thropy, encouraged this idea, while in other cases unscrupulous white men sought to increase their influence over these deluded beings by encouraging them in the belief of their absolute equality, if not superiority, to the southern whites.

To these teachings we can trace nearly all the turmoils, strifes and sufferings of the southern negro.

These mischief-makers, innocently for the most part, have committed this error: Instead of teaching the negro that he must elevate himself and better his condition by personal effort-by the acquisition of knowledge and by hard labor; in other words, advancing his condition the same as has been done by the white race-much of the teaching has been to impress upon the negro that he is already equal to the whites in every respect, and it is his duty to himself to asert this equality.

Some idea of the effect of even a little of such teaching can be imagined if we consider the effect upon schoolboys if told they know more than their teachers, and that they were unreasonable and cruel, and ought not to be obeyed; or the effect upon soldiers if told the same with regard to their officers.

The negro should also be impressed that the only elevation that he has received above barbarism has been by associating with and having the advantages of the example and teachings of the whites.

The two most popular books on slavery and racial conditions, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "The Clansman," each represent but one side of the subject.

The majority of the other books written from either point of view are even more one-sided than these.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" portrays racial conditions of slavery times from the northern point of view only, showing the worst side of the slaveholder and the best side of the negro. "The Clansman" takes up the story where it is dropped in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and portrays the southern view. One should read both books to comprehend the exact situation.

Harriet Beecher Stowe received her inspiration to write "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by watching some white neighbor children playing from time to time with freed slave pickaninnies brought by the Tichenor and Overaker families from New Orleans to Cincinnati. Topsy, Black Sam, and a few other characters of the book were taken from real life from among this retinue of freed household servants. Topsy's real name was Joan. After an unsuccessful attempt to develop her into a reasonable being she drifted into the abandoned stratum of Cincinnati life.

Thomas Dixon received his inspiration to write "The Clansman" by observing southern conditions during the reconstruction period after the war, and also from reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin." He wanted the public to know both sides of the question.

General Joseph Wheeler once said, in the New York Journal: "The picture painted by 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' gave a very distorted and incorrect view of the condition of the negro in the southern states. There were, no doubt, instances of great wrong and hardship inflicted upon them. But the general condition which surrounded the negro slave was such as to elevate him far above the conditions which exist in the wilds of Africa from which he came."

During slavery times many of the southern churches were built with galleries for the negro slaves. These galleries were filled regularly every Sunday, and on Communion Sundays, after the white worshipers had finished their communion services, the negroes were invited down to partake of the sacrament.

Not one northern person in a thousand would imagine such a condition by reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Northern people cannot understand the southern negro until they live for a time in his environment.

Dr. White, in the First Mohonk Congress, previously mentioned, struck the keynote of the situation when he asserted that northern people could not manage the negroes as well as the southerners do. At the slightest misdemeanor on the part of negro the southerner's blood is up and there is fire in his eye. He shoots one square look at the negro, and if that isn't sufficient, he follows it up with whatever happens to be in his mind at the time, and the latter is ready to obey almost any command. He also has far more respect for such a white man than for one who places himself on the negro's level.

So long as the negroes were exclusively in the hands of the people who, by constant association with them, had learned their characteristics, the question was managed by methods beneficial to both races. But in just so far as the destiny of the negro fell under the control of those who were ignorant of his peculiar traits the troubles and turmoil seemed to commence.

A child has more respect for its parents or teacher when they enforce discipline or subordination. Similarly the negro mind in its stage of development esteems more highly the white man who in a legitimate manner enforces submission and admits of no equality.

Southern hospitality has become proverbial. I have been entertained at many southern homes, and in some instances where the host, although unable to pay his farm mortgage, would put an elaborate spread on the dinner table that would do honor to a king.

They treat white men as such, and negroes as a servant class.

As long as a negro keeps his place there, he is treated kindly. As soon as he tries to assert equality he meets with more than hostile opposition.

Where the "Jim Crow" law exists the negroes are generally submissive to the rules and customs, and it is principally where the negro is made to feel that he is the white man's equal where contention and strife occurs.

Not long ago Miss Mary Bennett, a prominent Washington society lady, was riding on a Lincoln Park street car, when a negro stepped in, and, although there were several vacant seats in the car, he sat down right against her. Miss Bennett got up and took another seat. A gentleman acros the aisle, evidently from Kentucky, clinched his fists, and, glaring at the negro, said: "It's well for you that this isn't in Kentucky."

The removal of the ballot-box from the negro would, to a great extent, relieve the situation. This should be left, however, to the local option of each state. If the negroes are then disfranchised in the South and want to vote bad enough to come up and live in the North, the northern states will very soon adopt local option on this topic and also disfranchise them.

CHAPTER XV.

LOCAL OPTION IN THE SOUTH.

Local option in the saloon business is ridding many counties of whiskey and its adoption is rapidly spreading.

The presence of 8,000,000 negroes has operated as a tremendous incentive for prohibition of the liquor traffic in the South. The Atlanta and Mississippi riots showed the dangers of the saloon. It was an attractive social center for the dangerous elements of the southern population—the lower levels of both races. Following the racial lines from top to bottom, they converged at the saloon, which was situated in the acute angle of this inverted social pyramid. When they had been closed for a week in Atlanta, the better class of whites thought, why not for a year? Or forever? The liquor traffic fostered and encouraged the depraved and criminal negro and the vengeful and irresponsible white. Of both the South is tired.

Prohibition in that section in the civic program as a final policy is an exhibition of rare moral courage, an innovation in Anglo-Saxon human nature, in which the liquor traffic has always found a responsive chord.

Thousands of whites who keep whiskey and wines in their homes continually, voted for local option to prevent the negroes from obtaining it. The negroes, for the most part, voted against prohibition, and were defeated.

In 1883 Col. Archie Hughes. of Columbia, Tennessee, who was an officer in the Spanish-American war, helped round up and conduct 500 illiterate negroes to the pools and voted them against local option, thus defeating the temperance cause in that district for the time being.

In a vote taken on May 12, 1908, in Prince Georges County, Md. (in the "wet" districts only), the question of local option was defeated by 266 votes (1,688 to 1,422). The negro vote defeated the movement, as the majority of votes cast against the local option proposition are known to have been negro votes, while nine-tenths of the vote cast by white men were in favor of it.

In some of the southern districts a number of the negroes were driven from the polls during the local option vote. I consider this justifiable where it was the necessary means to obtain prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors. On such vital points on which depends the

welfare of the American homes, the negro should not be allowed to interfere.

"Locker Clubs" were formed by the saloonkeepers and their customers in many of the local option districts.

In the city of Savannah alone 147 of these secret dram drinkers' dens were organized the day after prohibition went into effect, and one of these included 1,700 negroes.

Finally Judge Emory Speer, one of the ablest United States judges in the South, handed down a decision in. Savannah that these lockers were illegal, and the owners subject to the penalties of any selle intoxicating liquors.

There are still a few out-of-the-way places in local option d' where men may sneak away and obtain whiskey, but these ar ishing.

While riding through a local option district in the South last I saw three negroes with several jugs get off the train at a little and walk off toward an old barn in the woods. A traveling ma me that they were going out there for whiskey, the sale of whic. prohibited in their district.

Wine, containing alcohol, is now forbidden at sacramental service the churches of Georgia, and certain other temperance districts of South.

Since prohibition went into effect in the South not a financial fail has been accredited to the new reform.

Not a dollar has been dropped from the value of real estate.

The saloons have been turned into stores and marts of fashion trade. Many a low den has been turned into commercial lines activity, and the per cent of crime, including the negro assaults women, has been greatly reduced.

We have reason to expect good results from local option; much better results than from prohibition as a national issue. If the southern states had waited to elect a President of the United States on a prohibition ticket, they might have waited until the millennium for temperance. Any given locality knows better than the rest of the nation what it needs, and their situation should command the attention and respect of the remainder of the country.