Musings of the South 1 49 



aggravating kind. The subject of this conference 

 was the cultivation of better relations between the 

 two races — the causes of the present conditions, so 

 far as they were unfavorable, and the remedies. 



Booker Washington walked on dangerous ground. 

 He said the black man went to the white man for 

 employment, food, clothing, and shelter. Their 

 economic interests were identical. But when it 

 came to politics, a subject upon which all Southern 

 white men are sensitive, the black men were arrayed 

 solidly against them. There are only as many white 

 Republicans in any county or city as there are fed- 

 eral offices to distribute. It is because the negroes 

 are solidly Republican in politics, and are in a 

 majority in many districts, that the white man dis- 

 franchises them, or throws out their vote. No man 

 ought to violate his convictions at the polls, but the 

 division of the races on political lines was most 

 unfortunate. It was not believed by some of the 

 speakers that anything could be gained by a shift- 

 ing of political grounds; that white men intend that 

 the negro shall ever be a subject race, as nearly in 

 the relation of slavery as the laws of the United 

 States will permit. The only way out of this is that 

 surveyed by Booker Washington, the moral eleva- 

 tion of the black men, and the establishment of 

 confidence and respect between the two races for 

 each other. 



In answer to my questions a very favorable view 

 came out. The white men place no obstructions in 



