The American Missionary | Page 3

denouncing this iniquitous enactment, or that we
are receiving constantly from our State and local associations
assurances of sympathy and support in our contest against this
reversion to barbarism. We quote a few of the opinions which have
come under our observation.
From the Congregationalist:
"The ethics of Christ, Pilgrim traditions, and the U. S. Constitution
seemed paramount to the opinions of Florida legislators, and the
highest officials of the American Missionary Association decided to
defy and test the law. That the denomination stands back of them may
be reasonably inferred from the resolution passed by the last Triennial
National Council. Let the American Missionary Association have the
sinews of war with which to employ the ablest counsel."

From the Outlook:
"The State of Florida not long ago took action which is a disgrace to
itself and a blot on the fair fame of our republic. Let our people
squarely face this issue. While we are protesting against the treatment
of missionaries in Turkey and calling upon the Government to use all
its power in their protection, Christian teachers widely known and
honored in one of the great States of this republic are arrested simply
because they presumed to instruct a few white children under the same
roof with colored children. It is hard to speak of such conduct in mild
words. The question as to whether this is in reality a free republic is
once more at issue. The action of the State of Florida is as barbaric as
the persecutions of the Middle Ages."
From the Independent:
"Let the reader observe that this is not a law applying merely to the
public schools of the State. Such a law we condemn, but we could not
be surprised at it. This law is directed at this particular institution,
which is not a public school but a private academy supported by the
American Missionary Association. We have been amazed that in this
nineteenth century Christians could be massacred by the thousands for
not accepting the Moslem faith and no hand raised to defend them. But
that was in Turkey. Here in the United States more than thirty years
after the Proclamation of Emancipation in one of the sovereign States
of the Union, half a dozen men and women are arrested for the crime of
treating black children and white children alike, for not drawing a caste
line in their own private grounds in a school they conduct at no expense
to the State. It is a curious humiliating occurrence for this Jubilee year
of the American Missionary Association."
From the Advance:
"Florida's disgraceful Sheats law, specially designed for the teachers
and supporters of Orange Park Academy, has at last been put in force.
The teachers of the Academy, the pastor of the church, and the parents
of the white pupils have been arrested for violation of this law, which
forbids any one to maintain or patronize a school in which white

persons and Negroes shall be taught or boarded within the same
building.
And this is the State of Senator Call, who is declaiming so eloquently
in behalf of the Cuban insurgents, more than half of whom are of Negro
blood."
From the Boston Standard:
"A year ago the unconstitutional and vile Sheats law was passed by the
legislature of Florida. It was understood that this law was particularly
aimed at the Orange Park School, of the American Missionary
Association, whose fiftieth anniversary is to be celebrated in this city
next fall. This villainous statute was enforced in the case of the Orange
Park School on the entire body of teachers, white men and women of
spotless character and self-sacrificing devotion to the mission, because
of educating teachers for the elevation of American citizenship. The
normal school is one of the best and most useful of the educational
agencies at work in the South, but had dared to ignore the outrageous
statute which makes it a crime for any school, public or private, to
teach black and white scholars in the same building or have any white
teachers to eat and sleep in the same house with their Negro pupils. If
these discretionary rights are not guaranteed by our national
Constitution to American citizens, then the professed abolition of
slavery and of the color line in citizenship is a wretched farce. Nobody
can question the intent of the proclamation of emancipation of the
constitutional amendment that places the Negro on the same legal plane
with the white citizen of this country. We do not doubt the supreme and
binding authority of this legislature. We mistake the temper of the
American people if a blaze of indignation is not kindled by this outrage
from the Atlantic to the Pacific."
From Frank Leslie's Weekly:
"Under these provisions no citizen of Florida, it will be