Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/291

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THE NEGRO
267

THENEGRO 267 try. The public domain is exhausted and the restless young men crowding West would turn to the de- serted fields of the new South, where plantations would be divided and subdivided, until the Yankee had a voice in the politics of that section. All we ask is that Senator Ingalls and other statesmen who believe themselves burdened with the responsi- bility of settling the race problem will allow us to carve out our own destiny. We believe the South American emigration plan will solve the negro prob- lem in this country, and if it does these statesmen, who have been so solicitous about our welfare, ought to be satisfied."

Only a short time ago The World, of New York ity, printed the following as a news item, bearing upon this question (November 29, 1903, page 8), and this is what was set forth : — NEGROES CALL FOR HELP TO EMIGRATE Liberian Colonization Society Wants Assistance to Send Colored People to Africa — They Think This is Their Only Refuge — Ship to Carry Five Hundred or More from Savannah to Liberia in February. To the Editor of The World: Birmingham, Ala., Nov. 25. — If the cause we repre- sent was less deserving of consideration at the hands of the people of America, we would hesitate to make this appeal on the eve of that day when we Americans are more than at any other time in the year appealed to to meet the demands made upon us by deserving humanity. We believe, however, that of all the obli- gations the American people owe to humanity the debt we owe the people that were once our slaves is possi- bly the greatest. It is true that the purses of the philanthropic people of this country have been and are always wide open