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278

THE CRISIS

be known that he reported the case.  He might not be secure.)"

Even white papers like the Arkansas Gazette sometimes tell the truth:

"The Fort Smith Times-Record points to the lesson in the death of a promising son of a prominent For Smith family at the hands of a fear-crazed Negro in Fort Smith a few days ago.  The lesson as outlined by the Times-Record teaches again the dangers of allowing irresponsible fellows to go armed and to make arrests, and incidentally teaches that murder and violent deaths will continue to be common in Arkansas until the courts and the peace officers abolish the pistol-carrying habit.

"The young man who was killed in Fort Smith, hearing shots, ran to the scene to do his duty as a citizen and was killed by a Negro who had been beaten by the two men sent to arrest him.  The general opinion is that the Negro, who has a good reputation for industry and peacefulness, did not intend to kill the young man, but thought he was shooting at the other officer who had assisted in beating him.

"If the statements concerning this affair are true the men who arrested the Negro are largely responsible for the terrible tragedy.  It is said that they came to where the Negro was working to arrest him for some minor offense.  They beat him until the blood ran from his head and face and he begged them not to strike him again, saying he was going with them as fast as he could.  It is said further they continued to beat him and after they got him out of the building where he was employed they repeatedly jabbed a pistol into his stomach.  The Negro, crazed with fright and with his hands over his head, begged them to desist, and then, thinking he was going to be murdered, wrenched the pistol from the hands of one of the men and shot him.  The other officer gallantly dives to safety.  It was at this juncture that the young citizen, hearing the shots and rushing to the scene to do his duty as a good citizen, came before the blood-smeared eyes of the Negro and the Negro killed him.

"It requires more than a commission and a pistol to make a good officer.  It requires bravery, honesty and judgement.  We hope the authorities of Fort Smith and Sebastian County and of every city, town and county in Arkansas, will benefit by the terrible lesson now before them."

INTERMARRIAGE.

A professor at the University of Virginia has decided that the mulatto is not necessarily a degenerate, which leads the St. Luke's Herald (colored) to remark sarcastically:

"This pronouncement coming from Charlottesville is what the University of Virginia has made it, especially along the lines of her mulatto population, made so by the very best of the South's distinguished scions."

The Crown, that excellent church paper of Newark, N.J., discusses frankly the proposed intermarriage bill and says in part:

"Assembly bill 183, which proposes to make it a misdemeanor to issue licenses for the marriage of a white person to a Negro or mulatto, or for ministers or others to perform such marriages, touches upon such fundamental principles of good morals, as well as of civil and religious rights, that a discussion of the subject should be of much interest and value.  It was drafted by State Registrar David S. South and introduced by Mr. Marshall.  Bills on somewhat similar lines have recently been introduced in four or five other States and also in Congress for the District of Columbia.

"The bill, if it ever became law, would inevitably create in New Jersey a tendency to the immorality and bastardy that was a curse to blacks and whites in slavery days, and which is so to-day in Southern States where the prohibition of marriage and other relies of the slave-time régime prevail.  At the time of the Civil War the extent of the mulatto, quadroon and octoroon class showed how far the evil had gone.

The impossibility of marriage would give greater immunity and security to licentiousness, as it does in the South.  It would offer greater temptations and inducements to evil, inasmuch as such illicit relations would be considered safe.  It would make colored women a more easy prey and would increase their temptations.

"The prohibition of marriage and the widespread and publicly condoned concubinage of the South makes colored women practically helpless.  In Turkey there are once-beautiful girls with ear or nose or face mutilated or disfigured to save them from the lust of Turkish officials.  That is under anti-Christian rule.  From the professedly Christian South many families with grow-

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ing girls come North to find safety.  Is New Jersey to help to spread these evil conditions?"

EDUCATIONS.

We cannot too often revert to the fact that the Southern Negro is not receiving a decent chance for education.  The Scroll, a student paper at Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga., says:

"About four years ago a movement was started in Atlanta to float bonds in order to obtain money, a large part of which was to go for the purpose of improving the schools of Atlanta.  All the qualified voters in the city were urged to vote for these bonds.  The colored voters were told that if they would co-operate with the white people in this matter they would be assured of ample and improved school facilities.  Accordingly when the contest was held at the polls the qualified voters of both races carried the election in favor of bonds.

"Now after a lapse of about four years let us see what conditions we find in our city.  Last fall, when the public schools opened, the superintendent decided not to have an eighth grade at the West Mitchell Street school on account of the crowded condition of the schools in this ward.  This made I necessary for children who live in the first ward to walk from two to four miles through the downtown district to school.  The colored citizens of this ward called a meeting to protest against this arrangement, and in this meeting, which I might say right here was successful in restoring the eighth grade in this ward, much was learned of the conditions of the public schools of Atlanta.

"First, it was found that there is hardly a white residence in the city which is not within six blocks of a public school.  With the aid of the bond-issue money, all of the old buildings have been replaced by modern structures which add much to the beauty of our city.  We find that the white schools have only one session daily and that there is sufficient room for all white children to attend schools which are very close to their homes.  In fact, in one of the schools which is situated near here on Ashby Street, there were enrolled last year ninety-five pupils in a school which would easily accommodate 600 pupils, and I am told that there are only about 125 pupils in the school this year.

"In contrast to the superabundance of white schools we have but very few colored schools.  It is often necessary for colored children to walk all the away across town because there is no school near them is overcrowded.  In addition to this appalling fact, it is necessary for the colored public schools to have double sessions, which is unfair both to the teacher and to the pupils, especially those who come to the teacher after she has had to worry all morning with a class.  From the proceeds from the bond issue the colored people have received one school, which is unsatisfactory in many ways.  For instance, it is built with only a few entrances and exits and is miserably low on the ground.  It was found that the building occupied by the Summer Hill School is in such bad condition that during a rain it is necessary for the teachers to put the children in one corner of the room in order that they may not get wet.  In the Roach Street school, whenever it gets cloudy, lamps must be lighted in two of the rooms which are situated in a basement.  Only the Gray Street school approaches in any degree the requirements which are necessary for comfort and good work in a school."

The Atlanta Independent, a colored paper, goes on to say in reply to the Atlanta Constitution:

"The Constitution talks about our educational and moral uplift, and always picks up some 'hat-in-hand, yessir, boss,' Negro, whom the race has long ago repudiated and holds him out as a Moses.  The Atlanta Normal and Industrial School is held out to us as a panacea for all our moral and educational diseases.  Now why is our contemporary so much more interested in this excuse of a school that has its greatest existence on paper than it is in reputable well-established schools like the Atlanta Baptist College, Clark University, Atlanta University, Morris Brown College and Spelman Seminary?  The explanation is not far fetched; it is evidently at hand and plain.

"If the Constitution wants us educated why does it not throw its great influence behind the real Negro colleges within the shadow of its dome?  Why does it not tell the public of the high character and usefulness of Drs. John Hope, W.A. Fountain, E.A. Ware, J.W.E. Bowen and the faculties of these great schools?  Why harp and bleat about a little school in the ditch