WHITES AND BLACKS OR THE QUESTION SETTLED 28

CHAPTER IV. THE PROBLEM— MUST THERE BE A RACE CONFLICT? 

But, be that as it may, no sensible white man will ever expect the colored people, on their own motion, to go out of politics. The white man does not ask that they should: he does ask that when recognition is sought or, that it shall be by the best colored men, and shall be solicited at their hands, and not at the hands of those persons of the white race who have done so much to estrange the races and separate, by a distinct line, this section from the North.

I have never known a respectable committee of colored men to ask in a respectful manner for a favor from the rulers of the South but what it was instantly granted. The thing the white men South will never quietly submit to is the forced recognition of the  Negro for political place among them.

On the other hand, I believe the South is quite willing to grant minority representation to the Negro in every Southern State. Negroes have been elected to the legislature, they have been seated, appointed on committees and given the same recognition and enjoyed the same courtesies as other members. In the courts they are treated with the utmost kindness, and so far as treatment is concerned, the only distinction which is made the Negro makes it himself.

It is said that the Negro's idea of first-class is to be with "white folks;" that if the white people all rode in the smoking car, and he was given a seat in the parlor coach, he would feel uncomfortable and complain of being proscribed, interdicted, discriminated against, and given second-class. I hope the statement does not reflect the condition of the majority of the race, but I am afraid it does. The Negro has been trained to look up to the white man and to regard him as the owner and enjoyer of the "best” there is in the land; so, if he mistakes second-class, when accepted by a white man to be first-class,

I am not surprised.

The talk of a conflict between the races is talk for nothing. The two races here are bound together by many ties. I had occasion to say in my "open letter", on the question of extermination, a few things which may sound course but which I originally presented in the most friendly spirit, and which I reproduce here, with a heart filled with genuine affection for both races.

Morpheus takes me into sleep, at night, while

I am thinking that, somewhere in the wide range of God's

mercy, God's justice and God's love, all men will be housed from the storm and everlastingly saved.

To live, feeling this way, and to die the same, ought to be happiness enough for any one.