NOTES IN THE SADDLE.
BY FIELD-SUPERINTENDENT C. J. RYDER.
Le Moyne Institute, at Memphis, Tenn., like almost all of the A. M. A. schools this year, is full to overflowing. A large number of pupils have been turned away for the want of accommodations.
The Industrial department of Le Moyne Institute is receiving constant additions. A printing outfit has recently been procured, and the students are busy over “fonts” and “pi,” though no printer’s devil has as yet appeared. The scholars have done some good job work already and are thus turning their industrial training into immediate practical benefit. The other departments of the Institute are keeping step with its industrial development. Le Moyne is broadening its influence constantly and sending its roots deeper and deeper into the intellectual and religious soil of Memphis. It is recognized as one of the most beneficial institutions in the city by the citizens of all shades of political opinion.
The Congregational Church stands immediately opposite the Institute, and students are especially welcomed into its services and membership. If New England Pilgrimism of early days is reproduced anywhere it certainly is in the work of the A. M. A. The Church and the School are the joint and inseparable agencies for the building of character.
A trip down the Mississippi Valley is a revelation to one who has never passed over this route. This valley is the garden region of the old South, that is, those States east of the Mississippi. It is asserted, and truthfully, I think, that two and one-half bales of cotton are sometimes raised for every man, woman and child of the population of this valley. The land is a deep alluvial loam and produces crops of great variety. Cotton, corn, potatoes (sweet and Irish), wheat, oats, and sugar cane are some among the many products that grow luxuriously here. This region has been avoided by settlers in the past, because of its unhealthfulness. In the old slave days, planters lived in the highlands, back from the river, and worked their plantations by slave labor. The death of a slave was only unfortunate because of just so much lost live stock. God equalizes things in a strange way. Now, these very people who occupied these lands and tilled them for others are acclimated and can live here and gather the enormous wealth of this wonderful valley. The railroad company has offered unusual inducements to settlers of small capital to take lands here. Five thousand colored people have poured into this great garden spot during the past eighteen months and others are constantly coming. What an opportunity for A. M. A. work! Pleading invitations come to me from many places along the line of this valley, begging me to come and see their needs. Churches and schools and missions are demanded all through this region immediately. Tougaloo University was never so well fitted as to-day to meet the needs of these people. Its two new Ballard buildings greatly increase its accommodations and facilities. But other schools, less advanced and comprehensive, are needed, which shall meet the immediate wants of these new communities, and also be feeders to Tougaloo.
At one place a considerable colony has settled under the leadership of a former student of Fisk University. He is, of course, a Congregationalist, and desires the best educational advantages for this new and growing colony. What could not be accomplished here during the next few years if only the treasury warranted the outlay? At Greenville, in the heart of this fertile valley, a small Congregational Church, planted and nurtured by the A. M. A., is holding up the standard of intelligent preaching and decent forms of public worship. The Church has no meeting-house, but holds its services in a school building, the property of a colored citizen, who is the editor of the Greenville Herald, a sprightly local paper.
The Mississippi River is making fearful havoc along its banks. At Greenville, fifty feet of ground fell away in a single day. Brick buildings are being torn down and frame buildings hurried back on rollers to save them from the mad waters of the mighty river. Where the streets of the village were, a few months ago, now the river runs more than a hundred feet deep. This is a boom in real estate not thoroughly enjoyed by the citizens. It is attributed to the failure of the River and Harbor bills, and the citizens are very indignant. I am happy to state that our pastor’s home and the proposed site of the new Congregational Church are far back from the river, and no one need withhold his increased contribution to A. M. A., on account of this needy field, for fear the real estate will wash away.
At Vicksburg I found quite a number of A. M. A. graduates. One hangs out the shingle of an attorney and is doing “tolerably well, thank you.” Two are teachers; one of these, a graduate of Straight University, N. O., has done splendid service for his people and won honor for himself. He is Superintendent of the city colored schools, having ten teachers under his direction. He has saved his money and now owns two comfortable cottages and is out of debt; not a bad showing for a young man only a few years out of college.
Louisiana is reaping the harvest of her former seed sowing. Arozelles Parish is agitated over the outrages recently perpetrated against the Hebrews. Witkowsky, it will be remembered, was driven from his home in this parish last fall. Now these outrages are being repeated against others of that same race. I quote from a local paper: “The anti-semitics rode up to the Kahn store and riddled it and the surrounding fence with bullets. Next day Kahn and Bauer were served with notices calling attention to what the mob had done, and warning them to leave the parish at once if they wished to save their lives.”
The Governor of Louisiana is exhorted to stop these outrages. Why? It is only a continuance of the policy of violence and murder that has so often brought disgrace upon this and other Southern States. It matters little whether the victims of these brutal outrages are Negroes or Hebrews. Anyone who chances to be obnoxious to the Lords of the Land may meet the same cruel treatment. But better and brighter days are slowly coming, when all classes can demand and shall receive the impartial protection of the laws. Perhaps this new violence to the Hebrews may arouse the public conscience.