to say

"It was my first trip along the South Atlantic coast," he said, "although many years ago I visited New Orleans, and that I thoroughly enjoyed the trip would be to very mildly characterize the pleasure I experienced. Although I went among the people who were perfect strangers to me, and with whose interests I had not been closely identified, I met with a most cordial greeting everywhere, and, indeed, could not begin to accept all the invitations which were showered upon me. If I had had the time I would have gone to Mobile, Ala., Thomasville, Ga., and other places from which invitations came, but there had to be a limit to travel."

"What feature of this trip most impressed you?"

"I think that the wonderful and rapid recovery of the South from the devastation of the war is most amazing and must strongly impress every one who knows what the South experienced and realizes what it is to-day. I am frank to say that I do not believe a traveler going through the South, if unaware of the struggle of twenty-five years ago, would notice any signs resulting from that struggle. Of course this recovery is not equal at all points. Some cities are more backward than others, and yet I believe that all cities are feeling the general prosperity which is now the happy condition of the South. Atlanta, Savannah, Birmingham, and Jacksonville are particularly flourishing. Jacksonville has in four years increased its population from 35,000 to 60,000. This is marvellous growth.'

"Do the Southern people still talk of the war?"

"I think not, except to refer to it as a basis of comparison by which they emphasize the changes which have been made since it closed, and this comparison is with them a natural matter of pride. Of course, I speak only for the cities. did not go into the country. In the cities, however, the Southern man has his mind on the future rather than on the past."

I

"There is considerable Northern capital invested in the development of the South?"

"Beyond a doubt."

"And do the Northerners and the Southerners work together without friction?"

I think they do. Certainly among the business men, so far as I could see, Democrats and Republicans were on excellent terms. There is a common bond," continued Mr. Morton, with a smile, "in making money, and that is what the South is now successfully endeavoring to do. Northern people are welcomed in the South, especially if they are disposed to place their shoulders to the wheel in helping to develop the material industries of that section. The Southerner may not agree with his Northern visitor politically, and he may have different views on other questions, but he is heart and soul with him on the all-absorbing question of development. Yes, there can be no question but that the Northern man is sure of a cordial welcome to the South."

"Then the Southerners are not letting Northern men do all the work?"

"Not by any manner of means. They are also up and alive and doing."

"Mr. Morton said that the Florida hotels were now full of tourists from the North. Jacksonville is crowded, and all the St. Augustine hotels are full. A new hotel, to accommodate 500 or 600 guests, is now being erected in Tampa, and will be ready next season. In conclusion Mr. Morton again referred with the heartiest appreciation to the marked cordiality which had been shown him, and expressed the firm belief that the present era of prosperity in the South was not based on a fictitious foundation, but was the result of natural and lasting causes."

All these facts cannot be answered by citing and collating isolated cases of wrong.

The political earthquake that convulsed the Southern States for years, some of them from 1865 to 1876, of course left great fissures, some of which are not yet closed; but the kindly processes of nature are carrying on the work of resto

ration.

It was and is the misfortune of the Southern people to have to deal with the problems arising out of race prejudices. The negro had neither the will nor the power to resist the forces which arrayed him against his late master, and the solidification of his vote, by those who were to profit by it

meant, of course, a black man's party; for its majority sentiment determines the complexion of every political party. The domination of the black man's party, officered as it was, meant ruin. To avert ruin white men united; and then came a struggle, the issue of which was in all the States the same. It could not anywhere be doubtful. The race against which the negro had allowed himself to be arrayed has never yet met its master. It could not go down before the African. No true friend of the colored man would, except in ignorance, precipitate such a conflict.

But victor though the white man was, no one could regret the enforced conflict more than did the people of the South. And they set to work at once to make a kindly use of their victories. Under the laws passed by Southern white men the negroes in every Southern State are far more prosperous than they ever were under the rule of those who claimed to be their especial friends.

There is no large body of men of African descent anywhere in the world superior in morals, equal in industry and intelligence, or as well to do as the negroes in the Southern States of this Union. In everything going to make up a prosperous and happy career their condition is infinitely better than that of their brethren in such countries as Hayti, where the colored man reigns supreme. And yet there are those who seem to think it an especial duty to foment among these colored people a spirit of strife and discontent. There is none

of this spirit among the masses of their white fellow-citizens in the South. They understand well enough that the one condition upon which prosperity can be hoped for is peace and not strife between the races. They know full well, too, that the laborer will not be valuable either as a citizen or a worker unless he is contented, and that he will not be content unless he is fairly treated. So in every State in the South the effort is being made, and successfully, too, to better the condition of the negro, to train him in the duties of citizenship. These States are expending many millions per annum for educational purposes. Following is a table taken from the Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education for 1889. It comprises all of the States of the Union which have separate reports for white and colored schools:

PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOR THE COLORED RACE.

TABLE 97.-Colored School Population, Enrollment and Average Attendance

a Exclusive of city schools. These figures seem to be those of 1886-7.

b Exclusive of Wilmington, where there are four schools for colored children.
e For counties only.

d For 1885-86.

When the negro was a slave the white men of the South made it unlawful to teach him to read. This was to prevent his learning the lesson of insurrection which certain writers in the abolition press were seeking to instil into his mind. The Southern whites then desired to keep the negro in slavery. Now that he is free these same whites are taxing themselves to fit him for freedom.

Let the reader ponder this fact and then answer to himself the question whether the Congress of the United States can wisely enact any law that would tend to revive the conflict of races in the South. Is not the problem of the hour being worked out by the people most interested in its correct solution? Are they not proceeding in the only possible

manner? No such problem can be solved at once. Time, and patience, and tact, and experience, gathered on the spot and applied to legislation by those most interested, all these are necessary to its solution.

Any legislation at Washington, based upon the assumption that the negro is wronged and having for its object the ostensible purpose of righting the assumed wrongs by arraying the negro again in solid phalanx against the white man in a contest for supremacy in governmental affairs may result in a catastrophe more appalling than misgovernment, for it would tend towards a conflict of races in the South.

When the reconstruction laws gave the negro the ballot the party that passed these laws claimed of the colored man his vote and secured it. The negroes went to the polls in solid masses for that party. We have seen the results. Wherever they got power their leaders robbed and plundered. Wherever the negro majorities were greatest the degradation of society was most complete and despoliation the most absolute as in South Carolina and Louisiana. If Congress shall again take control of suffrage the negro will be again appealed to. The party that interferes in his behalf will again claim title to all his ballots, will again urge that he muster all his forces under its banner. The theory upon which these laws are urged undoubtedly must be that this appeal would again succeed; and if it should, then negro majorities would again dominate South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana, as well as also many of the richest counties in each of the former slave states.

To the people whose lives and fortunes would thus be imperiled, how appalling the prospect! And not only the properties of Southern, but of Northern men also-railroad stocks, state bonds, city bonds, county bonds, mining and manufacturing interests-all would be in peril. Nay, if the program should be carried out, as it is claimed it would be, with the United States army to enforce the law, and negro domination should again be forced at the South, many a princely fortune would vanish into air. It is amazing that capitalists, proverbially sagacious in their forecasts, should be so quiescent and complacent in view of this threatened legis