Samantha on the Race Problem

by Marietta Holley

This is your peaceful passin’ through the Red Sea of the present. The waves may stand up pretty high on each side; loud talk, and fears for womanly modesty, fears for man’s supremacy, fears for the dignity of the ballot will blow up pretty high waves on both sides.

But, sez I solemnly, if the Lord is the Leader, if He stands in front of the army, and it is His hand that beckons us forward, and He who passes over in front of the army, we shall pass through in safety, and the nation will be saved.

The supremacy will remain in the hands of the educated men and women of the South till the illiterates become safe leaders to themselves and others by education and the civilizing influences of the Bible and good teachers.

The supremacy would be taken out of the whiskey bathed hands of the loafer rabble in Northern cities, and remain in the safer hands of educated men and women, till the lower classes rise up by the same safe means of education and enlightenment, when they too will become safe leaders and teachers of the best. And I sez, How will this Nation find any safer means, any fairer way?

It offers safety to the imperilled present, it offers a hope, an incentive for the strugglin’ future.

The poorest boy and the poorest girl would have this hope, this incentive to learn—for the royal road is free for all, beggar or child of wealth. The path opens right up from the alley to the President’s chair, from the tenement to the Capitol, jest as sure as from the mansion house or the university.

It is safe another way, so it seems to me, because it is right and just.

Justice may seem to lead through strange ways sometimes—thorny roads, steep and rugged mounts, and deep, dark wildernesses, while the path of expedience and pleasant selfishness may seem to open up a flowery way.

But every time, every single time, Justice is the safe one to foller. And it is she who will lead you out into a safe place, while the rosy clouds that hang over the path of selfish expedience will anon, or even sooner, turn black, and lower down, and close up the way in darkness and despair.