CHINESE vs. NEGROES
.... AS ....
American Citizens.
MR. SCOTTRON’S VIEWS
On the Advantages of the Proposed Negro Colonizationin South America.
AN INTERESTING DISCUSSION.
Says Negro Possesses Qualities That Render People ReadilyAssimilable Into the Body Politic.
The following letter and paper by S. R.Scottron, a member of the School Board andone of the best known and most highly esteemedAfro-Americans in Brooklyn, will beof interest at this time:
To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle:
The article published in the Eagle Sundaylast, “Talks of Tropical Colonization,” withMr. Alleyne Ireland, is certainly very interestingreading, bearing upon a subject thatmust engage the attention of thoughtfulAmericans. Mr. Ireland, however, seems tohave assumed that the government will beobliged to continue the employment of Asiaticraces in the development of the newly acquiredterritory in the Pacific. Taken in connectionwith what appears in to-night’sEagle, wherein appears an account of an interviewwith Senator M. C. Butler, recommendingthat the negroes of the UnitedStates be colonized in South America, thesearticles seem to warrant my offering to theEagle an article prepared before the publicationof the aforementioned interviews, bearingupon the same subject, and offering whatI may be permitted to assume a better solutionof the subject of colonization, since itwill serve a double purpose, covering the suggestionsof both distinguished gentlemen.
S. R. SCOTTRON.
Brooklyn, N. Y., 598 Monroe street, September19, 1899.
Newly Acquired Territory Presents aNew Problem to the American People.
“The rather unusual activity of lawless personsthroughout the country of late, especiallythe lynching element, has started anew aflood of opinions and discussion of what istermed the ‘negro problem.’ As of yore, diverseopinions, sometimes diametrically opposite,are expressed. There is one strikinglikeness in all, however, and that is, the evidentbelief of the writers that each has discoveredthe panacea for the great negro ‘affliction.’The virtues and vices of the negroare discussed at length, all seeming toforget that there is nothing especially remarkablein negro humanity differing from thebalance of mankind under the same circumstances.He is ignorant, dirty, vicious andlazy, or, intelligent, clean, peaceful and thriftyunder precisely the same circumstances thataffect the balance of mankind.
“I doubt very much whether there is anysuch thing as an unsolved ‘negro problem,’since the negro was granted the same rightsand privileges as others enjoy under the Constitution.There certainly was a problem beforethat, but when the government clothedthe negro with the full rights of freemen theproblem was solved, and there remains nowbut to allow the slow process of time to adjustourselves to the situation.
“The negro is a citizen of the UnitedStates, invested with the suffrage, guarded bythe most solemn and positive safeguards, andthe nation will never turn back the pages.And all that now remains, as said, is to adjustourselves to these unalterable conditions.The age of miracles is probably past, cer