Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/118

92 have at least their separate schools at the public expense, as a part of the general system. Destroy that system, and they will have no mixed schools, while their separate schools will perish also. Would the law, then, benefit the colored race at all? A colored man might indeed then enforce his rights to ride all over the country in a Pullman palace car, to board at a first-class hotel and to sit in the dress circle of a theater. But such things can be enjoyed under any circumstances only by the very small number of wealthier people among them. And these pleasures and conveniences of their few men of means would be purchased at a dreadful price; the interruption of the public-school system, the advantages of which they now extensively enjoy in separate establishments, would deprive the children of the poor of a thing which is as necessary to them as their daily bread. I happen to know very sensible colored men, who have the interests of their race sincerely at heart, and who, looking over the whole field, and recognizing facts as facts, are not willing to pay the price of their poor children's education for their rich men's convenience and pleasure.

At the same time I take this occasion to say that the facilities of education furnished to the colored people in separate schools are, in some parts of the country, and also in several counties of this State, far from sufficient; and I cannot impress it too strongly upon my fellow-citizens that it is not only their duty, but their interest, as it is the general interest of society, to place within the reach of the poorest and lowliest of them every possible means by which they can raise themselves to the highest attainable degree of perfection. I trust, therefore, the just claims of the colored people will not fail to meet with full satisfaction.

But in still other respects the enactment of such a law would not be beneficent to the colored man. Their