Show I J I A Black Tragedy ii I I fv 1 E CELEBRATE this year with riots and shuddering theL the theL W F tercentenary of the landing of the first cargo of negro slaves L upon this continent Like the of a Greek tragedy the I to his terrible wrongs this nation ri ceases wrongs upon negro neg gro ro never avenge His forcible importation has become the eternal symbol oft of t inhuman brutality He was robbed wronged beaten until he br brought l g a war that nearly destroyed the nation and poured out white blood in floods to compensate each drop drawn by the lash 1 Even then the most terrible legacy of that war was not the ruin it left left y but th the almost passive instrument of vengeance constituted by liY the emancipated negro The Abolitionist thought to solve the riddle and propitiate J the fates f fates fates-by by conferring liberty citizenship and a portion of education education t tion n upon the former slave The dark chapters of reconstruction how s-how show that it is n not t so easy for a man or nation to escape th the furies their sins have conjured up We Ve know no now that as the So South th was not the only sinner so it alone cannot pa pay the penalty o Out t of reconstruction came the the- sectional politics of the bloody shirt Solid South was met by a solid North While the the citizens of the two sections the e Civil war national resources s were looted and the problem of predatory wealth created Presently came a new exodus toward the north star an exodus of negroes from the South to the North Employers during the war artificially accelerated this exodus to to smash unions and reduce reduce wages This fanned the slumbering embers of race hatred r. r Into Into flickering flames When political l tools of the predatory interests in Northern cities organized the criminal element among the negroes encouraging encouraging encouraging ing the vicious and debauched in return for votes graft and valuable valuable II able privileges those flames were fanned into terrifying conflagration f. f gration J g Ignorant vicious arrogant and insulting in the rebound from 1 cringing submission j crowded into ridden plague ridden infected disease-infected 1 I vice-ruled vice slums where constant immigration compelled expansion I I it was inevitably written in the book of fate that the negro should I 1 some day burst these bonds of locality and visit upon society the b brutal tal vengeance there hatched Driving him back into the slums will not stop the course of the a-the the tragedy Holding him down with troops will but prepare a amore more lurid chapter No form of injustice can fend off what the fates fates fates' have prepared It H is still true that the chain that holds 4 v the slave has its other end fastened to the master 1 There is vital need of of cool cooperative study and firm firmI administration of what such a study shall show to be justice apart I Z 5 from the heat of race prejudice and selfish interests If this is iss s of f imp impossible then the fates must drive us on until we are ready j I I io t so act |