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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (June 14, 1900)
Che Conservative * i moved all hygienic restraints , and they were no longer obedient to the inexor able laws of health , plunging into all sorts of excesses and vices , leading ir regular lives , and having apparently little or no control over their appetites and passions. It is very manifest that these morbid tendencies and suscepti bilities have been growing and taking deeper root for the past thirty years ; hence their unstable condition and their susceptibility to and inability to resist attacks of disease that were formerly almost unknown among them. ( Powell. ) In the wholesale violation of these hygienic laws after the war , as previous ly stated , was laid the foundation of the degeneration of the physical and mental constitution of the negro. Licentious ness left its slimy trail of sometimes in eradicable disease upon his physical being , and neglected bronchitis , pneu monia and pleurisy lent their helping hand toward lung degeneration. A Moral Being. Science has demonstrated that he is a moral being , without the high moral character or broad brain abilities of the white man , it being an anatomical fact that the average weight of the negro's brain is 42 ounces , while 49 ounces is the recognized average of the Caucasian ; that his mental calibre is small , his brain convolutions being few and super ficial and his forms of insanity , prin cipally mania , showing the involvement only of the lower physical strata of the brain. If science thus demonstrates the ne- groe's mental inferiority , certainly his tory , dating as far back as the time of Pepi , of the VI Dynasty of Egypt , 2,500 years B. 0. , proves his phylogeny to have been of an inferior type , and that the general characteristics of the negro of that date were the same as those of the negro of equatorial Africa today. From the time of Genesis and the curse of Canaan : ' 'A servant of ser vants shalt thou be to thy brethren , " the negro has belonged to a subordinate race , and ancient history has left no rec ords of his achievements as warrior , king or councillor , but along its whole path way he has plod in servitude , even from the day when the Cyrenian was laid hold upon and made to bear the cross of the fainting Christ. The problem of adjusting and adopt ing this people to the environments of civilization has been left in these latter days to the white people of the South. Under the environments of slavery and under the tutelage of the whites , their worst character was uplifted and eleva ted , but under the present conditions of life , and under their own leaders , I do not hesitate to say that the race is de generating and fast reverting to their original types of savagery. Under the old regime , the negro had for his pre ceptor and educator the most highly educated and moral class of the white people , at present , under the fancied an tagonism of classes , and because of racial prejudices , the negro is used only for temporary purposes , and without regard for his future welfare or im provement. In domestic service , the mothers and fathers yet have the advan tage of attrition to the whites , but their children are being raised by superannua ted members of the family who have neither the mental nor moral qualifica tions , nor the proper self-control to edu cate and restrain them. New Issue of Race. This "new issue" of the race , essen tially ignorant and superstitious , vicious and impulsive , idle and improvident , mentally never more than a half-grown child , without self-confidence or am bition , without originality or persistency of purpose ; descended from the most inferior and degraded race of West Coast Africans , not at all equal to the Kaffirs or Zulus of Southern Africa or the Soudanese of Northern Africa this type of the second generation , which today confronts our southern civiliza tion , is to any unbiased mind worse than the first. Can they , with their history , with heredity , with their character , measure up to the necessary standard and the high requirements of this day ? I answer no and I answer yes no , if they con tinue the experiment under their own leadership ; yes , if they are willing to trust , faithfully and obediently , their leadership in education , in morals , and in government of state to the best thought and talent of the whites. Menace to the South. The negro is in the South to remain , and all attempts at expatriation or de portation , or colonization , will be as vain as they are chimerical ; he will remain , however , as a parasite upon the body politic , and unless led with consummate skill through the dangers that confront him he will become a standing menace to the welfare of the South. The negro is nothing of a peasant ; he never develops a country ; he has made no material advancement , as their history since the war in the South will show , the race as a whole in Virginia today not paying 5 cents on the dollar of this state's taxes. The history of this people in Hayti and Santo Domingo , with complete con trol of their own government , is too well known as a disastrous failure to re quire reiteration here. In Jamaica , even under British influences and allowed a fair proportion in the participation of government , they have made an absolute failure , and , from credible authority , have reverted to hoodooism and canni balism ; and the only experiment ever made by England in this country , when in the war of 1812 the English fleet under Admiral Oookburn carried off a large number of negroes from Tide- 5 , water , Virginia , to Halifax , Nova Scotia , and there colonized them , has been like wise a dismal failure , for I am informed by an eye-witness that , though left to themselves and supplied with all the privileges of education , they have \ dwindled to a mere handful , and are * _ ' , living in a condition of poverty and de gradation that will sooner or later end in a state of brutal savagery. OucHtloii of Education. X It may be pertinently asked if educa tion would the better fit this race for the responsibilities before them. Surely so , but the history and statistics of the past thirty-five years in the South show that the negro neither desires a full and systematic education nor has he , as a class , received any substantial benefits from it , for though there may be an occasional gleam of intellectual brillian cy , it is the exception , and the dark pall of ignorance still beclouds the race of southern negroes , although the public school system , 19-20 of whose cost has been paid for by the whites , has been their common privilege. Before this method of elevating the negro can be relied upon for their material advance ment , experience has shown that the methods of education now in vogue must be changed , and that it must be industrial and mechanical , and , above all , that it must be directed by the maturer wisdom of the whites in order that intelligence may give dignity and beauty to his labor , and that , added to this , religion and morality may be weaved into the woof and warp of the practical affairs of the negro's daily life. No , the negro will remain with us in the South , if he will but give up his aspirations to full citizenship and con fide his education and government to the whites , who , in times past , have proved their love for him remain in peace , re main to fill the offices for which God and nature designed him , remain to be the white man's servant , "hewers of wood and drawers of water. " Some kind of restraining and inhibitory in fluences such as once characterized the institution of slavery , must be thrown around him as a safeguard for many years to come , or there will bo a con tinued degeneracy and a tendency to a reversion to his primitive typo as a savage. He must eliminate himself directly from the body politic , and the education which he is capable of taking will the better fit him to gravitate to his appointed place in the onward march of southern civilization. This is the problem for the South ; to carry these two races in peace , for discord means ruin ; to carry them separately , for assimilation means de basement ; to carry them in equal justice , for to this she is pledged ; to carry them even unto the end , for this is her destiny. This burden no other people bears today , on nouo other hath it ever rested.
