ople of the United
States, in the same length of time. It may be conceded that the
present generation of colored people does not compare favorably with
the present generation of the white race, because of the reasons I
have already given, and the further reason that on account of the
black man's poverty of means to employ lawyers to have his case
properly appealed to the higher courts, and his inability to furnish
bonds, his criminal record is much worse than that of the white race,
both in the Northern and Southern states. The Southern states, as a
whole, have not yet reached a point where they are able to provide
reformatories for juvenile offenders, and consequently most of these
are sent to the state prison, where the records show that the same
individuals are often committed over and over again, because in the
first instance, the child prisoner, instead of being reformed, becomes
simply hardened to prison life. In the North, it is true, the Negro
has the benefit of the reformatories; but the unreasonable prejudice
which prevents him from securing employment in the shops and the
factories more than offsets this advantage. Hundreds of Negroes in the
North become criminals who would become strong and useful men if they
were not discriminated against as bread winners.

In the matter of assault upon white women, the Negro is placed in a
peculiar attitude. While this vile crime is always to be condemned in
the strongest language, and it should be followed by the severest
legal punishment, yet the custom of lynching a Negro when he is
accused of committing such a crime calls the attention of the whole
country to it, in such a way as is not always true in the case of a
white man, North or South. Any one who reads the daily papers
carefully knows that such assaults are constantly charged against
white men in the North and in the South; but, because the white man,
in most cases, is punished by the regular machinery of the courts,
attention is seldom attracted to his crime outside of the immediate
neighborhood where the offense is committed. This, to say nothing of
the cases where the victim of lynch law could prove his innocence, if
he were given a hearing before a cool, level-headed set of jurors in
open court, makes the apparent contrast unfavorable to the black man.
It is hardly proper, in summing up the value of any race, to dwell
almost continually upon its weaker element. As other men are judged,
so should the Negro b