Newspaper Page Text
NEGROES BACK TO THE FARM
PROF. E. C. BRANSON AT SOCIOLOGICAL CONGRESS MAKES STRIKING AND ENCOURAGING ADDRESS ON “THE NEGRO
WORKING OUT HIS OWN SALVATION.”
NE of the moxb fruitful, practical ses
sions during the Southern Sociological
Congress held at the Baptist Taberna
cle in Atlanta last week was the hour
■
given to the discussion of the betterment of
the negro’s condition. Chris-Xian patriotism
was challenged in the humanitarian work of
not only helping the negro for his own sake,
but for the sake of the peace and happiness
of the white people among whom he lives.
The Atlanta Journal gives the following ac
count of this highly interesting and helpful
session:
That the movement of the negro population
in the south, and over the country for that
matter, is always from the cities to the farm,
where the negro is achieving a new economic
status agriculturally as a land-owner and pro
gressive worker of the soil, was the somewhat
surprising statement of Prof. E. C. Branson,
of Athens, at the sociological conference on
the race problem Saturday morning, held in
the Baptist Tabernacle.
Prof. Branson cited figures showing very ma
terial increase in the area of land owned by
negroes, and figures which indicated ‘that the
negro farmer is progressing along lines of in
telligent tillage.
say “Thou shalt not” to any citizen for fear
a disposition would be created ‘to violate the
commandment. Why, fellow citizens, such doc
trine would annul every law prohibiting crime
from Sinai to Tallahassee. It seems clear that
God’s command to Mr. Currie himself is not
being obeyed. The Bible says, “Woe to him
that putteth the beetle to his neighbor’s lips”
and here is Mr. Currie leading the fight to
get this community to put the bottle to the
lips of every man’s child, his own chil
dren and his neighbor’s children, by legaliz
ing and prelecting drink shops that can only
prosper through the temptation and downfall
of Mr. Currie’s neighbors. I would like to ask
Mr. Currie, or anybody else on the whiskey
side of this question, would they repeal laws
against theft and prostitution because they are
not wholly enforced? They are certainly
broken every day, as much as ‘the law against
selling liquor in any prohibition community;
and yet the man who would get up in this
crowd and advocate such a doctrine would
make the impression that he wanted to make
his living without work, and that he wanted
to be a libeitine. And if any man were to
dare to take that unheard of position, he would
be called a moral buzzard and driven out of
town. Os course our genial and resourceful
friend does not mean this at all, but that
is where his baseless logic leads him to.
9. Travelers do not come where their privileges
are restricted, and without newcomers we cannot
hope to enlarge our opportunities. On the other
hand, those of us who are being tyrannized over
by a bigottea majority do like the Pilgrim fathers
did in the early days of America: We leave the
community where w r e are being oppressed and go
to one where our liberty of conscience is more re
spected.
9. Answer: Palm Beach county can get
along without such “‘travelers” and visitors
who want the privilege to drink and gamble.
A community built up out of high-flying bums,
gilded debauches and shameless gamblers, is.
not a fit place to rear your children. In the
name of your high‘toned tourists —the best ele-
The Golden Age for May 1, 1913
Prof. Branson’s subject was, “The Negro
Working Out His Own Salvation.” He not
only said the negro must do this, just as every
substantial race in the world’s history has
done, but that Khe negro is doing it.
“The negro’s salvation,” said he, “will not
be worked out by editorials, conferences, reso
lutions or legislation. It will be worked out
by the negro himself, working from within
himself and working slowly, stubbornly,
against untoward circumstances and environ
ment.”
Prof. Branson contended Chat the advance of
the negro race in the south since the civil war
has been more rapid than the advance of any
other equally backward race in history, and
especially more rapid than the advance of the
Russian serfs, who were freed in 1861.
Prof. Branson’s address, and the address of
Miss Grace Biglow House, of St. Helena Is
land, S. C., were the only two of several on
the program to be delivered in person, except
for Che opening talk by Dr. James H. Dillard,
of New Orleans, who presided.
Pro. W. M. Hunley, of the University of Vir
ginia, was scheduled to make an address on
“Teh Economic Status of the Negro,” but
ment of your visitors all over Florida—l re
sent the charge that they are attracted to the
“Land of Flowers” by kegs of beer, barrels
of liquor and bottles of sparkling champagne.
They can get those devilish things nearer home
if they wan‘t them. You know and I know
that they are attracted here by the balm of
your climate, the beauty of your landscape, the
golden glory of your fruits and flowers and
the dimpling beauty of your Florida lakes,
which mirror back the sun by day and the
trembling £.‘tars by night. Come again, Mr.
Currie, you and your friends must agree that
once again your logic fails.
10. Wine, beer, ale, cider and other light alco
holic beverages are luxuries to a majority of the
population o fthe civilized world, and by regulating
them out of our local use we chase a majority
of the people away from us, and those that remain
are induced to become law-breakers, hypocrites or
moral bigots who evenually become refined tyrants
masquerading under the guise of superior virtue.
10. Answer: What say the glorious and
prosperous prohibition communities of Amer
ica to this awful charge? What is the answer
of North Carolina? Os Tennessee? Os Okla
homa? Os Georgia? According to Mr. Cur
rie, the people who yet remain there are all
law-breakers, hypocrites, moral bigots and re
fined tyrants. I must submit, ladies and gen
tlemen ,that such foolish, extreme charges as
these are driving sensible men everywhere out
of the liquor ranks.
11. By limiting our population to law-breakers,
hypocrites and moral bigots we reduce the values
of our real estate, lessen the amount of our trade
in other commodities besides alcohol, and bring
about stagnation in all that goes to make up a live
community.
11. Answer: Name the time, Mr. Currie,
where this horrible thing occurred. In all
good humor, I dare you to give the name, ‘the
place and the date where such a result ever
followed the closing of the liquor joints. On
the other hand, I give you the names of all
these states and towns and many more whose
governors and mayors declare that the very
was prevented from attending, and sent his ad
dress, which was read and proved to be very
intereXing. He said the negro is turning away
from the spelling book to the pocketbook, but
but is deficient in the matter of health, owing
to illiteracy and bad sanitary living conditions.
After the formal program, the conference
was opene dfor volurXeer speeches. Among
those who spoke were Bishop W. R. Lambuth,
a former African missionary, now working in
rßazil; Bishop Thirkield, of New Orleans, who
said he had waited thirty years to see such a
conference as this; Dr. Flennegan, who gave
an interesting account of improved conditions
resulting from co-operation between white and
negro doctors in Virginia; Dr. Weatherford, of
Nashville, who made a favorable report on ne
gro schools in Virginia, recently visXed by
him; and Dr. Carter, a negro preacher of At
lanta, who spoke with much common sense and
good will on some of the local progress to
ward solution of the problems of his race.
The meeting was well attended by delegates
to the Sociological Congress, and by a very
encouraging number of representative negro
preachers and educators and negro citizens of
Atlanta.
opposite has been the result. “Buttered side
down,” Mr. Currie, you have my profound
sympathy.
12. By voting for prohibition we accuse Christ
of wrong doing, or, at least, question His lovnig
judgment when he instituted the custom of drink
ing wine as a substitute for His blood and admon
ished us to continue to do so in memory of Him.
There is no Christian living who thinks that the
wine that Christ used was unfermented, and yet
some of the most zealous Christians in our midst
are exhorting us to make impossible an absolute
compliance with the dying request of their Saviour.
12. Answer: The first and most important
objection to this awful statement is that it is
not so. The overwhelming majority of evange
lical Christians of all denominations use “the
fruit of the vine,” unfermented wine, for the
Lord’s supper. The Hebrew word for new or
unfermented wine, when used with approba
tion, is tirosh, but the word “Shekar” is em
ployed when the use of intoxicating wine is
condemned. Besides all this, nearly all prohi
bition laws contain this expression, “Except
for medicinal, scientific and sacramental pur
poses.”
So Mr. Currie’s twelfth “reason” is mash
ed as flat as a flounder.
13. By voting our country dry we enable certain
men under the cloak of “saving us from the saloon”
to get hold of the reins of power that for some
reason under other pretexts they have failed thus
far to obtain.
13. Answer: If the prohibition leaders in
this county] really had selfish political pur
poses, they would have long ago joined the
whiskey crowd, who have been in power for
20 years. And, ladies and gentlemen, if I were
living in this county, I would far rather see
sober men holding the reins of power than to
see them in the hands of men who believe
in barrooms and who adop‘t such strenuous
methods of abuse and liquorized corruption to
keep the saloon element in power.
14. We concede that we can legislate a man
moral when we vote the county dry, although never
(Continued on page 8.)
5