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.