V I 1 * ' ix
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schools ( some of them industrial ) and
hospitals for the Indians , and upon a
scale that more than favorably comparps
with like institutions of today. In 16556
they pave the Indians of Mexico a news
paper , 102 years before the whites of
this country had one.
Humboldt found the Indians of Mexico
ice ( in 1824) ) a people on whom he lav
ished no end of praise.
Two hundred and fifty years ago a
half-breed Indian engineer , with Indian
workmen , compassed the herculean task
of the Tajo of Nochestongo a ditch
through earth and stone twelve miles
long , 800 feet wide , at an average
depth of 180 feet.
Th last great tunnel and ditch dug
for the drainage of the City of Mexico ,
and pronounced one of the greatest en
gineering feats of this age , was con
structed by Indian workmen under the
guidance of a full-blooded Indian engi
neer , and it was built without cas
ualties.
Juarez , that unswerving patriot-presi
dent of Mexico , whom the United States so
justly acknowledged , was a full-blooded
Indian. The present president of Mexico
ice , who has no superior either as sold
ier or statesman , is part Indian. The
Spaniards not only found the Indian
could be educated , but also found his
education a profitable investment , and ,
had that education been without church
bigotry , Spain would have stood a right
smart chance of ruling a large portion
of this continent. In Mexico today
every hamlet of 100 Indians has a school
house and religions teaching forbidden
in all schools. The progress of the
Mexican nation in the last twenty years
is the greatest marvel of this progres
sive age , and President Diaz's name will
appear upon history's page as one of the
world's greatest benefactors.
There is no stronger proof of our de
generacy than the fact that we have a
minister of the gospel who excuses slav
ery , and writes such lame excuses as
this : "It is only common justice , how
ever , to remember two things : the first
is that the bondage in which he was
held in America was at its worst beyond
comparison better than that from which
he was fetched in Africa. " "Whose
word has this divine for this "worst"
state of the African before the white
man's whiskey and the slave-hunter gel
among them ? How about the thous
ands of slaves born in this country ?
Many of them so white they could not
be distinguished from their masters.
Has he no words of condemnation for
the white men who dealt in their own
flesh and blood , and reaped greater
profits because the subject of the sale
was to gratify the worst passions'
other white men ?
He says : "The real question is , has
the United States done what it might
for the negro since it became alive to
the wrong and folly of slavery ? To
; his I reply that so far from having any-
liing to shame us in our record we have
done for that people beyond estimate
more than any other nation under
Eleaven would have done or has ever
done. * * * * * *
And what is more the negroes generally
recognize this fact , and are grateful
for it. "
Upon the surrender of the Confeder
ates we extended to them a magnani
mity that surprised the world , yet
those rebels returned home and placed
upon the statute books of every state ,
except Tennessee , laws that would have
made a barbarian of the dark ages blush ,
thousands of white and black Union
men were murdered , and the white men
of the North did nothing but go down
there and fasten a debt of $291,000,000
upon the states , "provisional govern
ment expenses , " such as the politicians
will fasten upon those islands we have
captured. If you claim this was just
after the heat and bitterness of war ,
we'll take the record from 1885.
Twenty years ought to have cooled the
rebels off , especially as they now had
full swing in congress and the North
was still showering them with olive
branches. Since 1885 [ over a thousand
negroes have been shot , hanged and
burned at the stake in the South , and so
openly , brutishly , and defiantly , that in
many instances the photographer was
called to take the crowd while at the
job and in the crowd were white
mothers holding up their little children
to see the ghastly sight. Through the
newspapers of the South many have
been led to believe this punishment
was dealt out to negroes who ravished
women , but only 311 were charged with
this crime , and not one of these proven.
George Cable's testimony in regard
to the convict system of the South
( given before the prison congress of
Kentucky ) demonstrates that this lynch
ing business is far the most merciful of
the two. "Colored men and women
sentenced from two to ten years for an
ordinary fist-cuffing ; 1,200 convicts in
Georgia prisons , had for simple stealing ,
without breaking and violence , been
virtually condemned to be worked to
death. " Cable declares : "It is useless
to sentence a prisoner for over ten years
to any of these Southern prisons as the
records show that ten years is the aver
age length of life in these prisons. " If ,
as McConnell says , "the negroes are
grateful for this treatment what musl
have been their life in slavery , and thai
back in Africa , from which the slave-
hunter so kindly released them ? "
Isn't it a little singular that a people
of whom the brilliant Brady of The
Atlanta Constitution said : "The most
remarkable people on earth , when then ?
masters went out to fight a war for their
continued enslavement the master's all
was left in the negro's charge , and we
have yet to hear of a single instance
where the negro betrayed that trust , "
should become , so suddenly , criminally
vicious ?
"Thousands of white women , without
white male protection , left in the negro's
care for years , and not one of them as
saulted , but now the negro voter pans
out a terrible brute ( ? ) "
But God's law of equity doe's not al-
.ow the white man to perpetrate all
ihis injustice without injury to himself.
From 1886 to 1895 there wore 48,834 mur
ders and 1,655 lynchings in the United
States. Murders increased from four a
day in 1886 to twenty-seven per day in
1897 , and last year promises an average
of over thirty per day. Although there
were 14,527 murders and lynchings from
1885 to 1890 the census-takers found but
7,386 persons confined in all our peni
tentiaries , county jails , reformatories
and asylums who were charged with
homicide and murder. In the five years
there had been 449 executions , but these
no doubt , are offset by those serving
long terms for murders committed prior
to 1885. Connected with each of the 702
lynchiugs there were all the way from ,
five to twenty persons. All of which
demonstrated that paying premiums for
treason is likely to be followed by again
paying premiums for murders. If there
is nothing wrong in our mode of govern
ing , why all this crime and blood ?
How is it Canada has had but one lynch
ing and her murders so few , while we
today stand charged with being the
worst nation on earth for murders ?
If we are not , as McConnell says ,
"without shame" we will have to ac
knowledge our hands are not clean.
GEORGE E. SMITH.
Racine , Wis. , April 11 , 1899.
Vest , Cockrell ,
PROMOTKRS Bailey and other
OF WAR.
free silver states
men boasted a few months ago of then ?
ability as promoters of the Spanish-
American war. In the senate and in
the house they vaunted their prowess as
stimulators of hostilities and accelerators
of battles between the armies of Spain
and the United States. They even
claimed the honor and foresight of hav
ing brought on the conflict and de
nounced Grosvenor of Ohio for assum
ing it to be a party war a republican
party war.
With such jingo antecedents what
right have Vest , Bailey , Bryan & Co. to
bemoan consequences , to criticise con
duct , or to object to being held equally
responsible with McKiuley , Hanna , El-
kins , Quay & Co. ?
The free silverites , the Chicago plat
form prophets precipitated the war.
They led as drum majors the forces of
imperialism annexation , expansion and
corruption 1
The "benevolent assimilation" of the
money of a bank by its cashier some
times results in imprisonment and some
times in suicide.
