le are opposed to the Negro's progress,
overlooking the fact that, while in some sections there is trouble, in
most parts of the South there is, nevertheless, a very large measure
of peace, good will, and mutual helpfulness. In this same relation
much can be done to retard the progress of the Negro by a certain
class of Southern white people, who, in the midst of excitement, speak
or write in a manner that gives the impression that all Negroes are
lawless, untrustworthy, and shiftless. As an example, a Southern
writer said not long ago, in a communication to the New York
_Independent_: "Even in small towns the husband cannot venture to
leave his wife alone for an hour at night. At no time, in no place, is
the white woman safe from insults and assaults of these creatures."
These statements, I presume, represented the feelings and the
conditions that existed at the time they were written in one community
or county in the South. But thousands of Southern white men and women
would be ready to testify that this is not the condition throughout
the South, nor throughout any one State.

_Fifth._--Under the next head I would mention that, owing to the lack
of school opportunities for the Negro in the rural districts of the
South, there is danger that ignorance and idleness may increase to the
extent of giving the Negro race a reputation for crime, and that
immorality may eat its way into the moral fibre of the race, so as to
retard its progress for many years. In judging the Negro in this
regard, we must not be too harsh. We must remember that it has only
been within the last thirty-four years that the black father and
mother have had the responsibility, and consequently the experience,
of training their own children. That they have not reached perfection
in one generation, with the obstacles that the parents have been
compelled to overcome, is not to be wondered at.

_Sixth._--As a final source of danger to be guarded against, I would
mention my fear that some of the white people of the South may be led
to feel that the way to settle the race problem is to repress the
aspirations of the Negro by legislation of a kind that confers certain
legal or political privileges upon an ignorant and poor white man and
withholds the same privileges from a black man in the same condition.
Such legislation injures and retards the progress of both races. It is
an injustice to the poor white man, because it takes from him
incentive to secure