Part 3

The Glenn Bill in the Georgia Legislature, to impose a penalty commensurate with a felony upon the teaching of persons of the two races in any public or private school in the State, is an outburst of barbaric sentiment which will do a vast deal of harm. We may as well say at the outset that we do not favor co-education of the races at the South, so long as the people there do not want it. In Massachusetts, white and black children attend the same school, and are treated just the same. If half or more of our population were colored, we do not doubt it would be a different question, but we do not see that the mingling of youth at school produces any social mixing, or mixture of races. At the South, where there is a large body of each race, separate schools and institutions are well enough, but separate streets, railroad cars, ferry-boats and other public utilities would be a ridiculous and uncalled-for extension of the effort to separate the races.

While a State may plainly indicate its policy by providing separate schools for the two races, and assigning the colored youth to one and the white to the other, to make it a felony for any person to teach youth of different races together, is essentially barbarous, more barbarous than Turkey.

The great Southern excuse for such doings is that the social intercourse of the races is against nature. Very well; if it is against nature, let nature take care of the problem. But the bald and naked fact is that while the South is dreadfully sensitive about the appearance of the two races in the same parlor, or school-room, or opera house, or in the same Episcopal Convention, it is profoundly indifferent to their association together immorally.

Now if the State of Georgia proposes to condemn the Northern men who have gone there to teach, to the chain-gang, for instructing their own children in the classes, it will be guilty of a ridiculous display of race feeling and petty insularity, of a fine exhibition of ingratitude, and of a political blunder of some magnitude. We trust Gov. Gordon, who has been about the world a little, may be able to view this matter in a broader light than the backwoods members of the Legislature.

THE BOSTON EVENING TRAVELLER.

It is possible that the aroused public sentiment of the nation may force the Legislature to drop this shameful, barbarous measure, but nothing short of this will. This is the Empire State of the South—the New South which Editor Grady so eloquently described last Forefathers’ Day in New York, about which so much gush and sentiment have been spoken and written. The question cannot help suggesting itself, whether a little less of boastful sentiment and a little more of civilized humanity would not become the much-talked-of New South.

THE PHILADELPHIA PRESS.

Whether the prejudice against mixed schools is justified or not, the attempt to enforce such penalties as those prescribed in the Glenn Bill, and which are aimed especially against the Atlanta University, would arouse a whirlwind of wrath that even the Southern whites in their stolid indifference to public opinion could not withstand. No white children, except those belonging to the professors in the University, have been taught with the colored pupils. One of the professors writes to the Springfield _Republican_ as follows: “I have taught twelve years in the Atlanta University. The Glenn Bill will cut off my four children and those of the other white teachers from their best educational opportunity in Georgia—in fact, as matters now stand, practically from their only opportunity.” As the funds for founding this institution were given by Northern whites, and as most of the money for sustaining it is derived from the same source, it would seem wise to permit the Northern white teachers some discretion in conducting the enterprise.

According to the census of 1880, Georgia had 446,683 persons over ten years of age who could not read, and 128,934 whites over ten who could not write. With such a discouraging mass of ignorance, it would be supposed that the State would gladly welcome any educational assistance. And yet, judging from this Glenn Bill and the burning of the school at Quitman, the people appear to be more anxious to increase than to lessen the amount of ignorance in the State.

THE CHICAGO INTER-OCEAN.

So vicious a bill deserved a stupid and degrading defense, and it got it. Mr. Glenn says that the bill is passed to prevent the “evident desire of the negroes for marriage with the whites.” Great heavens! And has it come to this? Is this all that your “Southern refinement,” your “years of chivalrous tradition,” and all the rest of the antiquated rot which you dignify by the style and title of “Southern sentiment” has been able to accomplish? Has race pride so thoroughly died out among the young men and women of the South as to force the elders to guard them, by threats of prisons and chain-gangs, from that certain intermarriage of white and black which would follow co-education? Debased, indeed, would be the condition of the South if this were true.

But it is not true. In Chicago and in every other large city of the North, white and colored children attend the same schools, but white and colored do not marry each other. Nor would they in the South, though the race feeling has been lowered as it never was in the North, by frequent and undisguised concubinage of the colored woman to the white man. Savannah shows more children of white paternity from “mothers who were never wed” than Chicago. If half the zeal were shown for the suppression of illegitimate unions between the races of the South as for that of the very few possible legitimate ones, both morality and health would improve. But it is a waste of words to argue upon Mr. Glenn’s proposition. He does not fear a general system of intermarriage. It has happened nowhere. It never will happen anywhere. If it did, it would be preferable to a general practice of illegitimate commerce. * * *

The reports of the educational work and discipline of the Atlanta University, by the State examiners, have invariably been accompanied with the very highest commendation. The comparison between the discipline of the Atlanta University and that of the Athens University has been greatly to the disparagement of the latter in almost every respect. This has exasperated the authorities of the Athens University, and set the newspapers of the State abusing the Commissioners for making such invidious comparisons with the negro school. Whereupon the committee were set to hedge, in order to reinstate themselves in favor. It is at last discovered, what has been open to everyone for a dozen years, that there were in the Atlanta University perhaps half a dozen white children, children of the professors, reciting in the classes along with the 350 colored scholars. This fact was reported to Governor Gordon forthwith. Governor Gordon makes haste to send a special message to the Legislature. The young aspirant for notoriety, Mr. Glenn, jumps at the chance for getting glory from introducing his bill. The rapidity with which he got it through and the unanimous white vote in the House, shows the state of public sentiment. Next week the attempt will be made to rush it through the Senate. And all this, not because of the presence of the professors’ children, but in retaliation for the impudence on the part of the professors and students of Atlanta University in allowing colored youths to behave and do so much better than pupils of the other race in Athens University. These are the facts, facts which nobody in Georgia will deny.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.

The infamous Glenn Education Bill, making it a crime to teach a white child in a colored school or a colored child in a white school, has passed the Lower House of the Georgia Legislature. It goes without saying that it will pass the Senate and be signed by the Governor. Practically the law will only operate against Atlanta University, which has seven white scholars on its roll, the children of professors in the institution who cannot be educated elsewhere in the State without insult and ostracism because they are the children of “nigger teachers.” Little hope can be had that the law will be defeated. That it will be executed with vindictive severity goes without saying also, and, as the penalty of the chain-gang is the maximum, it is not improbable that these white Christian teachers, if they persist in their duty, will be fettered by the side of convicts and subjected to the treatment which, upon the authority of its own grand juries, has made the chain-gang system of Georgia a reproach to common humanity and decency. And this is the New South over which Grady bloviated so pathetically! Is there no progress, no shame, in that section?

THE CHICAGO CONSERVATOR; (COLORED.)

The Glenn Bill has passed the House and awaits action equally certain and deplorable in the Senate. The Governor will sign it and thus consummate the most barbarous piece of legislation known since the Fugitive Slave Law. There are those who have perfect faith in the liberality, intelligence and justice of the New South. To them the Glenn Bill is a revelation. Having hailed the silver-tongued Grady as a leader of a higher civilization, they are loth to believe that the very State he represents is the first to stain its statutes with so unholy a law.

But it is there, boastful, brazen, and hideous in deformity. The wheels of progress are stopped and justice is appalled while the New South brands the missionary a felon and persecutes God’s noble men and women for daring to do right. But the curse remains. Poisoned by prejudice, reeking with injustice, dead to shame, and insensible to dishonor, the State of Georgia will push on in its reckless course, indifferent alike to reproof and counsel.

But it will not last long. The reign of injustice is sure to fail. Though much suffering may be endured to-day, still the time will come when Georgia will ask to blot from the book a law so inhuman and vile. Under the circumstances the colored race can do nothing to avert the evils of the iniquitous law. It has suffered much in the past and can suffer still more in the firm assurance that justice will ultimately assert itself and right will finally triumph over wrong.

THE CONGREGATIONALIST.

The bill has been framed adroitly. By providing for the colored race and for the white precisely the same educational advantages, making no discrimination whatever, it is attempted to evade those provisions of the national Constitution which would be infringed by the least effort to deprive either whites or blacks of any educational facilities supplied to the other race. But the bill is so drawn that it neutralizes the operation of this principle of equality. Whites and blacks will not be on the equal footing plainly intended by the Constitution unless they possess in law every privilege granted them in the other States, among which is that of studying in the same schools. Should this matter be carried to the United States Supreme Court—as we have no doubt that it will be, if necessary—there can be little question but that the bill will be pronounced unconstitutional. However this may be, it is too silly and unjust a measure ever to win the respect of judicious and honorable people, in any part of our country.

It is not improbable, and is greatly to be hoped, that as soon as the real nature of this bill becomes understood generally, an opposition to it will spring up, perhaps even in Georgia, which will put a quietus upon it once for all. If the bill pass, Georgia certainly will have taken a long and significant step back towards the dark ages, and business capital, as well as modern ideas, will give such a State the cold shoulder for years to come. Moreover, if any attempt should be made to enforce the law contained in the bill, there will be such a stir throughout the whole country as is not often witnessed.

THE CHICAGO ADVANCE.

Such a law and the execution of it is no new thing in that State. Nor is the application of it to missionary workers anything new in Georgia. Among the Cherokees in the northern part of the State the American Board had a mission planted so early as 1815, and this by 1831 had brought the people on to a large degree of Christian civilization, so that they had schools and churches and were living, as an old army officer told our informant, in a more enlightened way than the white “crackers” around them. But Georgia wanted their lands for the toil of slaves. Of course a sham treaty was the first step. The next was a law passed by the Legislature requiring all white men residing on the Cherokee lands to take the oath of allegiance to the State of Georgia, and get a license from the Governor under penalty, if found there after the first of March, 1831, of penitentiary imprisonment at hard labor, not less than four years. The missionaries, well knowing that this was in open conflict with their rights, under the constitution, laws and treaties of the United States, remained at their post. Rev. S. A. Worcester, D.D., and Dr. Butler, of the American Board Mission, Rev. Mr. Trott, a Methodist Missionary, and a Cherokee named Proctor, and seven others, mostly teachers, were arrested. The latter was for two nights chained by the neck to the wall of the house and by the ankle to Mr. Trott, and was marched two days chained by the neck to a wagon; and Dr. Butler was marched also with a chain about his neck, and part of the time in pitch darkness, with the chain fastened to the neck of a horse. After eleven days’ confinement in a filthy log prison, Judge Clayton sentenced Worcester and Butler to four years of hard labor in prison. To prison they were taken and set at hard labor. A memorial was sent to Andrew Jackson. He replied by Secretary-of-War Lewis Cass that the laws of Georgia had rendered the laws of Congress “inoperative,” and he had no power to interfere. Old Hickory, who could swear by the Eternal that South Carolina should not nullify in a matter of tariff, when slavery lifted its behest, had to succumb! The case was then carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall presiding, and rendering the decision which reversed and annulled the State action, and ordered the discharge of the prisoners. Here then came in Georgia’s great act of nullification. It refused to obey, and Gen. Jackson said, “Marshall may enforce his decision for himself.” Georgia had her way, awaiting the army of Sherman.

For sixteen months those godly missionaries languished in prison at hard labor. They refused to accept of pardon before they were incarcerated, on condition that they would never again reside in the Cherokee country. And when they came out they went back there to live.

We mention these facts to show to the Governor and Legislature of that State what manner of people are these, whom they propose, in a repetition of history, to thrust into the same filthy prison and chain-gang, which all the world is coming to recognize as one of Georgia’s relics of barbarism.

THE CHRISTIAN UNION.

If this bill becomes a law, it will be possible to punish a professor in the Atlanta University who chooses to teach his own child in the class-room of the University, by making him the associate of thieves and outlaws in the chain-gang for a year. This is simply monstrous, and, in spite of the practically unanimous vote of the lower branch of the Legislature, we do not believe that the intelligent people of Georgia favor any such infamous measure. If they do, then the curse of ignorance and barbarism which once blighted and limited the intellectual and the moral life of the South has not yet been thrown off by that State. _The Christian Union_, believing heartily in the Christian principle of putting behind the things that are past, has used, and will use, all its influence to soften sectional differences, to destroy sectional hatred, and to make in fact as in name one nation of a people who have shown by their unparalleled sacrifices the vigor and the purity of their patriotism. Those who strive to revive the bitter memories of the past, and to make issues now settled capital for success, the _Christian Union_ has opposed and will oppose to the utmost of its ability; regarding all such men, whether Republicans or Democrats, as either too ignorant to be followed or too selfish to be trusted. But the adoption of such a measure as the bill now pending before the Georgia Legislature will set back the movement toward unity a decade, will put into the hands of selfish politicians in the North the strongest possible weapons against the South, and will discourage and cast down all intelligent and sober-minded lovers of their country. The people of Georgia have shown too much intelligence and good spirit to destroy the influence which they are rapidly acquiring in national affairs and to disgrace a record which, as a whole, has been admirable; we cannot believe they will do it. The South does not yet understand the inestimable service which the North rendered it in its hour of defeat by at once setting in motion educational agencies among the negroes. If now, in the face of such a service as this, rendered in the utmost unselfishness and sustained by the greatest generosity, the great State of Georgia shall lend its name to such a piece of barbarism as the Glenn Bill, it will be guilty of a piece of ingratitude almost without parallel. We refuse to believe that this bill represents the sentiment of the State.

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER.

We regard the Glenn bill as the most extraordinary manifestation of race feeling which has been made in any part of this country in many years. We are surprised at it because we believed that the State of Georgia, as well as other sections of the South, had long since passed the stage when a law like this could be thought of seriously, either as a necessity or as a matter of policy. The bill seems to us to be entirely retrogressive in its action and in the highest degree impolitic. It is an industrious attempt to make a mountain out of a mole-hill. We observe that several Georgia papers, the Atlanta _Constitution_ among the rest, favor the proposed law on the ground that it obviates the danger arising from a mixture of the races. Now, we are not in favor of a mixture of the races, neither do we question the wisdom of the existing law of Georgia, which provides separate schools for colored and white children, but we do deprecate the attempt to incorporate in the statutes of any State such a drastic and offensive measure as the Glenn Bill. Even if such a danger existed as that named in the _Constitution_ the proposed law would not help the matter one iota. It will not have the slightest influence on the question of social equality one way or the other. So far as it affects the future of the race question a more short-sighted, blundering, puerile piece of legislation could not be conceived. The bill ought to be “smothered” out of sight at once and forever.

THE CENTRAL CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.

This bill is a low grade of revenge, unworthy of the legislators of a free people. The colored people are making the greatest sacrifices to obtain education, and by the generosity of their Northern friends, who have established a number of first-class schools for them in the South, they are making rapid advancement. They are making more rapid progress relatively than the whites. And, strange to say, these efforts to elevate their condition have created alarm, and the cry of social equality has been raised. Intelligent people in the South appear to be overwhelmed with the fear that if the Negroes are accorded the equal rights to which citizenship entitles them, that Southern white men and women will become so eager to marry them that they must be prevented by law.

Certainly this suspicion is unworthy of the people who harbor it. We know that in the old slavery times there was a deplorable amount of inter-racial association and licentiousness in the South. Nearly every plantation and negro quarters furnished proof of it. But we believe that the education of the negro will promote morality, and help to remove the evil. At all events, in a Government like ours, in which all citizens have equal rights, social standing cannot be regulated by law.

THE NEW YORK CHRISTIAN INTELLIGENCER.

It is reported that the galleries and lobbies were filled with a fashionable audience, interested in the passage of the measure. It reminds one of pagan civilization, when Roman ladies attended gladiatorial combats and mercilessly ordered death to the vanquished. It is also reported that Mr. Glenn, the originator of the bill, posed as the champion of this measure, with a button-hole bouquet presented him by his lady admirers. We bespeak for his efforts at fame the frail character of the bouquet. Already it is said that efforts are being made to pigeon-hole the bill in the Senate. The stupidity of the bill is manifest in the argument of its author, that co-education meant ultimate inter-marriage. If the adherents of this bill were as solicitous of their brains as they are of their blood, the matter of co-education would be rightly settled. We are told that Mr. Glenn is a young man who covets a reputation for statesmanship. We fear that this production of his prejudice will blast his budding hopes. He seems to be one born out of due time, about twenty-five years behind. The fifty prominent members who were conveniently absent indicates a conflict between principle and prejudice, or, if not principle, at least good politics and prejudice.

THE ST. LOUIS EVANGELIST.

It is a measure designed to legalize the color line, and notwithstanding the guarantees of the national constitution, to re-construct the old _caste régime_ by a tentative process. This burning question of the old prejudice ought to have been settled so far as individual rights are concerned long ago, but there seems to be an ill-concealed fear of the blacks and of their future dominant influence in the State and in the Church. Properly educated and fairly treated the negro will be quite sure to maintain genuine respect for others of a lighter color. The educational work will go on and with the gospel of Christ be the means of giving prosperity and wholesome restraint to both races. “The New South” cannot afford such an exhibition of fear and prejudice even as a proposition to any one of its State Legislatures. It will take a long time and the patient exercise of prudence to adjust these matters righteously.

THE NEW YORK INDEPENDENT.

The colored people clearly saw through the brutality and meanness of this law, and that it was aimed at their rights. So every colored paper in Georgia denounces the law, and the two colored members voted and spoke against it. They happen to be illiterate men from the south of the State, and could not speak effectively. One of them, however, did call attention to the fact that it applies to not a few Sunday-schools which have colored classes.