Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/276

252 superior people, and given a chance to develop a char- acter, and to demonstrate the merits of his leaders and the capacities of the race. Let no white man vote in the negro State to harass the negro's councils, and let no negro vote in any other State than his own. " The chief opposition in the South would rest upon the misapprehension which you doubtless share, that the negro is indispensable to the agriculture and labor conditions of that section. That was once true. It is no longer true. " I state here for the first time a fact which will be as surprising to the South as it is to you. The negro no longer makes the staple or cereal crops of the South ! The cotton of Texas, of Louisiana, and of Mississippi is made chiefly by the white man, and not by the negro ! The negro is no longer an industrial necessity. This fact is from the census. fought and bled and died about this black man from Africa! Is the wrangle worth its fearful cost? Shall the great Northern section of our common country always turn its hand against the great Southern sec- tion of our country? Shall the young American of the North steel his heart against the young American of the South over an alien's cause? " I appeal for Caucasian unity. I appeal for the im- perial destiny of our mighty race. This is our coun- try. We made it. We molded it. We control it, and we always will. We have done great things. We have mighty things yet to do. " The negro is an accident — an unwilling, a blame- less, but an unwholesome, unwelcome, helpless, un- assimilable element in our civilization. He is not made for our times. He is not framed to share in the duty and the destiny which he perplexes and beclouds. " Let us put him kindly and humanely out of the way. Let us give him a better chance than he has ever had in history, and let us have done with him."
 * ' For half a hundred years we have wrangled and