ry?

It is true that there are criminals in the Negro race for whom no legal
form of punishment is too severe. It is also true that the better and
best classes of Negroes are daily being insulted in the streets, on the
street-cars, on the railroads, at the ticket offices, at the baggage
rooms, the express offices, and in fact, in all places pertaining to
public travel. They are persecuted, despised, rejected, and
discriminated against before every court in the South. Since the Negro
is now being lynched as readily for his sins of omission as he is for
his sins of commission, it is quite necessary for him when traveling in
the South, to keep constantly in telegraphic communication with the
agent at the station ahead as to the movement of the mob. In addition to
this, the Negro is subjected to many other forms of persecution and
discrimination in almost every walk of life. These things go to make up
what we call the Negro problem.

_The White Man's Solution._

A large majority of the white men in the South believe that this problem
is to be solved by the Negro "learning his place" and keeping in it.
Though they do not say just what this place is, they purpose to teach it
to the Negro by disfranchisement, by limiting his education, by
discrimination on the streets and on the railroads, by barring him from
public parks, public libraries, and public amusements of any kind, by
insulting replies to courteous questions, by conviction for trivial
offences, and, finally, by judge lynch and the shot gun. This class is
called the rabble.

There is another class of white men in the South, though fewer in
number, who deprecate all such views and actions (as advanced by this
first class). They believe that the Negro should have equal legal
rights, but that he should be denied equal political and educational
rights. They believe the Bible to be the panacea for all the ills of the
Negro. To bear out their contention, they often revert to the time when,
they say, there was no race problem. This, they say, was during slavery,
when the master taught his slaves the beneficent influence of the Holy
Bible. They are now appealing to the white men of the South to return to
this practice. In this class would fall a large number of politicians,
statesmen, educators, and ministers. This is called the conservative
class.

There is still a third class of white men in the South, who believe that
the Negro is a man, nothing more and nothing le