Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/281

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THE NEGRO
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he will not surprise some who think they know him better. E. D. Cope. Philadelphia, February, 1890. THE NEGRO QUESTION To the Editor of The Open Court: The state of public opinion sixty years ago on the question of Negro Emigration is brought vividly to my mind by some remarks upon the subject in The Open Court of February 6th. The writer is mistaken when he says that the negro population of the country were largely opposed to emi- gration. The negro at the North had not at that time any distmctive influence, either in number or opinions, upon the ideas of the day, but ranged them- selves in the lists of William Lloyd Garrison, at that time the editor of the Liberator, published in the city of Boston. Mr. Garrison, with whom I subsequently became well acquainted, was a mild-spoken gentleman in so- cial life, a trait that formed a great contrast to his ve- hement, vituperative editorials as they appeared week by week in the Liberator. At that time Liberia had for Governor John Russ- worm, a mulatto of superior mtelligence, warmly up- held by the Colonization Society, of which Mr. Gusney was president, and B. B. Thatcher, poet and lecturer, was secretary. The colored people, whatever they may have since becomxC, were supinely indifferent to the movements made in relation to them, few attending meetings called together where their interests were at stake, and only one, Mr. Raymond (accent on last syllable), a half-breed, warmly supported by Wendell Phillips, ever pleading orally for his people. It was not the negro who was opposed to emigra- tion, but such men as Garrison and George Thomson,

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