 Topic four. Fourth paper of 20th century Negro literature. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Shasta, Oakland, California. 20th century Negro literature. Topic four. Fourth paper by Reverend Joshua H. Jones. The Reverend Joshua H. Jones was born at Pine Plains, South Carolina, June 15, 1856. He professed religion at 10 years of age and joined the Shady Grove AME Church of the Bull Swamp Circuit, South Carolina. At the age of 14, he was made Sunday school teacher, and at the age of 16, Sunday school superintendent. By the time he was 18, he had served in all the local spiritual offices of the church and was then licensed as a local preacher by the Quarterly Conference of said circuit. The pastors soon discovered his usefulness and aid to them. He was a diligent student and an ardent churchman and acquired education rapidly at the age of 21 years. He entered the normal department of Kaplan University, Orangeburg, South Carolina, and in 1880 finished the normal and college preparatory courses. He then taught and preached one year after which he returned to Kaplan University, and in 1885 graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Not daunted nor yet satisfied with his attainments, he came north, studied a while at Howard University, Washington, DC, thence to Wilberforce University, where in 1887 he graduated from the theological course with the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. In 1893 Wilberforce University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in recognition of his superior worth and ability. In June 1900 he was elected president of Wilberforce University and a year later Kaplan University conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts. As a minister of the Gospel he has been pastor in charge of Williams Chapel, Orangeburg, South Carolina, Branchville Circuit, South Carolina, Fort Mott Circuit, South Carolina, Wheeling, West Virginia, the Holy Trinity Church, Wilberforce, Ohio, Lynn, Massachusetts, Providence, Rhode Island, Columbus, Ohio, and presiding elder of the Columbus District Ohio Conference, pastor at Zanesville, Ohio. In all an unbroken period of 36 years of church work and 28 years in the ministry he has never known a failure. His labors have been indefatigable and his ministrations clean and inspiring. In his public services he has been an inspiration to the race. For 14 years he has been a trustee of Wilberforce University, five years trustee and secretary of the normal and industrial department at Wilberforce, and a constant and ardent helper in the establishment and development of the same. For six consecutive years he was elected and served as member of the Columbus Board of Education and through his efforts six colored teachers were put into the mixed schools of Columbus, Ohio, as teachers. In private affairs he has been industrious, frugal, economical, and administrative. He has accumulated a comfortable estate and stands well with the banking and business circles of Columbus, Ohio, and pays taxes on a tax valuation of $10,000. He has always been an ardent lover of his race, of his church, of his country, and his god, and has always been a striking figure in the circles of men wherever his lot has fallen. 15 years ago he was elected dean of Allen University, Columbia, South Carolina. Eight years ago professor of theology in pain theological seminary, neither of which he was able to accept because of heavy demands upon his energy elsewhere. In 1890 he was elected delegate to the Methodist Ecumenical Conference and has been several times delegate to the General Conference of the AME Church and in 1900 was a strong candidate for the bishopric receiving 50 or more votes on the first ballot. In his present position he bids fair to give the church good service. If this question is to be answered affirmatively or negatively, I emphatically say no. If the question be asked inquiringly, carrying with it the thought of race experience, race opportunity, race status, and the variations growing out of these then I would give the dubious answer yes and no. In the first place all things are educative and all forms of education have a definite relation to all other forms of education and all educational processes have definite relations to all other educational processes so all of these factors make for unity in education and the completest education is that which embraces the greatest number of educational factors. It is perfectly true that educational processes may be varied so as to suit varying ideals or they may be varied so as to accomplish certain ends for unverifying sequences follow definite antecedents. Even so educational systems may be framed for the accomplishment of varying results or definite results as the framers of such systems may determine to suit the conditions of mankind as conceived at any given time. The end in view in an educational system is everything. What the chosen end of any system of education may be ought to depend upon the institution of the country in which a people lives and every educational system should be framed so as to utilize all of the agencies and involve all of the processes that make most rapidly for the achievement of the end in view. If the end in view is serfdom for the negro then a vast amount of industrial training by rote minus the natural sciences and mechanical arts for the generation of capacity plus such rudiments in arithmetic reading and writing as will enable him to be an efficient workman under the direction of others is the requisite. If it is the desire to make the negro a useful agent in the production of wealth through the operation of the basal industries in the largest quantity or the highest quality for the smallest amount of outlay then a still higher class of training would be necessary whether this production of wealth be for the good of self or for the common good of society. But if the end in view is to prepare him for the higher responsibilities of American citizenship involving as that citizenship does the relationships obligations and duties which devolve upon free men and equally binding upon him as upon the whites in a democratic society or in a country of the people for the people and by the people it is evident that such a system must have structural affinity with such a system of education carried on by the whites and for the whites. In other words, such must be his education that his whole being is developed and in him there is the largest generation of capacity, insight, foresight, the power to think with proportions so as to give him that mastery over his environments and over the questions of common good which will enable him at all times to do the right things the wisest things the best things under any given circumstances in the midst of which he may be thrown. Any educational system that has a name short of this as its end will certainly fail to prepare the negro for the high duties which belong to a free individual in a democratic society. Why should the negro be given an education different from that given to the whites? Is he not a man? Is he not a free man? Is he not a citizen? Is he not held responsible by society for the performance of duties enjoined upon him by law? Is he not a subject of government? As a subject of government, ought he not participate in the affairs of the government? I think it will be admitted by all fair-minded men that all governments are for the welfare of the governed. Now, since the negro is more interested in his own welfare than anybody else is, and since to have a thing well done you had better do it yourself, since also his welfare is shaped by any government under which he lives, it must necessarily follow that his best good requires that he participate in the affairs of that government if he is to continue to be a free man. It is argued, and that not without some degree of reason, by part of the more favored people of this country that the gift of the high privileges of citizenship carries with it the demand that the recipients of those gifts possess the capacity to exercise them for the common good of all who belong to the body politic. They also argue that human conditions for government are grounded in intelligence, virtue, and property. So good, so well. But how is the negro to acquire intelligence, virtue, and property according to the American standard if his education is to be according to an un-American system? There are four fundamental American doctrines that both experience and philosophy attest as being right. One, the right of education is a human right. Two, that the schools furnished by the state should be open to all of the children of the state. Three, the safety of the state depends upon the intelligence of our citizens of that state. Four, as a matter of self-defense the state should compel all of its citizens to become intelligent. These doctrines have their root in the great truth that every individual is a member of society and that therefore society has an interest in him, in his capacity, in his intelligence, in his worth, and in turn is injured by his incapacity, his lack of worth, his ignorance. The great war-cray of American leadership is educate, educate, educate. Yay, more. Educate your masters. No man lives unto himself. God has made every man dependent, associative, and cooperative and hence the good of every individual is found in the common good of society and the common good of society is found in the good of the individual. Every man who is not at his best or not doing his best is to that extent a failure and a hurt to the common good. To me it is perfectly clear that if the negro is to be in this country and not of it then his education should be different from that given to the whites but if he is to be in the country and of the country it follows without argument that he must be educated in common with all of the people of the country so that the nation may have a common ideal and a common consciousness so that our whole society may have or feel a common interest in our common country. To be more explicit whether or not the negro should be given the same kind of education the whites are given depends upon whether or not the whites have the proper kind of education. I should rather contend that if the whites have the proper kind of education for mankind then that given to the negro should be exactly like it. If the whites have not the proper kind of education for mankind then it follows that the negro should be given a different kind for whether or not one man should have the same thing as another depends upon whether or not that thing is fit for mankind in general. This would naturally force upon us the inquiry as to what kind of education the whites receive. If upon proper inquiry we find that theirs is the proper kind for man in this same finding we should discover that this is the proper kind for the negro. Here differentiation begins even in the field of education itself. A careful study of the constitution of man involving the fundamentalities that grow out of his intellectual, moral, industrial, social, and political nature will lead us I think to see that much of the white man's education is to be regretted and repudiated. Much of it is to be approved and appropriated. All training given in avarice, hatred, prejudice, passion, sensuality, sin, and wickedness growing out of self-conceit and vanity must assuredly be repudiated. But all things embraced in their education that make for the good, the true, the beautiful, the just, and the elevation of mankind should be embraced, seized upon, masticated, digested, and assimilated, transmuted into the elements of negro character forming a part of the very subconsciousness of his being. In short, whatever education the whites have had or do get which makes for human enlargement, for righteousness, and brings man into closer relationship with God and gives him a fuller conception of the laws of God made manifest by the operation of his laws through the cosmos, enabling him to discover the relationships which he sustains to God, to his fellow men, to the lower creatures which inhabit this earthly sphere in which man lives, and the laws that govern the universe, expressing modes of existence and orders of sequence together with the principles of industry, frugality, and economy which determine the material accumulations necessary for the maintenance of life. These the negro should know as largely as possible, for certainly they have been fields of educational processes found necessary for the white man through many generations. It is to be noticed that for centuries the white man has studied in order to get a thorough grasp first of all upon the intellectual tools, so to speak, in other words to know how to read, write, and cipher in terms of his own language, and at the same time to lay a foundation broad enough to pursue useful knowledge in all other directions possible. For instance, having mastered his own language to a reasonable degree, he takes the Latin and the Greek that he might acquaint himself with the development of the institutions out of which his own was evolved as well as to make double his hold upon his own. He studies Hebrew and the cognate languages to get mastery of the great truths, philosophy, and institutions of a great people, adding to his own thereby. He studies the modern languages, German, French, Spanish, and Italian, that he may gather the best fruits of the achievements of these nations and add them to his own store. Yea, he covers the whole field of philology that he may add to his own store, the best that has been garnered by all of the nations of the earth. He studies the literature, science, and philosophy of all living races of his day and time with the same end in view that when he has swept the field of historic times he delves into the mysteries of geology and archaeology and follows the mute footsteps of man through Neolithic and Paleolithic times to the very zero of human beginnings and comes back laden with truths to enrich the thought of his day. He studies natural science as God manifested in nature by observation and experiment. He commences with God through the discovery of the reign of law, classifying and systematizing the same and thus broadening his own vision and adding to the store of knowledge in our day and generation. As a preparation for this scientific research he studies mathematics from the elementary principles who the largest elaborations of Euclid, Kepler, Newton, and Copernicus and their illustrious successors. He studies sociology, biology, and mechanics. He studies civil and sociological laws and principles to the end that the intricacies of democratic business intercourse might be the more fulling and clearly understood, mastered, and applied in civilized processes. No form of industry has escaped him. No law of frugality has eluded him. Whatever has in it an element of truth or virtue he has pursued with a relentlessness that knows no failure. As a student he has gone the rounds of the world in search of truth and has come back rich in the knowledge of the things that God would have us know. How the Negro can live in the midst of a civilization created by such a people. Drawing upon such vast resources as we have but faintly indicated and be given an education different from that of this people and yet live among them with any degree security for the life of me I cannot see. If to keep up with the requirements of such a civilization as America furnishes today a white child not withstanding his inheritance has to go to school from his earliest days away into the years of his majority and be systematically trained in all of the subjects as taught in the kindergarten, the public schools, the secondary schools, the academies, the universities, and the professional schools how much more imperatively necessary must it be that the Negro should have like training. It seems to me that he should not only have the same training but that he should have more of it than the white man has. His education should be physical, moral, intellectual, social, industrial, and political and his educational processes should have the highest structural affinity with the educational processes of the whites though that he may be brought into national and political assimilation with the white man's institutional life. And of topic four fourth paper. Topic five of 20th century Negro literature. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Shasta Oakland, California. 20th century Negro literature. Topic five by John P. Green. Honorable John P. Green was born in 1845 at New Bern, North Carolina of free parents. As a boy 12 years of age he went with his widowed mother to Cleveland, Ohio. He was educated in the Cleveland public schools graduating from the Central High School in 1869. He was admitted to the bar of South Carolina in 1870. Returning to Cleveland he for nine years served as Justice of the Peace. In 1881 he was elected member of the Ohio legislature serving three terms. In 1897 he was appointed to a position in the post office department by President McKinley. He was also delegate to the National Republican Convention in 1872 in 1884 and in 1896. All citizens who are industrious, honest, brave and patriotic should vote without regard to their color. For a man may possess all these characteristics and yet be ignorant. Ignorance is only relative anyway. A. The Negro is a citizen. C. 14th amendment to the Constitution etc. B. He is industrious and by his industry has not only helped to develop the resources of the United States but he has produced much of long property which is unjustly held by many white voters and withheld from him especially in the South. The property of the South is due not more to the capital invested in the agricultural and manufacturing enterprises of that section than to the labor of the Negro who furnishes the foundation of all wealth labor there. C. The untutored Negro has shown himself to be honest. He has never betrayed a trust imposed in him. During the great civil war he was true to the trust imposed in him by his master at the front who confided to his care the sustenance and even life of his wife and little ones. This was the supremist test of his honesty which he sacredly discharged. Since the war he has faithfully adhered to and followed the fortunes of the Republican party by the mandate of which he was emancipated. Even though in doing so he has suffered all the evils which a hostile opponent can invent to plague and swerve him from what he considers the path of gratitude and honor. D. He is brave as the records of our wars will prove. His blood has stained many battlefields where under old glory he fought for the Union and Liberty not only on American soil but also in foreign lands. The Negro in contending in war for the life and liberties of this Republic has literally covered himself with glory. One that he is patriotic goes without sagging in the light of what has been written in the foregoing paragraph. With all his course and only ignorance the heart of the American Negro when yet a slave throbbed with patriotic love and loyalty and this too at a time when his college bread and intelligent master was doing his uttermost to destroy this glorious fabric of Union. It is only reasonable to assume that a man whose ignorance does not blind him from shooting right can and will under proper instruction which is given in prints and on the stump to all other voters vote rightly. Two the first and most potent step in the direction of humiliating the Negro and relegating him to a condition of mental serfdom is to deprive him of the ballot. It is the only token of real power which he possesses aside from his brawn which the white American really covets and once shorn of that he would like Samson be passive in the hands of the Philistines. Three another suggestion which may be urged in behalf of the suffrage rights of the ignorant and non-property holding Negro is that he is a hopeless minority nor could he by any means control the destinies of this country if the intelligent voters of the land would but be diligent and prompt in the exercise of the franchise imposed in them. It is a sad reflection that the alleged fraud and corruption which existed under the carpet bag rule in the south during the reconstruction period could never have existed had the white voters of the south who were yet clothed with the elective franchise given their countenance and affiliation to the Negro voters instead of standing aloof from them and leaving them to be swayed by a set of educated men many of whom were neither to the manner born nor particularly interested in the welfare of the several communities in which they operated. Four we must never lose sight of the fact that the welfare of the republic is not resident altogether in the brains of the voters. The heart plays a very conspicuous part in the casting of a pure and salutary ballot as between a voter possessing a pure kind and patriotic heart but an uncultivated mind and another endowed with all the learning of the universities but swayed by ulterior and unpatriotic designs one would experience little or no difficulty in making choice of the former even though clad in a black skin. Five the fact that a Negro is a non-property holding Negro should not militate against his right to exercise his rights of citizenship for many of the most useful and valuable of our voters of both races are non-property holding voters the fact of holding property is frequently predicated on conditions altogether fortuitous a reverse of the wheel of fortune a large or expensive family a drought or flood as well as many other contingencies all play conspicuous parts in preventing good and true citizens from accumulating property even to the extent of an humble homestead while fire cyclone and flood often reduce a man of great possessions in a day to the conditions of a non-property holding citizen and did his right to vote depend on his property holding he would be utterly bereft of it on the contrary it is no extraordinary thing to see a man of less than average intelligence endowed with worldly goods through a turn of the wheel of fortune or the expansion or contraction of a margin where men win or lose all on the casting of a dye it does not seem to have occurred to many of those who are exceedingly anxious to deprive ignorant and non-property holding Negroes of the ballot that ignorance in a white band is just as vicious as ignorance in any other class of citizens yet they go on eliminating by laws of questionable validity the hardworking wealth producing Negro of the South while in most instances the ignorant dilettante and fanny aunt with a white skin is not only permitted to vote but even protected in the exercise of the function upon the whole after mature reflection an affirmative answer which seemed to be the proper one to to the foregoing proposition under our present constitution yes the ignorant and non-property holding Negro ought to vote end of topic five topic six first paper of 20th century Negro literature this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Shasta Oakland California 20th century Negro literature topic six first paper by attorney Ruben S. Speth Ruben S. Speth attorney of law number 425th street northwest Washington DC was born in Jackson County Florida April 1st 1854 he received his early education in the common schools of Mariana in that county and at Howard University Washington DC before coming to Washington he taught school for a time and in 1876 served as an alternate delegate at large from Florida to the National Republican Convention held at Cincinnati Ohio as a resident of the National Capitol he served as a clerk in the United States Treasury Department in the office of the sixth auditor and in that of the second auditor he was also Washington correspondent of several newspapers but after graduating from the law department of the Howard University in 1883 was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia and has since been successfully employed in the practice of this profession he has not only established a lucrative private business but has acted as attorney for a life insurance company and other corporations in November 1899 he was unanimously elected moderator of the conference of the congregational churches of Virginia Maryland West Virginia and the District of Columbia and is superintendent of the Lincoln Memorial Congregational Church Sunday School Mr. Smith was a delegate to the National Republican Convention held at Chicago in 1880 and a special agent of the 11th census of the United States 1890 assigned to the work of collecting the statistics of the recorded indebtedness of the state of Florida it is therefore evident that he is a man of versatility as well as ability biographical encyclopedia of the United States the subject of this sketch also served as assistant sergeant at arms of the Philadelphia National Republican Convention of 1900 he has been a train in several important cases in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia involving damaged suits against large corporations and has been generally successful he has also been retained in many equity real estate and contested will cases wherein he has been equally successful he has been almost exclusively engaged in civil practice during his experience of 14 years as a practitioner before the Supreme Court of the District Mr. and Mrs. Smith are domiciled at 715 Second Street northwest where they have resided for the past 20 years two children survived to them master Jerome Bonaparte a student at Howard University and Miss Rosa Virginia a pupil in the Washington High School at first glance the above question would seem to be fully answered with one word comprising but two letters namely and oh and yet upon second thought it will be seen that that answer would not apply for the reason that the alleged criminal Negro seldom reaches a courthouse in the South before alleged summary justice is visited upon him by an unreasoning judge Lynch the fact that the question is asked whether the criminal Negro is justly dealt with in the courts of the South would imply that there is at least a doubt as to the genuineness of the justice meted out to him there in legal phraseology a criminal is one who has been duly convicted of crime this being so it would seem that my first inquiry should be whether the Negro has been legally ascertained to be a criminal is justly dealt with in the South in the matter of his punishment therefore this line of inquiry leads me into the investigation of the convict lease system which obtains in certain southern states and other unlawful abuses of colored criminals there it is not my purpose in the limited space allotted to consider this phase of a subject at great length but rather to briefly point out its manifest injustice one of the greatest wrongs of the South is his convict lease system and its lynch law and its disfranchising statutes are like unto it although the emancipation proclamation written and promulgated by the immortal blinkin has been operative for more than 36 years yet a species of slavery still exists there fostered and nurtured by the statutes authorizing the convict lease system so vile became this evil in anderson county south carolina that the leading officials there denounced it as brutal and barbarous a crime against nature and nature's god a crime against civilization and humanity some of the specific charges against the system were that these unfortunate beings without regard to sex were huddled together in prison quarters like so many cattle it has been a foul block upon the escutcheon of the south second only through the murderous stains made thereon by the lynchers it is a disgrace even to the civilization of medieval times for cruelty and outrage it is unparalleled in the annals of civilized society cyberia itself is preferable to the convict camp given the worst form of human slavery plus the barbarities of prison life add to this the horrors of a spanish prison and you have somewhat of an idea of the iniquitous institution of the barbarous convict lease system but as if compounding crime it is asserted with many of the appearances of truth that negro boys and girls upon trivial charges are convicted and sent to the convict camp for the express purpose of securing to the less seas of convicts the benefit of their unrequited toil until they reach their majority thus confined among confirmed criminals they naturally partake in the character of their environments and conceive and multiply vice and criminology this system punishes the real criminal unjustly the ill-gotten gain it offers furnishes the incentive to thrust the innocent into prison pens then too it is claimed with the appearance of truth that unscrupulous white men in certain southern localities actually trump up charges against negro men and procure their convictions and sentence to the convict camp for the double purpose of affording the less seas the comparatively free labor of the alleged criminals and to deprive them of the right to vote while partly approving of such reasonable punishment as shall deter crime i cannot command no language strong and severe enough to condemn in fitting terms the cruelties and deviltries heaped upon the negro in certain sections of the cell in the name and for the sake of those who profit by the convict lease system it is undisputed that some of those sent to the convict camp have been properly found guilty some have been illegally convicted some deserve proper punishment while some by reason of their tender years should have been put into reformatories where they might have been rescued from the life of crime and brought up as law-abiding citizens such institutions may have been intended to protect society from the dishonest ambitious and to repress crime but they are really made hotbeds of vice and where sufficient vitality remains in the unfortunates they actually propagate and multiply criminals but if the question should become so varied as to inquire whether the negro in the south charged with crime is justly dealt with in the courts they wrote in other words is he afforded a fair trial there it could not be fully answered without taking into consideration the heinous crimes with which the negro is generally charged there is nothing more revolting than rape unless it be mob rule there is no true man quite or black who would not rejoice to see condone punishment visit upon the brute legally proven guilty of this most diabolical crime the south justifies lynching on the ground that it shields the victim of the crime from the publicity to which a trial of the perpetrator would expose her that is to say the lynchers prefer to violate the organic law which provides that no one shall be deprived of life liberty or property without due process of law they put the mob above the judicial system of the country and irrigate to it greater power to protect the honor of the outraged female and uphold the majesty of the law than a court of justice it is a sad reflection upon the administration of justice even to intimate that the mob which ruthlessly defies the law is better qualified to administer justice than the court established by law to try and determine the guilt or innocence of persons charged with the commission of crime in the dark ages of english history it frequently happened that the person charged with the commission of crime was first executed and afterward his trial was had and if a verdict of not guilty was found his bones were disinterred and given a state funeral but the negro charged with the commission of crime in the south is frequently not granted a trial before or after execution so that the negro is not justly dealt with in the courts of the south even after he has been hung drawn and quartered or burned and some instances where the negro is fortunate enough to confront his accusers in a court in the south the caste prejudice against him too often reduces his trial to a mere mockery of justice the cornerstone of the republic is justice to establish which under liberty its founders set forth upon these hostile shores in the early part of the 17th century from that time to the president the slogan of every campaign the rallying cry of every battle has been justice in some form or other and yet in the alleged interest of innocence justice in certain localities is often outraged law dethroned and mob rule exalted whether or not the negro charged with crime is justly dealt with in the courts of the south can only be answered relatively for in some localities fair trials are granted even to negroes charged with the commission of crime but for the most part it must be admitted that negroes brought into the courts of the south accused of crime against white people are not afforded a fair trial the reason for this unjust dealing with the negro in the courts of the south is not far to see he is looked upon as an alien then to the doctrine that he has no rights which a white man is bound to respect is exploded in certain localities only in theory for in practice it is still unmistakably prevalent the crying need of the times is a wholesale respect for law and order and a righteous condemnation of mob rule everywhere every pulpit north and south should speak out against mob rule and lynch law the eloquent divine in greenville mississippi who recently denounced with righteous indignation the damnable outrages of mob violence in that state was as a voice crying in the wilderness for some reason his brethren of the club have not seen fit to join him in a crusade against this abominable sin if the southern clergy could only be induced to breach against this evil occasionally there would soon be created throughout the sin-ridden districts such a healthy public sentiment and respect for law and order that these crimes against the state would soon become things of the past nor could there be found throughout our broad land a miscreant who under the influence of the spirit of lawlessness would take the life of our chief magistrate nor would there be anywhere such an illiberal public sentiment as would openly criticize our chief executive for dining a representative member of the race whose feasts even jupiter did not disdain to grace but let us consider the alleged crime for which lynching is attempted to be justified lh perkins esquire of the kansas bar association in an address to its annual meeting in july 1901 said quote lord cope observes there are crimes that are not so much as to be named among christians it is difficult for us in kansas to believe that certain crimes exist crimes against nature practiced by force upon defenseless childhood disclosed in criminal records of great cities but there is one crime in kansas that we have learned to know it ought not to be named much less permitted in a christian land the crime and its fifth punishment can scarcely be discussed but how else can it be expunged shall that be my fire must he who writes the story of this newborn age still further shocked the world and fouled the fair name of america by pictures of a holy mob profaning every law of god and man with every bulwark of our rights thrown down the gates of hell unchained and passion loose unbridled in his hurricane roaring above the prostrate guardians of the peace annihilating in an hour the civilization of 6 000 years death in flames savage blood thirsty vengeance three things this savory orgy lacks salt and sweet herbs and a good appetite there is a law that in the last extremity in the presence of impending death all barriers are removed all ranks are levels all rights are equalized supreme necessity is supreme law can it be possible that some such over mastering impulse at times dethrones the public mind and while the fit is on the latent cannibal runs right in the land it seems it must be so and if it be it will be until we rise to the necessity we may excoriate the cannibal but which of us will now affirm the provocation is not great poor helpless woman why don't she learn to shoot this monstrous crime pursues her like a nightmare it is an ever present peril to every woman in the land must she shun every alley and fly from every bush lest the civius eyes beyond her and unbridled brutal passion block her way of all the hobgoblins abroad in the night in fact or fancy or in song or story there is none so hideous as the stealthy form of the lecherous brute that leaps forth out of darkness and drags defenseless woman to her ruin and can it be that we who make the laws we who have wives and daughters and sisters and mothers who are dearer than life itself we who honor woman not for her strength but for the very attributes that render her the prey of force can it be that we can make no laws that will protect her or satisfy the public that justice will be done concede that in the sight of god the crime of rape is worse than murder yet is it plain that the punishment should be death in the interest of woman herself were it not better that the brutal ravager have somewhat more to bear if he do also murder else would not the motive to silence forever the most dangerous witness be complete i offer the suggestion of three degrees for rape the first to cover only ravishment by brutal violence and fourth the second all the intermediate grades save statutory rape which alone shall constitute the third degree i am no firm believer in the justice of our age of consent and would leave corporal punishment for statutory rape to the discretion of the trial court the terms of imprisonment as now prescribed are doubtless long enough but let us add to them the sting and shame of the ancient whipping post for the third degree in the court's discretion not more than seven lashes for the second degree two floggings of 20 lashes each soundly administered within 12 months and for the first degree three several floggings of 40 lashes each within 12 months and then castration there is much reason in disanction penalty and the time has come when it should be revived if as some say this morbid and unbridled passion is disease then treat it like appendicitis remove the cause end of quote mr. Perkins is on the right track i am glad that he neither endorses lynching nor takes stock in the absurd report from certain sections of the cell that all negroes are ravishers of white women i think his suggested remedy against rape a good one for white and black but to return to the consideration of the other phase of the question i desire to say that mrs. helen douglas the widow of the lamented fedric douglas is accepted authority on the convict lease system and consequently i am a debtor for most of the data used in this article touching that subject in a well-prepared lecture on convict leases mrs. douglas introduces her theme as follows quote we know what happens when manufacturers are shut down and a vast amount of accumulated material is suddenly thrown upon the market for 250 years the south had been manufacturing a peculiar article had been literally stamping this article with its own linements and putting it upon a market created especially for it the war came the manufacturers were closed the material was on hand what should be done with it never in the world perhaps has there been a clearer demonstration of the irrevocable nature of law as affecting society and the awful power of habit as the sum of reiterated choice end of quote at the prison reform convention held in atlanta in 1888 dr. p d sims of chattanooga said that the improbished condition of the south succeeding the war of the rebellion caused it to drift into the convict lease system for which there were many excuses but no justification the lessee buys from the state the discipline of prisoners solely for gain that neither the state nor the lessee had regard to the element of reform or consideration of a philanthropic character that although many good men were engaged in it the system was wrong he presented the statistics of 39 state prisons showing that in the non-leasing prisons the annual mortality was 15 per thousand while in the leasing it was 64 per thousand and that in the former escapes were but five per thousand and in the latter they were 51 per thousand he appealed to the south to change the system the lease system was adopted in georgia in 1869 both democrats and republicans favoring it the first year there were 350 convicts to be hired and the second year the number doubled and the investigation showed that one company paid nothing to the state for the labor of its conflicts and that although the law provided for a chaplain the state had none that convicts were worked on sundays contrary to law and in some instances whipped to death the evils of the system became so flagrant that a senator on the floor of the senate chamber declared that the rich and powerful were allowed to go free while the poor white person and the ignorant negro were shown no mercy it was proved that even a governor of the state was himself a lessee working state convicts for private gain under a 37 000 dollar bond in force until 1899 although he was the convict's only protection against the wrongs of the lessee the ease and facility with which colored persons were sent to the penitentiary kept a goodly supply of prisoners on hand while it was burdensome to taxpayers to keep them within walls it was unjust to mechanics to allow them to learn trades ergo they were leased out to grade streets to work on railroads in mines and the like where their physical powers might be availed of but where they could learn nothing save yes and no acts and whole by an act passed in 1876 by the legislature the marietta and north georgia railroad company was leased 250 convicts for three years to greed its road where the people were too poor to pay for it the rest of the convicts the governor was authorized to lease to three penitentiary companies for 20 years for 500 000 dollars to be paid in annual installments of 25 000 dollars in a test case by two of these companies in the supreme court of georgia it was decided that the lessees acquired a vested right of property in the labor of these convicts which the legislature could not disregard unless their labor was required by the state in which case the lessee demanded compensation the supreme court consequently granted an injunction restraining the keeper from delivering said convicts to said railroad company thereby securing to the lessees a legal right of property in the labor of the convicts until the contract is legally terminated in an investigation in 1896 presided over by governor etkinson captain lowe a lessee testified quote we do not think ourselves liable for the conduct of whipping bosses they are given their commissions by the state and we insist that they are answerable to the state alone we cannot direct the whipping of convicts it must be done by the bosses if all the convicts were disabled by whipping we think the state would be liable to us for loss of time because the whipping bosses are the agents of the state end of quote lessee lowe admitted he was a close corporation being president secretary treasurer boss and everything else of the company which held no meetings had no stock and declared no dividends attorney general terrell held that the convicts were under the care of the lessees whose duty it was to see that they were treated humanely citing the order of 1887 by governor gordon to prove that while the whipping bosses were appointed by the governor they were under the control of the lessees governor etkinson said that he did not dream for a moment that the lessees did not consider it their duty to see that the convicts were properly treated mr. huff addressing the legislature said that any attempt at reformation of the present system is an absurdity a swindle and a fraud it is a damnable outrage the lessee contract would not stand 15 minutes before a petty jury i could hang any of the lessees before a petty jury a petty jury in two and a half hours he said one convict testified that in his case the skin came off with every blow inflicted by a soaked strap drawn through sand that 20 bastard children were in one camp a female convict testified that during her prison life of 14 years she had born seven children a lessee testified that such irregularities as bastard children would occasionally occur as long as women were guarded by men dr. felton addressing the georgia legislature said quote i stated 10 years ago that the state was acting as a porcurous for convict camps the legislature is keeping up the supply in accordance with the demand i repeat the accusation here and now unquote in 1895 a number of convicts had their feet so frozen that the flesh and toes rotted off governor etkinson enlightened the legislature of the deplorable condition existing in the convict camps through a report thereon by honorable rf right showing nearly 50 misdemeanor camps in the chain gangs were 27 white and 768 colored convicts generally both races and sexes being together day and night among these were 11 children under 14 years of age some slept in rude floorless houses some intense on the bare ground and a few in bunks the bedding was scant and filthy and full of vermin the camps were poorly ventilated the sleeping quarters being generally sweatboxes constructed to prevent escapes there were no hospitals and no preparations for comfort or medical treatment female prisoners dressed in male attire worked side by side with men a member of the legislature declared quote most lessees would rather see the devil in their camps than a methodist or baptist preacher i do not urge the bill for the negro but for the safety of homes and property crime has increased in the united states more than in any other country on the globe i plead for the orphan boys and girls of the state better send them to a bottomless hell than to james camp unquote said the lamented colonel allston quote the public knows how hard it is to get testimony in a case like the lease question if a guard kills a man he is not going to tell of it if a lessee chooses to whip one to death who is going to know it if he starves them who is the wiser i never expected to give up the agitation of this question till i can point to my native state redeemed regenerated and disenthralled from this great sin and the finger of shame shall no longer be lifted at her as a state that is baking on the crimes and misfortunes of her defenseless and ignorant population unquote three months after this colonel allston was shot dead in the state capital of georgia by a sub lessee during a controversy arising from the leasing of some convicts whereupon governor akinsen declared that under heaven and by god's help he meant to lift up the administration of the laws of the state to that high plane that will put an end to these things mr bird of roam georgia by authority of governor akinsen inspected the misdemeanor camps in 1897 and reported that private chain gangs were being operated against the law and in spite of the decisions of the supreme court of georgia and that the average penal camp of the state penitentiary is a heaven compared to the agony and torture endured by the misdemeanor convicts in many of these joints he said that mr right did valiant service for humanity by showing that a bondage worse than slavery was being inflicted upon the convicts who were confined in these quote hells upon earth unquote in one camp he said an antebellum residents had been converted into a prison by removing every window and closing up every aperture leaving not even an auger hole for light or air in the center of the room only 18 feet by 20 was an open can the reeking cesspool of this dungeon in which sat a sick negro convict confined in this dark sweatbox perishing in another camp after the visit of mr right the guards took turns at beating a convict to death and buried him in his shackles a respectable citizen asserted that they caught the convict by the shackles and ran through the woods dragging him feet foremost and that when these facts were sworn to before the grand jury of pulaski county it was thought best to hush them up and keep the matter out of the newspapers and out of court as the superintendent of the prison camp had friends on the jury another case sworn to by the coroner's jury was that of a guard who had whipped nearly all the life out of an old negro who said boss you're going to kill me the guard replied with an oath in the affirmative whereupon the convict begged to be shot and thus freed from his sufferings he was chained up to a tree where he died in 30 minutes in another camp a white convict was being boarded at a hotel 10 miles away and doing a prosperous business at painting while another white convict who had been a night guard and given a gun and the keys to the camp had it so free and easy that he threw up his job and decamped mr. boys of pennsylvania in his instructive work discusses the convict least system and shows that the sentences of negroes in the south are double those of white men for the same offenses that for petty larceny a negro may be condemned to the criminal class for life albeit he had to steal or starve he shows that the criminal machinery of the south is frequently used to nullify the negro's right of suffrage that no hand is extended to lift him up when he falls and no effort is put forth for his reformation and for this reason the south turns out one third of the criminals of the whole country that massachusetts expends twenty dollars per capita upon the children of her public schools while mississippi with a heavier tax expends but two dollars per capita in the evening star of washington dc of november 16th 1901 an exhaustive article on the prison camps of florida appeared although guardedly it favored the effort to make the criminal self-supporting arguing that as he lives on the public one at large he should not be permitted to continue to live on the public when in confinement but it admits that the convict lee system is faulty it says quote at present offenders of all grains and ages are thrown together and the younger ones learn more evil than they knew at the time of their arrest growing daily more depraved and vicious so long as they remain in bad company it may be possible however to employ most of the convicts at tasks which will not require their close association either at work or in quarters and if that desideratum can be reached the last argument against the leasing of prisoners will be met and the system will be continued indefinitely such minor matters as the corruption of inspectors of which alabama has complained being capable of rebuke through legislation there are now 13 camps in florida each one of which is technically a state prison and they are under the watch of a supervisor who must visit them at least once in 60 days examine the buildings food clothes and bedding question keepers and convicts as to work punishment and health enforce compliance with laws and report to the governor every month all leases are for four years and the only cost of its criminals to the state are the salaries of supervisors and a sum of 300 dollars a year for chaplain service the country expands at least 200 million dollars per annum in maintaining its convicts in the city of new york alone the annual assessment for that purpose is six dollars per citizen where the labor unions have not prevented it society has made the criminal pay his own bills in the south where the people are beginning to show a keenness for money that is not surpassed in the north but where as yet capital is not gathered into such immense and usual sums as in the central and eastern states a new policy has been adopted with regard to the offender he is generally a negro hence he is sent back to slavery he is sold to a farmer a distiller a phosphate miner or a manufacturer for a term of years and his employer pays considerably less to the state than he would otherwise lay out in wages in alabama if a state prisoner or long termer escapes from his employer he must pay into the public treasury 200 and 100 if a county prisoner or short termer escapes when an inspector is present at a whipping the turbulent convict may be given 21 lashes on his bare back in the absence of the inspector the whipping boss is limited to 15 lashes the guards are of the poor white class dull and illiterate and receive from 20 to $30 per month and their keep in florida shackling is seldom practiced except as a punishment for running away as it interferes with the work of the conflict guns and bloodhounds are much in evidence in the convict camps nothing is done for the betterment of the convicts intellectually or otherwise missionaries are graciously permitted to distribute tracks among them white convicts are generally assigned to offices and cook shops or become gang foreman for the white prisoner whatever his offense there is always a hope of pardon but the negro prisoner unless he be a crapshooter or chicken thief congratulates himself on being consigned to open air work in the convicts camps for he remembers how dreadfully easy in florida it is for a negro to be lynched judge ml gibbs of arkansas said he had known white employers in the south to be in conclusion with magistrates to have colored men committed on the flimsiest pretext simply that they might obtain more free labor on their plantations by means of the convict lease system the 11th census shows that in the united states there were 2468 county jails and only 44 reformatories there were no reformatories in alabama arkansas florida georgia mississippi north carolina south carolina tennessee and texas great britain supports over 400 reformatories and inebriate schools and they have closed 56 out of 113 prisons and jails in 10 years and thereby reduced to that extent the amount of material for the manufacture of criminals said judge calhoun of a recorder's court in georgia quote i tremble when i contemplate the future of little boys who come before me for the first time and are sentenced to the chain gang some of them are bright faced and intelligent some are orphans many thoroughly penitent and i believe nearly all could be reclaimed could they be sent to a reform school and surrounded with an atmosphere that would benefit instead of contaminate unquote this is halen cook wife of the honorable john f cook of washington dc has established an organization in the district of columbia known as quote the woman's league unquote which is doing a wonderful work in reducing the number of those who are brought into the courts to be justly or unjustly dealt with let the good women of the race throughout the country follow her example and do something to rescue the perishing in conclusion let us hope and believe with the widow of the sage of anacostia that quote meanwhile hampton and wilberforce howard and shaw and fisk and atlanta and tuskegee and other like institutions are silently setting the seal of manhood and womanhood upon a race whose face with ours is set toward a higher and better civilization unquote end of topic six first paper topic six second paper of 20th century negro literature this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org recording by phyllis vincelli 20th century negro literature topic six second paper by attorney i l percell is the criminal negro justly dealt with in the courts of the south isaac lorenz percel the subject of this sketch was born july 17 1857 in winsboro south carolina his father john w percel by occupation a carpenter was born in 1832 in charleston south carolina being one of the old free families isaac lorenz first attended a school provided by the episcopal church for colored youths he afterwards attended the public schools of his city and in 1871 entered brainard institute chester south carolina where he remained one term in 1872 he entered biddle university at charlotte north carolina where he remained until in the fall of 1873 when the color line was removed at the south carolina university he entered the competitive examination for the scholarship in the south carolina university from his county being the only colored applicant in the fall of 1873 he entered the south carolina university where he remained until the spring of 1877 when the act of the legislature of the state went into effect again drawing the color line so he with the other colored boys had to leave Mr. Purcell returned home and under his father's instructions learned the carpenter's trade he went to palatka florida in 1885 where he studied law and was admitted to practice law in the circuit and inferior courts october 8 1889 and at once commenced the active work of his chosen profession at palatka florida at the first term of the circuit court after his admittance he represented plaintiffs in several large damage suits to against the city of palatka in both he got verdict for his clients one was appealed to the supreme court he was admitted to the state supreme court january 19 1891 where he has successfully represented many cases january 19 1897 he was admitted to the united states circuit and district courts and november 8 1901 was duly admitted to the supreme court of the united states he has represented some of the most important cases coming before the courts of his state he came to pensacola his present home in february 1899 and has by his energy and ability built up a fine and growing business in politics he is a republican and has attended as a delicate every state congressional and county convention since coming to the state several times presided over state and congressional conventions was for 12 years chairman of the republican executive committee of his county putnam for many years an alderman of the city of palatka florida in 1895 he was elected as a delegate to the republican national convention which convened in st louis 1896 he has never held any office of profit always honest and fearless in his opinions and his advocacy of right his private life has always been consistent while not a member of any religious denomination always attends the services of the episcopal church is a temperate man is generous and kind in disposition was married october 24 1895 to miss el andrews of orangeburg south carolina first what constitutes a court in the south is in the north and other parts of the country to constitute a court there must be a judge whose duty it is to preside over the court a sheriff and deputies and a state's solicitor who looks after the interests of the state and last but by no means least comes the jury whose duty it is to discharge or pass on the innocence or guilt of the prisoner according to the law and evidence as offered it requires all these to constitute an organized court of law first the judge should be a man selected on account of his nobility of character of heart of soul and of mind a man of experience and training a man of affairs learned in the affairs appertaining strictly to his branch as also in literature and science a man merciful kind and generous of a sterling character temperate though positive and unbiased by private opinion in a word he should be a man the representative of justice though not usurping that power as abiding in himself but as the instrument of that power whose moral character ought to be without blemish a man whose habit integrity shrewd judgment and wise counsel place him above the average man making him of the people and for the people sheriffs and deputies ought to be honest and fearless having the highest regard for the life and liberties of the people they should be kind and generous yet positive and fearless ever ready to defend the life and liberties of the people using their office only in consonance with the prescribed law in aiding the conviction of crime but not as a means of revenging personal wrongs or injuries of the people whose color is their only sin the jury the jury ought to be composed if possible of men of learning whose moral character love of truth unbiased by racial prejudice or private opinions being only representatives of the people who in the name of the people a judge condemn or acquit according to the evidence not from any private opinion but governed by such law as is made in the statement of the judge bearing upon the case given previously to their retiring if these men of learning cannot be found as in most cases let others who for the above qualifications minus learning be substituted in their stead in the selection of the jury in the most cases they come as the most refined element of the scum and refuse of the party class whose labor in the election of some democratic officer can only be rewarded under these terms being unqualified to fill even the most inferior office of their party in a majority of cases not even one of these is acquainted with even the lowest element of learning and if perchance one can be found he is made foreman the negro is never thought of but if perchance one should be selected and in such a manner is he prominent even his color makes him conspicuous he is also on a par with his companions men of influence are never selected before I conclude with the jury may I say a word of those who select them in most states they are selected by the county commissioners in some by a jury commissioner these commissioners in most cases are none other than tools instruments who have no minds of their own but like a reed before a gust of the mighty wind that blows nobody good as serfs and pampered menials bend irrespective of that higher principle that innate quality of man that places him above the brute creation serving an abject slavery for the carrying out of party crime and cunning as well as subtle devices a court constituted of such elements as described is an ideal one one to be desired and the only one at whose hands justice and only that as gold refined shall be tried counterpoised and meet out to every man justice in the name of heaven and at the hands of man but may I ask how are our courts of the south constituted are any two of the above qualities to be found in the most prominent of our southern courts of criminal jurisdiction if diogenes of old would seek in our southern courts for such a man here too as in Greece such as one could not be found for truth is no longer enthroned on its sacred altar having defined the true elements of which the courts of our southland are constituted I shall pass to consider the manner in which the negro is dealt with in these courts is the criminal negro justly dealt with in the courts of the south is a question that I think is more frequently asked than words can answer language describe or man's wisdom unravel our woes have gone out to the ends of the earth and the stagnant waters can no longer contain its contaminating germs and now even on the other side of the globe we hear the re echo of our cries from this damnable cruelty wafted back to us by the zeffers that sustain expectations impregnated with hope telling of some bright future what of the negro in the sunny south what of his rights as a citizen what of his treatment at the bar of justice our questions also propounded on the other side and since the trial cause of the alleged rape has been made clear we expect and are looking forward to the dawn of a brighter future in our civil courts in other words our courts where property rights are tried I must say that where tenement rights are concerned justice is made it out to the negro even against the white man when elevated to our higher courts this is the only sphere in which a lenient form of justice is prescribed and given the negro the same cannot be alleged of him when his life his liberty or reputation or citizenship is at stake against a fellow negro he is in some instances protected as against a white man seldom if ever in this ladder it is not justice that is the object of our courts but the impeachment and condemnation of a fellow man giving vent to a vindictive racial prejudice be the crime of the negro ever so trivial when against the white man the sheriff having to carry out the oath the jury their party plans the judge his selfish means and therefore no evidence however palpable however substantial and convincing can shield the negro under such instances the skin of a white man being held sacred cannot be violated or polluted by the touch of the negro's hands be it in self-defense or in defense of his manhood or in the defense of wife daughter or some other female relative on the other hand seldom if ever can a white man be convicted when charged with striking a negro or for any insult he may offer to his wife sister daughter or mother the juries being all white they consider this no crime for a white man may we notice the following facts of the records of our courts may i hear testify and without a fear of successful contradiction that by these as matter for the criminal statistics of the race serves no purpose first because our best citizens the better class of our thinking men and the most virtuous of our people are not tried at the hands of an impartial jury an innocence made to bear the stamp of guilt can in no way be accounted justice for instance in a case of assault and battery although the party charged is able and does prove by legal evidence that his actions were prompted only by resistance in self-defense however convincing if a white man can be found if even he does not know anything but can allege a negative this unjust evidence counter poises the balance of justice and the negro is found guilty if on the other hand larceny be charged it is almost an impossibility even to attempt to defend if there be a white witness against you if being taken for granted that every negro is a thief now in the courts of justice according to my judgment and according to the law every man is presumed to be innocent until his guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt by legal evidence and such evidence must be furnished or obtained by the prosecution but men are daily convicted in our courts simply because they are negroes in concluding let me say that a majority of my people labor under appalling disadvantages but i hope that the time is not far distant when our courts will be constituted as the altars of justice the judges and their associates as its priests and the american citizen be his color what it may can come and there receive at the hands of unblemished and unspotted servants redresses for wrongs compensation for impeached innocence and justice for his wrongs the time is coming when all racial prejudice shall have passed away and when color will no longer impede our obtaining what is due us and when the negro will receive a fair and impartial trial before a jury of his peers then will justice and equity rule sublime and the negro being protected in all his rights his liberty life and reputation will be held sacred and virtue and worth will be considered and man the prince of god's creation will be crowned for doing justice unto man end of topic six second paper