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Show A RABID ADDRESS. 'The Inaugural address of Governor James K. Vandaman of Mississippi has nothing of conservatism in it, bo far as the negro is concerned. 'The negro is -thoroughly debased, according to him, and education but adds to his depravity! Since the blessed days of slavery, the negro, lias reverted to the condition of the wild beast, and every day adds lo his moral deterioration. Education Is but a curse to him, and there should be no negro schools; all the school fund should be put at the disposal of the Legislature, to that none but schools for whites shall be maintained at the public pub-lic cost. The negro, according to Governor Gov-ernor Vandaman, was one-third niore criminal In 1SO0 than he was In 1SS0. Ho does not say 'yhat the percentage of progress- In .crime, from 1S00 oh'wartl was, 'but since ho claims the descent in Immorality is measurable dally, no doubt he would hold that the progress in crime has kept pace with the "rate he named in the decade referred to. And aa the negro had time prior, to 1880 to develop considerable crime, Bay one-third one-third In the fifteen'' years, up to -that date after the discontinuance of slavery (which is not unreasonable if the race could descend thirty per cent in the 'criminal scale In the ten years mentioned), men-tioned), the negro race in Mississippi must really be in a bad way by this time. One-third criminal prior lo 1SS0, one-third added In ten years, one-third assumed In the thirteen years since 1830. That accounts for a pretty largo proportion propor-tion of all. It is therefore with surprise that one reads his reference to "the better class of negro," and his kindly exception of them from his denunciation of the criminal negroes. He doesn't hold this better class responsible for the crimes of the criminal class. How kind and . Just his heart must be! He not only doesn't hold one-negro responsible for crimes -which another negro may have committed, but he goes to the extreme of absolving a whole class from the crimes committed by another class. It Is an extension of magnanimity which one could hardly have expected from one of so curious a state of mind as this Mississippi Governor evidently porsesses. Nothing less than this sort of rabid rant wns expected from. Governor Vandaman. His mind on this subject was well known prior to his' election. The people of that State therefore must Justly share the odium and disgust dis-gust which such black rank' brings upon up-on him and them. How does Governor Vandaman expect the negro to learn better things, to cease his downward course, If means of instruction are closed lo him? How can a man. wlilto or black, improve his condition when he Is kept In brutal ignorance, the prey of a brutal and selfish upper class? And does not the Governor think that a debased, brute-like race, more in numbers than the whites of the State, will bo such a peril to both while and black whenliopc is shut out and rights Irrevocably lost, as should cause him to tremble nt the prospect? The outlook Is dark for Mississippi with such a. population and such a Governor. |