst of the Negro belt and by
Southern white men, to consider the interests and well being, not
of one race, but of both races. It is propitious that our whole coun
try has come to see the unwisdom of committing unrestricted power
to a crude people to govern even themselves.
But, talk as we may, yet it is true that every governing power
must justify its authority. If it does not, then by internal decay
or by external force, there will surely come retributive justice. We
speak of the white man's burden. It is but another name for the
white man's duty. Nowhere does the burden of duty devolve so
heavily or in so complicated and painful a form as it does here. It
must cloak no wrong. It will not permit any present task to be
avoided. To the honor of the South it may be said, and men ap
preciate it everywhere, that the one great difficultv in dealing with
the Negro question is the crime against women. The chief difficulty '
here is that men will not and should not see womanly honor abased,
her poor remaining life further crushed by being subjected to the
ordinary forms of public trial. This must be obviated Woman's
honor must be preserved and society must be preserved. A mode
of punishment that tends to brutalize millions of both white and

Clifton R. Breckinridge. 177
black, a mode under which lurks toleration for every other infrac
tion of law that demoralizes societj^, must be avoided. New trial
laws can be devised for this character of crime ; and the sacred dig
nity, delicacy and honor of woman can and will lie encircled by
the power of a public sentiment that will brand with exclusion and
punishment worse than death the untried brute who would subject
her to punishment and shame. Justice need not involve this shock
ing procedure. The evils of which we speak are largely local and sporadic, but
the tendency is general. Yet the growth of the South shows the
hope of men in the future. The difficulties of reform are great,
but the imperiled interests of society are greater. No incidental
advantages should deter us from measures of general interest and
obvious necessity. Men say we may lose representation in Congress
if the Negro does not vote. Our strength and safety does not lie in
a swollen representation, but in the justice and wisdom of our do
mestic policy. The Negro knows his place, and he is happiest when
assigned to it. In the main childlike and kindly, but superficial and
negative, he is unfit to govern. But he is entitled to perfect jus
tice. He must rest assured of his liberty and rights. He must be
the equal of the white man before the law. Their men of worth are
respected now, and they will always receive just recognition. Less
than this is unworthy of ourselves and unequal to the task before us.
But with the general policy I have outlined, I believe the Negro will
be happy in peace and loyal in war, that we shall be sustained by
the sensible men of their own race, opposed practically by none, and
that society will be composed and the future assured when, and only
when, we have government of equal justice and exclusively of law.

178 The Montgomery Conference.
EVENING SESSION, MAY 10, 8.00 P. M.
The Negro -and the Social Order.
Mr. Herbert having called the house to order. Dr. Paul B. ¦
Barringer, Chairman of the Faculty of the University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, Virginia, was introduced as the first speaker. Dr.
Barringer took, as his subject, "The Sacrifice of a Eace." He said :
The history of the Negro, as a race, is one of profound pathos.
From time immemorial and in all places he has been the burden-
bearer, the plaything, the tool and the discarded dupe of his more
fortunate brothers. Where are the fifteen thousand Negroes im
ported into Great Britain before the "trade" was abolished ? Gone !
Where are those taken to Portugal and Spain by pious ( ?) Prince
Henry "in order that they might be made Christians ?" Gone ! Not
a trace. Where are the thousands which Carthage, before the Punic
wars, furnished Eome ? An occasional suspicious excess in the rich
ness of Neapolitan tint is seemingly the sole remainder. Yet he has
always served well. He served us here in the South long and faith
fully, but, in view of what is now seen, can it be claimed that we
worked the Negro harder or more effectually than the abolitionists
unwittingly "worked" him ? The effect of their working was seen
in the war, the hardness of it in his^present condition. WeU may
belated philanthropy pour out its gold, but if they paid till the
very soil of the South could be worked as an ore, they could not
atone to him. Can millions save him ? I am afraid not — it is too
late. Few appreciate how far he has already gone back to origihal
racial tendencies. Here is an intelligent, upright, honest N6gro,
and there another, but they, as a rule, were born slaves ; few, indeed,
are the men of promise under thirty years of age and fewer under
twenty; and so strong is the downward current that most of them
that stand fast are destroyed by attrition.
If the young Negro can be taught to work he can be saved.
Will industrial training do this ? It may if simplified or limited to
agriculture. The present system of industrial education gives too
little industry and too mueh education. We might as well, more
over, be frank, and confess that the trades union, fast coming into
the South, will not let a Negro work at a trade. Here, as well as
North, when it comes to a fight, industrial or otherwise, between
white and black, the whites are for the whites. What then ? Com
passion, charity and mercy; missionaries, churches and hospitals —
¦! euthanasia. But there can be no euthanasia for him' who knows the symp
toms of his disease and the physiological effects of the anodyne.

Paul B. Barringer. 179
Educate then, henceforth, the soul and the hand— more fhan the
mind. In the summer of 1619 there sailed into Chesapeake Bay an
English privateer, cruising under foreign letters of marque (Sa-
voyan), which had on board what remained of a hundred Negroes
captured from a Spanish vessel in the West Indies. This privateer.
The Treasurer, was commanded by Captain Daniel Elfrith, and
leaving twenty of these Negroes at Jamestown, he sailed for Ber
muda, where he placed the remainder on the Earl of Warwick's
plantation on that island. Of these twenty Negroes two became the
property of William Tucker, "gentleman," of Elizabeth City county.
These, a man and a woman, he named respectively Anthony and Isa
bell, and to them was born a child, "baptized" William, seemingly
the first American of African descent born on this continent. —
(Brown's "Genesis of the United States," Vol. II, pp. 886, 1034.)
The birth of this child inaugurated a new race, and one whose his
tory I am here to-day to recall and whose end I am here to predict.
The salient features of the history of this race up to the pres
ent are about as follows : A race of savage blacks, with one excep
tion — the original tribes of Australia — the lowest of human kind,
with fifty centuries of unbroken barbarism behind them, were torn
from their native tropical land and transported to a republic
founded as an asylum for those seeking to be free. But these blacks
came not here for freedom ; they were brought against their will and
to be slaves. It was not alone against their own will that they
came. They came against the. general wish of the Southern colo
nists, for while the pious clergy of New England were hailing the
arrival of a slaver with prayerful thanks "hecause a gracious and
over-ruling Providence had been pleased to bring to this land of
freedom another cargo of benighted heathen to enjoy the blessing
of a Gospel dispensation" (Curry's "Southern States of American
Union," page 163), the colonies of Virginia and South Carolina
were petitioning the mother country to stop the slave trade. But
the stock of the Guinea Company was owned in high places (Brown's
"Genesis of the United States," page 981), and the colonists con
tinued to be tempted, while the daily demonstrated fitness of the
blacks for hard labor in this sunny clime caused a gradual change
in the colonial sentiment.' In a virgin land of incomparable fertil
ity, strong laborers were, of course, extremely useful, and hence
much valued. Being valuable they were allowed to multiply, but
this under a careful selective process of breeding that outstripped
nature itself. Docility, decency, fealty and vigor were desired, and
the slave man having these attributes, with his ipaster's "pass,"
scorned the rural "pateroller" and roamed at will to replenish the
earth. This selective propagation in which intelligence made use,
in order, of animal desire, infant hygiene, race tendency to mimicry,
the glamor of feudalism, and even religion itself, not only caused the
Negro to increase in numbers, but also to improve in kind. In a few

i8o The Montgdmery Conference.
generations the spindle-shanked and pot-bellied Ibo (Eboi) im
proved in shape as well as feature. The vigorous blue-black Wolof,
the blackest but the finest of the West Coast Negroes, and of whom
not over a thousand a year were imported, became the type and the
ideal. Mandingans, Ashantis, Fans, Yorubas, one and all, were made
to conform, for the large were tempted with the small and the Weak
with the strong. The laws of breeding obtained through centuries
bf experience with the lower animals, had here found a wider and a
higher field. American slavery has been described, and rightly, as
"the greatest missionary effort in human history," but, in its early
stages, it was more than this ; it was the first and only application of
intelligent hygiene to a special race, and that it should have, been
successful in improving it was natural, for the intelligence which
was most potent in the upbuilding of this Eepublic, then and after
wards in fair measure divided its time with the abstruse problem bf
slave propagation. But under this intelligent stimulus the increase
was so great that the plantations of the Bast were quickly stocked,
and the westward migration of younger sons with young families of
slaves necessarily inaugurated that separation of families which
was the first thing to influence the sentiment of the South against
slavery. From this time on the multiplication of the Negro steadily
declined, for its necessary evils and dangers ware now seen. But by
this time, under artificial conditions, the vigor and prepotency of
this race of exotics had been established. They increased so rapidly
that it alarmed the whites and forced the transportation of slaves
to more southern and western territories to avoid a dangerous local
predominance. The first stage of the slave problem now faced them. It must
be clearly understood that the sentiment of the age favored slavery
and any feeling against it' in any other quarter was infiuenced solely
by local conditions. To-day there is not a State in New England
that can maintain its Negro population without importatioii,^xand
we can well imagine what must have been the state of affairs with
the crude hygiene of colonial days. Being unprofitable in New Eng
land, slavery there naturally became unpopular, but not until long
after it had become a problem of danger in the South. In 1780,
when Massachusetts, the first to act, freed her remaining handful
of slaves, the four States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Caro
lina and Georgia had almost a half million. It was then too late to
let go ; the South could only hold on and make the best of it.
it was soon seen that the American-bred Negro was so much
better than the "salt-water black" that this, coupled with the alarm
ing increase in the Southern colonies, made the South demand the
abolition of the trade. In this she was out-voted by thc North,
whose interests now lay in slave transport rather than in slave labor.
' Dr. Fisher, for many years registrar ot vital statistics for Rhode Island, says : " -We
must conclude, however reluctantly, that the race (Negro) is not self-sustaining in this
climate. -The registrar of Massachusetts reluctantly admits the same thing.— Hoflinan's
American Negro, p. 36.

Paul B. Barringer.

181

This demand ultimately became so strong on the part of the South
that the government was forced to stop the trade, but only after
twenty years' lease of life had been added. As the result of what
Washington called a "dirty bargain," South, Carolina and Georgia
voted with the North and permitted this. North Carolina met thig
by putting a tax of £5 on every Negro imported after 1788, carrying
it to 1808. If the rate of Negro increase for the first hundred years
of slavery had been maintained to the present day, there would be
nearly 26,000,000 Negroes in the United States (Darby's table,
"View of the United States,"' page 439). But this was not to be,
and it never will be; America will never see 26,000,000 Negroes
witliin its limits.
• The reason that it was not to be was that there was early abroad
in parts of this land, as one of its characteristic features, a spirit
of sentimental altruism which was founded on the glittering gener
alities of the Declaration of Independence, a campaign document,
rather than on the cold, logical and business-like statements of the
Constitution. This new cult placed itself above religion, above
Christianity, demanded a ne«' Bible and a new Christ, because
Christ and the old Bible (Exodus xxi. 6) both recognized slavery.
It has been charged that this high and holy altruism was tinctured
with the baser motives of policy, sectional jealousy, and even with
the remains of an old Puritan-Cavalier hatred ; but we of the South
are of necessity biased judges. At any rate, the logical and inevit
able result of such a spirit of universal brotherhood as then prevailed
was the demand, sooner or later, on the part of the North, where
this epidemic was prevalent, for the abolition of slavery.
The South, knowing that the Negro could never be maintained
within its borders as a freedman, refused. For years the fight went
on, various compromises and plans being suggested, but none being
satisfactory. From the beginning of this century up to 1860 the
political history of this country consisted of a long parliamentary
fight for and against slavery. Tlie great men of the South and of
the Union, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Eandolph,
Macon, Clay, Calhoun and others, were all slave owners, but all
equally abhorred the evil practices of slavery. Not~ one of these
ever dared urge general emancipation for the South where the
Negroes were numerous ; and whenever any of them manumitted ¦
their own slaves they endeavored to send them out of the South.
Eandolph even bought land ;in Ohio, and there set up his slaves
in freedom, but they were not allowed to remain. (Mrs. A. Dix
on's "History of the Missouri Compromise, page 249.') The reason
of all this was that these men, as slave owners, knew the Negro and
knew that underneath his dusky skin the simple intelligence of a
child was combined with the instincts of a veritable savage. They
felt and knew that the Negro as a freed man could not exist in
America. > They had seen and were familiar with the original can
nibal African from which their loyal and aflectionate slaves had

1 82 The Montgo-mery Conference.
sprung, and they knew that force, unobtrusive but steady and per
sistent force, wa§ necessary to the continuance in well-doing of this
race of pagans but recently reclaimed. But in 1860 compromise
failed, and though disguised in other forms,^ the demand for the
abolition of slavery became urgent ; then came the war.
For our present purpose the most remarkable thing about that
war was the fact that while its initial act consisted in the uprising
of a few slaves on the border, under the infiuence of white persua
sion, the slaves of the true South could not be induced to rise against
their masters. Had the Southern man not known the Negro, he
would have thought as the North thought, that he was fighting with
foes behind him as well as in front ; but he knew, as he alone could
know, that the Negro was contented and happy in slavery. Had
they been but let alone they would have remained contented. At all
events, when put to the test, the Negro did not tum against the wife
and children of his absent master, when everything possible favored
an uprising. Negro regiments were organized, armed and paraded
up and down the border; brass bands were played, incendiary
speeches made and altruism preached with a whoop, but the Ne
groes did not rise. As Professor Shaler, of Harvard, well says:
"If the accepted account of the Negro had been true, if he had l?een
for generations groaning in servitude while he passionately longed
for liberty, the South should have flamed in insurrection at the first
touch of war. We should have seen a repetition of the horrors of
many a civil insurrection. It is a most notable fact that during the
. four years of the great contention, when the blacks had every oppor
tunity to rise, there was no real mark of a disposition to turn upon
their masters. On thousands of Southern farms the fighting men
left their women and children in the keeping of their slaves while
they fought for a cause whose success meant that those slaves could
never be free." {Popular Science Monthly, March, 1900, page
520.) They were happy and did not wish to be free.
On this historic fact the South takes her stand, and all the
theories of the world will not prevail against it. To the people of
the South the war of secession was practical annihilation. When
that contest atid its results are compared with others of similar con
dition and circumstance, it will be seen that no people ever came
nearer the giving of their absolute all to a cause than did the people
of the South to the Southern Confederacy. Notwithstanding this
I have yet to meet the man of Southern lineage who does not say.
with me that all the blood and all the treasure given to that cause
would have been well spent had it effectually and for all time freedr
America from the Negro. But this it has not yet done, as the people
of the South well know.
1 After the war Senator Ingalls, of Kansas, said: "Waged ostensibly to maintain the
integrity of the Union and in denial of the dogma of State sovereignty, the future historian
will not fail to note that the three ' amendments ' which he calls ' the trophies of the vic
tors,' chiefiy ' relate to the freedom, citizenship and suffrage of the Negro race:' "—Curry's
" History of Southern States," p. 219.

Paul B. l^arringer. 183
Accustomed as they were to the presence of the Negro, the peo
ple of the South were, after the war, slow to appreciate the fact that
although the Negro was gone as a slave, he was in no sense removed
as a burden. .As they gathered around their broken hearthstones
and desolate altars, trying to keep alive and restore to flame the
embers of a civilization that they swore in their hearts should never
perish, they had little time for thought as to the future of the Negro
as a freedman, for they looked beyond the Negro as the source of
their then present evils.
As time passed on the Southem people began to see that the
war, with all its losses had so far solved nothing, and the white
man's burden was still upon them and upon them alone. The sav
age, which their o-wn insane folly had allowed them to buy and to
breed, was, without other restraint than the law, henceforth to be
their close associate and neighbor. Of necessity they tried to make
the best of their condition, and they endeavored to explain to him
the law, and then for the first time were reminded that for the
Negro there was neither the concept nor the word for law, as
we know it. Could anything else have been expected? Where was
the Negro when our ancestors wrung from halting royalty Magna
Charta ? Where was he when the Petition of Eights, Habeas Corpus,
and the Bill of Tlights gave to us and to our children forever these,
benefits for which our fathers fought ? Where was he ? He was an
unalloyed pagan in a tropical jungle, savage, brutal and ignorant,
a cannibal and a trader in human flesh — ^two women for a "plug"
hat, a man for a handkerchief and a child for a Jew's harp.
In his racial history from pagan to citizen he had never felt
the emotions which called into existence our bulwarks of human
right and liberty; stripes and shackles he had known, but neither
the law nor the reason thereof ; force, brutal force in his own land,
and unobtrusive but unabating force in America. No appeal had
ever been made to his sense of right, and the only appeal for which
he had ear was the emphatic demand of power.
The people of the South next tried to instmct the Negro in the
economics ; they tried to teach him how and to make him provide for
the morrow, and again without a thought as to his racial history.
¦ They should have recalled the fact that for over fifty centuries
(Erman in his "Ancient Egypt" puts the Negro as a slave in Egypt
as early as 2500-3500 B. C.) of recorded history the Negro had lived
in tropical Africa where eyery law of nature conspired to make him
improvident and thoughtless of the future. They should have re
called that as the slave of a slave master, who was, in turn, the slave
of some petty chieftain whose only title to royalty was his superlative
savagery, he had lived without guarantee of the morrow, feeling
that his life might be -demanded at any instant. He thus of
necessity lived for the pleasures of the hour until it grew into a
racial attribute, and the happy, thoughtless, good-natured Negro of
days agone was true to his phytogeny. This was the alarming con-

184 The Montgo-mery Conference.
dition that faced the South at the close of the war. The old slave
was, in the main, loyal and faithful, but as he was rapidly becoming
a knave's dupe as a voter, what would the next generation be ? In
their perplexity the South thought that the education of the Negro
would solve their problem, so they divided^in fair measure their own
taxes with him (he had nothing) and began. For thirty years, ever
increasing, never diminishing, they have poured out their hard
earned cash for him at the expense of the poor among their own
people. What this has done for him we shall see later but first let us
see what he and his friends did for the South.
For more than a decade after the war the South had what in
popular speech is called "a hard time." A degraded and alien race,
but recently slaves, had, by congressional enactment, been placed in
control of eleven once sovereign Southern States. Men of this race
whose grandfathers had decided between guilt and innocence
through the chance of direct or reversed peristalsis with the "ordeal
bean,"^ sat in judgment over men whose forefathers had fought at
Yorktown, Guilford, King's Mountain and New Orleans. Negro men
who would turn back from any journey however needful if "a cat
crossed the road behind them," boldly launched public enterprises
that obligated the State for millions. I have myself heard the
"Speaker" bf a Southern Legislature addressed from the fioor as
"Marse Eobert." Happy indeed in that day were those possessed
of a sense of humor, for the explosions, of mirth alone prevented the
explosions of wrath. But these things passed. Amendments to the
Constitution count as naught when pitted against the inexorable
laws of nature, and in time the -white man came to his own. The '
Southern people now simply laugh at these episodes ; they, as before
stated, looked beyond the Negro and were content to wait. But
while they waited they worked.
For twenty long years they strained and yet it seemed the South
would never move. It was not that their land was ravaged and laid
bare — their people had reclaimed this same land when a primal
wilderness. It was not the burden of Negro education — they
thought that a good investment; nor was it that temporary Negro
domination had imposed colossal financial burdens $293,000,000 —
they had faced greater odds. (It should not be forgotten that two
and one-half thousand million dollars worth of property was wiped
out of existence in the South by the proclamation of emancipation.)
It was without lament, but rather with a grim pride in their handi
work that they paid their share of the Federal pensions and volun
tarily supported, as best they could, their own veterans. But new
evils came as old evils grew. The eternal vigilance required to keep
down and repress the Negro vote wore upon them, for this necessity
always bore more liarshly upon the conscience and morals of the
1 Calabar bean (Physostigma venenosum) a poi.son of purgati-ve-emetic properties, used
on the Niger to determine guilt or innocence. If the accused vomits and recovers he is
ad.iudged innocent, while if he does not vomit and dies, he is considered as having been
guilty.

PcCul B. Barringer. 185
white man than it did upon the hide of the black. They were
weary, weary to the very core, but unbroken in spirit, when 'at last
they began to feel that the burden moved— the South was rjsing.
It was not until the load was well lifted that the South began
to see the burden that had held her down — an animate, living, grow
ing burden, the Negro— the Negro to whom the South had hitherto
always looked as a source of profit. It was their first intimation
that the Negro had changed, but he has changed, and the next gen
eration will change more. This, however, I wish to recall — that
when the "carpet bagger" had departed with the profits of the
"Freedman's Bureau" in his pocket, the poor, wasted, stricken
South, from a spirit of true altruism, spent hundreds of millions
in an honest effort to improve the Negro.
That slavery had inherent evils no man can deny, but under
Southern slavery this much can be said — the Negro improved both
physically and morally, and, as a race, he was content. The Southern
slave owner made a man of the savage; by intelligent and self-
sacrificing care he overcame the natural tendency of a tropical race
to decline in other cliihes, and he even, as we shall see later, re
versed the law and made Negro mortality in the South less than the
white. (See table, page 190.) Slavery as it existed here was de
signed to shield and protect the Negro at every point, and this it
did, but of necessity the more it protected the more helpless it left
him when its guardianship was withdrawn. And Avho withdrew
this guardianship ? The fine Italian hand which before the war be
decked the pagan with a "halo,'' and after the Avar mocked the ex-
slave with the ballot, and which now black-balls the "coon" in the
trades union, is the same which loosed hini for the sacrifice. But
God is not mocked, and when France recovers from the infiuence
of tho altruistic' cry of 1793, then may the aristocracy of culture
and refinement in the Northern States of America .see the dawn of
deliverance. Their walking delegate of to-day with all that he im
plies is the mixed product of false altruism and the true anarchy
born of it.
There is much use in this day and generation of the term "sur
vival of the fittest," but few who use it ever stop to think of the
complemental axiom, "the death of the unfit." Yet the truth has
sounded the death knell of iintold millions. Where is the Tasman-
ian, the Carib, the Hawaiian, the Iroquois and others of the Amer
ican tribes that first met the white man? Their doom was sealed
when "the fittest" first set foot on their shores. They perish as wild
animals perish before man. But all wild animals do not so perish.
If man needs them they survive. Here in the sunny South my' little
boys have a dozen English rabbits which they breed to any demand,
but if I were to force them to turn them loose in this land of
1 " Liberie, esalite, fraternite," was the cry of the Bastile. Such a cry could not appeal
to the gentle and the respectable, but only to the slums. It was the cry of the proletariat
for an assault upon aristocracy, as here.

1 86 The Montgomery Conference.
orchards, shotguns, cur-dogs and cats, not one of them would sur
vive. No ! Subjected to natural law they would go like snow be
fore the sun and so, in due time, will the Negro go. He is living
even now on the stamina and molality of slavery days.
Now it must be clearly understood that during slavery the Ne
gro, as a race, was not subjected to natural law; his existence here
from the beginning was absolutely artificial. Coming to us as an
hereditary pagan, he was for over two centuries a slave in whom the
functions of nutrition, muscular activity and reproduction were cul
tivated and given full play, and every function that tended to make
him inimical to the interests of his master, i. e., independent, was
repressed. He was consequently fitted only for slavery.
With the proclamation of emancipation there began for the
Negro a ne-w existence. For the first time since coming to America
he was under the remorseless laws of nature, and being unfit to meet
' their demands here, he from that day, began to fall, and these are
the signs of his fall.
[I will say before giving figures, that the simplest method of
estimating the progress of a race or people is to compare that race
with some other race under similar environment or with their own '
people at some other (earlier) period of time. The inherent diver
sity of the two races here compared, and the necessary difference in
conditions in the times compared, render the problem difficult, but
the results are so extremely one-sided as to banish doubt.]
First, we will consider material prosperity. There are but
three States in the South that list white and colored property sep
arately, these being Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia. (Hoff
man's "Eace Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro," page
298.) In these the per capita wealth of the Negroes was in 1891
as follows: Virginia, $18.90; North Carolina, $14.10; Georgia,
$14.30; average per capita, $15.70 as compared with an average of
$332.30 for the whites of the same three States. The relatively high
per capita of $18.90 for the Virginia Negroes demonstrates what aU
mTOt have noticed — ^that the Negroes there are phj^sically and men
tally superior to any in the South. Virginia was a slave breeding
State and here naturally the best were kept and only the "culls"
sold, but nevertheless throughout the South it is still a boast to be
an "ole Virginny nigger." But if these are the best Negroes what
must be the wealth of the Negroes of the general South when the
taxable property of the Virginia Negro is but 3.1 per cent of the.
whole ? In Virginia moreover the State expends on the Negro an
nually (Eeport of State Auditor, quoted by Hoffman, page 304) :
For criminal expenses  $204,018
For education  324,364
For lunatics  80,000
Total Negro expenses  $608,382
Total Negro taxes  103,565
Annual loss to Virginia account of' Negro  $504,807

Paul B. Barringer. \ 87
It will be seen from the above that the annual net loss bn the
i^egro population of this State is over half a million dollars, and
that the total Negro taxes paid is even less by one hundred thousand
dollars than the sum annually expended by the whites to repress
Negro crime. If this from the best, what of the "culls ?" It must
also be mentioned here that the larger part of the taxable property
of the Negroes throughout the South consists of small rural or
suburban "patches" of real estate either given them by their old
masters or else sold for a song, and that even the "unearned incre
ment" of appreciation is due also to the whites who have built up
the town and enhanced the value of the previous gift, pure or quasi.
Secondly, let us consider the Negro from the standpoint of
criminality. In Virginia (where I now live) there are now (census
1890) 1,020,000 whites to 635,000 blacks, but by the report of the
superintendent of the Virginia penitentiary for 1899 there were
among the State convicts only 404 whites as against 1,694 blacks,
gi-ring on the basis of population, Negro criminality as 7.4 times
greater than the white. The latest reports of the State penitentia
ries from Maryland to Texas show about the same results, rising
to 9.4 and 8.0 in Georgia, where progressive municipal administra
tion draws the Negro to town, and falling as low as 5.4 in Mis
sissippi where the Negro lives in the country and where white
domination and Negro disfranchisement are most complete. It will
be understood that State conricts represent chiefly serious crinie,but
the jails and the chain gangs which, in the South, teem with addi
tional thousand's, are blacker still in proportion, for the Southern
country Negro as yet, thank God, flgures chiefly in the minor crimes.
In the cities he is, as a race, fast throwing off every vestige of moral
restraint, as we see from the Washington Police Department report,
quoted by The Baltimore Sun of March 30 last, whibh says of a
city where the Negro does not constitute one-third of the popula
tion, as follows : "According to one of the recent annual reports of
the metropolitan police department there were, in the year, 10,587
arrests of whites and 11,975 of blacks. More than twice as many
Negroes as whites were arrested for carrying concealed weapons,
more than twice as many for disorderly conduct, more than twice as
many for assault and for assault and battery, more than twice as
many for petty larceny and thirteen more for grand larceny, twice as
many for profanity, seven times as many for criminal assault, and
more than five times as many for housebreaking at night. Seven
murders were committed by Negroes tp two by whites. In all the
most heinous offences kno-wn to criminology the Negroes were
largely in the excess. A very large proportion of all crimes are
comm'itted by young Negro toughs under twenty-five years of age."
And this from the "Mecca" where rather than repeal the Fifteenth
Amendment and confess its folly this government annually commits
the outrage which brought on the revolution of '76.
But lest some "altruist" may think that his one-time brother

1 88 The Montgomery Conference.
in black has suffered at Southern hands, I will quote elsewhere:
In a recent paper on"Negro Criminality" (Address before American
Social Science Association, September, 1899) by Prof. Walter F.
Wilcox, of Cornell University, a native of New England and now
statistician of the Census Office, we find that "in the Southern States
there were six white prisoners to every 10,000 -whites and twenty-
nine Negro prisoners to every 10,000 Negroes." As Mr. Wilcox
himself says, this difference might at first glance be ascribed to sec
tional prejudice, and he proceeds to combat this by making the
declaration that "in the Northern States in 1890 there were twelve
white prisoners to every 10,000 whites and 69 Negro prisoners to
every 10,000 Negroes." In other words, if prejudice plays any part it
is most pronounced at the North. This criminality of the Negro,
moreover, is not standing fast, for, as Mr. Wilcox further says,
"The Negro prisoners in the Southern States to 10,000 Negroes in
creased between 1880 and 1890, 29 per cent while the white prison
ers to 10,000 whites increased only 8 per cent." In other words,
crime among the American Negro is, since the war, increasing with
alarming rapidity because the Negro, racially feeble in the power
of conscience, is unable to meet the, to him, idealistic demands of
the law. The short, quick shrift of the cowhide' which he has always
known, he can connect with the' crime and abstain, but the slow
procedure of Saxon jurisprudence makes the offence and the punish
ment as far apart in his mind as his religion and morality often
are in fact.
But he is not only increasing, in crime ; he is developing what
seems at -first glance for him, a new form of crime. In a recent
paper of rare candor and merit on the "Ee'cent Erotic Tendency of
'the Southern Negro," {Carolina Medical Journal, March 1900,
page 2)' Dr. S. C. Baker, of Sumter, S. C, says, in speaking of this
new 'crime for the Negro : "Prior to their emancipation the crime of
rape was almost unheard of. I have been able to learn of but one
instance of even attempted rape, in this State (South Carolina),
and that was unsuccessful." But speaking of the present he says:
"The report of the Attorney General of South Carolina for 1899
shows that there have been thirteen convictions for rape, and for
assault with intend to ravish, twelve convictions during that year.
All of them except one were cases of Negro men against white wo
men, the exception being the case of a Negro man against a Negro
woman.'' Next, he confirms the views I have previouslv expressed
in "The American Negro : His Past and Future," whicii were that
it is the young Negro of the South (the generation of Negro with
the one hundred million dollar education) that most shows the evi
dence of a reversio'n to barbarism and savaarery by the followine:
"The conrt stenographer of the third judicial circuit of this State
furnished rae the following information on the subject for the past
ten years, as applying to his circuit. It may be remarked that the
third circuit is about an average of the circuits of the State as to

Paul B. Barringer. 1 89
the density of population and its complexion, as to urban and rural
inhabitants, intelligence and education of Negroes, and so forth,
and South Carolina is possibly about an average of the Southern
States in these particulars. He says : 'About twenty-five cases have
come up for trial in this circuit during the past ten years, besides
about five others which did not come up for trial because of the
lynching of the accused. In all of these, with one exception, the
Negroes iniplicated were under thirty years of age. In the excepted
case there were several Negroes implicated, one being an older man
who seemed to have been led on by the yOunger ones. For the crime
of assault with intent to ravish I recall about ten cases and all by
Negroes under thirty years of age. I am of opinion that 95 per cent
of all crime in the third circuit is committed by the Negro and of
this 95 per cent 90 per cent is committed by the free-born Negro.
It is very rare that you see an old slave charged with any crime.
The majority of Negro criminals are from fifteen to thirty years of
age.'" This, as figures go, seems to indicate a new form of crime for
the Negro, but I know, as you know, that it does not mean this.
Did our prognathic, dolichocephalic cannibal come to us with brutal
instincts moulded by centuries of crime on every lineament of his
visage and yet clothed in the beautitude of sexual purity ? No !
When I see the leopard change his spots then will I believe it. It
is a reversion pure and simple and these figures simply point again
to the superb moral infiuence of slavery. In the hands of a gentle
people the Negro came quite near the gentlemen, illiterate, perhaps,
but not ignorant, for mark you there is a difference, as the history
of some of our great men can testify.
But the question with us to-day is, can a race keep up this
rapid criminal decline and, live? Both tbe experience of the past
and the present testify that it cannot. Old as it is, the saying "The
wages of sin is death'" might well have been taken from some modern
work of hygiene.
Thirdly, I will take up the question of Negro vital statistics,
and here I must pay my respects to the work of Frederick L. Hoff
man from whose "Eace Traits and Tendencies of the American Ne-
~gro" (The Macmillan Company, New York), most of these statis
tics are taken. An able, careful statistician, he brings an unbiased
German mind to the solution of the greatest problem America has
ever known. This book should be in the hands of every man who
has at heart the future of his country. These figures obtained from
official reports are amply corroborated by private observation. Let
¦ me first take statistics bearing on the period before the war.
I have before spoken of the fact that in slavery the Negro in
creased beyond measure. He was at that time really more prolific
than the general white population of the South. This was owing
chiefiy to the fact that the Negroes were owned by the wealthy and,
being valuable, every care, hygienic and otherwise, was exercised,

190 The Montgomery Conference.
not only to see that they increased, but to rear them strong and
healthy when born. The following statistics of four of the great
cities of the South before and after the war will show, first, that
there was a greater death rate among the whites before the war than
among the Negroes, and, secondly, that the mortality among the
Negroes since the war has largely increased :
A.MNUAL MORTALITY PEK THOUSAND.'
Charleston, S. C, from 1822-1894.
Before the War. After the War.
White  25.98 White  26.77
Negro  24.05 Negro  43-29
Savannah, Ga., from 1856-1894.
White  37.10 White  32-51
Negro  34.07 Negrp  44-37
Mobile, Ala., from 1843-1894.
White  47.58 White  24.02
Negro  29.66 Negro  35.23
New Orleans, La., from. 1849-1894.
White  59.60 White  26.71
Negro  52.10 Negro  42.56,
Average of Four Southern Cities.
White  42.59 White  27.70
Negro  -34-97 Negro  41.31
(Parenthetically, observe that the whites are bestowing ^some
care on their own health since relieved of the Negro.)
The next stage of this subject -will be the mortality of the Ne
gro since the war and I will begin with the unborn child. It is
known to every one, especially to the physician, that children out
of wedlock are less apt to be reared than those begotten in legal
matrimony. In approaching this subject I will first take a city
where the Negro is as favorably circumstanced as at any spot within
the United States, viz., the capital city, Washington. The average
for the sixteen years extending from 1879 to 1894 shows that while
2.9 per cent of the white children bom were iUegima4;e, 22.5 per cent
of all the Negroes born in that city were bom out- of wedlock. But
that is far from being the worst of it. In the sixteen years extend
ing from 1879 to 1894, the per cent of Negro children born out of
wedlock in this free city has risen from 17.6 per cent to the astound
ing figure of 26.5 per annum.
Next, let me consider death from still-birth in two cities of
fairly representative type :
1 HoffMan's " Eace Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro," pages 53-54.

Paul B. Barringer. 1 9 1
DEATH FKOM STILL-BIRTH PER 100,000 POPULATION UNDER ONE YEAR'
Washington, D. C. Baltimore, Md.
White  6,528 White  7,024
Negro  20,152 Negro  16,988
The Negro certainly leads in not being born; but now let me
see how the infants of this once strong and virile race are meeting
the struggle for ^existence under natural law :
DEATjH FROM DEBILITY, INANITION, ETC., PER 100,000 POPUL.VTION UNDER
ONE YEAR.
Washington; D. C. Baltimore, Md.
White  4,i8i White  4,800
Negro  10,045 Negro  11,884
The rate of increase in licentiousness, etc. (for these figures
point to syphilis), in these cities is fully borne out by the reports
from other cities.
Next, I will consider the comparative (white and Negro) mor
tality in childhood. For this I am able to present the statistics of
three of the largest cities in the South for the year 1890 : In the city
of New Orleans for every thousand white children born, there died
within the first year 269; of Negro children born, there died 430.
In the city of Charleston for every thousand white children born,
there died the first year 200; of Negro children 461. In this city
of Eichmond for every thousand 'white children born, there died
the first year 187, and of Negro children born, there died 530 — over
one-half. And yet they tell us there is no race probleiri ! For the
years after infancy the statistics are not so complete as regards age,
and I must turn from the child statistics to those of general mor
tality. In the five years extending from 1890 to 1894 inclusive, the
general death rate in the population of the cities of Washington,
Baltimore, Eichmond, Memphis, Louisville, Atlanta, Savannah,
Charleston, Mobile and New Orleans gave a general death rate for
the whites of 20.12 per annum per thousand and for the Negroes,
32.61 per annum per thousand. (Hoffman's "Eace Traits and Ten
dencies of the American Negro," page 39.)
These figures speak for themselves. The Negro, at least in
the cities of the South, is already dying much more rapidly than
the white. The question now to be asked is, is this true of the rural
population? To that I answer, in less extent, yes. Moreover it
must be understood there is a general drift of the Negro to the cities
and towns, and once there the Negro seldom returns. The tempta
tions of the cities appeal wonderfully to the Negro; there is more
excitement, more opportunity for "picking up a living," and the
gregarious tendencies of this race, cultivated through ages in Africa,
1 " Eace Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro," pages 65-66.

192 The Montgomery Conference.
which is a land of small villages rather than of peasant homes, is
gratified. It is a fact, however, that -notwithstanding this high
death rate, the Negro population in the cities continues to increase.
This is not because the Negro birth rate exceeds the death rate, for
it does not; it is because the Negroes continue to flock to the cities
and increase the population despite the terribly high death tate. No
increase in the rui'al districts can ever offset this terrible annual
drain. In the destruction of the race the city is to play a most im
portant part and it is a thing which nothing in the Negro's racial
experience will enable him to meet.
In explanation of this terrible death rate, let us look and see
fl-hat has caused it. From all that I can gather from the medical
men of the South interested in this matter, the three great influenc-r
ing diseases of the Negro population are tuberculosis, syphilis and
enteric (typhoid) fever. Of course cancer and everything else (ex
cept property) is on the increase with a markedly criminal race, but
these are the great three.
With regard to tuberculosis the first thing I will show is that
fourteen American cities, extending from Boston to New Orleans,
but chiefiy Southern, give for every 100,000 population, an annual
death rate from tuberculosis of 280 for the whites and 591 for the
'Negro population. These statistics are based upon the census of
1890 and the health reports of the cities. Now, for the sake of
comparison with ante-bellum days, compare these figures with the
statistics based upon the health reports for Charleston, S. C, from
1822'to 1894 inclusive, and we will find that from 1822 to 1848 the
annual death rate for 100,000 population from tuberculosis ainong
the whites was 347 ; among the Negroes 342, that is, fewer Negroes
died from tuberculosis than vvhites; but from 1865 to 1894 the
annual death rate from tuberculosis ainong the whites per 100,000
population was only 213, while for the Negroes it had already risen
to 576. Now, let us turn to the next of the three chief diseases from
which this race is suffering — syphilis. I will say here first, that
syphilis rarely kills directly; it is with the adult, rather a predis
posing cause of death, though a direct cause of foetal and infant
death. (See table, page 191.) But if you have ever studied the
cause of the taking off of our American Indian, the Hawaiian, the
Maori, the Australian, the Tasmanian, etc., it will be seen that
syphilis has pla5red the principa] part. A most interesting table is
found on page 325 of Hoffman's work, comparing the Indian tribes
of tlie Uhited States, which have held their own, with those which
have decreased, between the years 1882 and 1895.- Tribes which
have been isolated and thus held aloof from syphilitic infection have
held their own, while those which have broken up their tribal rela
tions, have accepted "squaw men" and have had free intercourse
with whites of a criminal class, have almost perished. So it is with
the Negro. The breaking up of the plantation home, migration to
the city, the crowding and temptations to vice incident to city life,
are all 'working to his detriment.

Paul B. Barringer. 193
- Lastly, typhoid fever. Around nearly every city and village
m the South there is an irregular zone of Negro habitations. These
usually are in the "hollows" and valleys and they are almost in
variably supplied with drinking water from shallow wells, whether
the central village have water works or not. The condition of this
low-lying population is, for typhoid fever, infinitely less favorable
than that of the whites, who usually use "city water" or, if not, own
better and more salubrious sites. The suburban spring and the low-
lying well are the bane of this people. Within certain limits, the
conditions here given apply in the country. A Negro digs his well
where he will reach water easiest, i. e., on low ground, while his
shanty and "out-houses" are perched above. In slavery days the
large Negro quarters were, for the age, models of hygiene because
an epidemic in the "quarters" was a financial crisis for the owner,
But who now looks after the "ward of the nation ?"
Beyond the facts here set forth I may state that as a Southerner
and a physician, I am familiar with the physicians of the South and
it is the almost universal opinion -of these men, who should and do
know more of the Negro than all other classes combined, that the
Negro, as a race, is steadily degenerating both morally and physi
cally. The last census showed a decrease in gain as compared with
the preceding and when the tide once turns the end -will be in sight.
(The Maori decreased from 142,000 in 1823 to 34,000 in 1890.)
In conclusion, all things point to the fact that the Negro as a
race is reverting to barbarism with the inordinate criminality and
degradation of that state. It seems, moreover, that he is doomed at
no distant day, to. racial extinction. If reproduction ceases eight
million will die out about as rapidly as eight hundred, so the out
look for this people is. black indeed.
What brought about this condition? In my opinion eman
cipation (the Negro feels that this was a dies irae; he has no
enthusiasm for "Emancipation Day") sounded the death knell of
the Negro, but it did not of necessity decree his speedy end. Some-
* thing else was needed and fate supplied the need,^ the Negro was
duly crowned with the ballot and given control of the South. That
settled it. Enmity was deliberately ^ut between the son of the mas
ter, the only man who ever really loved the slave, and the son of
the slave. The only sincerely friendly hand the Negro ever knew
was perforce turned against him, and without it he is falling. What
will save him ? Will education ? The South has given him the
best she had and we see the result. Will industrial education prove
a panacea? The report of the Bureau of Education (G. E. Stetson,
"The White Man's Problem," page 6) for 1889-90 shows that of
1,243 graduates of seventeen colored industrial schools, three only
pursued the trade for which educated, twelve were farming, 693 were'
teaching academic schools, and the rest had all joined the non-prq-
1 Bancroft says : " An ineradicable dread of the coming power of the South-west lurkofl
iu New England." History, Vol. VI, 'p. 26.
13

194 The Montgo-mery Conference.
ducing professions and pursuits. The wealth of the Indies could
not give this entire race technical training any more than it could
satiate the appetite of those thriving on the brokerage of philan
thropy. Industrial training should be reserved for a more indus
trious people. In my opinion nothing is more certain than that the
Negro will go as the Tasmanian and the Carib have gone, but till
then he is our problem. I say our, because the New South, child of
the Old, young, strong and undaunted, proposes to deal with this
matter as she sees best. The future of the Negro surely prompts
compassion, charity and mercy — these he will get in full measure —
but the white man of the South should not and will not re-enslave
himself for the benefit of the black. Slavery is forever gone— and
with it went the bonds which for two centuries fettered the master,
and also every iota of his responsibility for this grand but ghastly
tragedy — The Sacrifice of a Eace.
Upon the conclusion of Dr. Barringer's paper, Mr. Herbert
introduced the Hon. W. Bourke Cockran, of New York City. Mr.
Cockran spoke as follows:
Nobody who has listened to the very interesting paper which
has just been read, or to the speeches which have preceded it, can
doubt that the purpose animating all the participants in this Con
ference is a determination to seek the .truth by impartial inquiry
wherever it may lead us, and to proclaim the consequences, what
ever they may be, with uhfiinching courage. If there be any aspect
of the Negro question too delicate for general discussion, theh this
Conference should never have been held. To discuss a grave eco
nomic, sociological, and political problem under a tacit agreement
that any of its features should not be mentioned, would be very
much as if physicians, consulting over a sufferer from disease, should
agree not to examine the organ most seriously affected, or to consider
its condition. As I listened to Dr. Barringer's paper, one thing became con
spicuous, and that was the terrible cost of shifting the industrial
system of a country from a basis of slavery to a basis of free labor.
It is the heaviest that can be imposed upon a nation. Except the
Southern States of America, I know of none that has ^ver borne-
it without the disorganization of its industry and the ruin of its
prosperity. It must be remembered that the Southem people have
met this test not under circumstances specially favorable to its
solution, but under every conceivable circumstance that could have-
aggravated its difficulties. It was not an evolution of prosperous
peace, but a penalty of disastrous war. It was not begun at a period
of great prosperity, -with accumulations of capital, available to meet
ahy losses that might be entailed by it; but it was undertaken at
the close of a devastating confiict, when all the- capital of the country- '
had been dissipated, when all its resources were exhausted, when

W. Bourke Cockran. 195
literally the last blade of grass had been trampled under the feet of
contending foes. Nor was this all. At the moment when the South,
exhausted financially, distracted politically, and disorganized in
dustrially, was forced to reconstruct its shattered industrial system;
when the political status of the freedmen was still to be established ;
when his productive capacity as a free laborer was problematical,
and no other source of labor was available ; when it seemed that the
only prospect of escape from utter ruin lay in conferring authority
and imposing responsibility on the highest intelligence, the broadest
patriotism, the most extensive information to be found in its entire
citizenship, at that moment the political power in each State was
taken out of the hands of the intelligent and placed in the hands
of the ignorant. Men who had never shown a capacity to hve in a
state of freedom were suddenly equipped with full control of the
Government, and four millions of ignorant blacks were metamor-
phized in a night from slaves to sovereigns.
Notwithstanding all these appalUng difficulties, we find, after
thirty-five years, that the South has not only restored the former
volume of its capital, but has increased it. Population has grown,
manufactures have sprung into existence, and wealth has multiplied,
all in an amazing degree. Where industrial paralysis had been
feared, we see industrial activity. Where ruin was foretold, we see
prosperity. Where progressive decay was considered ine-vitable,
we behold on every side the volume of production steadily widening.
Surely this marvelous progress, notwithstanding the pessimism of
certain papers read here, is conclusive and inspiring proof that civ
ilization is indestructible, and that the march of progress cannot be
arrested. These achievements, important as they are, do not show that
the South has solved all the questions arising from the war; but I
think they constitute strong proof that she has the capacity to solve-
them. The fact that we have assembled here shows that one diffi
culty stands sinister and formidable in her pathway. The South is-
still engaged in changing her industrial system from one based on
slave labor to one based on free labor, and we must not forget that
the two systems are separated by a wide chasm^ This chasm cannot
be bridged in a day; it cannot be leaped lightly. It must be crossed
painfully, slowly, laboriously, and over a bridge of sighs. But if the
difficulties before the South are formidable, the achievements behind
her are so inspiring that nobody can doubt her ability to complete
the journey to enduring peace and wider prosperity — successfully,
aye, triumphantly. The experience of thirty-five years has convinced the people of
the South of two things which, in considering the Negro problem,
must always be home in mind. First, the abolition of slavery was
not an injury to the South, but a benefit to it, since its industrial
system is to-day sounder and its prosperity greater than they have
ever been in all its history. The freedom of the Negro is, therefore.

196 The Montgomery Conference.
absolutely secure. No one in all the South would undertake to dis
turb it. On the other hand, the industrial prostration which marked
the existence of what is called carpetbag government, and the indus
trial revival which followed its overthrow in every State, have con
vinced the Southern whites that while the freedom of the Negro is
conducive to their welfare, his domination would be fatal to their
prosperity and even to their civilization. The white people of the
South, determined that their civilization should not be imperiled
by the political domination of the Negro, have succeeded in ex
cluding him from the suffrage and have refused to tolerate him on a
plane of political equality with themselves, notwithstanding the
provisions of the Constitution adopted at the close of the war. The
result has been that his constitutional status is different from his
actual status. While the Constitution has assigned him to ohe
place in our political system, public opinion has assigned him to
another, and the position which he actually occupies is that fixed by
public. opinion. The Negro question, then, I think, may be stated
as the problem how to reconcile the actual status of the Negro 'with
his theoretical status.
That this is a fair statement of the question is shown, I believe,
by all the addresses delivered at this Conference. At first blush,
these papers appear to be widely divergent in their conceptions and
consequences, but in the last analysis they were all attempts to find.
some means of reducing the actual political system of the Southem
States to harmony' with the Constitution of the United States. The
views expressed during these proceedings have been as interesting
as they were varied. One gentleman advocated the deportation of
the Negro • as the solution of this question. I venture to suggest
that before we can discuss the merits of that proposal, the gentleman
must name the country to which the Negro should be deported,
assuming that it is possible to lay violent hands on ten millions of
people and march them any conceivable distance. Humanity would
revolt against his deportation to any country where lie could not
live, and since his productive capacity is of the lowest, he could
support life only on a soil of exceptional fertility. But the white
race all' over the world is searching for a fertile soil. If an inferior
race were discovered to-piorrow in possession of valuable land, the
sea, before the lapse of a week, would be covered with ships bearing
white men determined to seize that soil, occupy it, and cultivate it;
If there be any means by which the adventurous, conquering, spirit
of the white man could be restrained from seizing land which he can
use to greater profit than the black or the bro-wn man, I should be
glad to have it pointed out. On the whole, ladies and gentlemen,
I think the idea that the Negro question can be settled by the de
portation of the negroes may be dismissed as extravagant and inad^
missible. ' It haS been suggested that this question will be settled by the
¦extermination of the Negro through natural causes. With all due

W. Bourke Cockran. 197
respect to Dr. Barringer and the other eminent gentlemen who have
advanced this view, I think it is refuted by the experience of this
generation. . If the contact of these two races in a condition of free
dom involves an irreconcilable conflict between them, which under
the laws of nature must be waged until one is annihilated by the
other, the process of extinction would have begun immediately after
the abolition of slavery.
If the Negro were doomed to perish from freedom, his decline
Would have become manifest at his flrst contact with it, when, as
has been pointed out by Booker Washington, liberated from the
control of his master before he had been taUght to control himself,
he was suddenly compelled to face the strange necessity of self-
support, while the Negro woman was compelled to assume the care
of her children before she had learned those duties of maternity
-which, in a condition qf servitude, she had rarely been allowed to
discharge. Yet far from declining, the Negro has trebled in numb.ers
during the last thirty-five yeai's, and he has begun to acquire prop
erty — the crowning proof of capacity to support civilized life. For
the white race, also, the period immediately after emancipation
was the severest test of their capacity to live under the new cohdi-
tions. The loss of capital, the destruction of lives, the ruin of cities,
were insignificant losses economically compared with the disorgani
zation of their industrial system. Yet during the same period
we find that the whites too have increased in numbers
and possessions. It is true that, -\\'hile the increase of
possessions on the part of one race has been enormous, on the part
of the other race it has been small; but, in civilization, as in all
other paths, it is the first step that costs. The colored race has
established its capacity to create and accumulate property in a state
of freedom, hecause it has accomplished the first short, painful step
in that direction, and where capacity exists, it is certain to increase
with exercise. As these two races have dwelt together here for more
than a generation, in a state of freedom, and both have increased and
prospered, nature must have decreed that they shall remain on this
soil to cultivate it, — and the decrees of nature are irreversible. We
may, therefore, accept it as a fact that the black men are to remain
in the Southern States. They are not to be driven out; they are not
to be deported, and they are not to be extinguished.
Since both races are to remain here, the very existence of civil
ization requires that their relations be established on some basis of
orderly government. As we have seen, the place in the body politic,
occupied by the Negro, is in some respects different from that in
which the Constitution sought to place him. If, then, the Negro's
theoretical constitutional status and his actual status are to be
'rfeconciled, one of two things must occur ; either the attitude of the
Southern whites must be changed, so that existing Constitutional
provisions can be enforced, or these must be modified so that they
will conform to the actual conditions established by the public
opinion of the States.

198 The Montgomery Conference.
I think it will be conceded that the attitude of the white man
on this question is absolutely immovable. If any fact can be consid
ered established by the history of the last generation it is the fixed
determination of the white race to prevent any danger of Negro
domination through the exercise of universal suffrage by the black
man. In justice to both races, it must be borne in mind that this atti
tude of the whites is not the result of a mere proposal to confer the
right of suffrage on the Negro. The revolt of the whites was not from
apprehension of Negro suffrage, but from experience of it. The
white people of the South allowed the experiment to be tried. It
was not until after it had been in actual operation for a decade that
they rose in revolt against it and overthrew it. From that experience
they have concluded, rightly or wrongly, that they are bound tp
prevent the control of the Negro over the Government by the
most sacred obligations to the family, ta the State and to civilization.
Under the influence of this sentiment, they have succeeded in nulli
fying the provisions of the Constitution which sought to place both
races on a plane of political equality. It cannot be denied that tliis
attitude of the Southern whites has been approved by the conscience
of the whole country, for without the support of public opinion
North and South, such a virtual nullification of the Constitution
could never have been accomplished.
The hostility of the white man to the constitutional provisions
intended to establish political equality between the races being in
exorable and immovable, we are driven to inquire, first, can the Con
stitution be enforced- against his opposition, and, if it can, -then
should it be so enforced ? It is obvious that if the answer to the first
question be in the negative, it is useless to consider the second.
Here, again, I think experience demonstrates conclusively that no
constitutional provision, no enactment of Congress, no exercise of
power by the State or the Federal Government, or by both combined,
can suffice to place in effective operation any system of govemment
within a State against a practically unanimous resistance of its in
habitants. It is not necessary to argue this proposition here, be
cause if it were possible to enforce a constitutional provision in a
State, against the determined opposition of the people, the amend
ments under discussion would' be in actual operation now through
out the South. These amendments were not always ineffective.
They have been enforced, and governments established on them
have been in actual operation. The colored man has had the fran
chise, not under a hostile or unwilling govemment, but under a
government controlled by himself, and his predominance in the
State was sustained by all the power of the Federal authority, yet
he was unable to maintain it. The system which depended on his
exercise of the suffrage has fallen, perished, disappeared. All the
powers of the Federal and State Governments having been
exhausted to sustain these amendments, there is none left that can

W. Bourke Cockran. 199
¦be invoked for their enforcement. All this experience shows that
in this country the State is the only agency by which any constitu
tional provision can be enforced. To enforce the law or the Con
stitution by any other agency, it would be necessary to change the
nature of the Government. There is but one way m which a con-
stitational government can enforce its decrees, and that is through
the courts. The courts are themselves the products of the localities
in which they discharge their functions. They are powerless against
a unanimous community, even if judges had any disposition to resist
it. What boots it to denounce an act as a crime by statute if public
opinion so condones or approves it that juries won't convict under
the law, and courts won't enforce its penalties ? Where courts and
juries combine to nullify a law or a constitutional provision, there
is but one way left to enforce it, and that is by the military arm.
But the use of the military arm to enforce law in time of peace
would be an abolition of Eepublican Government. It would be to
oust the civil magistracy of all its functions, and to substitute the
authority of the President, as Commander-in-Chief of the forces,
for the processes of the courts. The assumption of such authority
by the President or his subordinate military officers would be the
establishment of an .empire, by whatever name it might be called.
To establish an empire on the ruins of the Eepublic would
not be to enfranchise the Negro, but to disfranchise blacks and
whites, and place both in one common subjection under the arbitrary
will of a military officer. Nobody, I am sure, advocates the abolition
of republican government, the Negro least of all. The object of
this Conference is to find a solution of this question consistent with
the integrity of free institutions.
We are, therefore, driven to the conclusion that this question
must be left to the State for solution. The underlying principle on
which this Government rests is the right of every locality to decide
all, matters affecting it in an especial degree — not affecting it in an
exclusive degree, remember, but in a special degree. There is no
question which affects exclusively' any part of the country. The-
condition of every locality in some degree affects all other localities.
'The condition of the streets in New York City affects the people of
Alabama to some extent by affecting the conditions under which
some of their produce reaches the market. But while the people of
Alabama are thus affected by the matter, remotely, the people of
New York City are affected by it directly; and because the people
¦of New York have the largest interest in the subject, it is assumed
that they will, consider it the most carefully and dispose of it most
wisely. For that reason, in the interest not merely of New York,
but of the whole country, the control of its streets is left to the-
people of New York; and upon the universal application of that
principle alone can republican government be maintained.
The condition of the Negro affects the welfare of the Eepublic

200 The Montgomery Conference.
in every State, but it affects specially the State in which he dwells.
The Negro question is essentially a Southern question, in the sense
that the Southern people are most deeply concerned in it. To us of
the North it is a question of interest and importance; but to the
people of the South it is a matter vitally affecting the conditions of
existence. "To the South then must be left the solution of this
problem. The rest of the country .can contribute to it nothing but
sympathy, advice and moral support. Citizenship for the Negro,
as for all others, proceeds from the Federal Government; but the
political rights which citizenship. confers within the State are fixed
by the State. These are not proposals to be accepted or rejected.
They are not speculations to be considered. They are facts in
exorable and undeniable. The attempt to confer political privileges
by the Federal Constitution has been made, but every effort to en
force them has failed. It is not worth while discussing whether the
enforcement of these amendments would be desirable or undesir- -
able, because it is impossible. No one has suggested any ne\i'
method of making them effective. All the known methods have
been tried, and they have failed.
Since the opposition of the white man to the constitutional
amendments, establishing political equality between the two racqs,
is immovable, and since these provisions cannot be enforced against
his opposition, there is but one way left, by which the theoretical
and the actual status of the Negro can be reconciled, and that is by
changing the Constitution. I do not underestimate, for a moment,
the difficulty that lies in the way of accomplishing this result; but
difficulties should not deter us from attempting a laudable enter
prise. In suggesting a change of the Constitution as the only pos
sible solution of this problem, I am not actuated by hostility to
either race, bu.t by friendship for both, and by a profound convic
tion that the interests of blacks and whites are identical — that what
is for the benefit of one must result in the benefit of both. If 1
thought there was such an irreconcilable confiict between
them — that one was inexorably doomed to extinction at the
hands of the other — I would not be here to assist in recording such
a conclusion of horror. I am here because I believe there is a way
by which the two races can be maintained in peaceful, profitable in
dustrial co-operation for the cultivation of this soil to the unbounded
prosperity of both.
I repeat that whether the principle of the amendments intended
to establish equality between the two races be good or bad, wise or
foolish, it would be profitless to discuss, because they cannot be made
effective. And, indeed, nobody has suggested that they should be
enforced to their logical conclusion, — that in certain States where
the" Negroes are in a majority of the population they should resume
control of the Government. I do not believe there is a white man
in'the United States who would advocate that proposition; and to

W. Bourke Cockran. 201
their credit be it said, the majority of the intelligent Negroes would
shrink from imposing on their people, separated from servitude
barely by a generation, a test of civilization which the most en
lightened white races can hardly meet to-day.
It is true that a distinguished gentleman yesterday addressed
this body in favor of accepting the Fifteenth Amendment, on the
ground that by estaljlishing an educational and property test the
Negro would be effectually excluded from the suffrage. That is to
say, he favors a formal or verbal acceptance of these amendments,
because he thinks he has discovered an effective means of evading
them. Ladies and gentlemen, evasion in politics is never commendable
and always 'unprofitable. Difficulties evaded are not difficulties
avoided. The first step towards the solution of a problem is to state
it. A question accurately defined and boldly faced is generally a
question half solved. I admit at the beginning that the difficulties
in the way of obtaining an amendment of the Constitiition are
numerous and formidable. Before an amendment can be adopted
it must have practically the support of the whole people of the
United States, including the colored race. The fact that practi
cally unanimous consent would be necessary to its adoption renders
it useless to discuss any amendment unless it be one which would
improve the condition of the weaker race.
Is it then possible to substitute for the constitutional provi-'
sions, which have been nullified by the resistance of the community,
some new provisions which the conscience of the State will enforce,
and which will effectively protect the liberty, the property, and the
lives of the colored race ?
The first step towards securing the co-operation of the colored
race for a modification of the Constitution is to satisfy them that ex
isting provisions are even more injurious to them than to the white
people of the South. We cannot ignore the fact that the colored
race believes the Fifteenth Amendment is a great charter of rights,
conferring upon them privileges of great importance; but this is a
delusion. They confound with a promise of privilege a grant of
privilege. These constitutional provisions in effect declare the col
ored race entitled to certain political privilges, but they do not place
thfe colored race in actual possession of these privileges, and they
never will. The whole Negro problem arises from an attempt to
modify the laws of nature by the laws of man. The white race
and the black race are separate, distinct, different. The constitu
tional amendments, have sought to abolish these distinctions of race
which nature has established, and the attempt has failed. The
framers of the constitutional amendments and of fhe Eeconstruction
Acts believed that they had abolished distinctions of race when they
forbade any recognition of them in the legislation of the State ; but
the' distinctions remain to this day, governing the life of the com
munity. In the opinion of the people a distinction exists between

202 The Montgomery Conference.
the races, and that opinion has been enforced not through legisla
tion, but in the teeth of the Constitution and the laws. The con
stitutional provisions have not given the Negro any privileges which
public opinion has denied him; but they have operated to deprive
¦him of rights which the States would have been glad to confer
on him if thby had been left entirely free to manage their own
¦affairs. The experience of thirty-five years has shown that the
¦opinion of a community will assert itself in the teeth of all
obstacles. If the Constitution and the laws stand in the way, both
will be overthrown. Thus the Constitution prohibits the State in
prescribing punishment for crime, from differentiating between
the perpetrators on the lines of race or color. The community, how
ever, regards a certain crime as immensely aggravated when an ele
ment of race enters into it. This instinct of race is more powerful
than any law. It may be that such an offence, when committed by
an ignorant black man, is less heinous, morally, than when com
mitted by an intelligent white man; but, in the opinion of the
people, when a white wOman is the victim and a black man the per
petrator, it acquires an element of physical horror, which aggravates
it beyond all other offences, making it fouler than arson, blacker
than murder, more heinous even than parricide. The con
stitutional provision prohibiting any discrimination in penalties on
account of color prevents the people of the State from expressing this
race instinct in the legislation of the State, but moral perceptions
are stronger than any constitutional provisions. If they cannot as
sert themselves through the Constitution, they assert themselves in
spite of it. The constitutional prohibition is effective to prohibit
the State from prescribing a special penalty against this offence,
when aggravated by elements of race, but it does not prevent the
infliction of a special penalty. The special penalty, which can't be im
posed by the courts, is inflicted by the mob in defiance of the court.
Surely, the colored man is not a gainer, but a loser, from the exist
ence of such a constitutional provision. If the State were allowed
to deal with this offence according to the moral perceptions of its
people, it would undoubtedly be punished with special severity when
perpetrated by a black man against a white woman, but the accused
would have an opportunity of proving his innocence. The constitu
tional provision has not abolished distinctions of penalty based on
race, but it has deprived the Negro of an opportunity to prove his
innocence. Plainly, the colored man is the greatest sufferer from
this attempt to abolish natural distinctions of race by constitutional
provisions, but the injury to the white man is also grave. To take
human life, except under the most solemn sanction of justice, is al-
Avays brutalizing. To take it outside the law in the name of justice is
to trample upon all law. It may well be a question whether a commu
nity, going outside the law for vengeance, is not perpetrating a
graver offence than any which it might seek to punish. Lawlessness
¦cannot be checked by the perpetration of lawlessness. Eespect for

W. Bourke Cockran. 203
law cannot be imposed by violation of law. Taking a human life by
¦violence can never be an impressive lesson of order, for the victim
may well feel that whatever his offence, it is less than that of which
he is the victim. Crime can never be discouraged by placing its per
petrator on a higher moral plane than its avengers. Surely, the
lynching of a Negro cannot impose respect for law upon his own
race, for it is an evidence of contempt for law by the superior race.
Many remedies have been suggested here for lynching, but it
seems to me it can never be suppressed until the crime which pro
vokes it can be punished in each State according to the popular con
ceptions of morality and justice. When the State is allowed to
prescribe whatever penalty its people may think most likely to dis
courage crime, then there would be no disposition to take the ad
ministration of that penalty from the hands of the properly con
stituted authorities. It may be said that the State would prescribe
inhuman punishments in its horror of this offence, but however a
legal punishment may violate civilized conceptions of repressive
measures, it is better that the penalty should be administered by
the State than by the mob. The lynehings chronicled in the news
papers every day prove conclusively that constitutional prohibitions
•do not prevent the infliction of special penalties on colored men, but
-aggi^avate them, as the lawless vengeance of a mob is always more
severe than the sternest judgment of a court. Since the people of
the State can't be prevented from taking whatever measures public
-opinion may deem adequate for the suppression of this offence, it
is best that the means of repression should be expressed -in their
-statute books and administered by their courts in the open light of
'day. Here again, I repeat, I decline to discuss whether this is the
best remedy for lynching conceivable, because it is the only remedy
practicable. I know it is said that lynehings have been frequent in the
South for other offences than the one to which I refer, and I believe
the' statement is quite true, but this only proves that when the bar
riers of law are broken do-wn in one direction the tide of lawlessness
is apt to break them down everywhere. The fact that lynching had
its origin in this particular crime is proved by the fact that it has
sprung up in the South since the war. Lynching is impossible
without the participation, active or passive, of the community. It
is the first step that always costs. The repetition of an offence is
always easier than its first perpetration. A community taking ven
geance into its o-wn hands, even through horror of a great crime,
loses its firm anchorage in respect for orderly govemment, and may
1)6 moved to punish less serious offences in a similar manner. The
only way by which lynching can be prevented is by removing the
only cause which in public opinion furnishes any semblance of jus
tification for it. There can be no excuse for attempts to maintain
order by lawlessness when the State has full authority to establish
its laws upon its own conceptions of morality and justice. If the

204 The Montgomery Conference.
exercise of this power result in the enactment of laws which violate- ,
the principles of civilized society, the State cannot take refuge, be-,
hind the mob. Its people must take the responsibility for its laws
before the whole human family, and the strongest controlling infiu
ence upon civilized states is the opinion of civilization.
Up to the present we have discussed certain irreconcilable dif
ferences between the two races. Let us see if there cannot be some
features of their existing relations which might furnish a basis of
harmonious and profitable industrial co-operation between them.
To begin with, we have one indisputable and pregnant fact. Al
though the negro is denied political rights in the South and allowed,
them in the North, none the less he is flocking to the Southern.
States. The reason for this is very well explained by Mr. Washing
ton, who points out that while the Negro is given political rights in
the North, he is denied industrial rights in the South ; he is denied ¦
political rights but allowed industrial rights. I think his expression
was that in New York the Negro has a chance to spend a dollar
iP attending the opera; but 'his chances of earning the dollar are
very much better in the South, and in his present condition it is much
more important that he should be allowed to earn a dollar than be
allowed to spend it at the opera. That states the whole truth of
the matter. In the North the Negro is welcome to carry a torch in
a political procession about election time, but he is not allowed to
carry a dinner pail in the great industrial procession which takes
place every day ; while in the South he is excluded from the field of
politics but welcomed to the field of labor. The Negro, forced to
choose between the right to work and the right to vote, has chosen
the better part. He has decided to work, and notwithstanding his
exclusion from the suffrage by the Southern people, he has elected
to cas-t his lot with them and gain his subsistence on their soil by the
labor of his hands.
It is true that the Negro resents his exclusion from the suf
frage ; nobody can deny that. He submits to it, but it would be idle
to say that this submission is cordial or even voluntary. The white
man is inexorably determined to maintain that exclusion, at
least under existing conditions. Can the Negro be induced to
co-operate for the repeal of the provisions which have promised him
political equality, though they have not conferred it upon him? Ee-,
member, it is not suggested that the Negro renounce his political
rights. He is asked to abandon the vain effort to obtain them
through the intervention of the Federal Government, and to accept
such rights and privileges as the State is willing to confer upon him '
now, with the hope that these may be enlarged as he rises in the-
scale of civilization. Befpre asking the Negro to accept tlie measure
of political rights which the State is willing to confer upon him, let
lis ascertain precisely his actual political status. Here I am appeal
ing to him as mueh as I am appealing to you. I am speaking as a
friend of both races, and believe me, no man is a friend of the one-

W. Bourke Cockran. 205
that is not a friend of the other. The exclusion of the Negro from
the suffrage, of course, excludes him from a voice in the control of
the Government under which he lives. The attempt to measure the
consequences of exclusion from the control of Government involves
an inquiry as to what government is. Ladies and gentlemen, I
think government might be defined as an invention pr device for
the protection of property. When man had no possessions of his
own but his life and his limb, he did not institute government to
.protect them. It was not until he had acquired property that he
began, to co-operate with his feUow-men to establish means for its
security. This is not a sordid definition as might appear at first
blush, because the protection of property involves the protection of
every element, intellectual, moral or material, on which civilization
depends. Under a free government men will not work unless they
are protected in the enjoyment of the property created by their toil.
Every laborer works primarily for his own benefit but ultimately
for the benefit of aU his fellows. Wherever human hands guide a
plough, wherever an axe is laid at the roots of a tree, wherever the
product of human toil ia being harvested, wherever a train is rush
ing over shining rails, or a bark is moving across surging seas;
Avherever a spade is active on the bosom of the earth, or a pickaxe
swings in a subterranean passage, there men are working for you
and for me, creating commodities available for our comfort and
sustenance, though each is conscious of no motive except a desire
to gain his own livelihood by wages or by profit. Government, in
securing to everyone the peaceable enjoyment of the wages or -profit
which he is creating, establishes that industrial co-operation by
which each man helps all other men. In protecting capital, gov
ernment is encouraging the activity of labor, because the function
of capital is to re-enforce the productive capacity of the laborer.
Capital itself is but stored up labor. A man with his
fingers could turn over a few square feet of earth in
the course of a day, but with the plough he can turn over several
acres. The plough is capital. It is the product of labor expended
in other days. The use of capital is the application of stored up
labor to active labor — the re-enforcement of to-day's labor by labor
expended in other days. In discharging this function of protecting
property, government therefore keeps alive all the agencies of civ
ilization, maintaining in motion the tendencies and forces which
continually augment the productive capacity of man, and make
every day in the life of the race one stage in a march of continuous
progress. ' ,
Government has had different forms at different times, but
never until the close of the last century had democratic government
existed on the face of the earth. Democracy had always been a
dream to cherish, but it never was a possession to enjoy until this
Govemment was founded. All manner of governments, from the
ocracy to democracy, from despotism to freedom, have succeeded

2o6 The Montgomery Conference.
each other upon this earth. Despotism is based on the belief
that security to property can be attained only by the surrender of in
dividual liberty. Aristocratic institutions are based upon a con
ception that virtue belongs to a small class in each community,
the members of which alone are fitted to exercise political power.
Democracy proceeds upon the assumption that virtue, intelligence,
and patriotism are not the possessions of an indiridual or of a class,
but qualities within the reach of every member of the human family.
Autocratic government, then, is based upon distrust of human vices,
and democratic government upon confidence in popular virtue. All
the changes in government between these two extremes which the
world has -witnessed may be explained, in my judgment, by the
search of property for greater security. Whatever form of govern-,^
ment we may consider, we will find that at the time of its establish
ment it was the best known device for the security of property.
This explains the greatness of Eome under the Antonnines, when
property was secure through all the limits of the empire. The em
pire fell when taxation had become so onerous that property
had more to fear from its existence than, from the success of the
barbarians who swept across its frontiers. As feudalism became
restrictive of industry, ^we see kingcraft rise from its ruins, because
commerce felt that the exactions of an individual, however great,,
could never be as oppressive as the destructive disorder of military
chiefs, who believed that prosperity could be found in plunder and
carnage. When the crown in tum threatened the security of prop
erty by excessive and arbitrary taxation, the kingship fell. Even in
this country, the colonists who had been prodigal bf their blood to
maintain kingly authority over this continent, drew the sword and
overthrew it when the cro-wn undertook to impose taxes without
representation. The, ballot is but one means of maintaining gov
ernment. It is peculiar to democratic citizenship. Citizenship
however does not carry with it the right of suffrage, but it does carry
with it the right of protection. 'Wliat government owes all men is
, security and not a voice in its control. Here the ballot is not
conferred upon a man merely to increase his dignity, but to be
exercised as a sacred trust for his own protection and the protection
of his fellows. It might be that in order to discharge this duty of
protection effectively, the Government would be bound to withdraw
the ballot from some of its citizens. The ballot in the hands of
ignorant or depraved men might result in their own injury, and fn
that case Government, to discharge properly this obligation of pro
tection, would be bound to exclude them from the suffrage. These -
States have had the experience of universal Negro suffrage for some
eight years, and I think it is the unanimous opinion of cirilization
that if it had continued until this time all industry would ^have
been subverted, all property destroyed, and every avenue of employ
ment closed. Now, the Negro is the poorest member of the com-
inunity who must live from hand to mouth by the earnings of every
day. Since he is without any stored up capital, he would be the

IV, Bourke Cockran. 207
fi;st sufferer froqi a suspension of industry and the last to recover
from it. The withdrawal of the ballot from the Negro was not an
injury wantonly infficted upon him, but in the judgment of the
Southern people it was a measure necessary for his own protection
as well as for the preservation of civilized life within these States.
While the white people deny the capacity of the Negro to exer
cise control over government in the South, and are determined to
exclude him from a system of universal suffrage, there is one point
on which blacks and whites are agreed. The black man has a ca
pacity for work and the white man wants him to work. Here, let
me say again that the capacity of the Negro for work completely re-
. futes the theory advanced by Dr. Barringer that the Negro is essen
tially a barbarian, incapable of civilization, and certain in a state of
freedom to develop irresistible tendencies to savagery. The test of
capacity for civilization is the capacity for voluntary labor. Wher
ever a race has met civilization and failed to perish, that fact proves
that it is not absolutely and irredeemably barbarous. Civilization
is a jealous mistress. Wherever she meets a man she exacts his
service or his life. If he cannot labor he dies. Civilization met the
Indian, and he has perished. It has met the Negro, and he lives,
increasing in numbers, in capacity and in possessions. Against that
fact all theories are worthless. I do not care for any philosophical
formula or any diagram that you could draw upon a blackboard.
Against formulas and blackboards I place that gallery ( indicating -
the colored audience), with its occupants well dressed, well behaved,
intelligent, and capable.
The most difficult step in civilization is the first ; the man who •
can make that can make all others. When we are told that the-
' Negro is a savage and incapable of self-support, I ask how did these-
men and women obtain their clothes ? They have been admitted here
by ticket and that fact pi:oves their respectability. What they pos
sess, therefore, they must have obtained by labor, and the race which
possesses members capable of labor sufficiently fruitful to obtain
these clothes is capable of every improvement. There is no answer
to a fact. Whenever a theory comes in conflict with a fact there is
but one thing to do. We cannot change the fact as most of us would
prefer, so we must change the theory. The ability of the black man
to labor is a fact because the fruits of labor are in his possession.
His capacity for civilization is, therefore, undeniable, whatever
theories to the contrary scientific men may have formulated.
The black man in the South is not merely capable of labor ; he-
is, practically, the only laborer. Before discussing the political re
lationship which might be established between the two races, by
constitutional or statute law, it, will be advisable to understand the-
economic relations already established between them. Economic
conditions cannot be modified by the laws of the' State or of all
the States: Economic law is as irresistible and unchangeable as the
law which governs the progress of the seasons or the movements of

2o8 . The Montgomery Conference.
the 'planets. Man can no more control the economic than the
natural law, but he is a free agent to obey it or to disobey it., In
the ope case he will prosper, in the other he will suffer. If I would
rather sow corn in Pebmary than in April there is nothing to pre
vent me, but my sowing will not be rewarded by a crop. If I want
a crop I must sow in the sowing season, and that sowing season has
been' fixed by nature. Now, the relations between persons who live
upon the same soil are fixed by the economic law, and they cannot
be changed. The relationship is one of partnprship, and in this part
nership the laborer, is the most important member. Upon his in
dustry all other forms of industry depend. His arms set in motion
all the wheels of production. The mechanic cannot exercise his
skill in finishing an article of general consumption until the raw
material has been placed within his reach ; the merchant cannot sell
commodities until the mechanic has produced them; the banker
cannot fix rates of exchange until the merchant has disposed of his
goods, and railways cannot obtain merchandise to transport except
as contracts are made between traders — the whole industrial struc
ture consists of various forms of activity resting one upon another
with unskilled labor at the base. The laborer is then the fountain of '
prosperity, the fountain of commerce, the fountain of wealth. He
is the source of every industry. He strikes the soil and the product
of his hand is the source of the whole industrial stream to which
other forms of labor are but tributaries as it holds its course in a
tide of ever swelling prosperity to the great ocean of human en- ,
deavor. - ,
The Negro, occupying almost exclusively the field of labor, is
the most important element in the whole community. This is true,
whether you like him or hate him — whether you respect or despise
him — whether you welcome him to the ballot box or exclude him
from the suffrage. The black man and the white man are partners.
As one prospers the other must prosper. 'While the white man in
.the South enjoys the larger share of industrial prosperity, the black
man plays the first part in creating it. So close is the interdepen
dence of the laborer and all other members of the community that
there is but on© standard of prosperity absolute infallible, and that
is the rate of wages paid to labor. Wages being that part of his own
product which the laborer receives in compensation for his toil, it is '
plain that the larger his product the greater the fund available for
his compensation If a laborer produces one desk every day worth,
ten dollars, and his -wages be two dollars, what he actually gVts is
one-fifth of his own product. Of course, he cannot take one-fifth of
the desk away with him, so he takes its equivalent in money, that is
to say, he takes one-fifth of its value or, in other words,
two dollars. If instead of one desk worth ten dollars,
he could produce two desks worth twenty dollars every day;
and his proportion of the product remained the same, his -wages
would be doubled. But I could much better afford to pay him fouf
dollars for producing two desks worth twenty dollars than two

W. Bourke Cockran. 209
dollars for producing one worth ten dollars, and this explains what
is often considered a mystery in economics, that the highest paid
wages is always the cheapest ; that is to say, it is the most profitable
to the employer. The laborer cannot increase his wages except by
increasing the product, and the product cannot be increased without
increasing the demand for every element that enters into it. Where
the production of desks is increased, more wood, more glue, more
tools must be used. Additional means of transportation must be
employed. An increase in the demand for these commodities neces
sarily leads to an increase in the demand for labor to produce them,
and thus the increase in one laborer's wages operates to maintain
or increase the rate of wa,ges in every other department of industry.
Moreover, the increase in production lessens the cost of commodities
to the laborer, as well as to the community, and thus the increase of
production operates to increase wages in twofold degree, — in their
volume and in their purchasing power. What is true of tl^e me
chanic employed in making desks is equally true of the Negro em
ployed in laying pavements or in cultivating a field. Every increase
in his efficiency tends to improve the condition of every member of
the community. By increasing his own wages he increases the pros
perity of his neighbors, as well as of his employer. As we have al
ready seen, every man who labors works for the benefit of all his
fellows. Every man, black or white, who moves across the sta,ge
which we call the world, performing any part in the great function
of life, whether it be cultivating the earth or facilitating the ex
change of commodities produced by others; fighting disease or es
tablishing laws for the -protection of industry; planning devices to
re-enforce the productive power of human hands, or unraveling the
mysteries of the universe— ^all are engaged in one vast scheme of
industrial partnership, which embraces the whole human family .^
The relationship between all men and the cultivators of the soil
being essentially one of industrial co-operation, the question before
the people of the South is, shall this co-operation be cordial and pro-
ductiye, or shall it be reluctant and iuefficient? You cannot dis
solve the partnership, try as you might; but you can decide whether
it shall be profitable or unprofitable. You can decide whether there
shall be cordial co-operation 'or reluctant co-operation between the
two races. One means measureless prosperity for you, and the other
means contracted resources, occasional panics, and prolonged periods
of commercial depression. Which will you choose ? With you white
men who must direct the labor of the South rests the responsibility
for the future of both races. Mutual interest should breed mutual
confidence. Will you aid each other to prosperity by cordial co
operation or will you plunge each other into decay through reluctant
co-operation? It is idle to deny that the relations between the two
races now are far from satisfactory. The black man is regarded as
a source of potential danger while the constitutional amendments
promise hiin privileges which the white men are determined he shall
14

2IO The Montgomery Conference.
not exercise. The black man, excluded from privileges to which he
Relieves himself entitled, views the white man with distrust if not
with resentment, and is inclined to suspect that as his political rights
have been curtailed his industrial rights may soon be invaded.
This attitude of apprehension and distrust, fast drifting into
hostility between the races, is the one dark, sinister cloud on the
horizon of the South. Let but this race question be settled on a basis
of justice and morality — on no other basis can it be settled — and all
the people of these States, white and colored, -will enter upon a
career of prosperity as unparalleled in the history of the, world as
their soil is unapproached by any land under the quickening kisses
of the sun. '
I appeal to the interests of both for the abolition of senseless
constitutional provisions which have proved wholly ineffective either
for the actual bestowal of political privileges or the protection of
individual security, and which are effective only to provoke distrust
between the races. Cannot we substitute for the provisions which
have proved restrictive of co-operation, prorisions which will pro
mote it, by recognizing the ever increasing bond of mutual in
terest between the races ? I repeat that any provision which can be
adopted must be one which both races will sanction. It is not worth
while discussing whether this is theoretically the best method of
securing- a constitutional amendment, it is the only practical method.
While the Negro may not be able to assert any actual political rights
under the Federal Constitution, he can always exercise sufficient
infiuence to prevent any amendment of it against his protest.
In advocating the repeal of amendments which cannot be en
forced, I am not suggesting any change in the actual constitutional
system of the country. These amendments are now nullified, non
existent. It has been said that I would advocate, and that this Con
ference would recommend, the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment.
To assemble for the purpose of advocating the repeal of the Fif
teenth Amendment would be superfluous. It is repealed, it is nuUi-
iied, it is dead. It does pot exist — it has been lynched. Now, I have
the same objection to lynching a constitutional amendment as to
• lynching a man. The crime which provokes lynching may be hein
ous, but the method of avenging it is demoralizing. Once lynching
is begun it is impossible to foretell the extent to which it may be
carried. And so the nullification of constitutional amendments is
a proceeding fraught with danger to a constitutional system. A
constitutional provision which cannot be enforced hangs like a dead
limb on a tree, endangering the life of the whole body. My sug
gestion is merely to recognize actual but inevitable conditions, and
to substitute for irregular nullification of the Constitution the or
derly procedure of amendment and repeal.
¦We have, then, certain propositions which may be accepted as
fundamental and indisputable.
First, Certain existing constitutional provisions cannot be en
forced.

W. Bourke Cockran. 2 1 1
Second, No amendment is possible without the concurrence of
both races.
Third, No constitutional provision can be enforced in any State
against a unanimous public opinion.
Fourth, The only agency by which either law or Constitution
can be put in operation, under our form of government, is the
State. Fifth, Everybody, black and white, North and South, is in favor
of preserving the citizenship of the Negro inviolate forever.
Sixtli, The Negro is fully and freely admitted to equal rights
with the whites except in two respects : he is not allowed to partici
pate in universal suffrage; and when accused of a certain crime he
is frequently deprived of life without due process of law. To place
the actual political status of the Negro in harmony with his theo
retical status, the only amendment of the Constitution necessary
would be a provision restoring control of the suffrage to the State,
and one authorizing the State to prescribe such penalties as it might
deem proper for crimes committed against white women by black
men. Ts it extravagant to hope that the Negr^o could be induced to
support such amendments in his own interest? Surely it must be
clear to him -that such a change, while depriving him of no privilege
which he actually enjoys, would result in giring some right of suf
frage on local or municipal matters immediately and sonie prospect
of wider rights hereafter, while it would almost certainly put a stop
to lynching by removing every pretext of justification for it.
It is important to remember that the most important point
of difference -between the races is not the admission of the
Negro to the suffrage, as is generally stated, but whether his
right to the suffrage should be determined by the Uhited
States, or by the State. The suffrage, originally was wholly
within the control of the State. With a single exception it is
within its control now to be given, or withheld at its absolute
discretion. It can discriminate between citizens on account of
property, on account of education, on account of stature, on lines
physical, moral or intellectual, but it cannot discriminate on ac
count of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The South
ern States, however, while they cannot prescribe distinctions by law
on account of color or race, have ehforced these distinctions in their
customs, and custom is stronger than any law, constitutional or
.statute. My proposition is not necessarily to exclude the Negro
from the suffrage, but to allow the State to decide the conditions
on which he shall be admitted to the suffrage. It is not worth while
discussing whether in this respect the State or the Nation is aca
demically the better source of authority. It is enough, to say that
the State is able to enforce its laws on the subject and the United
States are not. The United States have attempted to give the
Negro the suffrage and they have failed. The State being the only
power that can settle the race question effectively, its hands should

2 1 2 The Montgomery Conference.
be left free to deal with it, not acording to the impulses of the
more violent, but according to the wisdom of the most enlightened
and conservative of its citizens.
If full control over the suffrage be restored to the State, let us
see what would be the effect upon the Negro, immediate and remote.
A^ith power in the hands of the State to fix the political status of
the Negro, the white people of the South would no longer be held
together by fear of him. Delivered from the spectre of Negro dom
ination, they would soon compete among themselves to promote his
prosperity, because they would, realize that their own improvement
. depends upon his improvement. We have seen that the Negro
cannot increase his wages without increasing the prosperity of every
member of the community. The converse of the proposition is
equally true. The community cannot beeome prosperous -without
admitting the laborer to a share of the prosperity which he creates
by increasing the rate of his wages. My friends, would you
object to an improvement in the conditioh of the Negro which you
will share in large degree ? The more productive his labor, the more
extensive your prosperity. The more efficient the labor of the Ne
gro, the more valuable he is to the community, and that which the
community values it never oppresses. As the Negro develops in
dustrial capacity he will make his own place in the political system
of the State. What that may be I cannot say. What the future ¦
holds in her grasp remains veiled behind the impenetrable shadow- of
the years that ai-e to come. This much I do know, that no race and
no class which developed industrial capacity has ever been excluded
permanently from some 'recognition in the political system of the
State. As the Negro develops industrially he will improve materi
ally and politically. His evolution -will be accomplished by the
development of the productive capacity which he possesses, not by
premature, improvident and ineffective attempts to give him po
litical privileges. Progress for the Negro is along t,he line of in
dustrial evolution. That is the pathway which the white man has
followed. There is no other open to the footsteps of man, black or
white. ' The Negro shall have the benefit of the white
man's experience, ^e will be able to see the causes which
obstructed and those which have facilitated the march of the
white race for four thousand years. His vrill be the benefit of our
successes and the warnings of our failures.^ His progress will, per
haps, be more rapid than ours, but whether faster or slower it must
be made along the line of industrial improvement, which the, God
of all races has prescribed as the sole pathway to civilization and
liberty. It has been said that if the control of the suffrage were restored
to the State, the Negro would have no protection against oppression
or spoliation. The first answer to that suggestion is that the Negro
is excluded from the suffrage now, yet all his personal rights .^.re

W. Bourke Cockran. 2 1 3
secure, with the exception that he is not always accorded due process
of law when accused of a certain crime. I am not afraid that under
any circumstances the State would allow the Negro to be discour
aged from labor, and any violation of his personal rights would
operate to discourage his productive capacity. If one State under
took to oppress the Negro or neglect his interests, some other State, .
with a keener conception of its ovra. welfare, would pursue a more
enlightened policy, and the fruits of enlightenment would be so
beneficent and so conspicuous that the State which achieved pros
perity through, justice would soon be the model to which every other
State would conform. If the desire fon prosperity were not enough
to insure justice, consider for a moment the appalling consequences
of injustice or neglect. If the Negro is to decay, he will drag the
whites do-wn with him. You are linked upon this soil. You cannot
be separated. Together you must rise, or together you' must fall.
If the Negro becomes poorer, squalor follows fast after poverty, be
hind squalor follow vice and brutality, and these brutalize and de
moralize all who witness them. Close on the heels -of squalor, vice
ahd brutality follow .disease and pestilence. Think you, ladies and
gentlemen, that you can localize the bitter fruits of crime and filth
and famine? What barrier can be erected between one p'art of a
community and another, whicii disease cannot pass? Think you
that pestilence can be lynched or that it can be frightened from
invading the homes of the whites after ravaging the hovels of the
blacks? If demoralization, disease and crime be bred in Negro
huts they will invade your dwellings, strike do-^n your best beloved
and your most highly esteemed, corrupting every class, involving
the weak and strong, blacks and whites in one common ruin.
For ' the faithful discharge of every duty to the weak,
imposed by humanity on the strong, the white people of the
Southern States pledge the future of their children, the security of
their homes, the lives of their citizens, all the property which they
possess and all the hopes of prosperity which they cherish. With
such hostages to humanity there can be no fear of inhumanity.
My friends, while passing through this country of yours, on my
joumey from New York, I looked through the windows of the train
on the fairest land- which ever gladdened the eye of man — on
pasture where innumerable fiocks browsed by rippling brooks; on
towns where buildings seem to spring by magic from the ground ; on
teeming populations engaged in transmuting the raw product of the
earth into the finished commodities available for the support, the
comfort, and the luxury of men, while beneath the soil still greater
wealth waited but the pickaixe of the miner, to contribute still larger
streams of abundance to the prosperity of the land; and looking,
I felt that this, indeed, was a paradise, — not a garden where a race
had fallen, but a garden where a race will be saved.
Because the Negro has not yet been able to acquire all the po
litical privileges of the riiost advanced civilization in the world,.

214 The Montgomery Conference.
some people despair of the future. You must remember that one
generation ago the Negro was a slave, regarded by the white man
not merely as of an inferior race, but as of a distinct species. Al
though he is not admitted to full participation in the government
of the State, he has jnade greater progress than has been achieved
during an equal period by any other race in history. The chasm
between him and the white man to-day is not so wide as that which
separated the Eussian serf and the Eussian noble fifty years ago,
not nearly so wide as that, between the French peasant and the
French noble before the Bevolution, far less wide than that between
the English frankman or freeman and the English noble two hun
dred years ago, as any one may see who reads in Coke upon Lyttle
ton the path exacted from the freeman by his lord as the condition
of his tenancy. The black man to-day enjoys here in the South
every right and privilege which any white man enjoys throughout
the world outside the United States. The security of his property
is the only right which the white, man enjoys in any country of
continental Europe; that right the black man enjoys in the
Southern States in a much higher degree. Here he is not drafted
into an army as in France or Germany, his labor wholly stolen for
three years, and partially stolen for the balance of his life to sup
port other men in military barracks.
Surely the ' condition of the black man would be immensely
improved if, instead of straining at this moment after the shadow of
political privileges the substance of which he cannot attain, he de
voted his energy to improving his industrial capacity in which the
'.\hole people of the South are ready to encourage him. If he follow
this course I believe that political privilege^ vrill come to him, not
in a year, not perhaps in a generation, but just as soon as he will
have shown by his industrial efficiency that he is ready to use them
to his own profit and for the welfare of the community. It must
be remembered that a share in the control of democratic govem
ment is not an elemental right of civilization, but its very highest
achievement and reward. No white man enjoyed it until the close
of the last century, for the simple reason that untU that time white
men were not fit for it. While republican government was established
for the first time on this continent, the origin of democratic insti
tutions is not to be found in the Constitution of the United States,
nor in the Declaration of Independence, nor in the Petition of
Eight, nor in Magna Charta, nor in any institutions or enactments
of purely human origin. It was announced for the first time nine
teen hundred years ago on the shores of Lake Galilee, when tlie
Saviour of mankind proclaimed the principle that all men who
dwelt upon the earth were equal in the eyes of Him who created it.
The general acceptance of- tliis doctrine of Christianity necessarily
led to democracy, because institutions based upon the equality of all
men in the eye of the law were the natural fruit of a religious
belief in the equality of all men in the eye of God. Men were readier

W. Bourke Cockran. 215
to accept the religious belief than to acknowlege, its political con
sequences. In less than five centuries all the Pagan temples were given
over to the worship of Him who died upon the cross, but it took
eighteen hundred years before the doctrine which He preached was
reduced to -practical operation in institutions of government. These
centuries, however we may regard them, whatever disturbances may
have marked their course, were all periods of progress for the indi
ridual man. The essence of Christian revelation was the improve-
;ment of the unit, the indiridual. Christ's mission was not addressed
to kings or rulers, or nations, but to each separate man. His mis
sion was in no sense political, although it has accomplished the most ¦
important political results which the world has ever seen. So far
as He spoke of political institutions it was to counsel obedience tq
them. He bade the subject be loyal to Cssar, but His doctrine re
minded Cassar that he was responsible to a higher, power for his
treatment of the subject. He bade the slave be submissive in his
chains, but His gospel warned the master that the man whose limbs
bore irons was spiritually the equal of the man whose brow wore
the crown. If, when He gave the word. He spoke as God, He suf
fered and died as a man so that all humanity should learn how
to obey it. It was as a man that He bore the insult of the soldier ;
it was as a man that He received the crown of thomS on His head,
the nails through His hands and feet, the spear through His side,
and the sponge at His lips. It was as a man that He asked forgive-
,ness for the men who had derided Him, mocked Him, killed Him.
And through all this passion and suffering and death he evinced no
quality of fortitude, forbearance or mercy which is beyond the
power of any other man to imitate. The .mission of Christ was not
the glorification of dynasties or the elevation of States or the recti
fication of frontiers, but the improvement of the separate human
unit. Ever since the Christian doctrine was preached, the indi
vidual man has been improring. The first economic effect of Chris
tianity was the substitution of free labor for slave labor. Slavery,
which involves the o-wnership of one man by another, was mani
festly inconsistent with the religious belief in the equality of all
men. So, as Christianity spread, slavery disappeared ; but there is
a long distance between servitude and sovereignty. Man became free
in the sense of acquiring the right to dispose of his liberty and his
person long before he was admitted to a share in the control of any
State, but during all that period he was steadily improving and fit
ting himself for the privileges of democratic govemment.
The whole history of ,the vrorld since the Christian revelation
has been the progress of the individual man towards that intellec
tual and moral development which fitted him for the control not
merely of the matters which were of exclusive interest to himself,
but of those matters in which he had a common interest with his fel
lows. Aswe look back over the history of the white race since the dawn
of Christianity we can see that this progress, though often meeting

.6 The Montgomery Conference.
ith obstacles, was always continuous. The old Eoman Empire,
lilt upon blood and slavery, was the first and greatest barrier to
hristian progress. It fell, and the history of the world since its
ferthrow; the movements of savage tribes from the northern for
ts ; their 'conflicts, invasions, repulses, successes, and defeats ; the
¦sappearance , of races' merged into other races, the establishment
: feudalism, the Crusades moving the flower of Christendom to the
iscue of the Holy Sepulchre, the rise of kingcraft on the ruins of,
ludalism, were all steps in the gradual preparation of man for the
scovery of this continent, that here upon this soil, free from any
aditions of class hatred, or imperial despotism, a government might
i founded based on confidence in human virtue. That experiment
IS been tried, and its glorious results are visible over the world.
It took the white race over four thousand years to reach the
ipacity for democratic government -vvhich has made this republic
issible. It is not, then, extraordinary if the. black race has been
nable to accomplish in one generation the progress which the white
tee has achieved so slowly and so painfully. Full political rights
ust be achieved by the black man as they have been achieved by
le white man through the improvement of the individual unit.
J friends, what the -white race has accomplished is not
ir itself alone, but for the benefit of all humanity. It, must be
)ur duty, as it will be your profit, to help your weaker brother on
le journey which is before him. The vvhite man who raises a hand
retard the progress of the colored man lifts a suicidal hand against
mself., Everything which I have said here to-night, every thought in
y mind, every fibre of my being, is moved by sympathy for this
ice, brought here against its will, compelled to live in slavery for
inturies, then suddenly thrown upon their own resources -without
reparation for freedom or provisions for support, with the hands of
le white people tied so that the question raised by emancipation
)uld not be treated according to its racial features. The task before
m, then, in its last analyses, is to aid the colored race in achieving
le highest development of its industrial capacity. When that is
jcomplished all else^-will follow.. Your capital duty is to make the
)lored race prosperous, for in doing that you make yourselves pros-
3rous. It will not be disputed that as the colored man practically
lonopolizes the field of labor his industry is the base of your pros-
srity. I repeat, as that base rises you -will rise, as it sinks you
iust sink. You ask me how is this improvement of the colored man .
I be accomplished. I answer that the solution of the question has
;en found here in this Statp. I believe Tuskegee is the solution of
lis industrial problem. Let'the Negro be prepared for life as Booker'
''ashington prepares him. Here is an institute turning out a num- '
3r of young men and women every year so -welt equipped for life
lat almost without exception they become useful, productive, valu-
Dle members of the community. \Let there be a Tuskegee in every
immunity, and I promise you that the next geheration, instead of

W. Bourke Cockran. 217
troubling about the Negroes, will be celebrating a glorious success
m settling a question graver than any presented to a nation in the
history of the human race.
I admit that it is impossible for the Southern States to main
tain such an institute in every county, not because they lack the dis-
p^osition, but because they lack resources. The Southem people
h*ave done what they could to solve this question, but their means
are limited. The South was not wholly responsible for the introduc
tion of slavery, but by a mysterious dispensation of Providence these
States have been compelled to pay the whole cost of expelling it.
The Federal Govemment which decreed the emancipation of the
Negro has never made the slightest contribution toward fitting him
for freedom. It is true, the black man has worked and slaved for
hundreds of years -without wages. I would be glad to see the Fed
eral Govemment make some reparation by giving him a credit of
two hundred and fifty millions or five hundred millions, and .de
voting the interest every year to his, education. Wherever the State
spends money in preparing the Negro for usefulness and progress,
the United States should reimburse it. Every dollar paid for the
educational and industrial improvement of the Negro will come
back one hundred fold. I think it would be better for the Federal
Government to spend five hundred millions in preparing the
Negroes to sustain the burdens and profit by the advantages of
freedom, than to spend one hundred millions in slaughtering, Fili
pinos -n-hile trying to subjugate them. Better one black man pre
pared for effective industry on the bosom, of the earth than , one-
hundred brown men placed under the earth. The grandeur of a na
tion does not depend upon its capacity to kill, but upon its capacity
to create. The splendor of our destiny has not been accomplished
by, trampling men under foot, but by raising men from all over the
world to a share in this citizenship, — the fiower and fruit
of Christian civilization. There is still one race which
has not been adipitted to that equality of political privileges which
, all white men enjoy on this soil. Ladies and gentlemen, 'it is the
task of the stronger race to help the weaker up the pathway of
progress. That weak race has shown its capacity to improve be
cause it has improved. We must measure the capacity of
a race, not by the depravities of the worst, but by the rirtues of
the best among them. If we applied any other test, no people
in the world would meet it successfulljr. If we were
to measure the leading cities of the world by the depravities of
the basest among their inhabitants we would be forced to wish
New Yorlc, London, and Paris buried beneath the waves
of the sea ; but measuring their value to civilization by the
virtues of the best among their citizens, we realize that they are pow
erful forces for the relief of distress, the spread of education, the
improvement of humanity. Applying the same test to the colored
race, measuring their capacity for improvement, not by the deprav-

2 1 8 The Montgomery Conference.
ities which may be discovered among the worst, but by the virtues
which have been displayed- by the best amongst them, we know
they are capable of progress, and it is your duty and your interest
to develop that capacity to its utmpst limits. To the extent that you
discharge that duty efficiently and faithfully you will benefit your
selves. In uplifting their manhood you -will dignify your own. It is
creditable for a nation to pursue an- ascending path of civilization ;
,but it is glorious when it achieves progress holding a weaker race by
the hahd. 'When this .country shall have solved this problem it will
indeed have assumed the primacy of civilization. That fiag will in
deed be as much an emblem of the fruit which Christianity has
borne, as the cross is the emblem of the divine sacrifice in which
Christianity had its origin. With blacks and whites dwelling in
harmony on this soil and cultivating it, the bitter memories of past
hostility extinguished in grateful appreciation of cordial and fruit
ful co-operation, you will have performed the gravest duty ever im
posed on a Christian State; and this people will achieve that reward
pf enduring peace, of overflowing abundance and of immeasurable
glory with which Providence always blesses a nation where patriot
ism joins to ardent love of country a love of justice and love of the
whole human race.
At the conclusion of Mr. Cockran's oration, the following fare
weU address was made by the Hon. Hilary A. Herbert, the perma
nent Chairman of the Conference.^
Ladies and Gentlemen : — I shall not attempt a speech to-night
after Mr. Cockran, but before dismissing yon, as I shall do in, a few
minutes, with the thanks of the Society which called you together,
I desire to say only a very few wordsof explanation. This meeting
was not called with any idea that we had any authority, or any power
ourselves, or with your help, to solve the great problem which has
been discussed before you for the past three days. But the mem
bers of this Society were all agreed that the Negro problem, which
has so long been with us, had assumed acute phases recently, and
that this was a peculiarly opportune occasion for Vol's, study oi it,
and for that purpose, and that purpose alone, the Conference was
called. The underlying idea of the Committee was well stated by
Mr. Cockran to-night when he said that a problem clearly stated is
half solved, and I think I may say that the Society can congratu
late itself upon the fact that the different phases of this problem
have been clearly and succinctly stated before you, andl)efore the
country, by men of different opinions, and by men having the ability,
each of them, to maintain his opinion. Those statements will go
forth to the world. It is hoped and believed that they will have
1 It may be interesting to note that the audience at the closing session of the Conference'
ia conservatively estimated to have been'the largest and most representative that has ever
been assembled in the history of the city.

Hillary A. Herbert. 2 19
wide circulation and much consideration, and from this considera
tion, with your help and the help of the whole country, it is hoped
that a solution of this problem will be reached. -Now, just one
other thought.
It has occurred to me as I sat here on this stage to-night, in
the closing hours of this Conference that in 1868, thirty-twO years
ago, I attended a conference here in this city of Montgomery,
which was quite as important as this; it was known as the Ex
change Hotel Conference. That Conference was not so numerously
attended as this but leading men from throughout the State,
had gathered after the passage of the reconstruction laws, to con
sider upon what course it was advisable for white men of this State
to pursue; how best should they — the shadows o\ the dark night of
reconstruction just creeping over them — how best should they pre
serve their civilization. The situation at that time was much
gloomier that it is to-day, gloomier than even it is painted by the
most pessimistic of the orators who have spoken to you from this
platform. What was that situation? The South had just lost all
its slave property, .four million slaves at five hundred dollars apiece,
two billions of dollars ; it had lost all its currency, all the accumula
tions of the past years in the shape of money, its Confederate money,
its' State bank money, its Confederate bonds, another billion o'f
dollars, all had gone, wiped out by legislation. Its labor system was
revolutionized, much of its cotton had been burned and much of its
provisions destroyed by hostile armies, and its plantations had been
deprived even of the necessary plow stock. We were almost utterly
without resources, compelled to borrow money from the North
directly or indirectly, with which to, begin operations. The South
had, before that time, been the richer section of the Union, now we
were poverty stricken; the North now had the currehcy and the
bonds which we were to help make good; it was to the North we
looked for money, to the North we were to pay premiums on fire in
surance and life insurance, interest on borrowed money and the
profits on merchandise, and not only was this true of private ex
penditures but the National Government was just entering upon- a
system of vast expenditures and money was drained from the South
to the North annually by millions and millions of dollars, taken
every year by taxation and expended in the North for pensions, for
the army, for the navy and, otherwise, none of it ever to come back
here. 'I am not complaining of this, I am simply setting before you
the difficulties which we have overcome, that is all. If a calcula
tion were made, it might safely be said, that all together, from the
processes of business and the processes of the law, forty or even fifty
millions of dollars every year for thirty years past, have been drained
from the South and emptied into the Northern States. Who made
that money? It was made here. How was it made? Was it all
made by the white man ? And here permit me to criticise just for a
moment before this Conference closes some figures of my esteemed

220 ' 'the Montgomery Conference.
friend Dr. Barringer. He. speaks of the small savings of the Ne
groes. Ought he not alsp to consider the value of their labor to
others? He cites as a fact that the property given in by the Negro
for taxation in three States of this Union, as to which he has-
given statistics, was only some $18 or $20 or $25 per capita, and
he has put these figures on the one side, and the figures show
ing the immense amounts paid for education together with the
amounts paid for the trial of Negroes charged with crimes on the
other, and has undertaken to show by that process that the, Negro
has cost us vast sums of money. So the Negro undoubtedly has.
But have we received no benefit from his labor ?
Now, gentlemen, what is the difference between free labor and
slave labor ? Why was it that the people of the Southern States were
rich in the days of slavery ? They were rich because the proceeds of
the labor of the Negroes belonged to the whites, and after expending
what was necessary to take proper care of them, as we did, the re
mainder belonged to us. The Negroes then had no taxable property,
but their labor was immensely valuable to the South. The Negroes
are undoubtedly the most improvident of human beings and yet this
is true. If torday the Negroes only worked as industriously as they
did when they were slaves, and their habits were as good, and if they
expended all their earnings among us, and did not save a dollar for
themselves, the country would be just as rich as it was in the days of
slavery. They don't work as industriously as they did then, but
they do work. They have helped us, and to the extent that they
have helped us, and have expended their wages among us they have
benefited tliis country. The value of their labor must be set off
against what they cost us for education and in the courts. Now,
my friends, at that Conference thirty-two years ago here in the Ex
change Hotel, this city had only 13,000 or at the most 14,000 in
habitants. To-day it has about three times that may — 42,000 in
habitants. The city is wealthier, the city is more beautiful, the eity
is more prosperous than ever it has been, and from what has that
prosperity come — from cotton, from corn. Who made that cotton, ,
and who made that corn ? The white man made a large portion of
it, but the Negro another large portion.
It may be and is, true, that idleness among the Negroes is in
creasing, and that is one of the things we must study, but when we
come here to study that question we should not look at figures that
-tvill cause us to forget that what the Negro is doing, and what
the Negro has been doing has benefited this country, has bene
fited this city, has helped it grow up from what it was thirty-
two years ago to what it is to-day. I am about to be tempted
to make a speech — but I promised you, and promised myself — I
should not do that. Let me, in conclusion impress upon you this
one other and further thought: While we study what has been
uttered here from this platform, and while we aid, as far as we
can, in the solution of the problems which havel been suggested, let us

Hilary A. Herbert. 221
not be so pessimistic as to fold our hands in dismay and do nothing,
but, on the other hand, let us not be so hopeful as to cause us to
think that there is no problem, and that we have nothing to do ; let
us rather all resolve together to go forward in a spirit of hopeful-
.ness, with courage, and in connection with our brethren all over the
South use our best efforts to solve this great problem which is
before us.
And, now, ladies we thank you also for your attendance during
this Conference, and permit me to say that I am very glad to ac
knowledge the fact, which I have observed, that the women of Mont
gomery County and Montgomery City, and indeed of the whole
¦ South, seem to be imbued recently with a. new and commendable
spirit which is prompting them to aid and help, by organized efforts,
in every possible direction to ameliorate the conditions which con
front them. You have clubs and societies here, formed for literalry
purposes and sqcial and charitable purposes, out of which great good
will come. The woman of the future in the South is not, I trust, to
¦clamor for the ballot, but what the Southem woman can do and
ought to do, ahd what you are doing through your various organiza
tions, is to work for better education, for higher culture in that
spirit of charity which embraces all, and will tend to lift to a higher
plane the society of which you are the chief omament. In that
spirit you will give your minds to the problems that present them
selves and help your husbands and your brothers to solve them.
<God bless the jwomen and children of the South !

APPENDIX.

NOTES ON BIBLIOGEAPHY OF THE NEGEO QUESTION,
By Samuel McCune Lindsay, Ph. D.
The thorough and impartial study of the complex problems
involved in the so-called Negro Question in the United States, de
mands the use of a somewhat extensive bibliography. All social
questions have their roots in historical conditions. The study of the
American Negro divides itself naturally into four general depart
ments. First, the history of the Negro race, its anthropology and
ethnology, especially considered -with reference to the original
habitat of the race in Africa before the arrival of the slave ship;
jecond,' the history of the slave trade and the conditions' in America
to which the slave had to adjust himself ; third, the effect of slavery
upon the enslavers, and the history of the conflict over slavery in the
United States, and its final outcome in the Civil War; fourth, the
social and economic problems growing out of the presence of several
million freemen, of another race, among an enterprising industrial
nation, and living under con-ditions of industrial competition with
their former task-masters. Each of these four general departments
of the subject demands a separate bibliography. The search for ma
terials in each would carry us in -widely divergent directions, except
for the second and third, which are closely related. The following
partial. list of books and pamphlets, prepared as an aid to the gen
eral reader and student, rather than for highly specialized work,
relates almost exclusively to the fourth division of the subject, and
to the period- since the Emancipation Proclamation. With a few
exceptions, it is limited to works in the English language. It does
not include the current magazine articles which, in many respects,.
throw more light upon the existing state of public opinion from year
to year since the Civil War than the more formal treatises, and fur
nish one of the best sources for the general reader. Poole's Index-
to Periodical Literature covers most of the articles in the more im-
(222)

Appendix. 223
portant magazines and should be consulted under such various heads
as Negro Question, Eace Problems, Freedmen, Education of Colored
' People, Africans in America, etc. A few magazine articles, specially
those reprinted and included in pamphlet collections, are given
in the following list. In recent years The. Forum, Outlook, Inde
pendent, Popular Science Monthly, Atlantic Monthly, and the
North American Review have made more or less of a specialty of
important contributions to the subject.
In the Annual Eeport of the U. S. Commissioner of Education
fdr the year 1893-94, Vol. I, pages 1038-1061, will be found a bibli
ography prepared by Mr. Wellford Addis, specialist in the Bureau.
It is arranged' alphabetically by authors and first word of titles of
anonymous publications under these subject classifiqations : (1)
Hducation of the Colored Eace; (2) Negroes in America; (3)
Works by Negro Authors. Prof.'W. E. Burghardt DuBois, an his
work on "The Philadelphia Negro : A Social Study," gives a brief
bibliography, also arranged under three subject groupings: (1)
General Works; (2) Books and Pamphlets relating to Philadelphia
Negroes; (3) Books and Pamphlets -written by Philadelphia Ne
groes. Use has been made of both of these bibliographies, as well
as of the Dictionary Catalogue of the Boston Public Library, in the
preparation of the following List.
Special attention should be called to the Eeports of the Hamp
ton Conferences, and the Tuskegee Conferences; also to the publi
cations of Atlanta University, and of the American Negro Academy
(Washington, D. C.) ; also to the Annual Eeports of the United
States Commissioner of Education, which each year give a review of
Negro Education in the United States.
In the List, no attempt is made at classification. All books and
pamphlets are arranged alphabetically by authors and first word of
titles in the case of anonymous publications. Of course, no pretense
is made to completeness. The range of literature on the subject is
so great that much more time and labor than it has been possible to
give upon short notice to the preparation of this List would be nec
essary to make it even reasonably complete. It is hoped, however,
that it may prove serviceable to those who wish to contribute to the
untrammeled discussion of the important issues to which it relates.
University of Pbnnsyi,vania, August 10, 1900.

-224 Thei Montgomery Conference:
A PAETIAL LIST OP BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS ON THE
NEGEO QUESTION IN THE.UNITED STATES.
Abbott, Lyman. The Education of the Freedmen. Proceedings Amer.
Hist. Instr., 1865. pp. 71.
Act of Incorporation, Causes and Motives o.f the African Episcopal Church
'of Philadelphia. 1810, Philadelphia.
Adanis, Henry Gardiner (Editor). God's Image in Ebony; being a series
' of biographical sketches, facts, anecdotes, etc., demonstrative of the
mental powers and intellectual capacities of the negro race, with a
brief sketch of the anti-slavery movement in America, by F. W. Ches-
son, and a chapter of additional evidence by Wilson Armistead.
Addis, Wellford. Education of Colored Race, in Industry. Report of
United States Education Bureau, 1894, Vol. I, pp. 1019-61, with bibli
ographies of (i) education of colored race; (2) negroes in America;
(3) work by negro authors. Also separately printed.
Address by the Colored People of Missouri to the Friends of Equal Rights.
1865, St. Louis, Missouri, Democrat Print, pp. 4.
Address of the Managers of the American Colonization Society to the
People of the United States. Adopted at their meeting June 19, 1832.
1832, Washington, pp. 38.
African- Education Society. Pamphlet on, tq be found in Boston Public
' Library. Report of proceedings at tbe formation of the Soc. Deg., 1829.
1830, 'Washington, pp. 16.
The African's Rights to Citizenship. 1865, Philadelphia. J. S. Claxton.
PP- 31-
Aikman, William. Future of the Colored Race in- America. From the
Presbyterian Quarterly Review, July, 1862.
Alexander, W. T. History of Colored, Race in- America. 1888, Ne%,
Orleans, pp. 600.
Allen, Joseph Henry. Africans in America and Their New Guardians.
From Christian Examiner, July,' 1862. pp. 96-133.
Allen, Richard (First Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal] Church).
The Life Experience and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen,
etc. Written by himself. 1833, Philadelphia.
Allen, Richard and Jacob Tapsico. The Doctrine and Discipline of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church. 1819, Philadelphia.
Allen, William F, and others (Editor). Slave Songs of the United States.
1867, New York. pp. 115.
Allen, 'William G. The American Prejudice Against Color. London, 1853.
pp. 167. .
Alvord, J. W. Schools and Finances of Freedmen. 1866, Washington.
PP- 23.
American Association of Educators of Colored Youth. Journal of pro
ceedings of session of December, 1891, held at Nashville, Terin. 1892,
Winston, N. C. pp. 192.
American Colonization Society. Addresses and Reports. Washington, D. C.
American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color in the United
States. Second Annual Report with Appendix. 1819, Washington.
Sixth Annual Report, Washington. 1823.
American Union ;for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race.
Report of Executive Committee at the Annual Meeting, May 25, 1836.-
Boston, 1836. pp. 39.
American 'Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race.
Exposition of the object and plans of the Society. Boston, 1835.
PP- 23. , .
Anderson, Matthew. Presbyterianism and Its Relation to the. Negro. 1897,
Philadelphia.

Bibliography. 225
Andrews, C. C. History of thq New York African Free Schools ; frora
their establishment in 1787; also an acccount of the New York Manu-
i-nission Society, with appendix. 1830, New York.
An Appeal to Pharaoh. The Negro Problem and Its Radical Solution.
New York, 1889. pp. 205.
Appeal of Forty Thousand Colored Citizens, Threatened with Disfranchise
ment, to the PcQple of Pennsylvania. Pamphlet. 1838, Philadelphia.
Appear of the Religious Society of Friends in Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
etc., on Behalf of the Colored Races. 1858, Philadelphia. .
Armistead, Wilson. A Tribute for the Negro; being a vindication of the
moral, intellectual and religious capabilities of the colored portion oi
mankind, with particular reference to the African race. Portraits and
engravings. Manchester, England, 1848. pp. 564.
Armstrong, Samuel C. Emigration to Siberia. Address before American
Colonization Society, January 21, 1879. 1879, Washington, pp. 9.
Armstrong, Samuel C. Co-Education of Races. United States Bureau of
Education. Circular of Information, No. 3, 1883. pp. 63.
Arnett, Benjamin W. (Editor). Duplicate copy of the souvenir from the
Afro-American League of Tennessee to Hon. James M. Ashley, of '
Ohio. Philadelphia, 1894. pp. 851.
Arnett, Benjamin 'W. (Editor). Orations and speeches of the Hon. J. M.
Ashley. 1894, Philadelphia, African Methodist Episcopal Publishing
House, pp. 905.
Arnett, Benjamin 'W. (Compiler and Editor). Speeches ahd addresses of
negrOes. Collected and published. 15 volumes.
Asher, Jeremiah. Autobiography (of a N^gro). 1862, Philadelphia.
Association for the Religious Instruction of the Negroes.' Reports (i, 3,
11-13, in Boston Public Library). Charleston and Savannah.
Atlanta 'University Publications, i. Mortality Among Negroes, in Cities.
,1896, First Conference, pp. Si- 2. Social and Physical Condition of
Negroes in Cities. 1897, Second Conference, pp. 86. 3. Some Efforts
of American Negroes for Their Own Social Betterment. 1898, Third
Conference, pp. 66. 4. Higher Education of Negroes. 1899, Fourth
Conference. v
Atwater, Wilbur O, and Charles D. Woods. Dietary Studies with Refer
ence to the Food of the Negro in Alabama in 1895 and 1896. 1897,
Wasbington, United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 38. _
Bacon, Benjamin C. Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia.
1856, Philadelphia. 1859, Philadelphia, pp.' 24. Second edition with sta
tistics oi crime. '
Bacon, Alice M. The Negro and the Atlanta Exposition. Baltimore Slater
Fund, Occ. Papers, No. 7. ,
Babcock, Jas-. W. The Colored Insane. 189S, New Haven, pp. 23.
Bagley,- A. C. Speech on the Bill to Preserve the Purity of Elections and to ,
Prevent Negroes from Voting; in the Ohio House of Representatives,
March 29, 1859. pp. 6.
Baldwin, Ebenezer. Observations on the Physical, Intellectual and Moral
Qualities of our Colored Population ; with remarks , on emancipation
and colonization. 1834, New Haven, pp. 52.
¦ Baldwin, John D. Human Rights and Human Races. A speech in the
House of Representatives at Washington, January 11, 1868, in reply to
a speech of James Brooks on fhe Negro race. 1868, Washington, pp. 8.
Baltimore Association for the Moral and Educational Improvement, of the
Colored People. Annual reports, second and third, 1866 and 1867.
Barnard, Henry. Special report on the condition and improvement of the
public schools in the District of Columbia. Legal status of the colored
population in respect to schools and education in different States. 1871,
Washington. Also Barnard's American Journal Education, Vol. XIX.
Barrows, Samuel J. Evolution of the Afric-American. In Brooklyn Eth-
- ical Association, Man and the State, pp. 3IS-34S- New York, 1892.
15

226 The Montgomery Conference.
Baskerville, 'William M, and others. Shall the Negro Be Educated or Sup
pressed"? A symposium on Dr. Haygood's reply to Senator Eustis'
paper on Race Antagonism. 1889, Nashville. Open Letter Club.
pp. 24.
Barringer, Paul B. The Future of the American Negro. Charlottesville,
Va., 1900. ^
Bassett, John S. Slavery in North Carolina (1663-1865). 1896, Baltimore.
Johns Hopkins Press.
Bateman, Newton. Colored Children and the Public Schools. Illinois
School Report, 1873-4. PP- 43-
Beard, Augustus Field. The Providence of God in the Historical Develop
ment of the Negro. 1896, New York. American Missionary Associa
tion. 10 pp.
Bettie, Edward. Notices of Negro Slavery ,as Connected with Pennsyl
vania. In Mem. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Vol I.
Bevier, Isabel, and H. B. Frissell. Dietary Studies of Negroes in Eastern
Virginia in 1897-98. 1899, Washington, pp. 45.
Biddle, Charles J. The Alliance with the Negro. Speech, House of
Representatives, Washington, March 6, 1862. 1862, Washington, ,pp. 8.
Bingham, Robert. The New South. Address, before Superintendents''
Department of National Educational Association. Washington, D, C,
February 25, 1884. pp. 22.
Blackson, Lorenoz. Autobiography (of a Negro). 1861, Philadelphia.
Blair, Lewis H. The Prosperity of the South Dependent upon the Eleva
tion of the Negro. 1889, Richmond, Va., Everett Waddey. pp. 147.
Blair, Henry W, A Problem in Civilization. National Educational Asso
ciation, 1896. pp. 254-285.
Booth, Sherman M. Justice Essential to National Prosperity. Address be
fore the National Equal Suffrage Association at the Union League H-all,.->
•Washington, June 6, 1866. 1866, Washington, pp. 12.
Bowen, J. W. E. (Editor). Congress on Africa. Cotton States' Exhibi
tion, Atlanta, 1895. Africa and the American Negro. Addresses and
proceedings of the Congress held under auspices of Stewart Missionary
Foundation for Africa of Gammon Theological Seminary. i8g6, At
lanta, pp. 242.
Bowers, John, and others. To the Honorable the Senate and House of Rep
resentatives of Pennsylvania : the memorial of the subscribers, free
people of color, residing in Philadelphia. An Act to prohibit- the mi
gration of negroes and mulattoes. 1833. PP- 12.
Brackett, Jeffrey R. Notes on the Progress of the Colored People of Mary
land Since the War. A supplement to The Negro in Maryland. i8go,
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series 8, No. 7-9. .pp. 96.
Brackett, Jeffrey Richardson. The Negro in Maryland. A Study of the
Institution of Slavery. 1889, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University
Studies in Historical and Political Science, Vol. VI. pp. 268.
Brief Sketch of the Schools for Black People and Their Descendants,
Established by the Religious Society of Friends in 1770. 1867, Phila
delphia, pp. 32.
Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious
Society of Friends Against Slavery and the Slave Trade. 1843, Phila
delphia.
Brooks, C. H. Manual and History of the Grand United Order of Odd
Fellows. 1864, Philadelphia, pp. 360. _
Brown, Alexander. The Genesis of the United States. Vol. II.
Brown, Benjamin G. Freedom and Franchise Inseparable. Letter. Wash
ington, December 22, 1864. pp. 8.
Brown, Fred. J. The Northward Movement of the Colored Population.
A Statistical Study. 1897, Baltimore, Cushing & Co. pp. 50.
Brown, Henry E. A Plea for Industrial Education Among the Colored
People. 1884, New York. pp. 30. '

Bibliography.

.227

Brown, Wi jam W. Three Years m Europe. 1852, London, pp. 312.
Brown, Wilham Wei s. The Rising Sun; or, the Antecedents and Achieve
ment of the Colored Race. 1874; Boston, pp. 552. 1885, Boston.
Brown, William Wells. The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and
His Achievements. 1863, New York, T. Hamilton, pp. 288.
Brown, WW. The Negro in the American Rebellion; His Heroism and
His Fidelity. 1867, Boston, pp. 380.
Bruce, P. A. The Negro Population of the South, Conservative Review
November, 1899. '
Bruce, Philip A. The Plantation Negro as a Freeman. Observations on
his character, condition and prospects in Virginia. 1889, New York,
Putnam's Sons. pp. 262.
Bruce, W. Cabell. The Negro Problem. 1891, Baltimore, Murphy & Co.
pp. 33-
Burrus, John H. Educational Progress of the Colored People in the South.
Proceedings and addresses of the National Educational Assocation,
1889'. pp. 202.
Byers, J. "W. Race Factor in Disease as Illustrated by Pneumonia in the
Negro. (In Pan-American Medical Congress Transactions, part 2.
pp. 1381-3.)
Cable, Geo. 'Vy. The Silent South ; together with freedmen's case in equity
and convict lease system. 1889, New York. pp. 231.
Cable, George Washington. The Negro Question. New York,' 1888, Amer
ican Missionary Association, pp. 32.
Cable, Geoi-ge Washington. The Negro- Question. 1890, C. Seribner's.
Sons. pp. 173.
Campbell, John. Negro-mania ; beirig an examination of the falsely as
sumed equality of the various races of men, with a concluding chapter,
presenting a comparative statement of the condition of the negroes irh
the West Indies before and since emancipation. 1851, Philadelphia-
pp. 54a- ' '
Campbpll, Robert F. Some Aspects of the Race Problem in the South.
1899, AsheviUe. pp. 31.
Carolina Medical Journal. March, 1900.
Catto, W. Y. History of the Presbyterian Movement. (By a negro.) i8sS,
Philadelphia.
Chamberlain, Daniel H. Dependent Pension Bills and the Race Problem
at the South. Speech before the Massachusetts Reform Club, February
8. 1890. Also remarks on pension legislation by Frederick J. Stinson,
1890; Boston, pp. 19.
Chandler, John W. This is a White Workingman's Government. Suffrage
in the District of Columbia. Speech in House of Representatives, Janu
ary 12, 1866. pp. 14.
Chase, C. Thurston. A Manual on School Horses and Cottages for the-
People of the South. 1868, Washington, D. C.
Chase,. Salmon P. Letter to a Committee of Colored Men (on Negro Suf
frage). 1865, New Orleans, Broadside.
Cheever, George B. Impartial Suffrage a Right. 1866, New York. pp. 46-
Child, Lydia Maria (Editor). The Oasis. (Articles by various authors.
illustrating character and possible development of negroes.) 1834,
Boston, pp. 276. , , „, ,1
Child Lydia Maria. An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans
Called Africans. 1833. Boston, pp. 232. 1836, New York pp. 216
Christensen, A. M. H. (Editor). Afro- American Folklore Told on the-
Sea Islands of South Carolina. 1892, Boston, Cupples. pp. 116.
Claiborne, Dr. J. H. The Negro. Virginia Medical Semi-Monthly, April,,
Clowes W. Laird. Black America; a study of the ex-slave and his master.
Reprinted with large additions from The Times. 1891, London..
pp. 240, with map.

228, The Montgomery Conference.
Coates, Benjamin. H. The Effects Of Secluded and Gloomy Imprisonment
on Individuals of the African Variety of Mankind in the Production of
Disease. 1843, Philadelphia, Publications of American Philosophical
Society, Vol. Ill, part. pp. 85-99. PP. IS-
Colfax, Richard H. Eviidence Against the Views of the Abolitionists,
Cqnsisting of Physical and Moral Proof of the Natural Inferiority of
the Negroes. 1833, New York. pp. 33.
Colored Enlistments. , Philadelphia, i Pamphlet, Philadelphia Library
Company.
Colored People in Philadelphia. Pamphlet, Philadelphia Library Company.
Colored Regiments.* Philadelphia. Pamphlet, Philadelphia Library Com
pany. ¦ , '
Colored Schools in Tennessee and Arkansas. 1864, Memphis, pp. 20.
Condition of the People of .Color in Ohio with Interesting Anecdotes. 1839,
Boston, pp. 48.
Cooper, A- J- A Voice, from the South. By a black woman from the
South. 1892, Xenia, Ohio. pp. 304.
Coppin, L. J. (Editor). African Methodist Episcopal Church Review,
1888, etc., Philadelphia, African Methodist Episcopal Publishing
House.
Corey, Charles H. A History of the Richraond Theologiqal Serainary;
with reminiscences of thirty years' work arribng the colored people of
the South. 189s, Richmond, Randolph, pp. 240.
Corson, Eugene RolKn. The 'Vital Equation of the Colored Race and Its
Future in the United States. Wilder Quarter Century Book, pp. 115-
175. 1S93, Ithaca, pp. 60.
Coston, W. H. A Free Man and Yet a Slave. 1884, Burlington, Iowa,
Wohlwend Bros. pp. 84.
Crogman, W. H. Talks for the Times. (Chiefly on negro problems.)
1896, Atlanta. ' ' ,
Cross, Samuel Creed. The Negro and the Sunny South. A lecture. ¦ 1899,
Martinsburg, W. Va. pp. 136.
Crowell, William C. Report to the Primary School Comraittee on the
Petition of Sundry, Colored Persons for the Abolition of the Schools
For Colored Children, with City Solicitor's Opinion, 1846. 1866, Bos
ton, Special School Representatives of Boston, 1826-1866.
Cruipmel, A. Relations and Duties of Free Colored Men in Araerica to
Africa. i86i, Hartford, pp. 54. ' ' '
Crumraell, 'Alexander. Africa and Araerica. 1891, Springfield; Mass. pp.
466.
Cruraraell, Alexander. A defense of the negro race in Araerica frora the
assaults and charges of Rev. J. L. Tucker, of Jackson, Miss., in his
paper before the "Church Congress" of 1882, "On the Relations of the
Church to the Colored Race." 1883, Washington, pp. 36.
Curry, J. L. M. Difficulties, Coraplications, and Limitations Connected
with Education of Negro. Rep. United States Education Burea, 1895,
"Vol. II, pp. 1367-74. Also Slater Fund, Occasional Papers No..^ 5,
Baltimore, 1895. pp. 23.
Curry, J. L. M. Education of Negroes Since i860. Rep. United States
Education Bureau, 1895, Vol. II, pp. 1374-84. Also Slater Fund, Occa
sional Papers No. 3. pp. 32-
Curry, J. L. M. The Southern States of the American Union.
Delaware Association for the Moral Improvement and Education of the
Colored People. Annual Reports, 1868, 1869 and 1870. 1868-70, Wil-
raington, Del.
Delaney, Lucy A. Struggles for Freedora. 1890, New York. pp. 64. Pub
lished by the author.
Delany, Martin Robison. The Condition,^ Elevation, Emigration, and Des
tiny of the Colored People of the United States Politically Considered.
1852, Philadelphia, pp. 2x5.

Bibliography. ' 229
Denny, John F. An Enquiry Into the Political Grade of the Free Colored
Population Under the Constitution of the United States and the Con
stitution of Pennsylvania; in three parts. By a member of the Cham
bersburg bar. 1834, Chambersburg. pp. 24.
De Sanssuri, P. G. Obstetrical Observations on Negroes of South Caro
lina. Pan-American Medical Congress Transactions, part 4, pp. 917-21.
Dietary Studies of Negroes in Eastern Virginia. Bulletin 71, United States
, Department of Agriculture.
Douglass, Frederick. The Claims of the Negro Ethriologically Considered.
An address before the literary societies of Western Reserve College.
1854, Rochester, pp. 37.
Douglass, Frederick. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. 1893, New
York, Miller, Orton & Co. pp. 752.
Douglass, Frederick. My Bondage and Freedom. 1855, New York, Miller,
Orton & Co., pp. 464.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of an American Slave. 1847,
London.
Douglass, William. Annals of First A'frican Church (St. Thomas'
Church). (A prorainent negro church.) 1862, Philadelphia, pp.172.
Du Bois, William E. B. The College-Bred Negro. 1898, New York, Araer
ican Missionary Association, pp. 8.
Du Bois,' W. E. Burghardt. The Negroes of Farmville. United States
Labor Bulletin for January, 1898. i8g8, Washington.
Du Bois, W-, E. Burghardt. The Philadelphia Negro: a. Social Study.
1899,- Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Publications, pp. 423.
Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt. Suppression of the Slave Trade. 1896, New
York.
Du Bois, William E. B. The Conservation of Races. American Negro
Academy, Occasional, Papers No. 2. 1897, Washington, pp. 15.
Du Bois, Williara Edward Burghardt. The Study of the Negro Problems.
1898, Philadelphia, pp. 29.
Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt (Editor). Publications of Atlanta University.
Dunbar, Paul. Oak and Ivy. Poems. 1890, Dayton, Ohio. U. B. Pub
lishing House, pp. 62.
Dunn, Jacob P. Slavery Petitions and Papers. Indiana Historical Society
Publications, Vol. II, No. 12. 1894, Indianapolis, pp. 87.
Durham, John S. To Teach the Negro History. 1898, Philadelphia.
Dyson, J. F. Richard Allen's Place in History. 1887, Nashville, Cumber
land Presbyterian Publishing House, pp; 49. '
Easton, H. Treatise on the Intellectual Character, etc., of the Colored
' People of the United States ; with a sermon on the duty of the church.
1837, Boston.
Eaton, Isabel. Report on Negro Domestic Service in Philadelphia. (Con
tained in Du Bois: The Philadelphia Negro: a Social Study.) 1S99,
Philadelphia, pp. lOO.
Education. See Reports of United States Bureau of Education, in each
volume of which will be found data on negro education in the several
States. Index to 'pages and by States for years 1870-94 will be found
in Addis' Bibliography, Rep. 1893-94, Vol. I, p. 1044.
Education and Employraent Statistics of the Colored People of Philadel
phia. MS. in library of Pennsylvania Historical Association.
Education of Colored Race. United States Rep. Education gureau, 1892,
Vol. II, pp. 863-72.
Education of Colored Race. U. S. Rep. Education Bureau, 1895, Vol. II,
pp. 1331-66.
Education of the Negro, Its Character and Facilities. United States Rep.
Education Bureau, 1893. pp. 1551-72.
Equal Suffrage. Address frora the colore(l citizens of Norfolk, Va. 1865,
New Bedford, pp. 26.
Ernault, L. Des conditions etiologiques de la pathologic de la race negre.

230 The Montgomery Conference.
. These pour le doctorat en medicine presentee et sontenne le 2 aoiit :
1882. 1882, Paris, pp. 43.
Extracts frora letters of teachers and superintendents of the N^w England
. ' Education Coramission for Freedraen. 1864, Boston.
Pailure of Scheme for Colonization of Negroes in Mexico and Necessity
of Returning Them to Alabama. State Department Publication, Janu
ary 27, 1896. House Document 169, Fifty-fourth Congress, First Ses-
. sion. In Vol. III.
Fairchild, E. H. Co-Education of the Races and Sexes. United States
Bureau of Education. Spec. Rep. New Orleans Exposition, 1884-85.
pp. 468-470.
Ferrer de Conto, Jose. Las negros en sus diversos estados y condiciones ;
tales corao son, sopio se supone que son, y corao dehen ser. 1864, New
York. pp. 310.
Finger, S. M. Educational and Religious Interests of the Colored, People
of the South. United States Bureau of Education, Circular of Informa
tion No, 2, 1886. pp. 123-133.
Fletcher, Frank H. Negro Exodus. Report of Colonel Frank H. Fletcher,
agent, appointed by the St. Louis comraission to visit Kansas for the
purpose of obtaining information with regard to colored emigration.
1880, St. Louis, pp. 24.
Flipper, Henry O. The Colored Cadet at West Point. 1878, New York,
' Horaer, Lee & Co. pp. 322. 1.
Flournay, J. J. Essay on the Origin, Habits, ' etc., of the African Race.
1835, New York.
Fortune, T. Thomas. Black and White. 1884, New York, Fords & Co.
pp. 310.
Franklin, Benjaniin. An Essay on the African Slave Trade. 1790, Phila
delphia.
Freedraen, Annual Reports of the Presbyterian Committee of Missions for,
1871-1882; and of the Presbyterian Board of Missions for 1883 to
date.
Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Annual Re
ports,' 1866-1895. Cincinnati, Ohio.
Freedmen's Bureau, Washington, D. C. See reports, circulars and letters,,
general orders, miscellaneous publications of. (Partial list enumerated
in Addis' Bibliography; United States Bureau of Education Report.
1893-94, Vol. I.
Freedrnen's Hospital. See Annual Reports of Surgeon-in-Chief.
Freedmen's Enquiry Commission, Reports of. Boston.
Friends' Association of Philadelphia and Its Vicinity for Relief of Colored
Freedmen. Annual Reports. Sixth Annual Report, 1869. 1869, Phila
delphia.
Friese, Philip C. The Unconstitutionality of Congressional Action to Give
Political Power to the Negro in the White Man's Country. 1867, Bal
timore, pp. 42.
Frissell, Hollis Burke and Isabel Bevier. Dietary Studies of Negroes ih
Eastern Virginia in 1897 and 1898. 1899, Washington, pp. 45.
-Gage, Frank W. The Negro Problern in the United States, Its Rise, De
velopment and Solution. 1892, Leipzig. . pp. 116.
Gaines, W. J. Of African Methodism in the South. 1890, Atlanta, Frank
lin Publishing House, pp. 305.
Gannett, Henry. Statistics of the Negroes in the United States. Slater
, Fund, Occasional Papers No. 4. 1894, Baltimore, pp. 28.
Gannett, Henry. Occupations of Negroes. United States Report Educa
tion Bureau, 1895, Vol. II,, pp. 1384-96. Also Slater Fund, Occasional
Papers No. 6. pp. 16.
I Garnet, Henry Highland. The Past and the Present Condition and the
Destiny of the Colored Race. 1848, Troy. pp. 29.
Germantown Friends' Protest Against Slavery. 1688, Philadelphia. Fac
simile copy, 1880.

Bibliography. 231 ¦
Gibb, G. D, Essential Points of Difference Between the Larynx of the
Negro and the White Man. In Anthropological Society Memoirs, Vol.
II, 1866.
Goodloe, Daniel R. Letter to Charles Sumner on the Situation of Affairs
in North Carolina (chiefly on Negro Suffrage). 1868, Raleigh, pp. 16.
Goodwin, M. B. History of Schools for thc Colored Population in the
District of Columbia. United States B'ureau of Education. Special
Report on District of Columbia for 1869. pp. 193-300.
Grady, Henry 'Woodfen. Speech (on the condition of the Negro in the
South, with sketch of his life). Boston Merchants' Association ban
quets. Addresses, pp. 23-39.
Grammer, Julius E. African Colonization. An address before the Ameri
can Colonization Society, January 18, 1876. 1876, Washington." pp. 12.
Grant, A. The Literary and Historical Society of African Methodist Epis
copal Georgia Conference. 1893, Nashville, African Methodist Epis
copal Sunday-School Union, pp. 181.
Greener, R. T. Negro Exodus. Araerican Journal of Social Science,
Vol. II, p. 22. '
Gregoire,-H. Intellectual and Moral Powers of Negroes (1808). Trans
lated by H. Warden. 1810, Brooklyn.
Gregory, James M. Fred Dou.glass, the Orator. 1890, Springfield, Mass.,
Willey & Co. pp. 200.
Griggs, Sutton E. Iraoeriura in imperio (A story dealing with the Negro
question). 1899, Cincinnati, pp. 265.
Guenebault, J. H. Natural History of the Negro Race. 1837, Charleston,
' S. C. pp. 162.
Guild, Sarauel Eliot. The Question Before Us. (On the Future of the
Southern Negro.) 1862, Boston, pp. 12.
Gunby, A. A. Race Problera, General Statemtnt of. National Education
Association, 1890. pp. 254-285.
Holly, James T. Vindication of the Capacity of the Negro Race for Self-
Government and Civilized Progress. 1857, New Haven.
Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Twenty-two Years' Work of
the. Records of Negro and Indian graduates and students, with histor
ical and personal sketches. 1891, Hampton, pp. 57.
Hand, Daniel. Sketch of Life of, and of His Benefaction to the American
Missionary Association for the Education of the Colored People in the
Southern States of America. ^889, New York. pp. 31.
Harris, William T. ' Higher Education for Negroes. An address made to
the students of Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga., Oct 29, 1895.
Harrison, Rev. Samuel. An Appeal of a Colored Man to His Fellow-Citi
zens of a Fairer Hue in the United States. 1877, ¦ Pittsfield, Mass.
pp. 36.
Hawkins, Dexter A. Education the Need of the South. Paper read before
Araerican Social Science Association, Saratoga, Septeraber, 1877. 1878,
New York. pp. 16.
Haygood, Alticus Green. Pleas for Progress. 1889, Nashville, pp. 320.
Haygood, Alticus Green. Our Brother in Black; His Freedora and His
Future. 188 1, New York. pp. 252.
Haygood, Alticus Green. The Case of the Negro as to Education in the
Southern States ; a report to the Board of Trustees, by Alticus G. Hay
good, general agent of the John F. Slater Fund. 1885. Atlanta, pp. 59.
Haygood, L- M. The Colored Man in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
1890, CJncinnatr Cranston Sz; Stowe. po. 3^7-
Hayne, Joseph E. The Black Man. 1894, Charleston, Edwards & Brough
ton. pp. 144.
Hedlicka, Ales. Physical Differences Between White and Colored Chil
dren. 1898, Washington. Araerican Anthropologist, Vol. II. pp. 347-
350.
Hedlicka, Ales. ' Anthropological Investigations on One Thousand White

232 - The Montgomery Conference.
and Colored Children df Both Sexes,- the Inraates of the New York
, Juvenile Asylum ; with additional notes on one hundred colored ichil-
dren of the New York Orphan Asylum. 189 — , New York: 'pp. 86.
Helper, Hinton Rowan. Nojoque; A Question for a Continent. 1867, New
York. pp. 479.
Helper, Hinton Rowan. The Negroes fn Negroland; the Negroes in
' America and Negroes Generally. ' Also' the Several Races of White-
Men, Con'sidered as the Involuntary and Predestined Supplanters of
the Black Races. 1868, New York., pp. 254.
Henson, Josiah (Uncle Tom). Father Herison's Story. 1858, Boston, pp.
212.
Herbert, Hilary A. Why the Solid South. Histprical essays by Hilary A.
Herbert,' 'William L. Wilson, etc., on the period of Reconstruction in
the Southern States. Baltimore, 'Woodward & Co., 1889.
Higginson, Thoraas W. Array Life in Black Regiraent. 1870, Boston.
1896, New York, Longmans, pp. '296.
Hobson, Mrs. E. C, and Mrs. C. E. Hopkins. Report on Colored Women
of the South. Baltiraore, Slater Fund, Occasional Papers No. 9.
Hoffman, Frederick L.' Race Traits and Tendencies of the American
Negro. Publications of American Economic Association. 1896, New
York; Macraillah & Co. pp. 329.
Hood, W. J. History of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
1895, New York, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Book Concern.
pp. 625.
Hood, W. J. The Negro in the Christian Pulpit. 1884, Raleigh, N. C,
Edwards & Co. pp. 363. '
Hopkins, Mrs. C. E., and Mrs. E. C. Hobson.- Report on Colored Woraen
of 'the South. Baltiraore, Slater Fund, Occasional Papers No. 9.
Horsraanden, D. The New York Conspiracy, or a History of the Negro
Plot; with proclaraation against conspirators, 1741-42. 1810, New
Ydrk.
Howard, James H. W. Bond and Free. 1886, Harrisburg, Pa., E. K.
Meyers; pp. 280.
Howe, M. A. de Wolfe. African Colonization. Address before Americaii
' Colonization Society, January 21, 1879. 1879, Washington, pp. 8.
Howe, S. G. Refugees frora Slavery in Canada West ; report to the Freed-
raen's Inquiry Commission. 1864, Boston. /
Howe, S. H. A Brief Memoir of the Life of John F. Slater, of Norwich, ,
Conn., 1815-1884. Slater Fund, Occasional Papers No. 2. 1894, Balti
more, pp. 16.
Howland, Isabel. A Description of the Work at the Tuskegee* Normal
and Industrial Institute. 1897, Brooklyn, pp. 24.
Hubbard, G.,W. A History of the Colored Schools of Nashville, Tenn.
1874, Nashville, Tenn. pp. 34.
Humphrey, Edward P. The Color Question in the United States. A paper
prepared for the sixtieth annual meeting of the American Colonization
Society, January, 16, 1877. 1877, Washington, pp. 10.
Hunt, Edward Bissell. Union Foundations ; a study of American na
tionality as a fact of science. 1863, New, York. pp. 61.
Hunt, James. The Negro's Place in Nature. 1864, New York. pp. 27.
Illinois State Convention of Colored Men. 'Proceedings of the Illinois
State Convention of Colored Men, assembled at Gale^sburg, October.
16, 17 and 18. 1867, Chicago, pp. 37.
Ingle, Edward. The Negro in the District of Columbia. 1893, Baltimore,
Johns Hopkins Press, pp. no.
Jarvis, E. Insanity Among the Colored Population of the Free, States.
1844, Philadelphia.
Johnson, Edward A. History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American
War ; and other iteras of interest. 1899, Raleigh, N. C. pp. 228.
¦Johnson, Edward A. A School History of the Negro Race in America

Bibliography. \ 233.
from 1619 to 1890; with a short introduction as to the origin of the
race; also a short sketch of Liberia. 1891, Raleigh.
Johnson, J. L. Report of Fifth Tuskegee Negro Conference. 1896, Balti
more. Slater Fund, Occasional Papers No. 8.
Jones, Charles C, Jr. Negro Myths frora the Georgia- Coast Told in the
Vernacular. 1888, Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. pp. 171.
Jones, Charles Cblcock. The Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the
United States. 1842, Savannah, pp. 277.
. Jones, Charles E. ' Institutions for Colored People. United States Bureau
of Education, Circular of Information No. 4, 1888. pp. 140-150.
Jones, Robert. Fifty Years in the Lorabard Street Central Presbyterian
Church (a prominent negro church). 1894, Philadelphia, pp. t70.
Joyner, Edmund N. Missions to the Colored People in the South. 1893,
Hartford, pp. 18.
Kimball, John C. Connecticut's Canterbury Tale, its Heroine, Prudence
Crandall, and Its Moral for To-day. (Upon education of colored
people.) 1886, Hartford, pp. 16. , 1 " '
Kirk, Edward Norris. Educated Labor,, or our Duty in Regard to the
Araerico-African Race. An address before the Araerican Missionary
Association at Horaer, N. Y. 1868, New York. pp. 11.
Kollock, C. W. -Further Gbiervations on Eye of NegVo. (In Pan-Araeri-
.can Medical Congress Transactions, part 2, pp. 1482-4.)
Langston, Jcihn M. Freedora and Citizenship. 1883, 'Washington, pp. 286.-
Langston, John Mercer. Frora the Virginia Plantation to the National -
' Capitol, or the First and Only Representative in' Congress frora the
Old Dominion. 1894.,. Hartford, pp. 534.
Uatrobe, Jno. H. B. Liberia: Its Origin, Rise, Progress and. Results,
Address before American Colonization Society, January 20, 1880. 1880,
Washington, pp. 11.
La Vallee, Joseph, Marquis de Bois Robert. The Negro as There Are Few
¦White Men. Translated from the French, by J. Trapp. 1790, Lon
don. 3 V. '
Le Conte, Joseph. The Race Problera in the South. Brooklyn Ethical
Association, 1892, Ne-^ York. pp. 347-40.2.
Lewis Robert Benjamin. Light and Truth ; containing the Universal His
tory of the colored and Indian race. 1844, Boston.
' Lindsey, D. McD. The Wrongs of the Negro ; the Reraedy. 1888, Bos^
ton. pp. 14.
Liverraore, G. Historical Researches ; opinions of the foimders of the Re
public on Negroes, etc. ,(1776-1783). 1862, Boston. See also Massa
chusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1862-63-.
Livingstone, W. P. Black Jamaica. A Study in Evolution. 1899, London.
pp. 298.
Loguen, J. W. As a Slave and as a Freeman. 1859, New York. pp. 450.
Loye, E. K. History of the First African Baptist Church. 1888; Savannah.
pp. 360. , .
Lovett, J. A. B. The Education of the Negro in the South. Proceedings
and addresses of the National Education Association, 1890. pp. 497-
MacAfee, Cleland B. Some Southern Probleras. (Chiefly on Negro Suf
frage.) 1898, Parkville, Mo., Park College Historical' Club papers.
Series I, No. 2. "pp. 30. - ^ . • ,
.Macauley, T. B. Social and Industrial Capacities of Negroes. Critical
and Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. VI. pp. 361-404.
MacCord, David James. Africans at Home. 1854, Charieston. pp. 28.
MacCrady, Edward,' Jr. A Review of the Resolutions of thb Press Con
ference. (An objection to the legal and political equality of the Negro
in South Carolina.) 1870, Charleston, S. C. pp. I5-
' MacDonald, Arthur-. Colored Children J a Psychological Study. 1899,
Chicago, pp. 14. ¦ ,,.,,,,
Magee, J. H. The Night of Affliction. 1873, Cincinnati, published by the
author, pp. 180. '

234 The Montgomery Conference.
Majors, M. A. Noted Negro Woraen. 1893, Chicago, Donohue & Hene-
berry. pp. 365.
Marsh, J. B. T. The Story of the Jubilee Singers ; with their songs. 1880,
Boston, eighth edition, pp. 243.
Marshall, Charles Kimball. The Colored Race Weighed in the Balance.
Second edition. 1883, Nashville, pp. 64.
Maxwell, Joseph Renner. The Negro Question, or Hints for the Physical
Iraproveraent of the Negro Race; with special reference to West
Africa. 1892, London, pp. 188. '
May, Sarauel Joseph. The Right of Colored People to Education Vindi
cated. Letters to Andrew T. Judson, and others, remonstrating with
thera on their unjust procedure relative to Miss Crandall and her
school for colored feraales. 1833, Brooklyn, pp. 24.
Mayo, A. D. The Negro Araerican Citizen in the New American Life.
Bureau of Education. Circular of Information, No. i. 1892. pp. 259.
Mayo, A. D. The Third Estate of the- South. Address before American
Social Science Association, Septeraber 2, 1890. 1890, Boston, pp. 24.
Mayo, A. D. Education of Negro in the South. Circular Of Inforraation,
United States Bureau of Education, 1892, No. i. pp. 71.
Mayo, Araory Dwightr How Shall the Colored Youth of fhe South Be
Educated? 1897, Boston, pp. 12.
McDougal, Marion J. Fugitive Slaves. 1891, Boston.
McPherson, J. H. T. History of Liberia. . 1891, Baltiraore, Johns Hopkins
Press, pp. 61.
Miller, Kelly. The Priraary Needs of the Negro Race. An address before
the Alumni Association of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural In
stitute, June 14, '1899. . 1899, 'Washington, pp. 18.
Miller, Kelly. A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the
American Negro. 1897, Washington, pp. 36.
Miscegenation Indorsed by the Republican Party. (Campaign Document
No. II.) 1864, New York. pp. 8.
Mitchell, Edward Cushing. Higher Education and the Negro. 1896.
pp. 19-
Modern Philanthropy Illustrated. How They Tried to Make a White Man
of a Negro Twenty-five Hundred Years Ago. pp. 8.
Mohawk Conference on the Negro Question. First Conference held at
Lake Mohawk, N. Y., June 4-6, 189b. 1890, Boston, pp. 144. Second
Conference, June 3-5, 1891. 1891, Boston, pp. 125.
Moore, G. W. Employment of Negroes in the American Array of the Revo
lution. 1862, New York.
Moore, G. The First Man and His Place in Creation. Appendix on The
Negro. 1866, London.
, Moore, John. The Negro and American Liberty. 1895, Boston, pp. 8.
Moore, J. J. History of the African" Methodist Episcopal Zion Churclr. '
1884, York, Pa. Teachers' Journal Office, pp. 399. >
Morgan, J. T. Africa's Opportunities for American Commerce and the
Araerican Negro. Liberia, Bulletin No. 6, February, 1895. pp. 12-39;
Morgan, Thoraas J. The Negro in Araerica, and the Ideal Araerican Re
public. 1898, Philadelphia, Araerican Baptist Publication Society.
pp. 203.
Mossell, Mrs. N. T. The Work of Afro-Arnerican Women. 1894, Phila
delphia, pp. 178.
'M'ott, A. Biography of Colored People. Philadelphia. Pamphlet, Phil--
adelphia Library Company.
Murphy, Edgar Gardner. The White Man and the Negro at the South.
"To be obtained of Henry C. Davis, 204 Walnut Place, Philadelphia.
Philadelphia, 1900.
National Association of Colored Men of Araerica. Meraorial relative to
status of colored race in United States, January 9, 1896. pp. 5. Senate
Document 61, Fifty-fourth Congress, First Session in Vol. HI.

Bibliography. 235
National Convention of Colored People and Their Friends, Troy, N. Y.,
1847. Proceedings. 1847, Troy. pp. 38.
National Convention of Colored Men, Syracuse, N. Y., October 4-7, 1864.
Proceedings, with the bill of wrongs and rights, and the address to
the American people. 1864, Boston, pp. 62.
National Convention of the Colored Men of Araerica, Washington, 1869.
(Convened especiaUy to consider the suffrage question.) Proceedings.
1869, Washington, pp. 42.
National Educational Association. Annual reports, proceedings and ad-
di'esses. Various years.
Needles, Edward. An Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania Society for
Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. 1848, Philadelphia, pp. 116.
Needles, Edward. Ten Years' Progress ; or a comparison of the state and
condition of the colored people in the city and county of Philadelphia'
from 1837 to 1847. 1849, Philadelphia.
-Neil, William C. Services of Colored Araericans in the Wars of 1776 and
1812. 1894, Philadelphia. Reprinted edition.
Nott.'Josiah Clark. Two Lectures on the Natural History of the Caucasian
and Negro Races. 1844, Mobile, pp. 53.
'Negro, The, or the Crimes and the Recompense of the North ahd South.
,1863, Manchester, pp. 16.
O'Neall, J. B. Negro Law of South Carolina Collected and Digested.
1848, Columbia.
Optician, Pseud. Speculum for looking into the paraphlef entitled. The
Negro, by Ariel. 1867, Charleston, pp. 27.
-Orcutt, John. African Colonization. Address before Araerican Coloniza
tion Society, January 19, 1875. 1875, New York. pp. 22.
Orr, Gustavus J. The Education of the Negro; Its Rise, Progress and
Present Status ; being an address before the National Educational
' Association at Chatauqua, N. Y. 1880, Atlanta, pp. 15.
Outhwaite, J. H. Report Favoring House Report 7,095 to Provide for Na
tional 'Home for Aged and Infirm Colored People. May 22, 1894. 3
pp. House Report 933, Second Session, in Vol. HI.
Owen, A., and W. H. Scarborough. Higher Education of the Colored
Race — What Has Been Done ; What Can Be Done. Proceedings and
addresses of the National Education Association, 1889. pp. S46-553.
Paige, T. F. Twenty-two Years of Freedom. 1885, Norfolk, 'Va., pub
lished by the author, pp. 100.
Patton, Cornelius H. A Broad Education. (On education of negro.)
1898, New York, Araerican Missionary Association, pp. 7.
Patton, General W. An Essay on the Origin and Relative Status of the
White and Colored Races-of Mankind. 1871, Towanda. pp. 41.
Payne, Daniel A. History of the African Methodist Episcopal hurch.
1891, Nashville, pp. 498.
Payne, D. A. A Treatise on Doraestic Education. 1885, Cincinnati, Crans
ton & Stowe. pp. 184.
Penn, Irvine Garland. The Afro-Arnerican Press and Its Editors. 1891,
Springfield, pp. 565.
Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and "for the
Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held ia Bondage, etc. Act of
Incorporation and Constitution, 'i860, Philadelphia, pp. 36.
Pike, G. D. The Jubilee Singers and Their Carapaign for $20,000 for
Fisk University. (Contains also Jubilee songs.) 1873, Boston, pp.
219.
Pollard, Edward A. Black Diaraonds Gathered in the Darkey Homes of
the South. 1859, New York.
Present State and Condition of the Free People of Color of the City of
Philadelphia and Adjoining Districts, etc. 1838, Philadelphia.
Price, J. C. Education and the Race Problem. Proceedings and addresses
of the National Education Association, 1890. pp. 267.

236 The Montgomery Conference.
Proceedings of Convention of Colored Freeman of Pennsylvania; Pamphlet
Philadelphia Libray Company.
Proceedings of the National Convention of Colored People. 1847, Troy.
pp. 38.
Proceedings of the State Convention of Colored Citizens of Tennessee..
1871, Nashville, pp. 16.
Purvis, Robert. Reraarks on the Life and Character of James Forteh.
Pamphlet Philadelphia Library Company. ' ,
Ransome, 'R. C. School Days at Wilberforce. 1892, Springfield, Ohio,.,
New Era Company, pp. 70.
Recluse, Elisee. The Earth and Its Inhabitants. Vols. I and II.
Report of the Actuary of the Delaware Association for the Education of
the Colored People (1877-78). 1878, Wilmington.
Report of the Comraittee Appointed for the Purpose of Securing to Col
ored People in Philadelphia the Right to the Use of the Street Cars.
1S65, Philadelphia.
Report of the. Committee on the Comparative Health, Mortality, Length-
of Sentences, etc., of White and Colored Co'nvicts. 1849, Philadelphia.
Report of the Minority of the Coramittee of the Priraary School Board
on the Caste Schools of Boston (E. Jackson and H. I. Bowditch),
with Remarks on the City Solicitor's Opinion (by Wendell Phillips).
1846, Boston, A. J. 'Wright's Press, pp. 36.
Report of the Superintendent of Public Insstruction of Virginia, 1900.
Report upon the Educational Exhibit of Colored People at the International
Exposition, New Orleans. Proceedings and addresses of the National
Educa,tion Association, 1885. pp. 531.
Rickard, James H. Services with Colored Troops in Burnside's Corps.
1894, Providence, pp. 43.
Riley, Jerome R. The -Philosophy of Negro Suffrage. 1897, Washington.
pp. 142. '
Rollins, Frank A. Life of Major Martin Delaney. 1868, Boston, Lee &
Shepherd, pp. 367.
'Royall, William L. History of the Virginia Debt Controversy. The-
Negro's Vicious Influence in Politics. i897, Richraond, West. pp. in.
Rudd, L. E. Catholic Afro-Araerican Congresses. 1893, Cincinnati, Araeri
can Catholic Tribune, pp. 160. ^
.JRuffin, Frank G. The Negro as a Political and Social Factor. 1888.
Richmondi pp. 32.- ' ,
Ruffin, Frank G. The Cost and Outcome of Negro Education in Virginia.
1889, Richmond, E. Waddey. pp. 20.
Ruffner, W. H. Emancipation and Its Historical Consequences. Virginia
School RejJorts, 1870-71. pp. 92.
Rush, Christopher. Rise and Progress of the African Methodist Episcopal
(ihurch. 1866, New York, published by the author, pp. 106.
S., M. The Adaraic Race. Reply to Ariel, Drs. Young and Blackie, on tjie-
negro. 1868, New York. pp. 70.
Sampson, J. P. Mixed Races. 1881, Harapton, Va. >
Sampson, J. P. Temperaraent and Phrenology of the Negro Race. 1881,
Hampton, Va., published by the author, pp, 171.
Samson, George W. United States Government, the^ Founder and Neces
sary Patron of the Liberian Republic. Address before American Colo
nization Society, January 18, 1881. 1881, Washington, pp. 12.
Scarborough, W. H. and A. Owen. Higher Ed^cation of the Colored Race.
What Has Been Done; What Can Be' Done. National Edu,cational
Association, 1889. pp. 546-553.
Schoolcraft, Mrs. H. R. Letters on the Condition of the African Race in-
' the United States, by a Southern lady. 1852, Philadelphia, pp. 34. '
Scruggs, L. A. Women of Distinction. 1893, Raleigh, North Carolina,
published by the author, pp. 382. '
Serment, J. H. La question des negres et la reconstruction du Sud aux:
^Etats-Unis. 1866, Genene.

Bibliography. 237
-Shaler, Prof. N. S. The Transplantation of a Race. Popular Science
Monthly, March, 1900.
Shorter, Susie I. Heroines of African Methodism. 1891, Xenia, Ohio,
W. B. Chew. pp. 70.
Simmons, R. W. J. Mfen of Mark. l887,- Cleveland, George W. Rewell
& Co. pp. 1 138.
Slater Fund. Occasional Papers, Nos. 1-9, 1894-1898, Baltimore, i. D3cu-
- ments relating, to origin and work of Slater trustees, 1882-1894. 2.
'Brief Mem. of Life of John F. Slater, of Norwich, Connecticut,
by S. H. Howe. 3. Education of Negroes Since i860, by J. L. 'iVi'.
Curry. 4. Statistics of Negroes in United States, by Henry Gannett.
5. Difficulties, etc.. Connected with Education of Negroes, by J. L. M.
Curry. 6. Occupation of Negroes, by Henry Gannett. 7. The Negro
and the Atlanta Exposition, by Alice M. Bacon. 8. Report of Fifth
Tuskegee Negro Conference, 1896, by J. Q. Johnson. 9. Report on Col
ored 'Women of the South, Mrs. E. C. Hobson and Mrs. C. E. Hopkins,
Slater Fund. Proceedings of Trustees. 1883-1899, Baltimore.
Smedley, R. C. The 'Underground Railroad. 1883, Philadelphia, pp.
410.
Smith, Mrs. Amanda. Autobiography of Araanda Sraith. 1893, Chicago,
Meyer Brothers, pp. 506.
Smith, C. S. Official Sermons of Bishop Payne, LL. D. 1888, Nashville
African Methodist Episcopal Sunday School Union; pp. 64.
Smith, C. S. Monograph of Bishop D. A. Payne, LL. D. 1884, Nash
ville African Methodist Episcopal Sunday School Union., pp. 60.
Smith, C. S. Liberia in the Light of Living Testimony. 1895, Nashville,
African Methodist Episcopal Sunday School Union, pp. 61.
I Smith, I. P. Address in opposition to the abolition of colored schools, ¦
1849. 1850, Boston. pp. 12. ¦
, Smith, J. W. Addresses and Sermons of Bishop S. T. Jones. 1892, York,
Pa., Austadt & Son. pp. 302.
'^mith, L. H. Earnest Pleas. 1891, Nashville African Methodist Episcopal '
Sunday School Union, pp. 64.
Smith, M. H. The Teaching Capabilities of Colored Persons. Proceedings
and papers, Tenth Annual Meeting of Missouri State Teachers' Asso
ciation, held at Chillicothe, Mo., 1871. pp. 44.
Southern 'Workman, The. A monthly magazine published by the Hampton
Institute, dealing with Negro education. Hampton, Va.
Southern Letter, The. A monthly paper published by the students at
Tuskagee, Alabama.
Spring, L. The Negro at Home; His Capacity for Self-Government and
the Government of Whites. 1868, New York.
Statistical inquiry into the condition of the people of color of the city and
districts of Philadelphia. 1849, Philadelphia.
Statistical Sketch of Negroes in TJnited States. United State's Represen
tative Education Bureau, 1895, Vol. II. pp. 1396-1415. '
Steele, A. J. Normal School Work Among the Colored People. Proceed
ings and addresses of the National Educational Association, 1889 pp.
588.
Stetson, George R. The Southern Negro as He Is. 1877, Boston, pp. 32.
Stetson, George R. The Problem of Negro Education. 1884, Boston, Cup
ples, Upham & Co. pp 21. '
Stetson, George R. The Educational Status of the Negro in the United
States. Liberia, Bulletin No. 5, November. 1894. PP- 6.
Stetson, George R. The White Mafa's Problem.
Stewart, Austin. Twenty-two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman.
1861,' Rochester.
Stewart, T. McC. Liberia, the Americo-African Republic. 1886, New
York, E. O. Jenkins, pp. 106.
Still, William. The Underground Railroad. 1872, Philadelphia, pp. 780.

238 The Montgomery Conference.
Straker, D. Augustus. The New South Investigated. 1888, Detroit, Fer
guson Printing Corapany. pp. 230.
Strieby, M. E. Work of Half a Generation Araong the- Freedraen in the
United States. 1878, New York, Araerican Missionary Association,
famphlet No. 5. pp. 31. '
Subgenation. An answer to Miscegenation.
SuAner, Charles. Equality Before the Law; Unconstitutionality of Sep
arate Colored Schools in iVl'assachusetts. Argument before Supreme^
Court of Massachusetts in case of Sarah C. Roberts vs. City of Bostofl,.
December 4, 1849. 1870, Washington, pp. 16.
Tanner, Benjamin "T. An Apology for African Methodism. 1867, Balti
more, pp. 468.
Tanner, Benjarain T. An Outline of History and Governraent for African!
Methodist Episcopal Chufchraen. 1884, Philadelphia, pp. 206.
Tanner, B. T. African Methodist Episcopal Church Review. 1884-1888,
4 v., Philadelphia, African Methodist Episcopal Publishing HoCise.
Tapsico, Jacob and Richard Allen. The Ooctrine and Discipline of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church. 1819, Philadelphia.
Tarbox, Increase Niles. The Course; or the Position in the World's
History Occupied by the Race of Hara. '1864, Boston, Araerican Tract.
Society, pp. 160.
Taunton Union for the Relief and Iraproveraent of the Colored Race.
Proceedings, views, etc. 1835, Taunton, pp. 14.
Taylor, Charles H. J. Whites and Blacks, or the Question Settled. 1889,
Atlanta, pp. 52.
Taylor, Marshall W. Plantation Melodies. 1883, Cincinnati, published by
the author, pp. 272.
Thomas, Allen C. The Attitude of the Society of Friends Toward Slav
ery, etc. (Reprinted from Vol. VIH, Araerican Society of Church
History.) 1897, New York.
Thomas, L. L. A. Colored Man's Reply to Bishop Foster. 1893, Baltimore,
H. H. Sraith. pp. 118.
Thoraas, W H. Negro Probleras. Land and Education. A critical and,
practical discussion of the raental a'nd physical needs of the freedmen.
^ 1890, Boston, pp. 71.
Thompson, J. P. The Question of Races in the United States. 1874, Glas
gow, pp. 15.
Thorn, William T. Some Reflections on Race in Education, with Special
Reference to the Negro Problera. United States Bureau of Educa
tion. Special Report New Orleans Exposition, 1884-1885. pp. 775-781.
Trades of Colored People. 1838, Philadelphia.
Triuraph of Equal School Rights in Boston. Addresses at meeting on
opening of Boston public schools to Negroes, by Wendell Phillips, W. '
L. Garrison, W. C. Nell and others. 1856, Boston, pp. 24.
Trotter, Jaraes M. Music and Some Musical People. Containing. sketches-
' of musicians of the colored race, with portraits and appendix contain
ing copies of music by colored raen. 1878, Boston, pp. 353 ; 152.
Tucker, Joseph L. The Relations of the Church to the Colored Race. 1882,
Jackson, pp. 91.
Turner, Howard H. The Negro in all Ages. pp. 84.
Turner, H. H. Printed Speeches : i. The Duty of the Negro to the Gen
eral Governraent. 2. The Wisdora of Reconstruction Measures. 3. The
Civil and Political Status of Georgia. 4. Hon. Charles Sumner as a
Statesman. 5. The Negro and His Civil Rights.
Turner, H. H. Methodist Polity, or the Genius and Theory of Methodism.
1885, Philadelphia, pp. 342.
Turner, U. H. Conflict of Civil Rights, pp. 40.
Turner, H. H. Barbarous Decision of the United States Suprerae CoUrt-
PP- 72.

Bibliography. 239
Turner, Henry McNeal. Fifteenth Araendment. A speech on the benefits
accruing frora the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Delivered,
Macon, Georgia, April 19, 1870. pp. 16.
Ullman Daniel. Address before the Soldiers' and Sailors' Union of the
State of New York on the organization of colored troops and the re
generation of the South, delivered at Albany, February 5, 1868. 1868,
Washington, pp. 16.
Updike, Eugene G. Christianity the Solvent of Race Antagonisms. 1898,
New York, Araerican Missionary Association, pp. 7.
Van Evrie, J. H. Negroes an Inferior Race. 1861, New York.
Ward, S. G. Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro. 1855, London.
Warden, H. Translation of H. Gregoire's Intellectual and Mor^l Powers
of Negroes. 1810, Brooklyn.
Wallace, John. Carpetbag Rule in Flbrida. 1888, Jacksonville, Florida,,
DeCosta Publishing House, pp. 444.
Washington, Booker T. Address at opening of Atlanta Exposition, Sep
teraber 18, 1895. United States Report Education Bureau, 1895, Vol.
2, pp. 1755 and 1756.
Washington, Booker T. The Story of My Life and Work, with introduc
tion by Dr. J. L. M. Curry. Illustrated. 1900, Chicago, J. L. Nichols
& Co.
Washington, Booker Taliaferro. The Future of the American Negro.
1899, Boston, pp. 244.
Watson, TJipmas E. The Negro Question in the South. In the People's
Cause. 1892, Boston, pp. 10 and 20.
Wayraan, A. 'W. My Recollections of African Mgthodist Episcopal Minis-
. ters. 1882, Philadelphia, pp. 250.
Weeks, Stephen Beauregard. The History of Negro Suffrage in the South.
Political Science Quarterly, 'Vol. IX, pp. 671-703. 1894, Boston, pp. 32.
Weeks, Stephen B. Southern Quakers and Slavery. A study in Institu
tional History. i8g6, Baltiraore. pp. 414.
Whitman, A. A. Not a Man and Yet a Man. 1877, Springfield, Ohio,
Republican Printing Company, pp. 254.
Whitman, A. A. Twasinta's Seminoles. 1890, St. Louis, Nixon & Jones
Printing Corapany. pp. 58.
Wilkinson, James John Garth. The African and the True Christian Reli
gion His MagnaC harta. A study in the writings of Emanuel Swed-
enborg. 1892, London, pp. 245.
Willeox, Walter F. Negro Criminality. Paper read before American So
cial Science Association, September, 1899. 1899, Boston.
Williams, Charles H. The Race Problera. The Nineteenth Century Bar
barisms and Injustice of Two Great Nations, Spain and the United
States. 1898, Baraboo. pp. 6.
Williams, D. B. Freedom and Progress. 1890, Petersburg, Virginia, Fenn
& Oliver, pp. 150.
-Williams, D. B. Science and Art of Teaching. 1880,, Petersburg, Virginia,
Fenn & Oliver, pp. 126.
Williams, Rev. George Wasfiington. Emancipation Day. The Negro as a
Political Problem. Oration at Washington, April 16, 1884. 1884, Bos
ton, pp. 40.
Williaras, Rev. George W. History of the Negro Race in America from
1619 to 1880, with an historical Sketch of Africa and an account of the
Negro governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia. 1883, New York.
Williams. George W. A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the
RebelUon, 1861-1865. 1888, <New York, Harpers, pp. 353.
Willson, Joseph. Sketches of the Higher Classes of Colored Society in
Philadelphia. 1841, Philadelphia.
Willson, Joseph T. The Black Phalanx ; a History of the Negro Soldiers
of the United States in the Wars of 1775-1812, 1861-1865. 1888, Hart-
fdrd. pp. -528. ,

240 , The Montgomery Conference.
Wilson, C. B. Manual and History of the Grand United Order of Odd
Fellows. 1894, Philadelphia, published by the author, pp. 360.
Wilson, Henry. Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America. 3 Vols.
1872, Boston.
Wilson, Joseph T. Emancipation. 1882, Hampton, Virginia, pp. 242.
Withrow, John L. The Hour for Africa. Address before Araerican Colo
nization Society, January 18, 1881. 1881, Washington, pp. 12.
Wood, Rev. G. The Uncivilized Races of Men in all Countries of, the
World. Vol. I. ¦ ¦ -
Woods, Charles D. and W. O. Atwater. Dietary Studies with Reference to
the Food of the Negro in Alabama in 1895-1896. 1897, Washington,
Bulletin of Agricultural Departraent, No. 38.
Woodbury, Francis Porter. The Feudal South. (American Missionary
Association.) 1898, New .York. pp. 58.
Woodworth, Frank G. The Kind and Scope of Education Needed for the
Colored Race. A paper read before the Mississippi State Teachers'
Association (white) in Decernber, 1892.
Wright, Richard R. Brief Historical Sketch of Negro Education in
Georgiai 1894, Savannah, Georgia, pp. 58.
Young,. Charles S. Co-education of Races (followed by discussion)
United States Bui-eau of Education Circular of Information No. 2,
1886. pp. 96-103.
Note. — Additions to the Bibliography will be incorporated in this List
and printed each year in the annual Publication of the Proceedings of the
Montgomery Conference. Suggestions as to books by Southern authors
will be especially accdptable. , Address the Secretary of the Southern So
ciety, P. O. Box 370, Montgomery, Alabania.

3 9002 00493 6424