Rosenfeld Susan. Encyclopedia of American Historical Documents

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some of which a large class of women may never assume.

In discussing the sphere of man we do not decide his rights

as an individual, as a citizen, as a man by his duties as a

father, a husband, a brother, or a son, relations some of

which he may never fill. Moreover, he would be better fit-

ted for these very relations, and whatever special work he

might choose to do to earn his bread, by the complete

development of all his faculties as an individual.

Just so with woman. The education that will fit her to

discharge the duties in the largest sphere of human use-

fulness, will best fit her for whatever special work she may

be compelled to do.

The isolation of every human soul and the necessity of

self-dependence must give each individual the right to

choose his own surroundings. The strongest reason for giv-

ing woman all the opportunities for higher education, for

the full development of her faculties, forces of mind and

body; for giving her the most enlarged freedom of thought

and action; a complete emancipation from all forms of

bondage, of custom, dependence, superstition; from all the

crippling influences of fear, is the solitude and personal

responsibility of her own individual life. The strongest rea-

son why we ask for woman a voice in the government

under which she lives; in the religion she is asked to

believe; equality in social life, where she is the chief factor;

a place in the trades and professions, where she may earn

her bread, is because of her birthright to self-sovereignty;

because, as an individual, she must rely on herself. No

matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected

and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do

so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety

in an emergency they must know something of the laws of

navigation. To guide our own craft, we must be captain,

pilot, engineer; with chart and compass stand at the wheel;

watch the wind and waves and know when to take in the

sail, and read the signs in the firmament over all. It mat-

ters not whether the solitary voyager is man or woman.

Nature having endowed them equally, leaves them to

their own skill and judgment in the hour of danger, and, if

not equal to the occasion, alike they perish.

To appreciate the importance of fitting every human

soul for independent action, think for a moment of the

immeasurable solitude of self. We come into the world

alone, unlike all who have gone before us; we leave it alone

under circumstances peculiar to ourselves. No mortal ever

has been, nor mortal ever will be like the soul just

launched on the sea of life. There can never again be just

such environments as make up the infancy, youth and

manhood of this one. Nature never repeats herself, and the

possibilities of one human soul will never be found in

another. No one has ever found two blades of grass alike,

and no one will ever find two human beings alike. Seeing,

then, what must be the infinite diversity in human charac-

ter, we can in a measure appreciate the loss to a nation

when any large class of the people is uneducated and

unrepresented in the government. We ask for the com-

plete development of every individual, first, for his own

benefit and happiness. In fitting out an army we give each

soldier his own knapsack, arms, powder, his blanket, cup,

knife, fork and spoon. We provide alike for all their indi-

vidual necessities, then each man bears his own burden.

Again we ask complete individual development for the

general good; for the consensus of the competent on the

whole round of human interests; on all questions of

national life, and here each man must bear his share of the

general burden. It is sad to see how soon friendless chil-

dren are left to bear their own burdens before they can

analyze their feelings; before they can even tell their joys

and sorrows, they are thrown on their own resources. The

great lesson that nature seems to teach us at all ages is self-

dependence, self-protection, self-support. What a touch-

ing instance of a child’s solitude, of that hunger of the heart

for love and recognition, in the case of the little girl who

helped to dress a Christmas tree for the children of the

family in which she served. On finding there was no pre-

sent for herself, she slipped away in the darkness and spent

the night in an open field sitting on a stone, and when

found in the morning, was weeping as if her heart would

break. No mortal will ever know the thoughts that passed

through the mind of that friendless child in the long hours

of that cold night, with only the silent stars to keep her

company. The mention of her case in the daily papers

moved many generous hearts to send her presents; but in

the hours of her keenest suffering, she was thrown wholly

on herself for consolation.

In youth our most bitter disappointments, our bright-

est hopes and ambitions are know only to ourselves; even

our friendship and love we never fully share with another;

there is something of every passion, in every situation we

conceal. Even so in our triumphs and our defeats. The suc-

cessful candidate for the Presidency and his opponent

each have a solitude peculiarly his own, and good form for-

bids either to speak of his pleasure or regret. The solitude

of the king on his throne and the prisoner in his cell differs

in character and degree, but it is solitude nevertheless.

We ask no sympathy from others in the anxiety and

agony of a broken friendship or shattered love. When

death sunders our nearest ties, alone we sit in the shadow

of our affliction. Alike mid the greatest triumphs and dark-

est tragedies of life we walk alone. On the divine heights of

human attainments, eulogized and worshipped as a hero or

saint, we stand alone. In ignorance, poverty, and vice, as a

pauper or criminal, alone we starve or steal; alone we suf-

fer the sneers and rebuffs of our fellows; alone we are

hunted and hounded through dark courts and alleys, in by-

ways and highways; alone we stand before the judgment

1112 ERA 6: The Development of the Industrial United States

Politics, Economy, and Society 1113

seat; alone in the prison cell we lament our crimes and

misfortunes; alone we expiate them on the gallows. In

hours like these we realize the awful solitude of individual

life, its pains, its penalties, its responsibilities; hours in

which the youngest and most helpless are thrown on their

own resources for guidance and consolation. Seeing them

that life must ever be a march and a battle, that each sol-

dier must be equipped for his own protection, it is the

height of cruelty to rob the individual of a single natural

right.

To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education

is like putting out the eyes; to deny the rights of property,

like cutting off the hands. To deny political equality is to

rob the ostracised of all self- respect; of credit in the mar-

ket place; of recompense in the world of work; of a voice

among those who make and administer the law; a choice in

the jury before whom they are tried, and in the judge who

decides their punishment. Shakespeare’s play of Titus and

Andronicus contains a terrible satire on woman’s position

in the nineteenth century—“Rude men” (the play tell us)

“seized the king’s daughter, cut out her tongue, cut off her

hands, and then bade her go call for water and wash her

hands.” What a picture of woman’s position. Robbed of her

natural rights, handicapped by law and custom at every

turn, yet compelled to fight her own battles, and in the

emergencies of life to fall back on herself for protections.

The girl of sixteen, thrown on the world to support

herself, to make her own place in society, to resist the

temptations that surround her and maintain a spotless

integrity, must do all this by native force or superior edu-

cation. She does not acquire this power by being trained to

trust others and distrust herself. If she wearies of the strug-

gle, finding it hard work to swim upstream, and allows her-

self to drift with the current, she will find plenty of

company, but not one to share her misery in the hour of

her deepest humiliation. If she tries to retrieve her posi-

tion, to conceal the past, her life is hedged about with fears

lest willing hands should tear the veil from what she fain

would hide. Young and friendless, she knows the bitter

solitude of self.

How the little courtesies of life on the surface of soci-

ety, deemed so important from man towards woman, fade

into utter insignificance in view of the deeper tragedies in

which she must play her part alone, where no human aid is

possible.

The young wife and mother, at the head of some

establishment with a kind husband to shield her from the

adverse winds of life, with wealth, fortune and position,

has a certain harbor of safety, secure against the ordinary

ills of life. But to manage a household, have a desirable

influence in society, keep her friends and the affections of

her husband, train her children and servants well, she must

have rare common sense, wisdom, diplomacy, and a knowl-

edge of human nature. To do all this she needs the cardi-

nal virtues and the strong points of character that the most

successful statesman possesses.

An uneducated woman, trained to dependence, with

no resources in herself must make a failure of any position

in life. But society says women do not need a knowledge of

the world, the liberal training that experience in public life

must give, all the advantages of collegiate education; but

when for the lack of all these, the woman’s happiness is

wrecked, alone she bears her humiliation. The solitude of

the weak and the ignorant is indeed pitiable; in the wild

chase for the prizes of life they are ground the powder.

In age, when the pleasures of youth are passed, chil-

dren grown up, married and gone, the hurry and bustle of

life in a measure over, when the hands are weary of active

service, when the old arm chair and the fireside are the

chosen resorts, then men and women alike must fall back

on their own resources. If they cannot find companionship

in books, if they have no interest in the vital questions of

the hour, no interest in watching the consummation of

reforms, with which they might have been identified, they

soon pass into their dotage. The more fully the faculties of

the mind are developed and kept in use, the longer the

period of vigor and active interest in all around us contin-

ues. If from a lifelong participation in public affairs a

woman feels responsible for the laws regulating our system

of education, the discipline of our jails and prisons, the

sanitary condition of out private homes, public buildings,

the thoroughfares, an interest in commerce, finance, our

foreign relations, in any or all of these questions, her soli-

tude will at least be respectable, and she will not be driven

to gossip or scandal for entertainment.

The chief reason for opening to every soul the doors

to the whole round of human duties and pleasures, is the

individual development thus attained, the resources thus

provided under all circumstances to mitigate the solitude

that at times must come to everyone. I once asked Prince

Krapotkin, the Russian nihilist, how he endured his long

years in prison, deprived of books, pen, ink, and paper.

“Ah,” he said, “I thought out many questions in which I

had a deep interest. In the pursuit of an idea I took no note

of time. When tired of solving knotty problems, I recited

all the beautiful passages in prose or verse I had ever

learned. I became acquainted with myself and my own

resources. I had a world of my own, a vast empire, that no

Russian jail or Czar could invade.” Such is the value of lib-

eral thought and broad culture when shut off from all

human companionship, bringing comfort and sunshine

within even the four walls of a prison cell.

As women ofttimes share a similar fate, should they

not have all the consolation that the most liberal education

can give? Their suffering in the prisons of St. Petersburg,

in the long, weary marches to Siberia, and in the mines,

working side by side with men, surely call for all the self-

support that the most exalted sentiments of heroism can

give. When suddenly roused at midnight, with the startling

cry of “fire! fire!” to find the house over their heads in

flames, do women wait for men to point the way to safety?

And are the men, equally bewildered and half suffocated

with smoke, in a position to more than try to save them-

selves? At such times the most timid women have shown a

courage and heroism in saving their husbands and children

that has surprised everybody. Inasmuch, then, as woman

shares equally the joys and sorrows of time and eternity, is

it not the height of presumption in man to propose to rep-

resent her at the ballot box and the throne of grace, to do

her voting in the state, her praying in the church, and to

assume the position of high priest at the family altar?

Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the

conscience like individual responsibility. Nothing adds

such dignity to character as the recognition of one’s self-

sovereignty; the right to an equal place, everywhere con-

ceded; a place earned by personal merit, not an artificial

attainment, by inheritance, wealth, family, and position.

Seeing, then, that the responsibilities of life rest equally on

man and woman, that their destiny is the same, they need

the same preparation for time and eternity. The talk of

sheltering woman from the fierce storms of life is the

sheerest mockery, for they beat on her from every point of

the compass, just as they do on man, and with more fatal

results, for he has been trained to protect himself, to resist,

to conquer. Such are the facts in human experience, the

responsibilities of individual sovereignty. Rich and poor,

intelligent and ignorant, wise and foolish, virtuous and

vicious, man and woman, it is ever the same, each soul

must depend wholly on itself.

Whatever the theories may be of woman’s depen-

dence on man, in the supreme moments of her life he can-

not bear her burdens. Alone she goes to the gates of death

of give life to every man that is born into the world. No one

can share her fears, no one can mitigate her pangs; and if

her sorrow is greater than she can bear, alone she passes

beyond the gates into the vast unknown. From the moun-

tain tops of Judea, long ago, a heavenly voice bade his dis-

ciples, “Bear ye one another’s burdens,” but humanity has

not yet risen to that point of self-sacrifice, and if ever so

willing, how few the burdens are that one soul can bear for

another. In the highways of Palestine; in prayer and fasting

on the solitary mountain top; in the Garden of Gethse-

mane; before the judgment seat of Pilate; betrayed by one

of this trusted disciples at his last supper; in his agonies on

the cross, even Jesus of Nazareth, in these last sad days on

earth, felt the awful solitude of self. Deserted by man, in

agony he cries, “My God! My God! why hast Thou for-

saken me?” And so it ever must be in the conflicting scenes

of life, in the long, weary march, each one walks alone. We

may have many friends, love, kindness, sympathy and char-

ity to smooth our pathway in everyday life, but in the

tragedies and triumphs of human experience each mortal

stands alone.

But when all artificial trammels are removed, and

women are recognized as individuals, responsible for their

own environments, thoroughly educated for all positions in

life they may be called to fill; with all the resources in

themselves that liberal thought and broad culture can give;

guided by their own conscience and judgment; trained to

self-protection by a healthy development of the muscular

system and skill in the use of weapons of defense, and

stimulated to self-support by a knowledge of the business

world and the pleasure that pecuniary independence must

ever give; when women are trained in this way they will, in

a measure, be fitted for those hours of solitude that come

alike to all, whether prepared or otherwise. As in our

extremity we must depend on ourselves, the dictates of

wisdom point to complete individual development.

In talking of education how shallow the argument that

each class must be educated for the special work it pro-

poses to do, and all those faculties not needed in this spe-

cial walk must lie dormant and utterly wither for want of

use, when, perhaps, these will be the very faculties needed

in life’s greatest emergencies. Some say, “Where is the use

of drilling girls in the languages, the sciences, in law,

medicine, theology? As wives, mothers, housekeepers,

cooks, they need a different curriculum from boys who are

to fill all positions.” The chief cooks in our great hotels and

ocean steamers are men. In our large cities men run the

bakeries, they make our bread, cake and pies, they manage

the laundries, they are now considered our best milliners

and dressmakers. Because some men fill these depart-

ments of usefulness, shall we regulate the curriculum in

Harvard and Yale to their present necessities? If not, why

this talk in our best colleges of a curriculum for girls are

crowding into the trades and professions, teachers in all

our public schools, rapidly filling many lucrative and hon-

orable positions in life?

They are showing, too, their calmness and courage in

the most trying hours of human experience. You have

probably all read in the daily papers of the terrible storm

in the Bay of Biscay when a tidal wave made such havoc

on the shore, wrecking vessels, unroofing houses, and car-

rying destruction everywhere. Among other buildings the

woman’s prison was demolished. Those who escaped saw

men struggling to reach the shore. They promptly by

clasping hands made a chain of themselves and pushed

out into the sea, again and again, at the risk of their lives

until they had brought six men to shore, carried them to a

shelter, and did all in their power for their comfort and

protection.

1114 ERA 6: The Development of the Industrial United States

Politics, Economy, and Society 1115

What special school of training could have prepared

these women for this sublime moment in their lives? In

times like this humanity rises above all college curriculums

and recognizes Nature as the greatest of all teachers in the

hour of danger and death. Women are already the equals

of men in the whole realm of thought, in art, science, lit-

erature, and government. With telescopic vision they

explore the starry firmament and bring back the history of

the planetary world. With chart and compass they pilot

ships across the mighty deep, and with skillful finger send

electric messages around the globe. In galleries of art the

beauties of nature and the virtues of humanity are immor-

talized by them on canvas, and by their inspired touch dull

blocks of marble are transformed into angels of light.

In music they speak again the language of Men-

delssohn, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, and are worthy

interpreters of their great thoughts. The poetry and novels

of the century are theirs, and they have touched the

keynote of reform in religion, politics, and social life. They

fill the editor’s and professor’s chair, and plead at the bar of

justice, walk the wards of the hospital, and speak from the

pulpit and the platform; such is the type of womanhood

that an enlightened public sentiment welcomes to- day,

and such the triumph of the facts of life over the false the-

ories of the past.

Is it, then, consistent to hold the developed woman of

this day within the same narrow political limits as the dame

with the spinning wheel and knitting needle occupied in

the past? No! no! Machinery has taken the labors of

woman as well as man on its tireless shoulders; the loom

and the spinning wheel are but dreams of the past; the

pen, the brush, the easel, the chisel, have taken their

places, while the hopes and ambitions of women are essen-

tially changed.

We see reason sufficient in the outer conditions of

human beings for individual liberty and development, but

then we consider the self-dependence of every human soul

we see the need of courage, judgment, and the exercise of

every faculty of mind and body, strengthened and devel-

oped by use, in woman as well as man.

Whatever may be said of man’s protecting power in

ordinary conditions, mid all the terrible disasters by land

and sea, in the supreme moments of danger, alone, woman

must ever meet the horrors of the situation, the Angel of

Death even makes no royal pathway for her. Man’s love

and sympathy enter only into the sunshine of our lives. In

that solemn solitude of self, that links us with the immea-

surable and the eternal, each soul lives alone forever. A

recent writer says:

I remember once, in crossing the Atlantic, to have

gone upon the deck of the ship at midnight, when a dense

black cloud enveloped the sky, and the great deep was roar-

ing madly under the lashes of demoniac winds. My feeling

was not of danger or fear (which is a base surrender of the

immortal soul), but of utter desolation and loneliness; a lit-

tle speck of life shut in by a tremendous darkness. Again I

remember to have climbed the slopes of the Swiss Alps, up

beyond the point where vegetation ceases, and the stunted

confiners no longer struggle against the unfeeling blasts.

Around me lay a huge confusion of rocks, out of which the

gigantic ice peaks shot into the measureless blue of the

heavens, and again my only feeling was the awful solitude.

And yet, there is a solitude, which each and every one

of us has always carried with him, more inaccessible than

the ice-cold mountains, more profound than the midnight

sea; the solitude of self. Our inner being, which we call

ourself, no eye nor touch of man or angel has ever pierced.

It is more hidden than the caves of the gnome; the sacred

adytum of the oracle; the hidden chamber of eleusinian

mystery, for to it only omniscience is permitted to enter.

Such is individual life. Who, I ask you, can take, dare

take, on himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities

of another human soul?

Source:

James Andrews and David Zarefsky, eds., American Voices: Sig-

nificant Speeches in American History, 1640–1945. Reading,

Mass.: Longman, 1989.

Thomas Watson,

“Negro Question in the South,” 1892

Address, delivered in 1892 by Southern populist leader and

agrarian firebrand Thomas E. Watson, urging a political union

across racial lines of the South’s poor white and black farmers

to win redress of their common economic troubles. Poor farm-

ers of both races in the Jim Crow South were casualties of col-

lapsing farm prices, deteriorating land, and crippling debt.

Agrarian reactionaries such as Watson blamed Northern com-

mercial and banking interests for the cycle of poverty

in which the Southern farmer found himself trapped. Rising

farmer unrest coalesced into a powerful populist agrarian po-

litical movement by 1890. In “The Negro Question in

the South,” Watson, who was elected in 1892 to the U.S.

House of Representatives from Georgia on the Farmers’

Alliance ticket, addressed the race issue directly. He called on

the rural South’s poor whites and blacks to shed their historic

antagonisms and prejudices and join forces in order to fight

their shared economic plight. Their material condition and

interest, he argued, was identical; only by uniting politically,

he ventured, could white and black farmers hope to secure the

political changes necessary to relieve their shared miseries.

In 1896, the Populist Party, which adopted the Demo-

cratic candidate William Jennings Bryan for president, made

Watson their vice presidential nominee. Bryan lost and the

Populist Party never regained the status it had in the early

1890s.

________________________

_______________________

The Negro Question in the South has been for nearly

thirty years a source of danger, discord, and bloodshed. It

is an ever-present irritant and menace. Several millions of

slaves were told that they were the prime cause of the Civil

War; that their emancipation was the result of the triumph

of the North over the South; that the ballot was placed in

their hands as a weapon of defence against their former

masters; that the war-won political equality of the black

man with the white, must be asserted promptly and

aggressively, under the leadership of adventurers who had

swooped down upon the conquered section in the wake of

the Union armies.

No one, who wishes to be fair, can fail to see that, in

such a condition of things, strife between the freedman

and his former owner was inevitable. In the clashing of

interests and of feelings, bitterness was born. The black

man was kept in a continual fever of suspicion that we

meant to put him back into slavery. In the assertion of his

recently acquired privileges, he was led to believe that the

best proof of his being on the right side of any issue was

that his old master was on the other. When this was the

case, he felt easy in his mind. But if, by any chance, he

found that he was voting the same ticket with his former

owner, he at once became reflective and suspicious. In the

irritable temper of the times, a whispered warning from a

northern “carpet-bagger,” having no jurisdiction in rhyme

or reason, outweighed with him a carload of sound argu-

ment and earnest expostulation from the man whom he

had known all his life; who had hunted with him through

every swamp and wooded upland for miles around; who

had wrestled and run foot-races with him in the “Negro

quarters” on many a Saturday afternoon; who had fished

with him at every “hole” in the creek; and who had played

a thousand games of “marble” with him under the cool

shade of the giant oaks which, in those days, sheltered a

home they had both loved.

In brief, the end of the war brought changed relations

and changed feelings. Heated antagonisms produced

mutual distrust and dislike—ready, at any accident of

unusual provocation on either side, to break out into pas-

sionate and bloody conflict.

Quick to take advantage of this deplorable situation,

the politicians have based the fortunes of the old parties

upon it. Northern leaders have felt that at the cry of

“southern outrage” they could not only “fire the northern

heart,” but also win a unanimous vote from the colored

people. Southern politicians have felt that at the cry of

“Negro domination” they could drive into solid phalanx

every white man in all the southern States.

Both the old parties have done this thing until they

have constructed as perfect a “slot machine” as the world

ever saw. Drop the old, worn nickel of the “party slogan”

into the slot, and the machine does the rest. You might

beseech a southern white tenant to listen to you upon

questions of finance, taxation, and transportation; you

might demonstrate with mathematical precision that

herein lay his way out of poverty into comfort; you might

have him “almost persuaded” to the truth, but if the mer-

chant who furnished his farm supplies (at tremendous

usury) or the town politician (who never spoke to him

exception at election times) came along and cried “Negro

rule!” the entire fabric of reason and common sense which

you had patiently constructed would fall, and the poor ten-

ant would joyously hug the chains of an actual wretched-

ness rather than do any experimenting on a question of

mere sentiment.

Thus the northern Democrats have ruled the South

with a rod of iron for twenty years. We have had to acqui-

esce when the time-honored principles we loved were sent

to the rear and new doctrines and policies we despised

were engrafted on our platform. All this we have had to do

to obtain the assistance of northern Democrats to prevent

what was called “Negro supremacy.” In other words, the

Negro has been as valuable a portion of the stock in trade

of a Democrat as he was of a Republican. Let the South ask

relief from Wall Street; let it plead for equal and just laws

on finance; let it beg for mercy against crushing taxation,

and northern Democracy, with all the coldness, cruelty, and

subtlety of Mephistopheles, would hint “Negro rule!” and

the white farmer and laborer of the South had to choke

down his grievance and march under Tammany’s orders.

Reverse the statement, and we have the method by

which the black man was managed by the Republicans.

Reminded constantly that the North had emancipated

him; that the North had given him the ballot; that the North

had upheld him in his citizenship; that the South was his

enemy, and meant to deprive him of his suffrage and put

him “back into slavery,” it is no wonder he has played as

nicely into the hands of the Republicans as his former owner

has played into the hands of the northern Democrats.

Now consider: here were two distinct races dwelling

together, with political equality established between them

by law. They lived in the same section; won their livelihood

by the same pursuits; cultivated adjoining fields on the

same terms; enjoyed together the bounties of a generous

climate; suffered together the rigors of cruelly unjust laws;

spoke the same language; bought and sold in the same

markets; classified themselves into churches under the

same denominational teachings; neither race antagonizing

1116 ERA 6: The Development of the Industrial United States

Politics, Economy, and Society 1117

the other in any branch of industry; each absolutely depen-

dent on the other in all the avenues of labor and employ-

ment; and yet, instead of being allies, as every dictate of

reason and prudence and self-interest and justice said they

should be, they were kept apart, in dangerous hostility, that

the sordid aims of partisan politics might be served!

So completely has this scheme succeeded that the

southern black man almost instinctively supports any mea-

sure the southern white man condemns, while the latter

almost universally antagonizes any proposition suggested

by a northern Republican. We have, then, a solid South as

opposed to a solid North; and in the South itself, a solid

black vote against the solid white.

That such a condition is most ominous to both sections

and both races, is apparent to all.

If we were dealing with a few tribes of red men or a

few sporadic Chinese, the question would be easily dis-

posed of. The Anglo-Saxon would probably do just as he

pleased, whether right or wrong, and the weaker man

would go under.

But the Negroes number 8,000,000. They are inter-

woven with our business, political, and labor systems. They

assimilate with our customs, our religion, our civilization.

They meet us at every turn—in the fields, the shops, the

mines. They are a part of our system, and they are here to

stay.

Those writers who tediously wade through census

reports to prove that the Negro is disappearing, are the

most absurd mortals extant. The Negro is not disappear-

ing. A southern man who looks about him and who sees

how rapidly the colored people increase, how cheaply they

can live, and how readily they learn, has no patience what-

ever with those statistical lunatics who figure out the final

disappearance of the Negro one hundred years hence. The

truth is, that the “black belts” in the South are getting

blacker. The race is mixing less than it ever did. Mulattoes

are less common (in proportion) than during the times of

slavery. Miscegenation is further off (thank God) than ever.

Neither the blacks nor the whites have any relish for it.

Both have a pride of race which is commendable, and

which, properly directed, will lead to the best results for

both. The home of the colored man is chiefly with us in the

South, and there he will remain. It is there he is founding

churches, opening schools, maintaining newspapers,

entering the professions, serving on juries, deciding doubt-

ful elections, drilling as a volunteer soldier, and piling up a

cotton crop which amazes the world.

This preliminary statement is made at length that the grav-

ity of the situation may be seen. Such a problem never con-

fronted any people before.

Never before did two distinct races, dwell together

under such conditions.

And the problem is, can these two races, distinct in

color, distinct in social life, and distinct as political powers,

dwell together in peace and prosperity?

Upon a question so difficult and delicate no man

should dogmatize—nor dodge. The issue is here; grows

more urgent every day, and must be met.

It is safe to say that the present status of hostility

between the races can only be sustained at the most immi-

nent risk to both. It is leading by logical necessity to results

which the imagination shrinks from contemplating. And

the horrors of such a future can only be averted by honest

attempts at a solution of the question which will be just to

both races and beneficial to both.

Having given this subject much anxious thought, my

opinion is that the future happiness of the two races will

never be assured until the political motives which drive

them asunder, into two distinct and hostile factions, can

be removed. There must be a new policy inaugurated,

whose purpose is to allay the passions and prejudices of

race conflict, and which makes its appeal to the sober

sense and honest judgment of the citizen regardless of his

color.

To the success of this policy two things are indispens-

able—a common necessity acting upon both races, and a

common benefit assured to both—without injury or humil-

iation to either.

Then, again, outsiders must let us alone. We must

work out our own salvation. In no other way can it be done.

Suggestions of Federal interference with our elections

postpone the settlement and render our task the more dif-

ficult. Like all free people, we love home rule, and resent

foreign compulsion of any sort. The northern leader who

really desires to see a better state of things in the South,

puts his finger on the hands of the clock and forces them

backward every time he intermeddles with the question.

This is the literal truth; and the sooner it is well under-

stood, the sooner we can accomplish our purpose.

What is that purpose? To outline a policy which com-

pels the support of a great body of both races, from those

motives which imperiously control human action, and

which will thus obliterate forever the sharp and unreason-

ing political divisions of to-day.

The white people of the South will never support the

Republican party. This much is certain. The black people

of the South will never support the Democratic party. This

is equally certain.

Hence, at the beginning, we are met by the neces-

sity of new political alliances. As long as the whites

remain solidly Democratic, the blacks will remain solidly

Republican.

As long as there was no choice, except as between the

Democrats and the Republicans, the situation of the two

races was bound to be one of antagonism. The Republican

party represented everything which was hateful to the

whites; the Democratic party, everything which was hate-

ful to the blacks.

Therefore a new party was absolutely necessary. It has

come, and it is doing its work with marvelous rapidity.

Why does a southern Democrat leave his party and

come to ours?

Because his industrial condition is pitiably bad; because

he struggles against a system of laws which have almost

filled him with despair; because he is told that he is without

clothing because he produces too much cotton, and without

food because corn is too plentiful; because he sees every-

body growing rich off the products of labor except the

laborer; because the millionaires who manage the Demo-

cratic party have contemptuously ignored his plea for a

redress of grievances and have nothing to say to him beyond

the cheerful advice to “work harder and live closer.”

Why has this man joined the PEOPLE’S PARTY?

Because the same grievances have been presented to the

Republicans by the farmer of the West, and the million-

aires who control that party have replied to the petition

with the soothing counsel that the Republican farmer of

the West should “work more and talk less.”

Therefore, if he were confined to a choice between

the two old parties, the question would merely be (on

these issues) whether the pot were larger than the kettle—

the color of both being precisely the same.

III

The key to the new political movement called the People’s

party has been that the Democratic farmer was as ready to

leave the Democratic ranks as the Republican farmer was to

leave the Republican ranks. In exact proportion as the West

received the assurance that the South was ready for a new

party, it has moved. In exact proportion to the proof we

could bring that the West had broken Republican ties, the

South has moved. Without a decided break in both sections,

neither would move. With that decided break, both moved.

The very same principle governs the race question in

the South. The two races can never act together perma-

nently, harmoniously, beneficially, till each race demon-

strates to the other a readiness to leave old party

affiliations and to form new ones, based upon the pro-

found conviction that, in acting together, both races are

seeking new laws which will benefit both. On no other

basis under heaven can the “Negro Question” be solved.

Now, suppose that the colored man were educated upon

these questions just as the whites have been; suppose he

were shown that his poverty and distress came from the

same sources as ours; suppose we should convince him

that our platform principles assure him an escape from

the ills he now suffers, and guarantee him the fair mea-

sure of prosperity his labor entitles him to receive—would

he not act just as the white Democrat who joined us did?

Would he not abandon a party which ignores him as a

farmer and laborer; which offers him no benefits of an

equal and just financial system; which promises him no

relief from oppressive taxation; which assures him of no

legislation which will enable him to obtain a fair price of

his produce?

Granting to him the same selfishness common to us

all; granting him the intelligence to know what is best for

him and the desire to attain it, why would he not act from

that motive just as the white farmer has done?

That he would do so, is as certain as any future event

can be made. Gratitude may fail; so may sympathy and

friendship and generosity and patriotism; but in the long

run, self-interest always controls. Let it once appear

plainly that it is to the interest of a colored man to vote

with the white man, and he will do it. Let it plainly appear

that it is to the interest of the white man that the vote of

the Negro should supplement his own, and the question of

having that ballot freely cast and fairly counted, becomes

vital to the white man. He will see that it is done.

Now let us illustrate: Suppose two tenants on my farm;

one of them white, the other black. They cultivate their

crops under precisely the same conditions. Their labors,

discouragements, burdens, grievances, are the same.

The white tenant is driven by cruel necessity to exam-

ine into the causes of his continued destitution. He

reaches certain conclusions which are not complimentary

to either of the old parties. He leaves the Democracy in

angry disgust. He joins the People’s party. Why? Simply

because its platform recognizes that he is badly treated and

proposes to fight his battle. Necessity drives him from the

old party, and hope leads him into the new. In plain

English, he joins the organization whose declaration of

principles is in accord with his conception of what he

needs and justly deserves.

Now go back to the colored tenant. His surroundings

being the same and his interests the same, why is it impos-

sible for him to reach the same conclusions? Why is it

unnatural for him to go into the new party at the same time

and with the same motives?

Cannot these two men act together in peace when the

ballot of the one is a vital benefit to the other? Will not

political friendship be born of the necessity and the hope

which is common to both? Will not race bitterness disap-

pear before this common suffering and this mutual desire

to escape it? Will not each of these citizens feel more

kindly for the other when the vote of each defends the

1118 ERA 6: The Development of the Industrial United States

Politics, Economy, and Society 1119

home of both? If the white man becomes convinced that

the Democratic party has played upon his prejudices, and

has used his quiescence to the benefit of interests adverse

to his own, will he not despise the leaders who seek to per-

petuate the system?

The People’s party will settle the race question. First, by

enacting the Australian ballot system. Second, by offering

to white and black a rallying point which is free from the

odium of former discords and strifes. Third, by presenting

a platform immensely beneficial to both races and injuri-

ous to neither. Fourth, by making it to the interest of both

races to act together for the success of the platform. Fifth,

by making it to the interest of the colored man to have the

same patriotic zeal for the welfare of the South that the

whites possess.

Now to illustrate. Take two planks of the People’s

party platform: that pledging a free ballot under the

Australian system and that which demands a distribution

of currency to the people upon pledges of land, cotton,

etc.

The guaranty as to the vote will suit the black man bet-

ter than the Republican platform, because the latter con-

templates Federal interference, which will lead to

collisions and bloodshed. The Democratic platform con-

tains no comfort to the Negro, because, while it denounces

the Republican programme, as usual, it promises nothing

which can be specified. It is a generality which does not

even possess the virtue of being “glittering.”

The People’s party, however, not only condemns Fed-

eral interference with elections, but also distinctly com-

mits itself to the method by which every citizen shall have

his constitutional right to the free exercise of his electoral

choice. We pledge ourselves to isolate the voter from all

coercive influences and give him the free and fair exercise

of his franchise under state laws.

Now couple this with the financial plank which

promises equality in the distribution of the national cur-

rency, at low rates of interest.

The white tenant lives adjoining the colored tenant.

Their houses are almost equally destitute of comforts.

Their living is confined to bare necessities. They are

equally burdened with heavy taxes. They pay the same

high rent for gullied and impoverished land.

They pay the same enormous prices for farm supplies.

Christmas finds them both without any satisfactory return

for a year’s toil. Dull and heavy and unhappy, they both

start the plows again when “New Year’s” passes.

Now the People’s party says to these two men, “You

are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your

earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon

that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial

despotism which enslaves you both. You are deceived and

blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism

perpetuates a monetary system which beggars both.”

This is so obviously true it is no wonder both these

unhappy laborers stop to listen. No wonder they begin to

realize that no change of law can benefit the white tenant

which does not benefit the black one likewise; that no sys-

tem which now does injustice to one of them can fail to

injure both. Their every material interest is identical. The

moment this becomes a conviction, mere selfishness, the

mere desire to better their conditions, escape onerous

taxes, avoid usurious charges, lighten their rents, or change

their precarious tenements into smiling, happy homes, will

drive these two men together, just as their mutually

inflamed prejudices now drive them apart.

Suppose these two men now to have become fully

imbued with the idea that their material welfare depends

upon the reforms we demand. Then they act together to

secure them. Every white reformer finds it to the vital

interest of his home, his family, his fortune, to see to it that

the vote of the colored reformer is freely cast and fairly

counted.

Then what? Every colored voter will be thereafter a

subject of industrial education and political teaching.

Concede that in the final event, a colored man will

vote where his material interests dictate that he should

vote; concede that in the South the accident of color can

make no possible difference in the interests of farmers,

croppers, and laborers; concede that under full and fair

discussion the people can be depended upon to ascertain

where their interests lie—and we reach the conclusion that

the southern race question can be solved by the People’s

party on the simple proposition that each race will be led

by self-interest to support that which benefits it, when so

presented that neither is hindered by the bitter party

antagonisms of the past.

Let the colored laborer realize that our platform gives

him a better guaranty for political independence; for a

fair return for his work; a better chance to buy a home

and keep it; a better chance to educate his children and

see them profitably employed; a better chance to have

public life freed from race collisions; a better chance for

every citizen to be considered as a citizen regardless

of color in the making and enforcing of laws—let all this

be fully realized, and the race question at the South will

have settled itself through the evolution of a political

movement in which both whites and blacks recognize

their surest way out of wretchedness into comfort and

independence.

The illustration could be made quite as clearly from

other planks in the People’s party platform. On questions

of land, transportation, and finance, especially, the welfare

of the two races so clearly depends upon that which bene-

fits either, that intelligent discussion would necessarily

lead to just conclusions.

Why should the colored man always be taught that the

white man of his neighborhood hates him, while a north-

ern man, who taxes every rag on his back, loves him? Why

should not my tenant come to regard me as his friend

rather than the manufacturer who plunders us both? Why

should we perpetuate a policy which drives the black man

into the arms of the northern politician?

Why should we always allow northern and eastern

Democrats to enslave us forever by threats of the Force

Bill?

Let us draw the supposed teeth of this fabled dragon

by founding our new policy upon justice—upon the simple

but profound truth that, if the voice of passion can be

hushed, the self-interest of both races will drive them to act

in concert. There never was a day during the last twenty

years when the South could not have flung the money

power into the dust by patiently teaching the Negro that we

could not be wretched under any system which would not

afflict him likewise; that we could not prosper under any

law which would not also bring its blessings to him.

To the emasculated individual who cries “Negro

supremacy!” there is little to be said. His cowardice shows

him to be a degeneration from the race which has never

yet feared any other race. Existing under such conditions

as they now do in this country, there is no earthly chance

for Negro domination, unless we are ready to admit that

the colored man is our superior in will power, courage, and

intellect.

Not being prepared to make any such admission in

favor of any race the sun ever shone on, I have no words

which can portray my contempt for the white men, Anglo-

Saxons, who can knock their knees together, and through

their chattering teeth and pale lips admit that they are

afraid the Negroes will “dominate us.”

The question of social equality does not enter into the

calculation at all. That is a thing each citizen decides for

himself. No statute ever yet drew the latch of the humblest

home—or ever will. Each citizen regulates his own visiting

list—and always will.

The conclusion, then, seems to me to be this: the

crushing burdens which now oppress both races in the

South will cause each to make an effort to cast them off.

They will see a similarity of cause and a similarity of rem-

edy. They will recognize that each should help the other in

the work of repealing bad laws and enacting good ones.

They will become political allies, and neither can injure

the other without weakening both. It will be to the interest

of both that each should have justice. And on these broad

lines of mutual interest, mutual forbearance, and mutual

support the present will be made the stepping-stone to

future peace and prosperity.

Source:

John Scott, ed. Living Documents in American History. New

York: Washington Square Press, 1964–68.

William Jennings Bryan,

“Cross of Gold” Speech, 1896

Attack upon America’s gold standard delivered by William

Jennings Bryan on July 8, 1896, at the Democratic National

Convention in Chicago. In this dramatic speech, the former

congressman from Nebraska called for the free and unlimited

coinage of silver to relieve the economic distress of farmers

and industrial workers, attacking his opponents for their hard-

money views: “You shall not press down upon the brow of

labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon

a cross of gold.” The speech helped gain Bryan the Demo-

cratic nomination for the presidency. He lost the election to

Republican William McKinley.

________________________

_______________________

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention—I

would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against

the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if

this was a mere measuring of abilities; but this is not a con-

test between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land,

when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger

than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in

defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the

cause of humanity.

When this debate is concluded a motion will be made

to lay upon the table the resolution offered in commenda-

tion of the administration and also the resolution offered in

condemnation of the administration. We object to bringing

this question down to the level of persons. The individual

is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies; but principles

are eternal; and this has been a contest over a principle.

Principles, Not Men.

Never before in the history of this country has there been

witnessed such a contest as that through which we have

just passed. Never before in the history of American poli-

tics has a great issue been fought out, as this issue has

been, by the voters of a great party. On the fourth of

March, 1895, a few democrats, most of them members of

congress, issued an address to the democrats of the

nation, asserting that the money question was the

paramount issue of the hour; declaring that a majority of

the democratic party had the right to control the action of

the party on this paramount issue; and concluding with

the request that the believers in the free coinage of silver

in the democratic party should organize, take charge of,

1120 ERA 6: The Development of the Industrial United States

Politics, Economy, and Society 1121

and control the policy of the democratic party. Three

months later, at Memphis, an organization was perfected,

and the silver democrats went forth openly and coura-

geously proclaiming their belief, and declaring that, if suc-

cessful, they would crystallize into a platform the

declaration which they had made. Then began the con-

flict. With a zeal approaching the zeal which inspired the

crusaders who followed Peter the Hermit, our silver

democrats went forth from victory unto victory until they

are now assembled, not to discuss, not to debate, but to

enter up the judgment already rendered by the plain peo-

ple of this country. In this contest brother has been

arrayed against brother, father against son. The warmest

ties of love, acquaintance and association have been disre-

garded; old leaders have been cast aside when they have

refused to give expression to the sentiments of those

whom they would lead, and new leaders have sprung up

to give direction to this cause of truth. Thus has the con-

test been waged, and we have assembled here under a

binding and solemn instructions as were ever imposed

upon representatives of the people.

We do not come as individuals. As individuals we

might have been glad to compliment the gentleman from

New York (Senator Hill), but we know that the people for

whom we speak would never be willing to put him in a

position where he could thwart the will of the democratic

party. I say it was not a question of persons; it was a ques-

tion of principle, and it is not with gladness, my friends,

that we find ourselves brought into conflict with those who

are now arrayed on the other side.

The gentleman who preceded me (ex-Governor Rus-

sell) spoke of the state of Massachusetts; let me assure him

that not one present in all this convention entertains the

least hostility to the people of the state of Massachusetts,

but we stand here representing people who are the equals

before the law of the greatest citizens in the state of Mass-

achusetts. When you (turning to the gold delegates) come

before us and tell us that we are about to disturb your busi-

ness interests, we reply that you have disturbed our busi-

ness interests by your course.

The Real Business Men.

We say to you that you have made the definition of a busi-

ness man too limited in its application. The man who is

employed for wages is as much a business man as his

employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a busi-

ness man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis;

the merchant at the cross- roads store is as much a busi-

ness man as the merchant of New York; the farmer

who goes forth in the morning and toils all day—who

begins in the spring and toils all summer—and who by the

application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of

the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as

the man who goes upon the board of trade and bets upon

the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet

into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs,

and bring forth from their hiding places the precious met-

als to be poured into the channels of trade are as much

business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back

room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak

for this broader class of business men.

Ah, my friends, we say not one word against those

who live upon the Atlantic coast, but the hardly pioneers

who have braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who

have made the desert to blossom as the rose—the pio-

neers away out there (pointing to the West), who rear

their children near to Nature’s heart, where they can min-

gle their voices with the voices of the birds—out there

where they have erected school houses for the education

of their young, churches where they praise their Creator,

and cemeteries where rest the ashes of their dead—these

people, we say, are as deserving of the consideration of

our party as any people in this country. It is for these that

we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a

war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our

homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned,

and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated,

and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have

begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came.

We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no

more. We defy them.

The gentleman from Wisconsin has said that he fears

a Robespierre. My friends, in this land of the free you

need not fear that a tyrant will spring up from among the

people. What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand, as

Jackson stood, against the encroachments of organized

wealth.

Must Meet New Conditions.

They tell us that this platform was made to catch votes.

We reply to them that changing conditions make new

issues; that the principles upon which democracy rests

are as everlasting as the hills, but that they must be

applied to new conditions as they arise. Conditions have

arisen, and we are here to meet those conditions. They

tell us that the income tax ought not to be brought in

here; that it is a new idea. They criticise us for our criti-

cism of the Supreme Court of the United States. My

friends, we have not criticised; we have simply called

attention to what you already know. If you want criti-

cisms, read the dissenting opinions of the court. There

you will find criticisms. They say that we passed an

unconstitutional law; we deny it. The income tax law was

not unconstitutional when it was passed; it was not

unconstitutional when it went before the supreme court

for the first time; it did not become unconstitutional until