THIS

PREFACE

HIS book is composed of six addresses, delivered at various times and places, on questions in which the South is interested.

The first address discusses The Negro and the Intelligence and Property Franchise, and was delivered before the Southern Conference of Race Problems at Montgomery, Alabama, May 9, 1900.

The second deals with Some Phases of the Race Question, and was delivered before the Southern Industrial Convention at Huntsville, Alabama, October, 12, 1899.

The third considers The Attitude of the Progressive South, and was delivered at the Annual Dinner of the Board of Trade of Newark, New Jersey, January 18, 1900.

The fourth considers The Experience of this Republic as to the Elective Franchise, and was delivered before the Nineteenth Century Club in New York City, January 15, 1901.

The fifth discusses Some Tendencies of the Day, and was delivered before the Societies of Roanoke College, Salem, Virginia, June 10, 1902.

The sixth is a discussion of The Patriotism of the South in Reference to the Conditions of the Times. The

last was delivered at the Commencement of Washington and Lee University at Lexington, Virginia, on June 17, 1908.

As will be seen the addresses were intended for the platform and they are printed just as they were delivered, with no change of verbiage or sentiment.

I can give no excuses for publishing them, beyond the hope that in some small degree they might assist in the settlement of the grave questions confronting the South.

CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA,

July 25, 1908.

I

THE NEGRO AND THE INTELLIGENCE AND PROPERTY FRANCHISES

B

Y the overkind appreciation of the Chairman of the
Committee, I am asked to conclude the debate

on this great question, which has within it such potentialities for good or evil to this land, resting under the splendor of the May-day sunshine, a land from whose kingly plenitude of moral and material worth man can reap more abundantly and more easily than at any time since, by the Divine command, fruition was crowned with the toil of the hands.

Coming from the mountains of West Virginia, within the sound of the flow of the Beautiful River, yet I am no stranger to Alabama or to her traditions and her glory; and when, inclining her proud head to the inscrutable commands of the Great Ruler of governments and armies, she pressed to her pure lips in the day of her agony and sorrow the cup filled with the bitter waters of Marah, I and mine, from the same chalice of suffering, drank the consuming draught of humiliation and distress.