3i8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for a long time lie was protected politically, by force of Federal 

 arms and the most rigid Federal laws, and still more effectively, 

 perhaps, by the voice and influence in the halls of legislation of 

 such advocates of the rights of the negro race as Charles Sumner, 

 Benjamin F. Butler, James A. Garfield, Oliver P. Morton, Carl 

 Schurz, and Roscoe Conkling; and on the stump and through the 

 public press by those great and powerful negroes, Frederick Doug- 

 lass, John M. Langston, Blanche K. Bruce, John K. Lynch, P. B. S. 

 Pinchback, Robert Browne Elliot, and many others ; but the negro 

 has continued for twenty years to have fewer representatives in 

 the State and national legislatures. The reduction has continued 

 until now it is to the point where, with few exceptions, he is with- 

 out representatives in the lawmaking bodies of the State and of the 

 nation. 



Now, let us find, if we can, a cause for this. The negro is fond 

 of saying that his present condition is due to the fact that the State 

 and Federal courts have not sustained the laws passed for the pro- 

 tection of the rights of his people, but I think we shall have to go 

 deeper than this, because I believe that all agree that court decisions, 

 as a rule, represent the public opinion of the community or nation 

 creating and sustaining the court. 



At the beginning of his freedom, it was unfortunate that those 

 of the white race who won the political confidence of the negro were 

 not, with few exceptions, men of such high character as would lead 

 them to assist him in laying a firm foundation for his development. 

 Their main purpose appears to have been, for selfish ends in too 

 many instances, merely to control his vote. The history of the 

 reconstruction era will show that this was unfortunate for all the 

 parties in interest. 



It would have been better, from any point of view, if the native 

 Southern white man had taken the negro, at the beginning of his 

 freedom, into his political confidence, ajid exercised an influence 

 and control over him before his political affections were alien- 

 ated. In the light of present experience, I think all will now agree 

 that the ballot would have meant more to the negro and would 

 have been more lasting in its results, would have caused less opposi- 

 tion, if it had been given to him gradually, as he came into posses- 

 sion of education. 



The average Southern white man has the idea to-day that if 

 the negro were permitted to get any political power all the mistakes 

 of the reconstruction period would be repeated. He forgets or 

 ignores the fact that thirty years of acquiring education and prop- 

 erty and character have produced a higher type of black man than 

 existed thirty years ago. 



