Copyright 1904 by E. A. JOHNSON....

The author dedicates this work to the thousands of sympathetic and well wishing friends of the Negro race. He is trying to show how the Negro problem can be solved in peace and good will rather than by brutality. His idea is that the Golden Rule furnishes the only solution. He believes that at the bottom of southern society there is a vein of sympathy and helpfulness for the Negro and that this feeling should be cultivated and nourished that it may grow stronger and finally supplant harsher sent

From my youth up I had been impressed with the idea of working among the Negroes of the Southern states. My father was an abolitionist before the war and afterward an ardent supporter of missionary efforts in the South, and his children naturally imbibed his spirit of readiness and willingness at all times to assist the cause of the freedmen. I concluded in the early years of my young manhood that I could render the Negroes no greater service than by spending my life in their midst, helping to f

One day an archaic-looking flying machine, a curiosity, settled from aërial heights on to the lawn of one Dr. Newell, of Phœnix, Georgia. When found I was unconscious and even after I had revived I could tell nothing of my whereabouts, as to whither I was going, or whence I had come; I was simply there, “a stranger in a strange land,” without being able to account for anything. I noticed however that the people were not those I had formerly left or that I expected to see. I was bewildered—my bra

The next time I met my nurse was by chance. I saw her at the public library near Dr. Newell’s house, where I often went to sit and think the first few days after my rebirth into the world. She had left the Newell residence on the night of the day she had put me in the violet room, being called to some special duty elsewhere. I approached her with a kindly salutation which she reciprocated in a manner indicating that she was pleased to meet me. In the meantime I had found out her name—Irene Davis

I had scarcely recovered my equilibrium and become able to give an account of myself before I was formally called on by the “Chief of the Bureau of Public Utility” of the country to make a statement about the Negro problem in my time, Dr. Newell having informed him that I was interested in that subject. Here follows the substance of what I wrote as I read it over to Dr. Newell before sending it: “Many changes considered well nigh impossible one hundred years ago have taken place in almost all ph

“In the ten years culminating with the decade ending in 1902, the American Negroes have witnessed well nigh their every civil right invaded. They commenced the struggle as freemen in 1865; at the close of the civil war both races in the South began life anew, under changed conditions—neither one the slave of the other, except in so far as he who toils, as Carlyle says, is slave to him who thinks. Under the slave system the white man had been the thinker and the Negro the toiler. The idea that go

“In civil as in business affairs there is nothing so foolish as injustice and oppression; there is nothing so wise as righteousness. By the letter of the amended Constitution, by the spirit and aim of the amendments, and by all the principles of our American democracy, the Negro is in possession of the elective franchise. Men differ in their views as to whether it was good policy to confer this right upon him at the time and in the way, and especially to the extent to which it was done; but the

The time had now arrived for our promised visit to some of the public buildings of the city and we seated ourselves in an electric motor car which the Doctor had summoned by touching a button. To my surprise, it made the trip alone, by traversing a course made for this purpose, somewhat on the order of the cash delivery systems formerly used in our large stores, being elevated some twenty feet above the surface. The coaches were arranged to come at a call from any number on certain streets. The

Soon after this talk Miss Davis and I visited prominent places in the city of Phœnix. I had anxiously waited for this opportunity. An uncontrollable desire to fulfill this engagement had grown on me, from the day she informed me that she had planned the outing. We visited McPherson’s monument, and standing with head uncovered in its shadow, I said that I was glad to see that the cause he fought for was recognized as a blessing to the South as well as to the North. She replied that some of her re

“These Guilds,” said Dr. Newell, taking my arm as we left the dinner table one afternoon, “are most excellent institutions. Nothing has done more to facilitate a happy solution of the so-called Negro problem of the past than they, and their history is a most fascinating story, as it pictures their origin by a a young Southern heroine of wealth and standing with philanthropic motives, who while on her way to church one Sunday morning was moved by the sight of a couple of barefooted Negro children

I frequently saw Irene during the few weeks of my sojourn at the Newell residence, but hers was a busy life and there was not much time for tête-à-tête . One evening, however, she seated herself by my side on the veranda and amid the fragrance of the flowers and the songs of the birds we had an hour alone which passed so swiftly that it seemed but a moment. Time hangs heavy only on the hands of those who are not enjoying it. I had noticed her anxiety for a letter and her evident disappointment i

In looking for the cause of so many improvements I found that the Bureau of Public Utility had been of great service to the country in bringing about such a happy solution of the Negro problem. Among other novel methods adopted I found they had established public boarding schools. I was astonished to learn that they were based on some suggestions made by a Negro of my own times, in an essay which had won a prize of $100 offered by a Northern philanthropist. The writer was a Southern Negro from t

Two years have passed since Irene promised, on the veranda of the Newell residence, to tell Gilbert Twitchell if her hand was pledged to the man in the Philippines from whom she had received a letter. Other and sadder news had come since that time. The young officer (Kennesaw Malvern) was dead. He was accidentally shot during a target practice on a U. S. vessel cruising in the Philippines, where by the way peace and independence have long prevailed. Irene was now in black for him. She saw Gilber

Shortly before 11 o’clock a diversion was made by a small crowd moving from the east doors around to the south entrance. The police followed and a bluff was made at jostling them off the steps leading up to the south entrance. The crowd at this point kept growing, while yells of “hold the police,” “smash the doors,” “lynch the nigger” were made, interspersed with revolver shots. All this time the party with the heavy railroad iron was beating at the east door, which shortly yielded to the batter

( By the Associated Press. ) Macon, Ga., March 9, 1902.—A Columbus, Ga., dispatch to the Telegraph says a marble monument has been erected by the city to the memory of Bragg Smith, the Negro laborer who lost his life last September in a heroic but fruitless effort to rescue City Engineer Robert L. Johnson from a street excavation. On one side is an inscription setting forth the fact, while on the other side is chiseled, 5 Birmingham, Ala., Special.—The Age-Herald recently published the following

6 Tourgée relates this incident in “A Fool’s Errand.” 7 The grandfather clause in the North Carolina constitution, as recently amended, gives illiterate whites the right to vote if their grandfathers voted prior to 1867. The negroes were enfranchised in 1867 and their grandfathers therefore could not have voted prior to that time. So, while all negroes must be able to read and write the constitution, in order to vote, the illiterate white man may do so because his “grand-daddy” voted prior to 18