Dr. Haygood is the Christian, and not the politician. When he praises, as he does without stint, the work accomplished for the Negro by the people of the North, it is not the work of that particular politician, with his promise of “a mule, forty acres, and provisions for a year,” but of teachers, secular and religious, who, with a motive higher than the personal, have sought the elevation, moral and intellectual, of the Negro. He pleads no apology for his Southern brethren who have met these benevolent workers with opposition, social ostracism, and other forms of persecution, but utters his condemnation of this spirit whenever and wherever manifested.
And the results of the first twenty years’ history have justified his high and hopeful views. It is only two years since Senator Brown, of Georgia, said of the Negro, in a speech delivered in the United States Senate: “He has shown a capacity to receive education, and a disposition to elevate himself that is exceedingly gratifying, not only to me, but to every right-thinking Southern man.” The results show that the Negro has a real hunger for the education he so greatly needs. It is shown that in the year 1881, forty-seven per cent. of the colored school population was enrolled as attending the public schools, whilst in the same year there was enrolled fifty-two per cent. of the white population. Though both figures are painfully low, and suggest a condition of great illiteracy, yet, when we remember the past of the Negro—how he has been trampled down and trodden under—the figure 47 at the end of his first twenty years, is both encouraging and significant.
But Dr. Haygood finds his strongest hope in the religious nature of the Negro. The religious element of the race was very manifest in the days of slavery, and since its freedom still more so. The moral and religious progress of twenty years is encouraging. Of seven millions, the entire colored population, a million and a half are communicants of the various churches. Whilst their notions are crude, their conceptions of religious truth often painfully realistic and grotesque, yet their religion is real and worthy of confidence. More than to all other influences combined, to the black man’s religion is due the shaping of his better character. It is from this basis, and working along this line, that Dr. Haygood sees the success of the future. His closing word at Chautauqua is a statement of the whole theory which will commend itself to the sympathy and judgment of right-thinking Christian men everywhere: “Mere statesmanship can not solve this hard problem. It is not given to the wisdom of man; but God reigns, and God does not fail. We are workers with him in his great designs. When we stand by the cross of Jesus Christ we will know what to do. We can solve our problem, God being our helper. But on no lower platform than this—the platform of the Ten Commandments and of the Sermon on the Mount.”
[THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.]
In a few months we shall be in the midst of another presidential campaign, and one as exciting, perhaps, as the country has known. Already we see earnest preparations for the fray. The party managers are busily laying their schemes; the question of candidates and the measures to secure victory are being thoroughly canvassed by the rival parties.
What now strikes the thoughtful person as he considers the political outlook is the lack of party issues. Two great parties are seen on the eve of a tremendous struggle for the reins of government; but when the question is asked, what are the living issues at the bottom of this fight? one is puzzled for a reply. The situation is about this: instead of coming before the people with certain great principles as a ground of contention, one party has for its cry, “Put the rascals out;” and the other, “Let us keep the rascals from coming in.”
Our feeling is that the case should be different. Are there no living issues important enough to serve as the rallying cry of political parties? Must parties live on a past record? Is there nothing for them to do but to glory in what they have done, and point a finger of contempt at the other side? By no means is this the case. There are to-day vitally important matters pertaining to the public welfare which call loudly to our political leaders for attention; and the party which shall take hold of these matters in an earnest way, and boldly present itself as the champion of principles of truth and justice and purity, ought to be, and must be, the party of the future.
The reform of the civil service might very well be a party issue, but it is not. Neither of the great parties shows a disposition to take a hearty and united stand in favor of such reform. Some prominent men in both parties have it at heart, and the movement which has been seen can not be claimed as a party movement. The reform of the tariff wise men see to be one of the crying needs of the hour; but how hopelessly at sea seem our party leaders in dealing with the question. It can not be said that any principles of tariff are a party issue. There is a wide diversity of sentiment among those who have the management of the parties; on either side are seen free-trade men and protective tariff men; and probably some have their opinions yet to form upon a subject so live and important as the tariff. The nation has a yearly surplus revenue of $100,000,000, to get rid of which extravagant and needless appropriations are made; the embarrassment of certain branches of industry in our land, as things are, is evident; but to which party can we point as the one intelligently and earnestly bent on tariff reform? The time may come when the prohibition of the liquor traffic will be the underlying principle of a great political party, but it is not now. We may have our opinions as to which of the great parties bidding for the suffrages of the people is the more a temperance party, but either is a great way from being ready to adopt as an issue the righteous principle of prohibition. In just one State to-day (Iowa), one of the parties appears as the supporter of this principle. Turn to another State (Massachusetts), which sometimes is thought to lead all the rest in moral ideas, and see the same party fighting neither for this principle nor any other, but simply to wrest the power from Governor Butler.
We judge of the coming national campaign by that now in progress in different States, and we see it is to be marked by a lack of high and worthy party issues. It will be—what it should not be—a contest without great underlying principles. Let whichever party may triumph, the victory can not be regarded one of living principles; it will be rather the success of individuals to whom the majority of the people choose to commit the reins of authority, or the triumph of a party which the people prefer for its record, or to which they give a blind and unthinking preference. Whatever the outcome of the impending political struggle, we have faith in the perpetuity of our institutions, and that there is a nobler destiny for the American people than they have yet attained.