Читать книгу: «The American Missionary. Volume 42, No. 10, October, 1888», страница 3

The book may be had of B. Thurston, Portland, Me., or of C.T. Dillingham, 678 Broadway, N.Y. Price, 1.50, postpaid.

The reference to Father Willey and his book is suggestive. He is one of the "old, original" abolitionists. Men who were once denounced and are now scarcely honored, for lo! to the amazement and amusement of some of us, we find that everybody was an abolitionist and always had been, that everybody learned to hate slavery on the mother's lap, and was always opposed to it! We who in those early days were treated as outcasts by "gentlemen of property and standing," and mobbed by the rabble at their bidding, are led to wonder what has become of all those who thus disagreed with us! One marked exception occurs to us. A prominent professor in a theological seminary, when the question was put to him ten years ago: "Professor, when did you become an Abolitionist?" replied, with a merry twinkle in his eye: "When it became popular." We have found few, however, who are so frank or so witty.

M.E. STRIEBY.

THE UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE OF OUR MISSIONARIES AT THE SOUTH

In a recent number of The Nineteenth Century, Sir William W. Hunter, an eminent authority, reporting the influence of the missionaries in India, says that among the people to whom they have gone they have built up the most complete confidence and implicit faith in the purity and unselfishness of their motives. He declares that he regards the missionary work of the English as an expiation for wrong-doing, and he believes that the missionary instinct forms the necessary spiritual complement of the aggressive genius of the English race. Sir William also claims that the advance of missionaries in the good opinion of non-Christian peoples is a most striking evidence of their high character and intelligence, and that no class of Englishmen has done so much to make England respected in India as the missionaries, that no class has done so much to awaken the Indian's intellect and to lessen the dangers of transition from the old state of things to the new.

After this much of condensation of that profound article by the Christian Union, we quote from the author:

"The careless onlooker may have no particular convictions on the subject, and flippant persons may ridicule religious effort in India as elsewhere. But I think that few Indian administrators have passed through high office, and had to deal with the ultimate problems of British government in that country, without feeling the value of the work done by missionaries. Such men gradually realize, as I have realized, that the missionaries do really represent the spiritual side of the new civilization, and of the new life which we are introducing into India."

Names and places being changed, it is coming to appear that the whole of this can be said of the Christian workers from the North among the colored people of the South. Besides all of their work that can be told by statistics, and besides all of that in building up character among the Negroes and awakening their intellect and their aspiration for thrift in every sense, they have exerted a profound unconscious influence upon the white people of that Southland. They, too, have built up among the whites a confidence in the purity and unselfishness of their motives. At first they were suspected as emissaries of a political party. By many even of the best people there they were held as necessarily persons of low-down condition and character to be willing to do that "low-down work." "With our views of the case, how could we believe anything else?" was the answer to the remonstrance against the current mode of treatment. Gradually this feeling has been giving way to one of growing confidence, until for several years such men as Rev. Dr. A.G. Haygood and Mr. G.W. Cable, and such papers as the Memphis Appeal, and such a State Board of Examiners as that of the Atlanta University have been publicly declaring the high intellectual quality and moral standing of these once despised teachers, while many of the most respectable citizens are privately saying the same thing, and multitudes believe it, though making no announcement of the same.

By this crucifixion of feeling through which those workers have passed, and by their self-denying endurance of hardness, they too, in no small sense, have been making expiation for the wrongs done the slaves. Their missionary instinct also forms the necessary spiritual complement of the aggressive genius of the Puritan civilization which is now taking possession where its sword had cleared the way. Their advance in the good opinion of the best people of the South is also a striking evidence of their high character and intelligence. No class of Northern people going South have done so much to make the North respected as the missionaries, and none are doing more to lessen the danger of transition from the old state of things to the new. Going, not as "carpet-baggers," but as citizens, to be identified with the moral reconstruction of the South, they translate there the real spirit of the North, and represent the spiritual side of the new life which is going into that fair portion of our own dear country. By the peculiar people to whom they especially go, and who prove to have a natural affinity for Puritan ideas and institutions, they are doing more than any others to set up, not a New England in the South, but a New South, wherein shall be rejuviant the principles of that civilization which was planted at Plymouth Rock.

JOSEPH E. ROY.

EXPULSION OF NEGROES FROM MARION, ARKANSAS

It is not our custom to publish details of alleged outrages upon the colored people at the South. We have no wish to stir up strife by recalling memories of the past, or by giving incidents of recent aggression against the helpless. But this case in Marion is free from bloody details and is a simple illustration of the determination of the white people to maintain their sway in the South.

The simple facts in the case are, that in Crittenden County, Arkansas, of which Marion is the county town, the population is chiefly colored, the ratio being seven negroes to one white man. For several years the office of Judge of the County and Probate Court, and the Clerk and under officers of the court, were colored men. The more important county offices were held by white men. On a given day, fifty or more heavily-armed white men appeared at the county seat and drove from their offices and homes the colored officers named above, together with the colored local doctor, the lawyer, the schoolmaster of the colored school, the editor of the colored newspaper and a number of other prominent colored citizens.

The farther details of the transaction are given in a thoughtful and calm article in a recent number of The Independent by Rev. B.A. Imes, the colored minister of the church at Memphis, Tenn., under the care of this Association. We give below all of the article that relates to the facts:

THE CRITTENDEN COUNTY OUTRAGE

BY THE REV. B.A. IMES

From the bluff at Memphis we look across the river, where along the western shore stretch the forests of Crittenden County, Arkansas, and Marion, about fourteen miles from Memphis, is the county-seat. The story of the recent banishment of fifteen prominent colored office-holders, professional men and farmers has gone to the world.

The whites, well armed, took their game by surprise, bagged and shipped it without bloodshed. Now the "empire is peace" they say, although for a time terror reigned among the startled colored people.

With a Negro population six or seven times as large as the white, it is not strange that the County Court Judge, the County Clerk and his deputy should be Negroes, nor that they should aspire to other places in public life.

Unfortunately, as all witnesses agree, Judge Lewis and Clerk Ferguson were given to drinking habits, which brought them under accusation before the courts for drunkenness. It was probable that they would have been convicted; but without awaiting the tardiness of the law, a shorter process was found.

In palliation of their hasty banishment it is claimed that anonymous letters were sent to some of the leading white citizens, warning them to leave the county. These letters it is asserted—not proved—must have proceeded from Clerk Ferguson's office, although not written by himself. The object was to intimidate those who would be most efficient in convicting and deposing the unworthy officials.

Furthermore, there are two opposing factions of colored Baptists at Marion, and it is surmised that one of these factions, regarding these prominent characters as their enemies, had something to do with the letter-writing in order to bring down wrath upon them. Still another theory is, that the whites have only been awaiting their chance, and taking advantage of favorable conditions, knew when and whence the said letters would be issued. It was all arranged beforehand. At all events, the time was very short, after the delivery of the letters, until Winchester rifles and shot-guns were in the hands of some scores of white citizens, and fifteen Negro men, including Lewis and Ferguson, York Byers, a deputy sheriff and well-to-do farmer, Dr. Stith, a successful young physician, and others, were speedily sent across the river to Memphis.

Clerk Ferguson found himself surrounded by a squad of these brave men, who, with rifles presented, demanded that he sign without ceremony a resignation. He signed. Byers escaped through the swamps, made his way to the river, and came to Memphis in a sorry plight. The other victims were put upon the train with orders to go and never return. Byers was to be violently dealt with, had they caught him.

Sandy S. Odom, living on his farm about six miles from Marion, I am informed, refused to leave his home, when waited upon and ordered to go. Said he. "All I have is here—wife, child and farm—I can't go away." For a time his pluck seemed to be respected. His fault was that of being a friend of the Marion officials. He had once served at Little Rock as a legislator from his district, but, like Cincinnatus, had since resumed the plow.

According to the latest by the Memphis Appeal, Odom has decided that discretion is the better part of valor, and will be off for a safer place as soon as his business affairs can be arranged.

The Governor of Arkansas has refused to interfere, because the Circuit Court Judge at Marion has solemnly charged the grand jury as to their duty toward the writers of threatening letters, and also toward those who unlawfully drove citizens from their homes, etc. But this solemn part of the proceeding was enacted, in spite of the fact that the sheriff of Crittenden County was one of the leading spirits in the outrage upon the defenceless black men, and the judge and grand jury and all Crittendon County are far from expecting to hear of any white man being arrested.

But last Sunday, Dr. Stith, one of the exiles, went back to Marion on the morning train. He had heard that his wife was sick, and he said: "If I am a man I must go to her." He was promptly arrested by the patrol force at Marion and lodged in jail, where he is likely to remain until next January meeting of court before he can have a trial. There is nothing brought against him aside from his having been once associated with the "offensive partisans." He had at one time been an active politician, but more recently has devoted himself to his profession, and was already known as a successful physician. Like Odom, his character is not assailed: but he was educated, and influential among the people.

Two young ladies, teachers from Memphis, one of whom had taught last year at Marion, went thither soon after Dr. Stith's arrest, to make inquiry about a situation for teaching.

They were closely watched, and in an interview were warned by a reporter of the Memphis Appeal that it was not safe for them to remain in Marion. They had reason to think that they were being watched as spies in the interest of the banished; hence their stay was very brief.

When the Clerk Ferguson had vacated, a "white citizen" was at once put into that office. It is a remarkable fact that, aside from a few hints about the necessity of maintaining order and proceeding according to law, the general tone of the press here is to the effect that this occurrence, though unfortunate on account of its effect at the North, was really justifiable.

The cruel wrong inflicted upon those who have no crime laid to their charge, no personal reproach of character, is treated as though it were but little more than a joke. If the two officials were guilty of drunkenness no one doubts that they could have been legally removed from office. If the colored people at Marion are divided into factions, then the whites could the more easily combine forces against the officials in question, or any political ring which may have existed. But there was a general Negro uprising threatened, and in order to save their own lives the whites made haste to get into the field first. This is the avowed excuse. But it is certain that no one believes there was serious danger of a Negro uprising. The men arrested and banished were unarmed, and taken by surprise. If they were in any sense desperate or dangerous characters they turned cowards suddenly, making no resistance. Indeed, there is but one excuse for their bloodless surrender. They display to the world the utter groundlessness of the charge of a conspiracy. No dynamite bombs, no loaded weapons, no evidence of organized bands were discovered.

In all the history of the shot-gun policy and the unnumbered outrages committed, there are on record few, if any, cases of conspiracy against life and property on the part of the Negro. But the true animus of the Crittenden County affair, I think, is found in the current declaration which is used at Marion on the part of the brave men who drove out these exiles, viz.: "We don't want any educated niggers, and won't have 'em here, not even to teach school."