CM 
 
 to 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
Studies in the 
 American Race Problem 
 
Studies in the 
 American Race Problem 
 
 By 
 ALFRED HOLT STONE 
 
 With an Introduction and Three Papers by 
 WALTER F. WILLCOX 
 
 New York 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 1908 
 
to 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 INCLUDING THAT OP TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, 
 INCLUDING THB SCANDINAVIAN 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 PUBLISHED, SEPTEMBER, 1908 
 
TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER 
 CONNECTING LINKS WITH THE OLD REGIME 
 
 176775 
 
GENERAL 
 
If any one is able to convince me and show that I do 
 not think or act right, I will gladly change, for I seek 
 the truth, by which no man was ever injured. But 
 he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE purpose in which these papers are conceived 
 may be read in their first word the spirit in which 
 they are written in their last. Neither is knowingly 
 departed from. 
 
 It is a difficult thing to do this telling of the truth, 
 the narrating of facts, without at once creating the 
 impression of a partisan temper or a biased mind. 
 Yet so far as this writer knows he has neither. 
 
 For a number of years I have studied the various 
 phenomena of racial contact which we conveniently 
 designate the race problem. I have also studied the 
 literature which treats of this problem. If the facts 
 are confusing and difficult of comprehension the liter 
 ature is scarcely less so. It fails, it seems to me, at a 
 vital point, in that it is based on either side upon an 
 assumed lack of honesty and absence of fairness on the 
 other. The truth is that the conflicting American 
 attitude on the race problem is an entirely natural 
 product of the sectionalism which almost from the 
 beginning has saturated and beclouded the whole 
 subject. It is a humanly difficult matter for people in 
 different environments to look at the basic cause of 
 their differences through the same glasses. One trouble 
 is that we have made too little honest effort to accom 
 plish this difficult but necessary end. By reason of our 
 
 ix 
 
x The American Race Problem 
 
 extent of territory and variety of economic conditions 
 we are confronted with the probability of an indefinite 
 continuance of the physical differences which are the 
 real basis of our differences of mental attitude. It is 
 not possible that sensible people, bound together by 
 innumerable natural ties of race, ancestry, history, 
 religion, and institutions, can regard with unconcern 
 the perpetuation of differences over a matter which is 
 primarily artificial in character. We owe it to our 
 selves and to those who come after us earnestly to seek 
 the removal of stumbling blocks to the mutual respect 
 and esteem, the better appreciation, the more fraternal 
 regard and good will which make for national unity 
 of thought and purpose for national peace and 
 happiness. 
 
 And it is an intensely practical matter. The child 
 who was born in Boston in 1860 grew to manhood 
 amidst surroundings and influences which through no 
 conscious purpose of his own shaped and determined 
 his attitude toward the American race problem in 1890. 
 The man of the same age in Charleston was merely 
 looking at the same problem in the light of a different 
 environment. Each was the product of conditions 
 entirely outside himself and in the creating of which 
 he had no possible part. In so far as these men typify 
 the great mass of people in their respective sections 
 their conflicting attitudes are entirely normal. They 
 simply accept what they find, and think and feel with 
 out seeking for a reason for the contrary operations 
 of their minds. It is a wholly different matter with 
 
Preface 
 
 XI 
 
 either when he undertakes to shape the opinions of 
 others. He then assumes a duty to those whom he 
 seeks to influence, and a duty to the public at large. 
 When he ceases to play an entirely passive part and 
 essays the role of instructor to others, he assumes like 
 wise a responsibility which he cannot shirk if he would. 
 He immediately becomes a factor in determining, 
 however slightly, the current of popular thought. He 
 will play his part in shaping that current either toward 
 the perpetuation of misunderstanding and error and ill 
 feeling, or in the direction of truth and the just appre 
 hension which is the only sure foundation of lasting 
 good will. He cannot write a line on this much vexed 
 question and continue to occupy a purely negative 
 place. He at once becomes an active agent for either 
 good or harm. 
 
 This has been my conception of the responsibility 
 and duty of a student of the American race problem. 
 My only hope is that my influence, however small, 
 may be cast upon the side of better understanding, 
 which shall make for mutual respect and tolerance for 
 our several points of view. My purpose is to interpret 
 and explain, neither speciously to defend on the one 
 hand nor uncharitably to condemn upon the other. 
 It is a fundamental tenet of my philosophy of race 
 relations that the chief sufferer from sectional misunder 
 standings among white people has been the American 
 Negro. It is a corollary that he would be the chief 
 beneficiary of greater accord between the white parties 
 to the sectionalism created by his presence. 
 
xii The American Race Problem 
 
 As Professor Willcox says in his introduction, the 
 papers presented here "contain no plan of action, but 
 are confined to the necessary preliminary work of por 
 traying conditions. Agreement must be reached on 
 these before agreement on action can come into sight." 
 The value of most discussions of this general subject is 
 impaired by having imparted to them the tone and 
 purpose of special pleas for some favourite "solution." 
 Neither contributor to this volume is a propagandist, 
 and neither has any panacea to urge for conditions 
 which demand intelligent diagnosis before intelligent 
 treatment is possible. The one aim of these studies 
 is to set forth some of the salient facts of the American 
 race problem, and to point out some of the fundamental 
 principles which underlie it and create it. The hope is 
 indulged that there is also suggested the necessity for a 
 candid recognition of the truth that our problem is not 
 only national in its scope, but that the principles which 
 are indicated as its foundation are in fact of universal 
 application in shaping the phenomena of racial contact. 
 The suggestion or advocacy of remedies is foreign to 
 such a purpose. 
 
 For some years I have been working on a study the 
 results of which I had hoped to submit by this time in 
 concrete form under the title "Race Relations in 
 America." The scope of the work, however, has 
 postponed its completion. These papers in the 
 main are byproducts of investigations in the broader 
 field. 
 
 Such value as this collection may possess is greatly 
 
Preface 
 
 Xlll 
 
 enhanced through the addition of three papers by 
 Professor Walter F. Willcox. These papers cover 
 with the skill of the trained statistician the subjects of 
 Negro criminality, the Negro s economic position, and 
 the frequently agitated question of the probable in 
 crease of the race in this country. The paper on 
 Negro criminality is probably the most widely quoted 
 (and most largely misinterpreted) contribution made 
 to the statistical literature of the general subject in 
 recent years. In justice to Professor Willcox I should 
 add that his association with this volume must not be 
 understood as in the least degree committing him to 
 any opinion or statement contained in my own papers. 
 For these I alone am responsible. 
 
 For permission to use previously published matter, 
 I wish to acknowledge my thanks to the editors of the 
 Atlantic Monthly, the Outlook, the publications of the 
 American Economic Association, the American Socio 
 logical Society, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. 
 For valued assistance in many ways I am greatly 
 indebted to Mr. Julian H. Fort, of Dunleith, and to 
 Mr. R. H. Johnston, of the Library of Congress, for 
 the verification of references and the preparation of 
 the index. 
 
 ALFRED HOLT STONB. 
 
 Dunleith Plantation, Dunleith, Miss. 
 January 28, 1908. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 A CONFERENCE upon race problems of the South was 
 held at Montgomery, Ala., in May, 1900, and I was 
 honoured by an invitation to attend. During that 
 meeting I fell in with the author of these papers, and 
 the acquaintance then pleasantly begun has continued 
 and ripened to my very great profit. From no one 
 have I learned so much as from him about the realities 
 of the race problems in the South, and I gladly avail 
 myself of this opportunity to bespeak for his contribu 
 tions to the subject the attention and study which their 
 importance deserves. With his permission, and that 
 of the editors who first published them, this collection 
 includes the address to which I owe my invitation to 
 Montgomery, and two other contributions of mine to 
 the study of American race problems. 
 
 May I suggest that this combination of writings 
 within one volume has a certain typical significance? 
 Until the present day it would have been hard for 
 Massachusetts and Mississippi to join hands in objective 
 and dispassionate study of the questions which so long 
 have divided those states and the country. The closet 
 student here will be found not widely at variance in his 
 conclusions from the cotton planter and business man 
 who approaches the problem by a different avenue. 
 The statistician, knowing little of the problem beyond 
 
 xv 
 
xvi Introduction 
 
 what he may read in his figures, finds in Mr. Stone s 
 papers a needed complement, and also in the main I 
 believe a confirmation of his results. Thus, North 
 and South, theory and practice, figures and concrete 
 specific experience are approaching a unity of conviction. 
 The essays contain no plan of action but are confined 
 to the necessary preliminary work of portraying condi 
 tions. Agreement must be reached on these before 
 agreement on action can come into sight. 
 
 WALTER F. WILLCOX. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface ix 
 
 Introduction, by Walter F. Willcox . xv 
 
 PART ONE 
 A GENERAL SURVEY 
 
 I. RACE PROBLEM CONTRASTS AND PARALLELS . 3 
 
 Difficulties in discussion of the race problem In 
 fluence of local conditions in determining the problem 
 - Illustrations of local adaptations of standards 
 Northern attitude toward Southern restrictive legis 
 lation The influence of the numerical strength of the 
 Negro in determining race discrimination Difficulty 
 in_ge.tting at Negro s point of view Negro writers 
 on Negro opportunity, North and South Contrast 
 between Northern and Southern "equality of the 
 Negro" Similarity of conditions in South Africa 
 Varying political relations of the Negro Propor 
 tionate population and Negro suffrage Effect of 
 numbers on the constitutional restrictions on the 
 Negro in Western states Cape Colony and 
 Mississippi compared in suffrage restrictions 
 Theory and practice in governmental policy. 
 
 II. FOUNDATIONS OF OUR DIFFERENCES . . 40 
 
 The Mulatto as affecting the race problem Mulatto 
 and Negro population Comparative distribution of 
 Negro population, North and South Negro urban 
 population in the North American race attitude the 
 xvii 
 
iii The American Race Problem 
 
 XVlll 
 
 FOUNDATION OP OUR DIFFERENCES (Continued) 
 
 normal Anglo-Saxon attitude Massachusetts atti 
 tude toward Negroes and mulattoes Northern atti 
 tude toward Southern separation of the races 
 Provoking causes of this separation Knowledge of 
 conditions necessary to understanding of Southern rela 
 tions to the Negro. 
 
 PART TWO 
 SOME ECONOMIC ASPECTS 
 
 III. THE NEGRO IN THE YAZOO - MISSISSIPPI 
 
 DELTA . . . . . .81 
 
 The race problem a study of local conditions Loca 
 tion and description of the Delta Its importance to 
 the future of the Negro Its Negro population The 
 white population not a labouring class The old 
 plantation system and its similarity to the Delta 
 agricultural system The Census definition of a farm 
 Relations between the plantation owner and the 
 Negroes Influence of these relations in preventing 
 rape Necessity of attitude of superiority toward the 
 Negro race Housing of Delta Negroes Share and 
 renting systems The crop lien .Effect of Negro 
 characteristics on their economic status Moral delin 
 quencies of the Negro A renting experiment. 
 
 IV. A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT . . . 125 
 
 Demand for Negro labour in the Delta Desirability of 
 an assured tenantry Statistics of a five-year renting 
 experiment on Dunleith plantation Removals and 
 their effect on the plantation Condition of the 
 moving families Comparison of the renting and 
 share systems Advancement of money Causes of 
 removals of renters Lack of home affection in the 
 Negro His urban drift Table of Dunleith 
 Plantation statistics 
 
Contents xix 
 
 V. THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN 
 NEGRO THE FACTOR OF WHITE COMPE 
 TITION ...... 149 
 
 The wealth of the Negro race, 1860 and 1905 Decline 
 of the Negro in former labour monopolies in the North 
 The influx of foreign white labour and displacement 
 of the Northern Negro Economic prejudice against 
 the Negro in the North Contributing causes to be 
 found in Negro character The Negro s economic situ 
 ation in the South The influence of the drawing of 
 the race line Demand for better service than the 
 Negro s Influence of Trade Unions Effect of 
 these limitations on field of Negro s employment 
 The Italian compared with the Negro in Southern 
 agriculture Necessity of white supervision of work 
 of Negro The Sunny Side Italian experiment 
 Relative efficiency of Italian and Negro Negro 
 improvidence and extravagance and Italian thrift 
 Italian and Negro in the garden patch The Negro 
 and the economic door of hope Basis of true racial 
 greatness. 
 
 PART THREE 
 
 CRUCIAL POINTS OF POST BELLUM RACIAL 
 CONTACT 
 
 VI. RACE FRICTION . . . . .211 
 
 Definition of race friction Colour division among 
 races The law of contact and race friction Slavery 
 and its relation to present racial difficulties The dif 
 ference in the attitude of the North and South toward 
 the Negro The Anglo-Saxon attitude of superiority 
 toward the Negro The adaptability of the Negro 
 masses to conditions of inferiority The problem of 
 the higher classes Race consciousness and race 
 friction. 
 
xx The American Race Problem 
 
 VII. MR. ROOSEVELT, THE SOUTH, AND THE 
 
 NEGRO ...... 242 
 
 The facts in the case The Booker Washington din 
 ner The Crum appointment The Indianola post- 
 office The Reconstruction background Relations 
 between masters and slaves Negro testimony to its 
 kindliness The Negro and the carpet bagger and the 
 sundering of kindly relations The association of 
 ideas and present relations between white and black 
 Northern misunderstanding of the South McKinley, 
 Roosevelt, and the Negro The South and Negro 
 suffrage Official recognition of the race McKin 
 ley s "Negro policy" Roosevelt and the "door of 
 hope" Different classes of Negroes and their influ 
 ence on the masses McKinley and the South and 
 the era of good feeling A concrete racial attitude 
 Mulattoes in office not a recognition of the "black 
 man " The rights of the Negro must come as a grant 
 rather than by coercion Negro view of Roosevelt 
 Social equality The Booker Washington dinner 
 and Southern sentiment What social equality means 
 to the Negro A phenomenon of race consciousness 
 The Ethiopian movement Racial conditions in 
 Jamaica The Southern Referee Traitors and 
 loyalists The Referee and the scalawag Social 
 equality problems in South Africa Sectionalism 
 and the race problem The universality of problems 
 of racial contact. 
 
 VIII. THE NEGRO IN POLITICS . . . 351 
 
 The Fifteenth Amendment Negro suffrage and party 
 affiliation Southern constitutions and Negro dis- 
 franchisement Their requirements directed against 
 Negro characteristics rather than the Negro personally 
 
 Decline of the Negro leader and ensuing political 
 lethargy in the race Interest of white men centred 
 in the primary Resultant reduction in vote, basis of 
 demand for reduction in Southern representation 
 
 The venality of the Negro vote Danger from the 
 
Contents xxi 
 
 THE NEGRO IN POLITICS (Continued) 
 
 Negro in politics the explanation of the "Solid South" 
 Negro solidarity against Southern white people 
 Suffrage qualifications Capacity for self-government 
 
 Negro respect for "strong" government Political 
 status of the Negro in the West Indies Suffrage a 
 states right The Maoris in New Zealand The 
 Mississippi constitution of 1890 The race war in 
 North Carolina The Black peril in South Africa 
 The Boers and native suffrage The indispensable 
 requirements for self-government The problem in 
 Cuba In Haiti The Mulatto s relation to the Negro 
 race Latin and Anglo-Saxon mulattoes Inter-racial 
 colour line The Negro as a "peasant" class 
 Suffrage and expediency Government without con 
 sent of the governed Characteristics and attainments 
 of the Negro in politics. 
 
 PART FOUR 
 AN UNCONSIDERED ELEMENT 
 
 IX. THE MULATTO FACTOR IN THE RACE PROBLEM 425 
 
 Ethnic differences between the Negro and white races 
 
 Achievements of the mulatto credited to the Negro 
 race Antiquity of the Negro race and its barren 
 history Famous mulattoes Northern solicitude 
 for contented masses of the Negro race Pernicious 
 influence of mulattoes on the Negro masses The 
 mulatto an anomaly in American life. 
 
 PART FIVE 
 PAPERS BY WALTER F. WILLCOX 
 
 I. NEGRO CRIMINALITY . . . . 443 
 
 Proportion of Negro to white prisoners Conditions 
 North and South Negroes on increase of crime in 
 their race Reasons for this growth Lack of family 
 
xxii The American Race Problem 
 
 NEGRO CRIMINALITY (Continued) 
 
 life Increasing competition with white labour in 
 cotton, tobacco, sugar and rice crops Industrial 
 decline of the Negro Production of social classes in 
 the Negro race Race friction as a cause of increase 
 in crime Development of race opinion Lynching. 
 
 II. CENSUS STATISTICS OF THE NEGRO . . 476 
 
 The United States and its study of the Negro race 
 The Census classification of races The mulatto in the 
 Census The Negro population of the United States 
 and her insular possessions City and country popu 
 lation The figures of the Census of 1870 Sex in 
 Negro population statistics Illiteracy Marital con 
 dition Occupations Death-rate Status of the 
 Negro in the professions and skilled occupations. 
 
 III. THE PROBABLE INCREASE OF THE NEGRO 
 
 RACE IN THE UNITED STATES. . . 496 
 
 Question of relative growth of the races Individual 
 estimates of the Negro s probable increase Tables of 
 increase for the nineteenth century Decline in the 
 Negro rate of increase Birth-rate of Southern Negroes 
 Tables of child population Immigration as 
 affecting white birth-rate in South Various influ 
 ences tending to decrease in birth-rate Tables of 
 comparative death-rates Proportional increase in 
 certain occupations The Negro in agriculture and 
 influence of machinery Cotton boll weevil and its 
 effect on the Negro in agriculture The Negro race 
 losing ground. 
 
 LIST OF OTHER WRITINGS OF WALTER F. WILLCOX 
 
 ON THE NEGRO ..... 530 
 INDEX 535 
 
PART ONE 
 A GENERAL SURVEY 
 
 I. RACE PROBLEM CONTRASTS AND PARALLELS 
 II. THE FOUNDATIONS OP OUR DIFFERENCES 
 
STUDIES IN THE AMERICAN 
 RACE PROBLEM 
 
 i 
 
 RACE PROBLEM CONTRASTS AND PARALLELS* 
 
 THE race problem is a difficult subject to discuss 
 peculiarly so for a Southern man to present to 
 a Northern audience. There are very common-sense 
 reasons for this fact, flfese are to be found partly 
 in the inherent qualities of the problem itself. In its 
 essence this is a human question. In it are blended 
 all the elements of tragedy and comedy, of pathos and 
 humour, of happiness and sorrow, of hope and fear, of 
 love and hate all the emotions and contradictions 
 and contrasts that enter into the great problem of 
 human life. Yet with all its human breadth, its very 
 geography colours it with a sectional tone. It is very 
 close to one part of the country and very far removed 
 from the other. And here we have one of the diffi 
 culties in the way of the man with whose daily life it 
 is bound up from infancy to the grave, when he would 
 talk of it to those for whom it exists only as a "national 
 question" a subject merely of academic interest. 
 
 *This and the paper following are a consolidation of three lectures one 
 given at Cornell University, in 1905, and two at the University of Michigan, 
 in 1906. 
 
 3 
 
4 The American Race Problem 
 
 Then, too, it is so old, and has so long been threshed 
 over, and beaten back and forth as a sort of shuttle 
 cock of debate, that the world seems quite satisfied 
 that it knows all about it, or at least enough to have 
 made up its mind. A result of this prolonged and 
 acrimonious discussion is that the whole question seems 
 to be inextricably confused with partisan and sectional 
 issues. It has become difficult to so present the subject 
 to one s hearers as to convince them that the speaker 
 is treating it solely upon its merits. Extremes of 
 opinion and statement are constantly answered in kind 
 and the waters of a naturally unquiet stream are seldom 
 allowed to run clear and undisturbed. 
 
 I am not an extremist, and I long ago made up my 
 mind to keep faith with myself in this, that I would not 
 utter one word upon this perplexing question of which 
 my conscience did not approve as the prompting of a 
 desire to speak the truth for the truth s sake. My 
 memory does not go back to a time when I was not 
 interested in the subject. " One of the earliest questions 
 that puzzled my childhood s mind was why my planta 
 tion playmates were black and I white, why between us 
 here and there the lines were drawn, and here and there 
 they disappeared. From that day to this I have been 
 asking questions of myself and of the world, and seeking 
 for answers with varying degrees of success. One of 
 these questions, the one which overshadowed all the 
 rest, was why our people, the people of one common 
 country, should think and feel and act so differently 
 wherever this black figure loomed upon the horizon. 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 5 
 
 It is the answer to this question, as I have found it for 
 myself, that I have come to offer you. I shall be happy 
 if I can make it one half as clear to your minds as fifteen 
 years of study have made it to mine. Please do not 
 misunderstand me. I am not a missionary, seeking 
 converts. I do not wish to impose my views upon 
 yours, nor is it my purpose to endeavour to make you 
 think as I think. It is not necessary to a thorough 
 understanding between us that either shall surrender 
 his opinions to the other. The object I seek is quite 
 different. It is to attempt an explanation of why we 
 do not think alike; to render more intelligible to you, 
 perhaps, the attitude of my people, which will carry 
 within itself the reasons for the differences between our 
 respective points of view. 
 
 This may not appear to be a very formidable under 
 taking, but did you ever try to give a reason for the 
 faith that is within you, on this subject? Do you know 
 why in one section of your country the two races are 
 separated in schools and cars, and are not allowed to 
 intermarry, while in the other such laws do not exist? 
 Honestly and satisfactorily to answer such questions for 
 one s self is by no means a simple mental feat. For a 
 Southern man to do so for others is a hundred times more 
 difficult. Any man who is so situated that in order to 
 present the truth of a given question he is compelled 
 also to present facts that are disagreeable, or unpopular 
 or opposed to commonly entertained conceptions, 
 labours under a twofold disadvantage. He is very 
 likely to have his motives impugned and his honesty 
 
6 The American Race Problem 
 
 questioned. Under such conditions candour is subject 
 to the discount of being mistaken for prejudice, and a 
 premium is thereby placed upon hypocrisy and evasion. 
 
 Now this is just what the Southern white man has to 
 confront in discussing the race question. But I shall 
 proceed on the assumption that you at least have faith 
 in my honesty. Also, I am taking it for granted that 
 you do not entirely agree with a certain distinguished 
 magazine editor who last year wrote me on this subject. 
 He told me, in so many words, that the man who was 
 raised among Negroes in the South, and employed 
 them, really knew nothing whatever about them, as 
 compared with the man in the North who "sympathised 
 with their longings and hopes and aspirations." 
 
 Here is the key to my philosophy of race relations: 
 it is the influence of local environment and local con 
 siderations in determining local attitude. This is my 
 explanation of the differences of opinion among people 
 of different sections of this country, but of equal moral 
 and intellectual integrity, upon our so-called race 
 problem. After a decade and a half of study, I have 
 no hesitation in laying down the fundamental proposition 
 that the attitude of the so-called Anglo-Saxon people 
 toward the Negro the world over is essentially the 
 same under similar conditions. I am willing to go one 
 step farther, and express the conviction that this truth 
 is so well grounded in fact and reason and experience 
 that eventually it will be sufficiently recognised to 
 afford a basis for mutual toleration and respect among 
 all white people, as regards their social and political 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 7 
 
 relations with the Negro, and the other inferior or back 
 ward races with which they are brought into contact. 
 An important contributing factor to this consummation 
 will be the attitude of such races themselves, as it 
 becomes better understood by white people. They 
 will be first to recognise this common attitude of the 
 white man. Understand me, I am not talking about 
 the exceptional individual, the closet philosopher or the 
 doctrinaire. I speak of the average man. 
 
 It is along this line that Mr. Henry Charles Lea takes 
 issue with the dictum of the late Lord Acton as to a 
 fixed standard of moral conduct. I agree with Mr. Lea 
 that our "standards of right and wrong are modified 
 and adapted to what at the moment are regarded as the 
 objects most beneficial to the individual or to the social 
 organisation."* And this local adaptation of standards 
 this variable conception of wisdom, justice, expedi 
 ency, enlightened selfishness, right or wrong, call it 
 what you please finds universal application. It is 
 not confined to given races or periods, or to our attitude 
 toward any certain set of conditions. 
 
 We see this illustrated in the practically unanimous 
 adoption of a Japanese exclusion resolution by the 
 California legislature when the rest of the country 
 was wild with enthusiasm over the newly risen Far 
 Eastern world power; we see it in a clause in the 
 warrant for the 1905 "town meeting" of Marion, Mass., 
 providing for a vote on the question of employing only 
 white men on town work; we see it in the erection of 
 
 * Report of the American Historical Association, 1903, Vol. i, pp.55 ft seq. 
 
8 The American Race Problem 
 
 the state of West Virginia during the Civil War, and in 
 the admission of Nevada to the Union; we see it in the 
 action of Mr. Lincoln on the matter of emancipation, 
 within two years after his declaration that he not only 
 had no intention of interfering with the institution of 
 slavery, but had no right or power to interfere with it; 
 we see it in the exclusion of Chinese labourers, and also 
 I may add, in the recent light which suddenly burst 
 upon us as regards the manner of enforcing this exclusion 
 law, after a Chinese boycott had opened our eyes; we 
 see it in the ease and promptness with which we found 
 warrant for recognising the independence of the so- 
 called "republic" of Panama, under the stimulating neces 
 sity of a place to dig a canal; we see it in the Platt 
 amendment which we compelled the Government of 
 Cuba to incorporate in her constitution, as a condition 
 precedent to her "independence"; we see it in the 
 enunciation and maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine 
 the quintessence of selfishness, from the world s point of 
 view, a law of self-preservation from our own; we see 
 it in the equanimity with which we acquiesced and 
 assisted in the extinguishing of the sovereignty of the 
 ancient empire of Korea, at the respectful request of 
 our great and good friend, the Mikado of Japan; we 
 see it in the passage by the legislature of the state 
 of Kansas, the home of John Brown, of a law providing 
 separate schools for the two races in Kansas City, and 
 in the governor s approval of the bill, in the face of 
 Negro opposition, under the necessity of what he de 
 scribed as "local conditions that are peculiar." Such 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 9 
 
 instances could be multiplied indefinitely, and without 
 any reference whatever to the Negro, if we cared to 
 exclude his case. We need not call this an accommoda 
 tion of conscience to necessity ; it is simply a practical 
 realisation of the difference between theory and practice. 
 It is just what Mr. Lea declares it to be, a modification 
 and adaption of our standards of right and wrong to 
 what at the moment are regarded as the objects most 
 beneficial to the individual or to the social organisation. 
 No field offers a broader opportunity for the study of 
 the operation of this fixed and inexorable law of human 
 conduct than that afforded by the contrasts and parallels 
 arising out of the contact between the white and Negro 
 races. It is a field which covers the entire group of 
 West Indian Islands, a considerable portion of South 
 America, large areas in East, West, and South Africa, 
 and every state in the American Union wherein slaves 
 were at one time held or where any considerable number 
 of Negroes now reside. Although I have attempted to 
 study race relations throughout this field, as regards 
 conditions both historical and still persisting, I can do no 
 more here than merely suggest for your consideration 
 certain salient facts as I have found them. And in 
 doing this permit me to again emphasise the object I 
 I have in view. Do not understand me as offering you 
 a mere tu quoque argument. I would not travel this 
 far to engage in so puerile a performance. What I shall 
 say is not even offered as a defence of the Southern 
 racial attitude. I do not think the latter needs any 
 defence. All it needs is to be understood. My purpose 
 
io The American Race Problem 
 
 is broader, and grounded upon more substantial founda 
 tions. I offer you this testimony to human nature 
 itself to exemplify the operation of traits as old as 
 man and as broad as the world. I would only show 
 you a very old and very fundamental truth, that it is 
 unsafe for us to say, in the fancied security of untried 
 isolation, just what we would or would not do if in 
 another s place. We do not know when we ourselves 
 may be put to the test, and we may lay it down as a 
 postulate of human nature that we should act just about 
 as the rest of mankind has acted, wherever confronted 
 with conditions instead of theories. 
 
 In all the American colonies, in those of England, 
 France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and Denmark, in the 
 West Indies and Latin America, and in Cape Colony 
 in South Africa, there may be found the same under 
 lying purpose in the statutes and ordinances for the 
 regulation of slaves. This was the ordering and control 
 of their domestic and economic life. Such laws differed 
 only with differences of local conditions, and were 
 modified because of numbers or economic considerations. 
 The same is true with regard to the restrictive legislation 
 which accompanied the abolition of slavery throughout 
 all the foreign colonies I have mentioned, and in all 
 the American states New England, Eastern, and 
 Southern. I cannot discuss these statutes in detail, 
 but their general form was compulsory apprentice 
 ship and laws against vagrancy, with gradual emancipa 
 tion in Brazil, Cuba, and Porto Rico. Their uniform 
 purpose was to guard against the effects of sudden and 
 
Contrasts and Parallels n 
 
 revolutionary social and economic changes. As ex 
 pressed by Mr. Lincoln, in favouring gradual, over 
 sudden emancipation, it was to spare both races "the 
 evils of sudden derangement," and to save the Negroes 
 "from the vagrant destitution which must largely 
 attend immediate emancipation," especially where 
 there was a considerable Negro population.* 
 
 Notwithstanding the universality of such legislation, 
 which you will find if you will pursue the study broadly 
 enough, the reception accorded such action by the 
 Southern States in 1865 reveals a not uncommon human 
 failing, particularly apparent in race problem discus 
 sions. This is the claiming of higher motives for our 
 own conduct than we are willing to accord to others for 
 similar action, under even more trying circumstances, 
 or the convenient ignoring of our own conduct entirely. 
 This is worthy of your attention in a study of present 
 conditions, for I think there can be no question that 
 the continued and sweeping denunciation of these laws, 
 as defiant efforts on the part of the Southern people to 
 perpetuate slavery, gave to Northern discussion and 
 sentiment at a critical moment a decided and positive 
 trend. It is entirely conservative to say that the 
 effect has been, even to this day, to colour, even though 
 perhaps unconsciously, the opinion entertained by one 
 section of the country of the motives, feeling, and conduct 
 of the people of the other, in all matters wherein the 
 Negro is concerned. It is with peculiar pleasure that 
 I offer you the testimony of the conclusion of a most 
 
 * "Messages and Papers of the Presidents," Vol. 6, pp. 68, 92, 137. 
 
12 The American Race Problem 
 
 careful and painstaking New England historian, on 
 the declaration of Southern men in 1866 that the South 
 did not want to reestablish slavery. I quote you the 
 judgment of Mr. James Ford Rhodes: "After thirty- 
 six years of observation, study, and reflection, I am 
 convinced of the absolute truth of this statment." Mr. 
 Rhodes says further that Mr. Elaine s account of these 
 laws "is inaccurate and unfair to the South."* 
 
 It seems to me peculiarly appropriate that here, 
 before the students of a great American university, a 
 body of men and women who in the natural order of 
 things are likely to play an important part in moulding 
 future public opinion in various sections of our country, 
 I should record one of the strongest convictions I 
 hold upon this much-vexed problem. It is this: With 
 out mutual respect, and confidence in one another s 
 honesty of thought and purpose, we may continue to 
 abuse and misunderstand each other to the end of time. 
 Such respect can be developed only upon a foundation 
 of tolerance, appreciation, and understanding of our 
 respective points of view. If ever such foundation 
 shall be laid amongst us, the work must primarily be 
 that of the really unbiased historian, economist, and 
 sociologist. I know of no graver responsibility which a 
 teacher can assume than that which devolves upon him 
 when he essays to lecture on any phase of this general 
 question, for he should know not only his subject, but 
 himself as well. To the first of these is given the privi 
 lege of freeing the present from the evil effects of mis- 
 
 1 "History of the United States," Vol. 5, pp. 615, 556, and notes i and a 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 13 
 
 apprehensions as to the past; while to the latter we 
 have a right to look for discussion farthest removed 
 from passion and prejudice. Upon these groups rests 
 the duty of lifting such discussion out of the quagmire 
 of theorising, intolerance, and hysteria, and putting it 
 upon a plane of reason and common sense. The situa 
 tion demands the candid treatment and interpretation 
 of facts, not the farther propagation of ancient dogmas 
 because they are ancient, nor the projecting of new 
 speculations because they are new. 
 
 Through the whole range of relations between the 
 white man and the black, from the slavery of one by the 
 other to theoretical political equality between the two, 
 we find the attitude of the stronger toward the weaker 
 dictated and controlled by considerations of local public 
 policy, call these by what name we will. The laws and 
 customs of every state in the Union, from the beginning 
 until this good hour, have been influenced by the factor 
 of the relative numerical strength of the Negro. There 
 is not a state in the Union, from Massachusetts to 
 California, which, through some element of its popula 
 tion, does not to-day, somewhere within its borders, in 
 some way discriminate against the Negro race. We are 
 fundamentally alike in our attitude toward the Negro, 
 however much we may deny it on each side of the line. 
 And this truth will more and more be realised as our 
 Negro population becomes more generally distributed, 
 and as political and economic conditions gradually 
 tend toward greater uniformity between the various 
 sections of the country. In the North he is permitted 
 
14 The American Race Problem 
 
 to attend schools and ride in cars with white people, and 
 is not segregated in theatres, because as yet he is not 
 numerically strong enough to be personally offensive to 
 the white population, or to justify the expense and 
 annoyance which such general separation entails upon 
 the white man himself. But, generally speaking, he is 
 permitted to work only in menial pursuits. He is 
 permitted to work in the South, nay, he is besought 
 and begged to work, at any occupation under the sun, 
 because he is still the labourer to which we are most 
 accustomed, and as yet the white man does not want 
 his job. But he is required to attend separate schools 
 and to ride in separate cars. 
 
 Suppose we glance at some expert Negro testimony 
 on this general proposition as to race problem parallels 
 and contrasts. No less an authority than Dr. DuBois, 
 in his history of the "Suppression of the Slave Trade," 
 in speaking of New England, says: "The system of 
 slavery had, on this soil, and amid these surroundings, 
 no economic justification, and the small number of 
 Negroes here furnished no political arguments against 
 them." As to the slave trade, however, he says moral 
 opposition "was swept away by the immense economic 
 advantage of the traffic to a thrifty, seafaring commun 
 ity of traders." Again he assures you that "experience 
 proved that an appeal toward rectitude was unheard in 
 Carolina when rice had become a great crop, and in 
 Massachusetts when the rum-slave traffic was paying 
 a profit of 100 per cent."* This line of discussion 
 
 * "Suppression of the Slave Trade, " pp. 31, 37, 195. 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 15 
 
 might be indefinitely amplified. I could exhaust your 
 patience by a mere recital of parallels between the 
 action of the New England, Eastern, and Southern 
 colonies and states in matters touching the institu 
 tion of slavery. But it would all resolve itself into 
 the suggestion conveyed by the quotation from Dr. 
 DuBois the ordering and control by each separate 
 community of its individual domestic economy according 
 to its own ideas of self-interest. I have already tried 
 to suggest to you a line of thought in connection with 
 the general restrictive legislation surrounding the various 
 periods of emancipation. Without attempting to bridge 
 the space interevning between 1865 and the present 
 time, let us look at the American Negro as he enters the 
 fifth decade of his life as a free man. 
 
 We have heard Dr. DuBois on an economic parallel, 
 suppose we hear Mr. Washington, and a few others of 
 the race, on an economic contrast. Farther along I 
 want to say a few words of suggestion on the study of 
 this problem, but let me digress for a moment right 
 here. There is one point of marked similarity be 
 tween the methods of practically all the so-called 
 students of the race question with whose writings 
 I am familiar. Apparently, none of them, North 
 or South, makes more than a mere pretence at getting 
 the Negro s point of view. I admit that it is a diffi 
 cult thing to do, but in my opinion no man has the 
 right to call himself a student of the question who does 
 not make an earnest effort toward this end. I have 
 been to Negro churches on plantations in my own section, 
 
1 6 The American Race Problem 
 
 and witnessed there the rude and boisterous outbursts 
 of emotionalism which characterises a so-called worship 
 which in countless instances is even now but few degrees 
 removed from the frenzy of a native African religious 
 orgy, and almost akin to the bamboula of Haiti and 
 Santo Domingo. I have also listened to such men as 
 Dr. Francis J. Grimke, of Washington, in the conduct of 
 services in a Presbyterian church which was founded 
 as a protest against emotionalism. I have seen the 
 Negro on his excursions, at the "circus," and in political 
 and religious gatherings in the South, and at various 
 and sundry conventions elsewhere. I have talked 
 with Negroes of high and low degree, and have been in 
 the humblest cabins of the race, as well as in houses 
 furnished with all the taste and refinement of modern 
 civilisation. I have seen the Negro districts of New 
 York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, and Chicago, 
 as well as those of Southern cities and towns. I have 
 corresponded with more than four hundred Negroes in 
 various walks of life, and have discussed their most 
 atrocious crimes with hardened convicts. Always I 
 have tried to gain the confidence of these people, and 
 have never knowingly abused it. I have read the books 
 of Negro authors, obscure as well as distinguished, and 
 for a number of years have kept in touch with their 
 magazine and newspaper literature. In all this my 
 sole purpose has been to try to learn what and how the 
 Negro thinks and feels. I do not presume to say that 
 I have succeeded in this, but I do say that the man who 
 has not followed such methods as I have, has more to 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 17 
 
 learn about the subject than he dreams of. Some 
 such course of study is essential to the Southern student 
 of the problem, if he would really know something of 
 the higher classes, as he already knows the lower, and 
 if he wishes to estimate at their approximate value the 
 work and influence and lives of the various men who 
 are to-day moulding conflicting Negro thought in 
 America and in the world. It is essential to the Northern 
 man, if he would really know the truth of his own section, 
 as the Negro sees it, and some of the aspects of the life 
 of the Negro masses as well. Above all, it is the only 
 way in which either the Northern or Southern student 
 can ever hope to learn what the American Negro thinks 
 of the American white man. 
 
 I hope you will pardon this digression, and also its 
 very personal tone. A narrative of my own method 
 of study seemed to me the simplest way of suggesting 
 one for you. It occurred to me to make this suggestion 
 to you as I was on the point of quoting from Booker T. 
 Washington on the relative economic opportunities 
 offered his people by the North and South. I have 
 been told frequently by Northern friends that there was 
 a very prevalent belief in their section that the Negro 
 was not given a fair industrial opportunity in the South. 
 I have seen this statement in print many times, and 
 last year an eminent New England historian brought 
 the same grave charge against us. Men who think this 
 way should read what the Negro himself says on the 
 subject. The evidence is voluminous, and also con 
 clusive, it seems to me, and much of it is readily accessi- 
 
1 8 The American Race Problem 
 
 ble. In a plea for industrial education and opportunity, 
 Mr. Washington says: "No one can fully appreciate 
 what I am saying who has not walked the streets of a 
 Northern city day after day seeking employment, only 
 to find every door closed against him on account of his 
 colour, except in menial service."* On the other hand, 
 he says: "Whatever other sins the South may be called 
 upon to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, 
 it is in the South that the Negro is given a man s chance 
 in the commercial world, "f In the first book he wrote, 
 he sought to show the pathetic results of a cruel indus 
 trial discrimination, and he went North, not South, for 
 his concrete illustration. Again, he tells you: "It has 
 been my privilege to study the condition of my people in 
 nearly every part of America; and I say, without hesita 
 tion, that with some exceptional cases, the Negro is at 
 his best in the Southern states.":): He declares that the 
 absence of industrial prejudice in the South, he does not 
 say real or alleged absence of social or political prejudice 
 at the North, furnishes "the entering wedge for the solu 
 tion of the race problem." "But too often," he adds, 
 "where the white mechanic or factory operative from the 
 North gets a hold, the trades union soon follow, and the 
 Negro is driven to the wall." He also tells you that 
 "where the Negro has lost ground in the South, it has not 
 been because of any prejudice against him as a skilled 
 workman on the part of the native Southern white man." 
 
 * "Future of the American Negro," p. 76. 
 t "Up From Slavery," pp. 219-220. 
 \ "Future of the American Negro," p. 202. 
 " Future of the American Negro," pp. 78, 79. 
 
Contrasts and Parallels T 9 
 
 In a very instructive study of local conditions, Dr. 
 William N. DeBerry, pastor of a coloured Congregational 
 church in Springfield, Mass., declares that 86 per cent, 
 of the coloured labour of that city is confined to servile 
 employment "by pure race prejudice," which "has 
 closed the door of industrial opportunity against them." 
 He says that all they ask is that "as a class they may be 
 emancipated from the merciless industrial ostracism 
 which shuts out the capable and worthy Negro because 
 God chose to create him black." And Dr. DeBerry 
 says that his study should be "of more than local signi 
 ficance, inasmuch as the situation here in Springfield 
 is fairly typical of the black man s condition throughout 
 the North."* In the very paper in which Dr. DeBerry s 
 report first appeared, I read an account of a Negro 
 convention in my state, at which was adopted a resolu 
 tion declaring that "nowhere else in the world is there 
 such an opportunity offered to us as is offered on the 
 plantations of the South." 
 
 In this connection permit me to quote an opinion of 
 Booker T. Washington, by the spirit of which our 
 national legislators might well have been guided in years 
 gone by, and which might well be kept in mind to-day. 
 He says that the friendship of the Southern white man 
 affords the Negro "a protection and a guarantee of 
 rights that will be more potent and more lasting than 
 any our Federal Congress or any outside power can 
 confer, "f Contrast this with Mr. Elaine s declaration 
 
 * Springfield Weekly Republican, Feb. 10, 1905, 
 t " Future of the American Negro," p, 216. 
 
20 The American Race Problem 
 
 that the Negro must not be left "to the anger and hate 
 of the class from whose ownership he had been freed."* 
 I could quote you a great deal of testimony on 
 this matter of comparative economic opportunity 
 between the South and the rest of the country. I would 
 suggest, however, that you read the section on "Colour 
 Prejudice," in the sixteenth chapter of Dr. DuBois s 
 "The Philadelphia Negro." In another chapter he 
 says: "It is a paradox of the times that young men 
 and women from some of the best Negro families of 
 the city . . . have actually had to go to the South 
 to get work, if they wished to be aught but chamber 
 maids and bootblacks."! 
 
 Abraham Lincoln made one, and only one, declaration 
 of a belief in a specific form of "Negro equality." He 
 made it in these words : "In the right to eat the bread 
 which his own hand earns, without the leave of any 
 body else, he is my equal, and the equal of Judge 
 Douglas, and the equal of every living man."{ This 
 right was guaranteed the Negro, as incident to his 
 emancipation. But there follows also another right 
 as an essential corollary to this a right without which 
 the first is only dead sea fruit all, indeed, but a 
 mockery and a farce. This is the right to earn his 
 bread, as well as the right to eat it. We have heard 
 much in these latter days about the "door of hope," 
 which the South is charged with attempting to close 
 against the Negro. A number of years of reflection 
 
 * "Twenty Years of Congress," 1886, Vol. 2, p. 106. 
 
 t " The Philadelphia Negro," 1899, pp. 322-355, and pp. 395-396, 
 
 % " Political Debates, Lincoln and Douglas," 1895, p. 114, 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 21 
 
 have brought me to the conclusion that for the Negro, 
 at this stage of his racial growth, there is but one door 
 worth the opening, and it is not political. It is the 
 door of which Dr. DeBerry speaks, the door of industrial 
 opportunity. It is the door which opens to the touch 
 of honest toil, through which peace and comfort beckon 
 him who wants to found a home. Within its portals 
 contentment may be found, in lieu of bitterness and 
 racial strife which mark the path to false ambition s 
 more pretentious place. Here infancy and age may reap 
 the golden fruit of labour, and character may grow 
 without the hindering hand of want. Here is the one 
 great primal right of man, the right to labour and to 
 live; the right to have the proper wage of skill; the 
 right to toil wherever human needs make work for 
 human hands ; the right to sell his labour where he will. 
 Here is the foundation upon which the family may be 
 reared, the only hope of any race. Here is the "door 
 of hope," upon whose cruel closing follow idleness and 
 crime, vice and destitution, vagrancy and death, for 
 the masses of the race, not mere loss of empty political 
 preferment for the chosen few. 
 
 To the crude view of the Southern man it seems 
 almost a mockery to say to the Negro: "You may vote, 
 and ride in our cars, and sit in our theatres, and attend 
 our schools," while denying him free access to industrial 
 pursuits. The North gave practical effect to Mr. 
 Lincoln s conception of "equality" when it said to the 
 mason who had been trained in slavery: "Henceforth 
 every dollar you earn at your trade is your own." But 
 
22 The American Race Problem 
 
 it should be somewhat chary of laying too much emphasis 
 upon this incidental achievement of a "war for the 
 Union," in the face of the fact that it has since com 
 pelled the former slave to abandon his trowel for a hod. 
 Let us glance at another aspect of race relations 
 the social the torrid zone of race problem discussion. 
 If we go below the superficial manifestations, we find 
 the same general attitude, North and South, on this 
 social phase of the question. The North draws the 
 social colour line against the race as a whole, but here 
 and there a Northern man permits some favoured 
 individual to cross it. The South draws the line against 
 the race as a whole, and makes no exceptions at all. 
 Save for such individuals, and almost invariably they 
 are not Negroes, as we know the latter in the South, 
 what may be termed social discrimination exists North 
 as well as South. The differences are more apparent 
 than real and will be found to turn mainly upon 
 different sectional, local, and individual conceptions of 
 what is embraced in the vague yet comprehensive term, 
 "social equality." Such discrimination is emphasised 
 more in the South simply because the far greater number 
 of Negroes, and more numerous possible points of 
 contact, furnish more frequent occasions for its display. 
 But it was not in the South that the most sensitive and 
 most cultured man identified with the Negro race first 
 was made to realise that he "was different from the 
 others." It was " away up in the hills of New England" 
 (he tells those of us who study the life of the race in its 
 own written words) "where the dark Housatonic winds 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 23 
 
 between Hoosac and Taghkanic to the sea." It was 
 there he first was made to feel the presence of "the 
 shadow of the veil."* 
 
 In a contribution to a leading Negro magazine a 
 Southern Negro has related his experiences in a Northern 
 university. He says he found "not an ounce more of 
 opposition " from Southern than from Northern students, 
 but describes the former as more " frank " and the latter 
 more "secretive" in their racial attitudes. He con 
 cludes his article by saying: "To-day the only white 
 members of Yale class of 1 904 with whom I correspond, 
 the only ones who expresed a desire to keep in touch 
 with me, are several Southern lads."f A contention 
 that the Negro is treated as an equal in the North is 
 not often made by sensible men, and it cannot be sup 
 ported by facts. It is idle to point to a mulatto upon 
 whom Harvard has conferred a degree, or to one whom 
 a G. A. R. post has elected its commander, and say to 
 the world: "Here we tolerate no racial discrimina 
 tions." The world knows better, if it knows anything 
 at all about the subject. And the Negro knows better, 
 aye, and the mulatto, too, whether he considers the 
 discrimination in either its social, political, or economic 
 aspect. There would be precious little room for mis 
 understanding between us here, if each of us were only 
 more thoroughly acquainted with his own and the 
 other s ground. 
 
 And our white brothers in South Africa are in exactly 
 
 * "The Souls of Black Folk." DuBois, p. 2. 
 
 t William Pickens, The Voice of the Negro, April, 1905, pp. 235, 236, 
 
24 The American Race Problem 
 
 the same boat with ourselves. Technically the civil 
 rights of whites and Negroes are the same in Cape 
 Colony, but the actual discriminations are just as 
 numerous as in any Southern state. I have a statement 
 from an English resident of the Cape, who spent a 
 winter in Georgia, who said that his observations had 
 been a revelation to him, after the stories he had heard. 
 He says the Georgia Negro is in paradise as compared 
 with his South African brother. Two years ago a lot 
 of American Negroes in Johannesburg memorialised our 
 State Department for a redress of grievances, because 
 they were not permitted to use the sidewalks. Of 
 course Mr. Hay could do nothing. It was a local police 
 regulation, and the authorities made no distinction 
 between an American Negro and one born at home. 
 There and in Natal the races are separated on railway 
 trains, and even Mr. Labouchere, champion of the 
 Negro that he is, has publicly recognised the wisdom 
 of the regulation. There are many Negroes of wealth 
 and education in South Africa, and Mr. James Bryce 
 relates the bitter experience of one of these in trying to 
 get his daughter into a white school. Possibly another 
 parallel may suggest itself to you, in another incident 
 related by Bryce in his description of social conditions. 
 When Khama, the most important chief south of the 
 Zambesi, a man of large influence and high character, 
 and often described as "a Christian gentleman," visited 
 London in 1895, he was accorded considerable social 
 attention, and the Duke of Westminster and others 
 invited him to dine. Mr. Bryce says that among 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 25 
 
 Englishmen throughout South Africa the social recep 
 tion accorded him excited "annoyance and disgust."* 
 I have heard men from California express themselves 
 in similar terms over the lionising of Mr. Wu Ting Fang, 
 when he was a social favourite in the East a few years 
 ago. 
 
 The Southern people have lately been told by an 
 eminent American scholar that they cannot hope to 
 solve the race problem, or any other problem, "until 
 they first learn the real barbarism of their social stan 
 dards." My reply to this generous suggestion would be 
 similar to Mr. Elaine s answer, as Secretary of State, to 
 the then Italian Minister on a certain important occasion, 
 when the latter found fault with our confusing dual 
 system of state and Federal governments. It was to 
 the effect that he was sorry, but really did not believe 
 we would make any immediate change. It is not safe 
 to generalise about the attitude of fifteen or twenty 
 millions of people on any subject. But I feel that I 
 can say that the white people of the South believe that 
 where two races, as widely different as are the white and 
 black, live together in large masses, public policy requires 
 the observance of certain regulations in the ordering of 
 the social relations between the two. Furthermore, 
 they are entirely satisfied that every single instance of 
 disregard of these established regulations is of harmful 
 tendency, through force of suggestion and example, 
 
 *" Impressions of South Africa," 1899, p. 354. Mr. Bryce s chapter on "Blacks 
 and Whites," Chapter 21, would repay reading by anyone interested in the larger 
 aspects of the question of race relations, which I am here merely touching 
 upon. 
 
26 The American Race Problem 
 
 and this without the least reference whatever to the 
 social station of the parties immediately concerned, or 
 to the effect upon them as individuals. It matters very 
 little how we may designate this as "race prejudice," 
 "social barbarism," or what not. There it is, and it is 
 grounded upon no such feeling as may be dismissed 
 with a sneer. It is based upon high considerations of 
 the general welfare of the state, and rises to the dignity 
 of a fixed canon of social and public law. It may be 
 disregarded with possible safety where there is a mere 
 handful of either race in contact with the mass of the 
 other; possibly it may be overridden with impunity 
 where there is only a handful of each; it cannot be 
 safely defied where the millions of the two races 
 embracing all degrees, grades, characters and conditions 
 of each are destined permanently to occupy the same 
 territory, unless, of course, we are prepared to accept 
 the ultimate blending of the two. 
 
 It would be interesting to follow in some detail the 
 course of political relations between the races after 
 emancipation in the more important governments out 
 side the United States. It would also be instructive, 
 at least I have found it so, as throwing valuable light 
 upon this aspect of our own problem. We should 
 find that such relations reduce themselves, ultimately, 
 to one of four conditions. First: The Negro has been 
 absorbed politically into the mass of the population; 
 and where this has taken place practical social 
 absorption has invariably accompanied or followed it. 
 This has come about either through the relative 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 27 
 
 insignificance of numbers, or because of the character 
 of the white population, or through a conjunction of 
 the two. Mexico, the Central American, and some 
 of the South American states fall into this class. Or, 
 second: The Negro is nominally entitled to share 
 equally in the government, as part of the electorate, 
 as in Cape Colony and the British West Indies, though 
 his ballot is hedged about with qualifications, and self- 
 government, as we know it, does not really exist. Or, 
 third: He is frankly recognised as possessed of no 
 political privileges whatever, as in Natal, the Boer 
 states before the war, and now in the resulting Boer 
 colonies. Or, fourth: He has secured sole control 
 of the government, through force of numbers and 
 adventitious circumstances, as in Haiti and Santo 
 Domingo. Liberia is in this class also, but of course 
 it is purely an artificial creation. We should also find 
 that where the Negro participates to any extent in the 
 administration of affairs, as occasionally, here and there, 
 in the British West Indies, the race is almost invariably 
 represented solely by its mulatto type, the latter recog 
 nised as a distinct element in the population. The 
 one really dominant fact, however, is that in all these 
 places, regardless of relative numbers or of any other 
 consideration, where racial amalgamation has not 
 taken place, the white man invariably controls the 
 government and administers its affairs. Always except 
 ing Haiti and Santo Domingo, of course. In the former 
 the Negro governs to the exclusion of the mulatto and 
 such whites as chance to live there; in the latter the 
 
28 The American Race Problem 
 
 mulatto governs to the exclusion of the Negro and the 
 white man. I am afraid I shall have to revise the 
 latter statement pretty soon. It looks very much as if 
 the white man were about to govern there also. If he 
 ever does, it is only a question of time when the Negroes 
 of Haiti will be in the same boat. 
 
 I shall not here attempt to institute a comparison 
 between these foreign states and our own. I merely 
 submit a few suggestions for your consideration. There 
 are factors in the Southern situation not found else 
 where in the political relations between the races. 
 Some of these have only to do with history, others 
 are persistent. For instance, nowhere else was the 
 change of relationship from that of master and slave 
 to one of civil equality accompanied by such conditions 
 as ushered it in at the South. Nowhere else to-day 
 on either the American or African continents is 
 there being made an attempt to carry on even the 
 semblance of complete republican government with 
 theoretical political equality between large masses of 
 two such diverse races. I once listened to a discus 
 sion of the suffrage restrictions of the Southern states 
 by one of the most eminent of living American his 
 torians. I was impressed by the seemingly insuperable 
 difficulty in the way of even a man of honesty and 
 courage and brains, when from a position of unthreat- 
 ened and impregnable Caucasian security he attempts 
 to understand this aspect of our problem. 
 
 It is not possible to grasp, through the lifeless medium 
 of what is coldly laid down in the books, the underlying 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 29 
 
 motives and principles actuating and determining the 
 political conduct of the Southern white man, and of 
 every other Anglo-Saxon, when confronted by the 
 Negro in even approximately equal numbers. This 
 gentleman correctly recited the historic truth that at 
 the beginning of our government the free Negro was not 
 wholly discriminated against in the matter of suffrage, 
 but was allowed to vote in several states, Southern as 
 well as Northern. Upon this naked fact, apparently, 
 if I correctly apprehend the reasoning, it is sought to 
 build the argument that subsequent suffrage restric 
 tions have been unjust, or at least have been founded 
 merely upon unjustifiable race prejudice a prejudice 
 which did not originally exist. The trouble here is 
 that this is a superficial view. The significance of 
 original conditions and subsequent changes is entirely 
 lost sight of. There was no discrimination against the 
 Negro at first, it is true, but neither was suffrage speci 
 fically conferred upon him. Negroes were enrolled as 
 soldiers in the Continental armies, and they fought in 
 the War of 1812. Yet in 1861 public sentiment was 
 such that it was only with the greatest difficulty that 
 the Northern Government was finally prevailed upon to 
 enlist them for a war which very much more con 
 cerned them than had either of the other two. The 
 Negro was simply ignored and treated as a negligible 
 quantity in the formation of our general scheme of 
 government. Had his increase of numbers never 
 become sufficient to attract attention, he would have 
 continued to occupy his original position, and it is 
 
30 The American Race Problem 
 
 doubtful if he would ever have been discriminated 
 against politically. 
 
 The constitution of Pennsylvania furnishes a case in 
 point. The suffrage article in the constitution of 1790 
 gave the elective franchise to male "freemen" with no 
 mention whatever of colour. It was said a number of 
 years later, however, that an attempt had been made to 
 confine the suffrage specifically to whites. Be this as it 
 may, free Negroes did occasionally vote in the state. 
 But when the convention of 183738 framed a new 
 constitution the matter was not again left in doubt, and 
 suffrage was confined to "white freemen." DuBois 
 says : "As the Negro population increased, how 
 ever, and ignorant and dangerous elements entered, 
 and as the slavery controversy grew warmer, the feeling 
 against Negroes increased and with it opposition to 
 their right to vote."* But I do not think it is correct 
 to describe this as a change of sentiment. It was simply 
 a gradual development of sentiment, where no sentiment 
 at all on the subject can properly be said to have origi 
 nally existed. It is worthy of mention, however, that 
 there was no change of sentiment in the other direction, 
 and the Negro was not given the suffrage in Pennsylvania 
 until the XV Amendment was adopted in 1870. 
 
 It was only through the operation of this amendment 
 that the Negro secured the elective franchise anywhere 
 in this country, with the qualified exceptions of New 
 York and five of the New England States. And in 1860 
 the Negro constituted but eight-tenths of one per cent. 
 
 * "The Philadelphia Negro," p. 370. 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 31 
 
 (0.8 per cent.) of the population of New England, the 
 proportion being 794 Negroes to 100,000 white people. 
 In New York and three of the New England states there 
 was an actual decrease in the number of Negroes between 
 1850 and 1860. The question of granting the suffrage 
 to Negroes was submitted to popular vote in the fall 
 elections of 1865 in the states of Connecticut, Minne 
 sota, Wisconsin, and Colorado, the latter just entering 
 the Union. It was defeated in each one, though they 
 were all in the practically undisputed control of the 
 Republican party.* Three years later we can still 
 detect no outward change of sentiment on the part of 
 the Northern states. The Republican National Con 
 vention of 1868, which nominated Grant, inserted this 
 well known plank in its platform: "The guarantee by 
 Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South 
 was demanded by every consideration of public safety, 
 of gratitude and of justice and must be maintained; 
 while the question of suffrage in all the loyal states 
 properly belongs to the people of those states, "f 
 
 I mention these facts in the political history of the 
 Negro, merely to show you that with few exceptions 
 his political status in the Northern states was just what 
 it was in the Southern, just as long as the control of 
 such status remained in the hands of the people of the 
 states themselves. And further, that even after Con 
 gress had assumed control of the domestic affairs of the 
 Southern states, the Northern still wished to reserve 
 
 * See Elaine s Comments, "Twenty Years of Congress," 1886, Vol. a, p. 244. 
 
32 The American Race Problem 
 
 to themselves the regulation of Negro suffrage within 
 their own borders. Whatever the fate of the South, 
 these states wanted to control their own political 
 destiny. They did not propose to experiment with 
 Negro suffrage upon their own people. 
 
 Through all this may be seen the operation of the 
 influences which I regard as at the foundation of all 
 race relations the force and effect of numbers, acting 
 directly or indirectly upon public opinion. It may be 
 asked why should the Western states, with practically 
 no Negroes at all, have discriminated against them in 
 specific terms. The question is not a difficult one to 
 answer. Had those states emerged from colonies, as did 
 the Eastern and Southern, their constitutions would 
 have been controlled by the same influences which 
 shaped the creation and development of the organic 
 laws of the older states. As it was, they were settled 
 by Eastern people, and their constitutional provisions 
 on the Negro merely reflected the sentiment which had 
 been developed in the states from which such settlers 
 came. Some of them sought the simplest way out of 
 the difficulty by either frankly prohibiting free Negroes 
 or mulattoes from living within their borders, or requir 
 ing bond for such residence. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
 and Oregon are such examples, and they found warrant 
 for their action in analagous provisions in some of the 
 older states. On the other hand, some did not care to 
 go so far at first, or did not think it necessary, and 
 contented themselves with so framing their constitutions 
 as merely to discourage Negro immigration. This fear 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 33 
 
 of an irruption of Negroes into the Northern states was 
 a fact with which Mr. Lincoln had to reckon at every 
 step he took in the direction of emancipation. In his 
 second annual Message, December i, 1862, he devoted 
 considerable space to urging the adoption by Congress 
 of resolutions providing for gradual emancipation by 
 constitutional amendment. One of his arguments was 
 addressed to this very fear of an influx of Negroes to the 
 North, in the event of their emancipation. He con 
 cluded his reasoning against such a possibility with 
 this significant query: "And in any event, cannot 
 the North decide for itself whether to receive them?"* 
 Already, on June lyth, nearly six months before, in 
 voting on the adoption of a new constitution, his own 
 state had answered his question with a majority of 
 100,590 votes out of a total of 243,202 votes cast on the 
 proposition, in favour of the continued exclusion of the 
 Negro from Illinois. Six propositions were submitted, 
 including that on the adoption of the constitution itself. 
 Three of these dealt with discriminations against free 
 Negroes, and they were the only ones that were carried. 
 To guard against the evils which might follow the pos 
 sible failure of the Negro exclusion proposition it was 
 also determined to exclude them from the suffrage by a 
 majority of 176,271, out of a total vote of 247,569. 
 The constitution itself failed, by a majority of 16,051 
 votes out of a total of 266, 155. f The statute books of 
 Mr. Lincoln s state contained as severe and drastic anti- 
 
 * "Messages and Papers of the Presidents," Vol. 6, pp. 140, 141. 
 t "The Illinois Constitutional Convention of 1862," O. M. Dickerson, pp. 
 23, 24, University of Illinois Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 5, 
 
34 The American Race Problem 
 
 Negro legislation as could be found in the laws of any 
 "free state" in the Union. This vote merely registered 
 a sentiment unchanged since the adoption of the consti 
 tution of 1848. Yet, in 1865, a great Illinois paper thus 
 indulged itself on the freedmen statutes then just en 
 acted by Mississippi: "We tell the white men of 
 Mississippi that the men of the North will convert the 
 state of Mississippi into a frog pond before they will 
 allow any such laws to disgrace one foot of soil in which 
 the bones of our soldiers sleep, and over which the flag 
 of freedom waves."* 
 
 This throws a flashlight upon the temper of the times, 
 and would be humorous were it not so serious. But it 
 also suggests this reflection for those of us who under 
 take to study and discuss the problem left us as a heri 
 tage from conditions created forty years ago. We 
 would do well to sweep our own doorsteps before calling 
 attention to the condition of our neighbour s. It is a 
 fundamental principle of every proceeding in equity 
 that the complainant come into court with clean hands ; 
 yet in the problem before us it is one as easily and 
 frequently violated now as we know it to have been 
 in 1865. 
 
 We need not imagine that we have a monopoly of 
 Negro suffrage history. We see a suggestive parallel 
 in the history of the franchise in Cape Colony. When 
 representative government was granted that colony, 
 and later responsible government, the Negro was not 
 
 * Chicago Tribune, December i, 1865; quoted in "Reconstruction in Missis 
 sippi," Garner, p. 115, note. 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 35 
 
 discriminated against. He was simply ignored, because 
 so few were qualified, just as in the American colonies. 
 It was probably as much of a discovery there to find 
 that he was actually a voter as it was in Pennsylvania, 
 or North Carolina, or Connecticut. The status quo was 
 simply permitted to continue from year to year until 
 finally it was realised that the Negro was becoming a 
 menacing factor in Cape politics. Then what hap 
 pened? Just exactly what has happened in the Southern 
 states, and in Jamaica, and just what will happen when 
 ever and wherever the numerical strength or racial traits 
 of the Negro begin to threaten, or in any way interfere 
 with, the political supremacy of the white man. Negro 
 suffrage was restricted by qualifications which we need 
 not here stop to consider. It is a coincidence that the 
 subject was simultaneously agitated in both Cape 
 Colony and Mississippi. Action was taken by the Cape 
 Government in 1892, the new constitution of Mississippi 
 having been adopted in 1890. But in the succeeding 
 fourteen years, owing to a relatively small English 
 population and an increase in the number of qualified 
 Negro voters, affairs at the Cape have again assumed 
 an unhappy aspect. There is one Southern state, with 
 the largest Negro population in the Union, which has 
 never embodied suffrage restrictions in its constitution. 
 To-day [1906] there is a campaign on in the state of 
 Georgia in which this proposition is the principal issue, 
 while at Cape Colony, several thousand miles away, you 
 will find similar political discord, with similar declara 
 tions and counter declarations as to the necessity or 
 
36 The American Race Problem 
 
 absence of necessity for a further restriction of the 
 Negro vote. 
 
 "The Negroes ... are becoming year by year a 
 more formidable element, and, if unrestrained, must 
 inevitably undermine the very foundations of white 
 supremacy. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. 
 It is not necessary to be a prophet, or the son of a 
 prophet, to foresee that that law will yet compel the 
 white man to adopt measures against the Negro at 
 which to-day nine people out of ten would raise their 
 hands in pious horror."* This prediction is not mine. 
 It is not even an extract from a speech of one of the 
 present candidates for governor of Georgia. It is the 
 very deliberate statement of a very level-headed English 
 man, and one of -the best posted men in the Empire 
 on South African affairs, Mr. Roderick Jones, in dis 
 cussing the present situation in Cape Colony. In 
 quoting his language I have merely changed the word 
 "blacks" to "Negroes," and omitted the words "South 
 Africa." 
 
 But some English speaking white people have not 
 even attempted to do what Cape Colony and the South 
 ern states have done. Or, more accurately speaking, 
 they have abandoned the attempt. Jamaica lived for 
 137 years a longer period by two decades than we 
 have lived under the Constitution -under a self- 
 legislating form of government, if I may so describe it, 
 granted under George II. in 1728. But a generation 
 
 * "The Black Peril in South Africa," The Nineteenth Century and After, 
 May, 1904, p. 723. 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 37 
 
 after Negro emancipation, even with qualified suffrage, 
 she found herself unequal to its further maintenance. 
 Under the stress of unbearable social and political con 
 ditions, following the attempt to assimilate the new Ne 
 gro element into the body politic, the government went 
 to pieces after the Gordon Riots of 1 865, and rather than 
 longer attempt to perpetuate a farce, voluntarily sur 
 rendered its ancient charter to the crown. It is the 
 merest sophistry to try to make it appear, as is some 
 times done, that the failure of responsible government 
 in Jamaica was due to other causes. Mr. Bryce frankly 
 acknowledges the truth when, in congratulating his 
 country on the absence of a larger coloured than white 
 population in practically all her self-governing colonies, 
 he remarks that the reverse condition "caused Jamaica 
 to be, some time ago, withdrawn from that category."* 
 To-day, throughout the entire group of West Indian 
 islands, after seventy-two years of Negro freedom, 
 England finds herself unable to establish one responsible 
 government. It has often occured to me that there is 
 something for us to reflect upon in the coincidence that 
 the year which marked the end of an era of such experi 
 mentation in the greatest of the British West Indies, 
 witnessed the beginning of the movement toward a 
 similar attempt in the greatest experimental democracy 
 the world has ever known. But when, as in Jamaica, 
 the inevitable happened, and the experiment reached 
 the point of self-demonstrated failure, there was no such 
 
 * "Impressions of South Africa," pp. 395,396. See also "Jamaica," Frank 
 Cundall, Vol. 3, in British Empire Series, "British America," pp. 419,420. 
 
38 The American Race Problem 
 
 easy avenue of escape for the Southern people as a 
 simple change of governmental form. Only in the 
 District of Columbia, and under the control of the 
 party which had created him, could that convenient 
 expedient for getting rid of the Negro voter be 
 resorted to. 
 
 I shall conclude this cursory consideration of the first 
 branch of our subject with this reflection: I believe it is 
 safe to say that we can account for most of the real 
 differences which characterise the relations between the 
 races here and elsewhere, by a recognition of the funda 
 mental differences of governmental theory and policy 
 under which, respectively, such relations are being 
 adjusted and developed toward ultimate stability. We 
 have long prided ourselves upon being an intensely 
 practical and common-sense people. Yet in the most 
 serious crisis which has confronted us as a nation, that 
 of determining the political relations between two races 
 as divergent in history, development, and capacity 
 for self-government as the Negro and the Caucasian, we 
 were not practical, and we exhibited anything but 
 common sense. In commenting upon the differences 
 between the conditions which justify the creation of 
 English self-governing colonies and those which necessi 
 tate the continuance of the crown-colony form, Mr.Bryce 
 recognises as a matter of course the force of differences 
 of race in determining differences of governmental policy. 
 He says: "Every one perceives that representative 
 assemblies based on a democratic franchise, which are 
 capable of governing Canada or Australia would not 
 
Contrasts and Parallels 39 
 
 succeed in the West Indies or Ceylon or Fiji."* Events 
 have forced us to recognise this in the government of our 
 own dependencies, but in our more domestic affairs we 
 did all that written instruments could do to decree that, 
 regardless of the practical consideration of the differences 
 of racial elements in the state, there should be no 
 difference in the extent to which such elements should 
 share in the State s control. In the differences between 
 the practical operation of these two theories of govern 
 ment for mixed populations, we may read an explanation 
 of such basic differences as exist between conditions in 
 the Southern states and in the British West Indies as 
 may not be accounted for by almost purely physical 
 considerations. If you will study racial conditions in 
 Jamaica during the thirty years preceding 1866, and in 
 Jamaica under the crown, I believe you will acknowl 
 edge the force of my suggestion. 
 
 * "Impressions of South Africa," pp. 346, /547 
 
II 
 
 THE FOUNDATIONS OF OUR DIFFERENCES 
 
 I HAVE attempted to sketch in rough outline the 
 conditions which present certain parallels and 
 contrasts between the social, political, and economic 
 relations of various groups of whites and Negroes. 
 I have stated my belief to be that both the contrasts 
 and the parallels are grounded primarily on certain 
 practical considerations which have little to do with 
 moral or ethical differences among separate groups of 
 white men. The most important of these differenti 
 ating factors I have already declared to be that of the 
 unequal numerical distribution of our Negro population. 
 There is one other worth considering. That is the 
 difference between the two types of Negroes from 
 familiarity with which Northern and Southern people 
 form their respective ideas of the race as a whole. 
 
 For the most part, the Northern man, at least the one 
 who does the thinking and writing and talking on the 
 subject, comes in contact with a selected mulatto type, 
 while Southern people are in constant association with 
 the millions who compose the masses of the race. A 
 separate enumeration of mulattoes has been made four 
 times, in the censuses of 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1890. 
 The results disclosed the fact that where the proportion 
 
 40 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 41 
 
 of Negroes to whites was lowest, the proportion of 
 mulattoes to total Negroes was highest. For example: 
 In 1890, in the South Central States of Kentucky, 
 Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, 
 Oklahoma, and Texas, the mulattoes were but 14 per 
 cent of the total Negro population. On the other hand, 
 they were 32.7 per cent, in the New England group. 
 Expressed differently, of all the so-called "Negroes" 
 whom a white man would see in Mississippi, only 11.5 
 per cent, would be of the mulatto type, while of all 
 those observed in Massachusetts 36.3 were mulattoes. 
 In Maine 57.4 per cent, were mulattoes, and in Michigan 
 they were 53.8 per cent.; while in Georgia and South 
 Carolina they were respectively 9.9 per cent, and 9.7 per 
 cent.* This and my own observation are my warrants 
 for expressing the opinion that when the average North 
 ern man writes or talks about the Negro from personal 
 observation, he is unconsciously thinking of another 
 type, the differences between which and the Negro must 
 be recognised if we would intelligently study American 
 race problems. 
 
 I am familiar with the names of the handful of pure 
 Negroes who have achieved distinction in America. 
 And they are after all really but a handful. Practically 
 all the so-called Negroes of distinction are not real 
 Negroes at all. The name of Alexandre Dumas is 
 claimed by the French people as one of the glories of 
 French literature. Nobody thinks of using him as 
 a demonstration of Negro capacity, simply because one 
 
 * "Negroes in the United States," Census Bulletin 8, 1904, pp. 15-17. 
 
42 The American Race Problem 
 
 of his ancestors happened to be a mulatto of Martinique. 
 Yet that is just what the dean of American novelists 
 does in the case of an American writer who has less 
 Negro blood in his veins than Dumas had in his. Here 
 is a man who might defy an ethnologist to say that he 
 had a drop of Negro blood; yet because an arbitrary 
 social custom classes him as a Negro (and, by the way, 
 he does not live in the South), thousands read his books, 
 or listen to his spoken words, or engage him in social 
 intercourse and thereby form mature and well con 
 sidered judgments as to the character and possibilities 
 above all, the possibilities of the masses who 
 confront the Southern white man. 
 
 The Negro race never had a truer or more sympathetic 
 friend than Mary Kingsley. In her honour, and as a 
 memorial to her memory, the African Society of London 
 was founded. But she always told the truth as she 
 saw it, and it was she who impressed upon her own and 
 European governments the necessity of a knowledge 
 of the real people for whom they were trying to legislate. 
 These are her words: "The African who turns into a 
 Europeanised man is the exception that proves the rule, 
 and whose isolated conduct misleads the white man, 
 dazzled by the performance of one in a hundred thou 
 sand; we seem blind to the inertia of the great mass 
 that we have to deal with to-day in a state practically 
 unaltered by the white work of four hundred years 
 duration."* Is it not reasonable to ask if it may not 
 be too often true that we also are dazzled by the 
 
 * British Empire Series, Vol. 2, p. 377. London, 1899. 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 43 
 
 few into blindness of the real needs and capacities of 
 the mass? 
 
 But it is to the dull and uninteresting pages of census 
 reports, and to columns of dreary figures, that we must 
 come at last if we would know the real basis of differ 
 ences of American opinion on the American race prob 
 lem. These figures, after all, are comprehensive of all 
 other subsidiary causes and explanations. Of course 
 I shall not attempt to review the distribution of the 
 slave population at different periods, or even that of 
 the freedmen immediately after the war. Nor shall I 
 discuss the causes which led to the shifting of the centre 
 of Negro population 476 miles in a southwesterly direc 
 tion between 1790 and 1900 or the significance of 
 this movement. The figures of present distribution 
 are sufficient for our purpose, and we have time to glance 
 at only a few of these barely to skim the surface, in fact. 
 
 First, let me say that I regard this race problem as, 
 in a certain very large sense, a national problem. Any 
 question capable of creating two practically distinct 
 schools of national thought is certainly a national 
 question. But like the tariff, or any other question of 
 national dimensions, it has its peculiar and distinctly 
 local phases. The particular situs of any such problem 
 may be found where the elements essential to its com 
 position are known to exist. The elements in this 
 particular problem are the white and Negro races; 
 and the conditions essential to its creation are to be 
 found in the juxtaposition of sufficient numbers of these 
 races. The variants of the problem present themselves 
 
44 The American Race Problem 
 
 with differences of local conditions, turning mainly 
 upon differences in the proportions of the two races. 
 And here we come to the prime factor of numerical 
 distribution. 
 
 By the last census there were in the United States 
 8*833,994 Negroes. Nearly 90 per cent. 87.4 per 
 cent., to be exact were in the thirteen Southern States. 
 Nearly one third, 31.4 per cent., were in the three con 
 tiguous states of Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama. 
 More than one million, or 11.7 per cent, of the whole, 
 were in Georgia. Mississippi contained more than 
 900,000, or 10.3 per cent, of the whole. New York, 
 New Jersey, and Pennsylvania combined contained but 
 3.7 per cent, of the whole. The entire group of New 
 England States contained but seven-tenths of i per 
 cent, of the Negro population of the country. 
 Scattered through those six states there were less 
 than 60,000 Negroes, all told, while in Charleston 
 County, S. C., there were 60,312. In my county in 
 Mississippi, Washington, there were 44,143. This 
 means that in this county alone there were more Negroes 
 than in either one of twenty-eight states and territories 
 of the Union: West Virginia, Indian Territory, Massa 
 chusetts, Delaware, Oklahoma, Michigan, Connecticut, 
 Iowa, California, Rhode Island, Colorado, Nebraska, 
 Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington, Arizona, New Mex 
 ico, Montana, Maine, Oregon, Wyoming, Vermont, 
 Utah, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Idaho, North 
 Dakota, or Nevada. Not one of these twenty-eight 
 states and territories contained as much as i per cent. 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 
 
 45 
 
 of the Negro population of this country. Not one of 
 the last fifteen of this group contained as much as one- 
 tenth of i per cent. 
 
 There are nineteen of our fifty states and territories 
 which contain, all told, less than one two-hundredth 
 part of our Negro population. Contrast this with the 
 fact, just stated, that three adjoining states, Georgia, 
 Mississippi, and Alabama, contain nearly one-third 
 of all the Negroes in America. Then you may catch, 
 in part perhaps, the significance of what I mean when 
 I speak of the effect of such numerical distribution upon 
 our respective points of view. How can a matter 
 affecting in any wise the relations between the races 
 in the Southern states be expected to appeal to a 
 Senator from Wisconsin, with its 2,542 Negroes, com 
 posing one-tenth of i per cent, of its total population, 
 with the same significance that it has for a Senator 
 from Mississippi, with 907,630 Negroes behind him a 
 number equal to 58.5 per cent, of the entire population 
 of his state? How can the Senators from Rhode Island 
 and from Georgia bring themselves into accord upon 
 such a question the one with 9,092 Negroes in his 
 state and the other with 1,034,813 in his? Here is the 
 real foundation of our differences. We are all white 
 men, with different admixtures of different strains 
 perhaps, yet with the same race traditions behind us, 
 with the same hopes and aims and aspirations for the 
 future, and subject to the same impulses through life. 
 It is one of the anomalies of this whole race problem 
 business that since the Negro s emancipation every 
 
4.6 The American Race Problem 
 
 single policy of the national Government in which the 
 Negro as a race was in the least degree concerned has 
 been entirely within the initiative and control of the 
 section of the country in which only an insignificant 
 proportion of the Negro population had their homes. 
 The section which contains nearly 90 per cent, of the 
 Negroes of the country has had no controlling voice in 
 any such policy. The Negro has thus been a hapless 
 bone of contention between the white people of the 
 section which has legislated for him and about him and 
 because of him, and those of the section which has 
 absolutely dominated the local situation of the masses 
 of the race. 
 
 To make a further comparison: My state contains 
 more Negroes than do the combined twenty-eight states 
 and territories enumerated above, with the great states 
 of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana 
 thrown in for good measure. To the thirty-three states 
 this gives us, you may add New Jersey and Kansas, and 
 make the number thirty-five. After thus offsetting 
 with my state the combined Negro population of every 
 state and territory in the Union outside the South, 
 barring only Missouri, which is itself part Southern, 
 we would still have a surplus of 27,959 Negroes. These 
 would be more than enough to again duplicate the 
 combined Negro population of both Iowa and Connecti 
 cut. There are more Negroes in Mississippi than in 
 Cape Colony, or Natal, even with the great territory of 
 Zululand annexed to the latter; more than in the 
 Transvaal, and not far from as many as in both the 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 47 
 
 Boer colonies combined; more than in Jamaica and 
 Barbadoes combined; more than in Trinidad and all 
 the remaining English islands combined (excluding 
 those just named); more than in Cuba and Porto Rico 
 combined; more than in either Haiti or Santo Domingo.* 
 Occasionally we hear a Southern man remark that 
 the North knows little or nothing about the Negro, and 
 has little or no opportunity to learn anything about 
 him. There is a measure of truth in the first part of the 
 assertion, though the latter part must be somewhat 
 qualified. The North is every year learning more about 
 the Negro, and about some of the universal questions 
 growing out of his presence. The leading authorities 
 to-day on several phases of Southern conditions, or on 
 subjects ordinarily classed as peculiarly Southern, are 
 Northern men. Professor William A. Dunning is the 
 best authority we have on political reconstruction; 
 Mr. Carl Kelsey, of the University of Pennsylvania, 
 has made the best study of the Negro farmer that I 
 have seen ; Professor James Elbert Cutler has given us the 
 only study of the subject of lynching worth the reading, 
 and it is an admirable piece of work; Professor M. B. 
 Hammond, of Ohio, is the author of the standard work 
 on the cotton industry ; Professor Walter F. Willcox 
 is easily the leading authority in the United States on 
 Negro statistics. Not one of these men ever lived in 
 the Southern states. But for all that, if we frame the 
 statement differently, and say that the North knows 
 
 * The figures for foreign Negro population were the latest obtainable from 
 census reports and estimates at the time this paper was prepared in 1905. 
 
48 The American Race Problem 
 
 little about the rather vague, indefinable thing we call 
 "the race problem," we are well within the limits of 
 conservative truth. It is not uncommon to hear even 
 this statement replied to by an enumeration of the 
 number of Negroes in various Northern states. This 
 simply misses the crux of the whole question the 
 relative proportions of the races. An isolated locality, 
 such, for instance, as the "San Juan Hill" district of 
 New York City, may have a race problem through 
 a heavy congestion of Negro population. But this is 
 entirely local. 
 
 There are twice as many Negroes in New York State 
 as in my county. But in New York they constitute 
 only an insignificant 1.4 per cent, of the population. 
 They are swallowed up in an ocean of white people, 
 and are simply numerically incapable of creating a race 
 problem. In my county they are 89.7 per cent, of 
 the population, while for the country districts, and the 
 county is practically all country, they compose 94.2 per 
 cent, of our population. Here a handful of white people 
 is swallowed up in a mass of Negroes the proportion 
 being about nine to one. There are fifty-five counties in 
 the Sou thin which the Negroes constitute more than 75 
 per cent, of the population. They constitute 1.4 per cent, 
 of the population of the New England hills, and 62.9 
 per cent, of the population of the Mississippi alluvial 
 region. The New England and Western states contain 
 12.8 per cent, of the total population of this country, 
 and but i per cent, of its Negro population. I have 
 said that there are nineteen of our fifty states and terri* 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 49 
 
 tones which have less than one two-hundredth part of our 
 Negro population: these same nineteen states contain 
 more than one-eighth of the total population of the 
 country. The Negro constitutes 58.5 per cent, of the 
 population of Mississippi, and i.i per cent, of that of 
 Massachusetts. He is 58.4 per cent, in South Carolina 
 and 1.4 per cent, in New York. He is 47.1 per cent, 
 in Louisiana and 1.8 per cent, in Illinois. He is 46.7 per 
 cent, in Georgia and seven-tenths of i per cent, in Michi 
 gan. For every 100,000 white people in Massachusetts 
 there are 1,154 Negroes. For each 100,000 whites in 
 Mississippi there are 141,552 Negroes. In New York 
 the proportion of Negroes to 100,000 whites is 1,387; 
 in South Carolina it is 140,249. In Michigan it is 659, 
 in Alabama it is 82,636; in Illinois it is 1,797, while 
 in Georgia it is 87,600; in Ohio, 2,387; in Louisiana, 
 89,199; it is 2,554 in Pennsylvania, and 77,600 in 
 Florida. For every 100,000 white people in the United 
 States there are 13,223 Negroes. In the South Atlantic 
 group of states the proportion rises to 55,607: in the 
 North Atlantic group it falls to 1,866. It is 42,726 in 
 the South Central division, and only 1,923 in the North 
 Central. In the Western division there are but 781 
 Negroes for each 100,000 white people.* 
 
 I have said that the state of Mississippi contained 
 more Negroes than all the states and territories outside 
 the South combined, including West Virginia. This 
 bare statement may not impress you as being particu- 
 
 * All the basic figures used here may be found in Census Bulletin 8, 1904, 
 "Negroes in the United States," 
 
50 The American Race Problem 
 
 larly significant, but let us see what it really means. 
 Their Negro population in 1900 was 879,671. This was 
 27,959 less than that of Mississippi. The latter state 
 contained 907,630 Negroes. But we must not lose 
 sight of the relative proportions of the two races 
 which is the real essence of the matter. Against the 
 less than nine hundred thousand Negroes scattered 
 through this group of thirty-five states and territories 
 we must place 49,081,797 white people. Against the 
 more than nine hundred thousand Negroes compacted 
 in the one state of Mississippi, we have a white popula 
 tion numbering 641,200. 
 
 The Negro population of Washington county, Mis 
 sissippi, is greater than that of the combined states 
 and territories of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington, 
 Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Maine, Oregon, Wyo 
 ming, Vermont, Utah, Idaho, North Dakota, South 
 Dakota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Nebraska, and 
 California. These states have a Negro population of 
 39,012, less by 5,131 than the 44,143 Negroes in my 
 county. Again, look at the matter of relative numbers. 
 Against this insignificant number of Negroes, less than 
 forty thousand, scattered from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific, we find a white population of 10,334,109. 
 Against the 44,143 Negroes living within the confines 
 of my county, we have a handful of white people, 
 numbering 5,073 all told. 
 
 None of these eighteen great states, except Nebraska 
 and California, has as many Negroes as we have in the 
 little town which is the county seat of my county. The 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 51 
 
 nearest approach to it is to be found in Minnesota, in 
 the length and breadth of which state the census enu 
 merators were able to discover just 4,959 Negroes. 
 Greenville, my county capital, had 4,987, giving her a 
 majority of 28. In the matter of relative proportions, 
 however, Minnesota had a little the better of us. Her 
 white population was 1,737,036, against our 2,644, 
 giving her a clear white majority over Greenville of 
 1,734,392. In the halcyon days about the beginning 
 of the end of carpet-bag rule in Mississippi, we had 
 several counties which could do almost as well as this 
 in the matter of white majorities. The size, in fact, 
 depended only upon the exigencies of the occasion. 
 
 Perhaps a few concrete comparisons may interest you, 
 and render more striking the differences between 
 Northern and Southern states and cities. If the pro 
 portion between the races were the same in New Eng 
 land as in Mississippi, on a basis of her present white 
 population the former would have 7,737,836 Negroes, 
 instead of 59,099 as at present. With the same pro 
 portion the state of New York would have 10,019,633, 
 instead of 99,232. Pennsylvania would have 8,598,329, 
 instead of 156,845. If the same proportion existed 
 in Chicago as in Charleston, the former city would have 
 2,152,268 Negroes, instead of 30,150. On the same 
 basis Boston would have 708,598, instead of 11,591. 
 
 Take the county of which Ann Arbor is the capital. 
 Here in Washtenaw you have a somewhat smaller total 
 population than that of my home county. But of 
 your 47,761 people only 1,240 are Negroes. Of our 
 
52 The American Race Problem 
 
 49,216 inhabitants only 5,073 are white. If the pro 
 portion between the races in my county, practically 
 9 to i, were applied to yours, with your present white 
 population you would have 418,689 Negroes, instead of 
 1,240. I might make these figures more impressive 
 by applying the proportion which obtains in a county 
 adjoining mine. It is there a little more than fifteen 
 to one. But nine to one is heavy enough to make the 
 comparison suggestive. In the state of Michigan you 
 have 2,398,563 white people and 15,816 Negroes, the 
 latter but little more than a third of the number in my 
 county. If the proportion between the races were the 
 same as in Mississippi, with your present white popula 
 tion you would have 3,357,988 Negroes, instead of less 
 than 16,000. If you did not then have separate schools, 
 separate cars, and a constitution "guaranteed to keep 
 in any climate," the fifteen years which I have spent in 
 the study of race relations have been worse than thrown 
 away, and I do not understand even the elementary 
 principles of the white man s human nature. 
 
 This review of some of the salient features of what I 
 term the factor of distribution is necessarily merely a 
 cursory examination. The most I hope for it is that 
 it may possibly suggest to you some new line of thought 
 or investigation. In this connection permit me to 
 emphasise what I regard as one of the most important 
 considerations in this entire problem of race relations, 
 as differentiating Northern and Southern conditions. 
 It is the fact that in the North the Negro lives in cities 
 a.nd towns, subject to all the restraints of compact 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 53 
 
 population and police surveillance. In the South they 
 are numerically essentially a rural population, practi 
 cally, if not entirely, free of any such restraining and 
 controlling influences. It is in the country districts, 
 more than in the city, that those offences are committed 
 which most militate against harmonious race relations 
 and in rural districts that the severest reprisals are 
 exacted. For the United States as a whole, 77.3 per 
 cent, of all the Negroes live in country districts, while 
 for the Northern and Western states, 70.2 per cent, are 
 an urban population. Furthermore, Negroes consti 
 tute practically a third of the population in the South, 
 both city and country. In the North and West they 
 constitute but one-fortieth of the city population and 
 only an insignificant, really negligible, one-ninetieth 
 of that of the country. 
 
 Finally, let me offer you the testimony of one who 
 probably is as well acquainted with the white people of 
 this country, North and South, as any man in it 
 Booker T. Washington. He says if we were to "move 
 four millions of the eight millions of Negroes from the 
 South into the North and West ... a problem 
 would be created far more serious and complicated 
 than any now existing in the Southern states."* I 
 give you his opinion, in his own words; the appli 
 cation I leave to your own good sense. 
 
 Perhaps I should attempt to illustrate more definitely 
 the way in which the juxtaposition of these races oper 
 ates to produce the more or less uniform results which 
 
 * New York Age, August 17, 1905, p. 2, 
 
54 The American Race Problem 
 
 I have attempted to outline in general terms. The 
 practical attitude of one race or nation toward another 
 is determined by motives of self-interest, or instincts 
 of self-preservation, upon the part of the one which 
 is able to control and dictate the terms and conditions 
 of contact between the two. It matters not whether the 
 races concerned be white and Negro in Mississippi to 
 day, white and Negro or Indian in Massachusetts yester 
 day, white and Mongolian in California to-morrow. 
 And, furthermore, it matters precious little what the so- 
 called "enlightened sentiment" of the world outside 
 may be on the subject immediately at issue. I am not 
 just now concerned with questions of sentiment. I 
 am endeavouring to offer you a practical consideration 
 of practical affairs. Nor does it make much difference 
 whether the place of such contact be the United States 
 or Egypt, Cuba or the Philippines, Australia or India, 
 Japan or Santo Domingo. The rule which I state here, 
 call it "cold-blooded" if you please, has not often been 
 violated in the past ; it is not likely to be in the future. 
 And for a recent specific illustration of the principle 
 I would suggest for your consideration the history of the 
 overthrow of native government in the Hawaiian Islands 
 by the descendants of New England missionaries, and 
 incidentally the resulting annexation of those islands to 
 this country by a Republican administration. The 
 immediately actuating influences may be well grounded, 
 as upon actually demonstrated facts or really existing 
 conditions, or they may be founded solely upon apprehen 
 sions of what might occur. In either case the controlling 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 55 
 
 motive is the same. The only exception to this rule 
 is in the case of nations or races between whom there 
 exists either sufficient identity of blood and institutions 
 or such a great disparity of numbers or strength that 
 the controlling party has no grounds upon which to 
 base even an apprehension of untoward consequences 
 from unrestricted or unconditional intercourse, or from 
 any specific or general attitude it may assume toward 
 the weaker. Here the stronger may, if it see fit, give 
 full play to policies wholly unselfish and altruistic, or be 
 governed by them in so far as it may be inclined. Our 
 action in the case of the evacuation of Cuba is fairly 
 illustrative of the exception; our action in the case of 
 Columbia may fairly illustrate the selfish and more 
 general aspect of the rule. The conditions which 
 justify, or render possible, a departure from the estab 
 lished principle, are as important in our consideration 
 as are those inducing or compelling continued adherence 
 to it. Both must be kept in view if we would justly 
 and accurately estimate the conduct of races and nations. 
 In the exploitation, limited or unqualified, of coun 
 tries and their inhabitants, few people have surpassed 
 that branch of the human family popularly known as 
 the Anglo Saxon. Though they did not begin the 
 African slave trade, they outdid the world in keeping 
 it alive. Though they did not begin the invasion of the 
 Dark Continent, in the partition of Africa no hand has 
 been more potent than theirs. I shall not stop to 
 consider whether in its last analysis it is better or worse 
 for the Negro, but it seems a queer freak of fortune or 
 
56 The American Race Problem 
 
 fate that of all the Caucasian peoples, it is the English 
 speaking branch with which by far the greatest numbers 
 of the Negro race have had to deal. Above all others 
 it is the one which has been most uncompromising in its 
 attitude toward the backward or inferior races, in so 
 far as political and social assimilation are concerned. 
 At no time in history, and in regard to none of these 
 races, do we find a departure from this line of conduct. 
 We witness it in India, in Egypt, in South, East, and 
 West Africa, in Australia, in America, and in the East 
 Indian Islands. The American branch of the family 
 has been equally true to its traditions. 
 
 A study of our relations with the only three coloured 
 races with which we have come in contact the Indian, 
 the Negro, and the Mongolian reveals essentially the 
 same line of policy. We have refused to assimilate 
 them, and in that fact alone is our attitude toward them 
 differentiated from that toward the millions of the 
 various white stocks that have poured in upon us from 
 Europe during the past hundred years. That we have 
 not in any way absorbed them or been absorbed by them, 
 is due to the fact that despite the enactment of general 
 laws, or the influence of extraneous public opinion, the 
 white people of each separate state of the Union, instinc 
 tively dominated by considerations of local public policy 
 of which they only could judge, have doggedly, persis 
 tently, perhaps even fiercely at times, but always success 
 fully, exercised the right of absolute control over the 
 relations between themselves and each of these races. 
 In their respective attitudes we see illustrated both 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 57 
 
 the principle and its exception, as enunciated above, 
 which determine the contact between superior and 
 inferior races. 
 
 I lay it down as a fact which cannot successfully be 
 challenged, that the relations between the white and Ne 
 gro races in every state in the Union have been, and are 
 now, controlled by considerations ultimately governed 
 by the factor of the relative numbers of the two. 
 I have given numerous general illustrations of this rule 
 of conduct, and I shall now endeavour to exhibit its 
 practical operation in certain concrete instances. For 
 this purpose I shall take three states, two of which are 
 entirely outside the sphere of "Southern influence" 
 and the third scarcely much more than nominally 
 Southern, as the world understands the term, although 
 a Southern state. These are Massachusetts, Kansas, 
 and Texas. 
 
 The legislature of Massachusetts became alarmed in 
 1821 by "the increase of a species of population which 
 threatened to become both injurious and burdensome." 
 Being fully alive to "the necessity of checking it," 
 the legislature appointed a committee to report on the 
 wisdom of excluding free Negroes and mulattoes from 
 the state. The report of this committee, written by its 
 chairman, Theodore Lyman, Jr., stated that "1fie black 
 convicts in the State Prison formed 146^ part of the 
 black population of the state, while the white convicts 
 formed but 2140 part of the white population." The 
 committee also expressed the opinion that the same 
 proportions would be found to exist in the other state 
 
58 The American Race Problem 
 
 institutions. The committee stated that it would have 
 been "a matter of congratulation and satisfaction" to 
 themselves if they had been able to frame a law which 
 would "have promised to check and finally to over 
 come an evil upon which they have never been able 
 to look with unconcern."* But they could not agree 
 on a bill, and reported that a law to accomplish this 
 purpose "would entirely depart from that love of 
 humanity, that respect for hospitality and for the just 
 rights of all classes of men, in the constant and suc 
 cessful exercise of which the inhabitants of Massa 
 chusetts have been singularly conspicuous." There 
 was already a law on the books which required free 
 Negroes and mulattoes to give bond to prevent their 
 becoming a charge on the state. This law was 
 passed in 1788, and reenacted two or three times. In 
 1825, three years after this report, it was again reen 
 acted, and was not repealed until 1834. Undoubtedly, 
 the character of what this committee described as an 
 "injurious and burdensome species of population" 
 largely influenced the legislature to investigate the 
 propriety of adding to the restrictive laws already in 
 force one of absolute exclusion. The character of the 
 Negro population everywhere has influenced such legis 
 lation. I In fact, it is the essential difference of racial 
 characteristics which forms the foundation of all distinc 
 tions drawn by the white man between himself and the 
 Negro. This is elementary. | 
 
 * Report of Theodore Lyman, Jr., for the Committee, January 15, i8ax, 
 "Thorndike Pamphlets, "Library of Congress, Vol. 5, No. 15. 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 59 
 
 But, as a matter of fact, this action of the legislature 
 of Massachusetts illustrates the operation of one of the 
 immediately impelling subsidiary influences to which I 
 referred a while ago that of apprehension. The 
 Negro population of the state had increased by exactly 
 three persons between 1810 and 1820, and in the latter 
 year numbered i to 76.6 whites; so there appears to be 
 here no very stable ground for the alarm of the legis 
 lature. The real reason is to be found in the apprehen 
 sion of an influx of free Negroes from other states, 
 caused by the enactment by the latter about this period 
 of various laws discriminating against the Negro with 
 greater or less severity. In other words, it was the 
 same situation which Lincoln confronted forty-one 
 years later, in trying to secure support for the XIII. 
 Amendment. Massachusetts and the North did not 
 want the Negro in either event ; no matter whether the 
 apprehended influx were to come from too stringent state 
 legislation on the one hand or an inconveniently liberal 
 constitutional provision on the other. This appears 
 plainly enough elsewhere in the report when the 
 committee bases its fears of such an inrush upon the 
 belief that the Negro would pursue the same course as 
 white people who might be similarly discriminated 
 against. Here is where the committee displayed its ignor 
 ance of the Negro but that is another story. In the 
 failure of the legislature to be sufficiently influenced by 
 its apprehensions to take drastic measures at this time, 
 we see illustrated an instance in which actual conditions 
 permitted the partial exercise of an altruistic policy. 
 
60 The American Race Problem 
 
 But when we reflect upon the fact of an already existing 
 law for controlling the state s Negro population, and 
 also upon the rate of increase just mentioned, three 
 in ten years, we may conclude that the legislature felt 
 reasonably safe in simply maintaining the status quo. 
 Nor should it have required any great strain upon the 
 humanities for the exercise of that hospitality of which 
 the committee speaks, upon the part of 516,547 white 
 people toward 6,740 Negroes -a considerable number 
 of the latter being in poor houses and jails. We need 
 not feel that we are reflecting upon the hospitality of the 
 good people of Massachusetts of that old day if we ask 
 the question, what in all human probability would have 
 been the action of the legislature if, instead of this 
 handful of Negroes, with their known rate of increase, 
 they had numbered a half, or a quarter, of a million 
 or even one hundred thousand? We may couple this 
 with a question as to what would be the action of Louisi 
 ana to-day, if we assume a Negro population of 6,740, 
 or of double that number, on some such suggestion as 
 requiring the railway systems of the state to provide 
 separate cars and accommodations for such of this 
 number as occasionally might happen to travel. We 
 do not need any profound philosophy to answer either 
 question. All we want is a modicum of common sense. 
 For a period of 138 years Massachusetts prohibited 
 intermarriage between whites and Negroes or mulattoes. 
 The statute of Queen Anne of 1 705 may be said originally 
 to have been tinctured by the religious objection to a 
 union between Christians and pagans. But it was 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 61 
 
 several times reenacted long after such influences had 
 ceased to exist. It was finally repealed in 1843. By 
 such action Massachusetts did not by any means intend 
 to declare in favour of racial intermarriage. The real 
 significance of the repeal was that, whether consciously 
 or unconsciously, the numerical insignificance of the 
 Negro population had finally brought possibly a major 
 ity of the whites to a point from which they were able to 
 view with entire indifference any possible consequences 
 of a formal reversal of the ancient policy of the state. 
 Here, too, we have a situation in which the idealist or 
 the doctrinaire who might wish to remove from the 
 statute books every remaining vestige of discriminating 
 law could receive at least the negative support of the 
 practical man. The latter might simply ask himself, 
 What difference does it make ? 
 
 In an address in New York some time ago, President 
 Eliot, of Harvard, declared in unequivocal terms that 
 Northern and Southern opinion are as one with regard 
 to the question of admixture between the races. He 
 said further that a supposed danger of racial impair 
 ment should not influence practical measures, as in so 
 far as it might proceed it would be chiefly the result 
 of vice on the part of white men.* It is easy to say 
 what should or should not influence our practical atti 
 tude, but if the Negro population of Massachusetts had 
 been 30, or 40, or 50 per cent, of the whole, instead of 
 1.2 per cent., can we believe that the legislature would 
 have removed the restriction on intermarriage? As a 
 
 * "The Work and Influence of Hampton," 1904, p. 9. 
 
62 The American Race Problem 
 
 matter of fact, for the past five years, of all the Negro 
 marriages in Massachusetts, an average of about 10 per 
 cent, have been mixed. Moreover, in these cases the 
 white party is the woman, very infrequently the man. 
 Of the 52 mixed marriages in 37 towns and cities of the 
 state in 1 900, 43 were between white women and Negro 
 men.* Suppose the Negro population of Massachusetts 
 had increased to 500,000 since the repealing act of 1843, 
 instead of to only 32,000 in 1900, and the relative percen 
 tage of such marriages were the same as now. It is not 
 difficult to see the practical bearing of such legislation 
 under the conditions which would then obtain. 
 
 During the five years from 1900 to 1904 there were 
 143 marriages between Negroes and whites in the city 
 of Boston, and 907 in which both parties were Negroes. 
 In other words, with a Negro population of 11,591 there 
 were 1,050 marriages. Of these, 143, or 13.6 per cent., 
 if my calculation is correct, married white persons. Of 
 these mixed marriages 133 were cases of white women 
 marrying Negro men, while only 10 white men married 
 Negro women. With the white woman in this instance 
 representing 93 per cent, of her race s participation in 
 such alliances, it is not safe to dogmatise as to the 
 processes of race intermixture.! And my investigations 
 
 * Report Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labour, March, 1904, Pub. 
 Doc. 15, Part 3, p. 263. 
 
 t Annual Reports of the Registry Department of the City of Boston; for 
 1900, pp. 14, 15; 1901, pp. 37,38; 1902, pp. 155, 156; 1903, pp. iS3, iS4; 1904. 
 pp. 181, 182. Under the classification of "coloured" I have eliminated Indians, 
 Chinese, and Japanese. These records are the best I have found as to clearness 
 and detail. I acknowledge thanks to Mr. E. W. McGlennen, Registrar, for 
 courtesies extended. Anyone interested in this subject will find a valuable and 
 suggestive discussion in Hoffman s "Race Traits and Tendencies of the Ameri 
 can Negro," Chapter IV., "Race Amalgamation." 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 63 
 
 thus far lead me to believe that the same conditions 
 exist in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. 
 
 Of course only a very few people keep in touch with 
 such isolated figures, and legislation against such inter 
 marriage may be ascribed to the instinctive racial self- 
 preservation of the white man, rather than to mathe 
 matical demonstrations of the consequences of a different 
 policy. It is idle to charge it to "race prejudice," as 
 that term is commonly understood. 
 
 Individual actions are often the mainsprings of public 
 sentiment, if their correlation be such as to make a 
 sufficiently broad appeal. Without regard to either 
 reason or justice it is a common, almost unconscious, 
 process of thought to ascribe to the mass the characteris 
 tics and attributes of the individual. By the same 
 process, and equally without a well reasoned basis, 
 it is also common mentally to hold the mass responsible 
 for the conduct of the individual. Both the Southern 
 white man and the Southern Negro have suffered through 
 the operation of this natural mental process. It is not 
 possible to measure the full and ultimate effect upon 
 this country of the blowing up of the Maine in Havana 
 Harbour. We do know that it had a tremendous 
 immediate effect upon the popular mind. Upon a 
 smaller scale the action of communities or states is 
 influenced by just such concrete incidents. Any student 
 of American politics can appreciate the practical force 
 of this truth, as manifested at every election. We find 
 also a case somewhat in point in the history of Negro 
 suffrage in Pennsylvania. One of the features of the 
 
64 The American Race Problem 
 
 movement for confining the suffrage to whites, in the 
 convention of 1837-38, was the number of petitions in 
 its favour sent up from Bucks County, prompted directly 
 by the fact that in that county a Negro once had the 
 temerity to run for the legislature. 
 
 These two facts the effect of seemingly detached 
 actions, and the identification of the individual with 
 the mass play an important, but little appreciated, 
 part in influencing and determining race relations. I 
 shall try to illustrate their significance by the case of 
 the separate car law of Texas, and that of the separate 
 school legislation of Kansas. 
 
 Probably the commonest of all the mistakes of opinion 
 as to the attitude of the Southern white man toward the 
 Negro arises out of the legal separation of the two races 
 in cars and schools. Such legislation is described as 
 "petty persecution of the Negro," and attributed to a 
 desire to "humiliate, stigmatise, and degrade him." 
 These quotations are fairly typical editorial expressions 
 of opinion on the question of Southern motive. As a 
 matter of fact, such legislation is the embodiment of 
 enlightened public policy, and is the surest guarantee 
 of a minimum amount of friction between the races. 
 In almost every instance of separate car legislation, 
 public sentiment was crystallised into law as the 
 immediate result of intolerable local conditions, not 
 infrequently accompanied by concrete acts of racial 
 violence. Local manifestations of irritation and im 
 patience arising out of racial contact occur here and 
 there throughout the North and Ea^c from time to time. 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 65 
 
 But thus far in none of these states are conditions 
 sufficiently uniform to furnish a general state response 
 to local sentiment. I quite distinctly recall the intro 
 duction of a bill in the legislature of a Western state a 
 few years ago to prevent intermarriage between the 
 races. It was prompted by a peculiarly distressing 
 case of the kind but it failed to meet with sufficient 
 response to become a law. 
 
 The Negro population of Texas has never been 
 enough to present for the entire state all the phases of 
 the race problem as we find it in South Carolina, Missis 
 sippi, Louisiana, and some other Southern states. In 
 1900 there were in round numbers, six hundred and 
 twenty thousand Negroes to two million four hundred 
 thousand white people. But it has been sufficient in 
 various places to cause some acute local conditions to 
 present themselves, and large enough in the state as a 
 whole to insure a final response to local demands. The 
 separate coach law, here, as in several other states, 
 merely represented the culmination of a public senti 
 ment which developed through a number of years. 
 The law was not passed until it had clearly become 
 necessary to the maintenance of peace and order, and 
 the prevention of racial outbreaks in many parts of 
 the state. Not until twenty-five years after the Civil 
 War, when the state contained practically five hundred 
 thousand Negroes, was the legislature finally compelled 
 to act. It is idle it is childishly petulant and ignorant 
 to charge this action to a desire to "humiliate the 
 Negro," or to "subject him to petty persecutions," 
 
66 The American Race Problem 
 
 The final moving cause, the concrete incident which 
 solidified public sentiment into a demand which could 
 no longer be ignored, was a tragedy which occured on a 
 train carrying mixed passengers. It came only after 
 the people of the state realised that they had postponed 
 too long the enactment of a law which would have 
 rendered such an occurrence impossible. And in Ken 
 tucky the same result followed the shooting of a young 
 woman by a Negro on a train on which there was no 
 separation of the races. Each case merely furnished 
 the straw which broke the camel s back. People who 
 are accustomed to seeing an occasional Negro on a 
 train, and he ordinarily well behaved and unobjection 
 able in his person, cannot form the faintest idea of the 
 conditions which render such legislation a necessity. 
 There are sections in every Southern state from which 
 no demand for it ever would have originated. But 
 when from those districts and communities in which 
 conditions were physically unbearable a demand for 
 relief did arise, the more favoured sections of the state 
 simply responded to the appeal. Of course it would be 
 absurd to say that there was some specific incident 
 behind every law of this character in the Southern 
 states. I am merely seeking to illustrate the creation 
 and operation of public sentiment upon a basis of racial 
 contact. It is a question of conditions not one of 
 geography. If only an insignificant fractional portion 
 of the population of Mississippi were Negroes, there 
 would be no separate cars in that state. If more than 
 50 per cent, of the population of Michigan were Negroes 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 67 
 
 I believe I am safe in saying that you would have them 
 here. It is frequently urged that such laws work a 
 hardship on the higher class of Negroes, in compelling 
 them to occupy cars in common with the objectionable 
 masses of the race. This is simply one of the regrettable 
 incidents of an unfortunate situation. The same law 
 holds good for the white man ; he is compelled to share 
 his accommodations with the objectionable members 
 of his race also. Legislation is for the masses of the 
 people, not for exceptional classes, and here at least 
 there has been adherence to the rule. Separate car 
 laws, like those against intermarriage, cannot in their 
 very nature be localised. An intolerable condition had 
 to be met, and the only practicable method was by a 
 separation on racial lines, general in its application. 
 Apropos of separate cars, before we leave the subject, 
 I might suggest that among the earliest cases to be 
 found are those in Philadelphia and New England. 
 Good old Samuel May tells us with evident pleasure 
 of the "admirable letter" in which, in 1842, Nathaniel 
 Barney "one of the earliest of the immediate abolition 
 ists," refused to participate in dividends on his stock in 
 the New Bedford Traction Railroad because Negroes 
 were excluded from its cars. Apparently they were 
 not allowed to ride at all even in separate coaches.* 
 And in Massachusetts in 1840 the Negro constituted 
 but a pitiable 1.2 per cent, of the population of the 
 state. Colonel Higginson recognises these numerous early 
 
 * "Some Recollections of our Anti-slavery Conflict," Samuel J. May, 1869, 
 p. 399, 
 
68 The American Race Problem 
 
 New England discriminations, and in their passing he 
 thinks he reads the final death of similar laws and 
 customs in the South.* Maybe so. But when we 
 reflect that they existed openly for so many years, and 
 in modified form and degree exist to-day, in a group of 
 states in which the Negro has not amounted to as much 
 as 1.7 per cent, of the total population at any time since 
 the census of 1790, we should be rather guarded in pre 
 dicting a very speedy disappearance in a section contain 
 ing a Negro population amounting to practically 33 J 
 per cent, of the whole. 
 
 The necessity for the separation of the children of the 
 two races in schools was always realised as next in 
 importance to laws against intermarriage. Such separa 
 tion was in fact coincident with the inauguration of 
 Negro schools and has always obtained in the Southern 
 states. President Eliot says: "In Northern towns 
 where Negro children are proportionally numerous 
 there is just the same tendency and desire to separate 
 them from the whites as there is in the South." He 
 says, further: "This separation may be effected by 
 public regulations, but if not, it will be effected by white 
 parents procuring the transfer of their chidren to schools 
 where Negroes are few."f The esential feature which 
 differentiates such laws from those we have just con 
 sidered is that they may be made local in their applica 
 tion. The Kansas statute is a case in point. 
 
 The Negro population of Kansas City, Kan., is not 
 
 * Introduction to "The Aftermath of Slavery," Wm. A. Sinclair, 1905, PP. 
 
 XI, 12. 
 
 t "The Work and Influence of Hampton," 1904, p. 9. 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 69 
 
 large, but in 1900 it amounted to 12.7 per cent, of the 
 total poulation of the town. The children of the two 
 races had already been separated in the lower grades, 
 but attended the same high school, and during several 
 years there were sporadic outbreaks between the two. 
 And here let me call your attention to one fact of practi 
 cally universal application. Whenever a personal 
 difficulty occurs between a Negro and a white man, 
 in the presence of any considerable numbers of the two 
 races, without any reference whatever to the merits of 
 the controversy the crowd instinctively separates itself 
 on racial lines. This is true regardless both of the 
 question of geographical location and of the normal 
 relations between the races. These occasional clashes 
 between the races in the high school of Kansas City 
 finally culminated in a tragedy, just as we have seen 
 it in Texas. This time a white boy was the victim, but 
 the immediate result of the killing was the same. With 
 out further delay, the Kansas legislature passed a law 
 providing for separate schools in Kansas City. The 
 Negro population of Kansas is only fifty-two thousand, 
 as against one million four hundred thousand white 
 people being but 3.5 per cent, of the whole. It is 
 scarcely possible that under such circumstances the 
 legislature could have been induced to burden the 
 state with the heavy expense of maintaining a general 
 system of separate schools. But this bill was of local 
 application, and there were but twenty-eight votes cast 
 against it in the House, and only five in the Senate. 
 It was bitterly opposed by the Negroes of the state, but 
 
;o The American Race Problem 
 
 was approved by the Governor.* Governor Hoch ac 
 companied his approval with a special message, expres 
 sing his good will for the Negro, but saying that in 
 Kansas City "local conditions are peculiar." Its en 
 forcement has also been opposed by the Negroes, but 
 its constitutionality has been determined by the Su 
 preme Court, just as its wisdom had been recognised 
 by the chief executive.! 
 
 I have collected authentic accounts of a number 
 of such clashes, of various degrees of seriousness, in 
 Eastern and Western schools, but this is the first in 
 stance in which the general sentiment of the state has 
 responded to local demands. Of course I do not mean 
 to say that every such outburst has resulted in a demand 
 for separate schools. Very often, as suggested by 
 President Eliot, various, and occasionally devious, 
 expedients are resorted to, to accomplish the end 
 reached by direct legislation in the Southern states. 
 
 Just a few suggestions, in conclusion, on the study of 
 this question. It is the duty of every man who under 
 takes to study the race problem first to study the Negro. 
 Study him just as we would the Chinese, Italian, Russian, 
 or Indian, in both his native and adopted homes, and 
 without the bias, prejudice, or sentiment which for three- 
 quarters of a century in this country have rendered 
 such attempted studies almost worthless. There is a 
 lot of common sense in Mr. Kelsey s suggestion that one 
 trouble with too many Northern men who cannot under- 
 
 * House Journal, 1905, pp. 562,723; Senate Journal, 1905. P- 362. 
 t Richardson v. Board of Education of Kansas City. Pacific Reporter, 
 84, PP- 538-541- 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 71 
 
 stand Southern conditions is that they insist on regard 
 ing the Negro as a "dark skinned white man."* We 
 have no such fanciful theory when we approach the 
 Indian or the Chinese. We simply accept him as we 
 find him, and study him as he is. Master the details 
 of the distribution of our Negro population, and of the 
 relative proportions of the races. And above all, dis 
 abuse your minds of the notion, if you have it, that 
 your Southern brother is in any essential a different sort 
 of individual from yourselves. 
 
 One thing else. Do not get it into your heads that 
 because you have visited this or that Southern locality, 
 or talked to a few of the myriads of "representative 
 Southern men" whom we have down there, you have 
 located and mastered the race problem. Get a descrip 
 tive atlas, and study the territory known to American 
 history as "the South." I have often said that the only 
 study of any race problem worth the making is a com 
 parative study, the basis of which must necessarily be 
 a primary study of local conditions. But in this broader 
 field, in attempting to analyse and account for the 
 varying and often conflicting phenomena which racial 
 contact will exhibit in different sections of the United 
 States and in its dependencies, in South Africa, the West 
 Indies, and other countries, I would warn you against 
 the most dangerous pitfall to the dilettante student of 
 race relations. This is the, to my mind, well-nigh 
 unpardonable blunder of failing to distinguish between 
 a contrast and a parallel. It is the commonest mistake 
 
 * "The Negro Farmer," 1903. p. 67. 
 
72 The American Race Problem 
 
 of the closet philosopher who undertakes to institute 
 comparisons between Southern conditions and those 
 which exist elsewhere. The truth is this problem is 
 without a permanent home to-day, and could not be 
 identified by description as the property of any par 
 ticular locality. It is a vague, indefinable, intangible 
 something, presenting a score of different aspects in as 
 many places ; one thing here, another somewhere else, and 
 then again not existing at all. You will find all shades 
 and varieties of Southern opinion on the general subject, 
 just as you will in the North. In fact you are likely to 
 find substantial agreement on only two things, opposition 
 to "social equality "and a recognition of the necessity for 
 white political and general control. And even here you 
 will find confusing differences as to the definition of the 
 one and the necessary means of insuring the other. 
 
 It is safe and easy to indulge in sweeping generalisations 
 but honesty and fair play should cause us to hesitate 
 to condemn our neighbours in such terms. It is char 
 acteristic of a great deal of discussion of this question 
 to dwell upon and magnify the darker aspect of Southern 
 race relations. The daily acts of helpfulness and kind 
 liness, the thousand and one little evidences of persisting 
 good will between the races, are unheralded to the world, 
 just as in the days of master and slave. We hear a 
 great deal about peonage practices, but the fact seems 
 to be lost sight of that the judges and juries who try 
 such cases, the prosecuting attorneys and witnesses, 
 all are Southern men. In the public mind the South is 
 represented only as the prisoner at the bar. 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 73 
 
 In an open letter to the press, some time [ago, Booker 
 T. Washington said: "I have said that such lawless 
 conditions exist in only a few counties in the South, 
 and I used the word advisedly. In the great majority 
 of the counties in the South life and property are just 
 as safe as anywhere in the United States."* In a county 
 in Mississippi in which the Negroes outnumber the 
 whites by nine to one, I have seen a Negro tried by a 
 white jury for the killing of a white man, and walk out 
 of the court room free and without molestation, and the 
 incident excited no word of comment or surprise. I 
 have seen white men hanged who had been convicted of 
 murder on Negro testimony. Within the same week 
 in my state last year a Negro was acquitted by a white 
 jury of a charge of assaulting a white woman, and a white 
 man was sent to the penitentiary for whitecapping 
 Negroes. There is not a community in the South where 
 such things as these do not constantly occur, but their 
 record is buried in the musty documents of courts, 
 instead of being trumpeted abroad. The white people 
 in these communities accept such incidents as mere 
 matters of course; they are not grouped and paraded 
 in the pages of magazines as rare and striking pheno 
 mena. And, besides, it is not justice, but its denial, 
 the portrayal of which appeals to public sympathy 
 with certainty of response. This is human nature. 
 
 I know of no other community of white people of 
 equal numbers in the world to-day carrying the burden 
 
 * Appeared in a number of Southern papers, November 27, 1904. Reprinted 
 in pamphlet form. See p. 4 of reprint. 
 
74 The American Race Problem 
 
 borne by those of the Southern states. I do not mean 
 in an economic sense taxation and a tremendous 
 mass of labour of a low degree of efficiency. These are 
 things not worth considering in comparison with what 
 I have in mind. I mean the burden of conducting 
 affairs of government under circumstances which do 
 not exist elsewhere; of administering the same law for 
 the two most diverse races on earth; of so carrying 
 themselves in the various relations of daily life with 
 these childish people that their conduct may have the 
 approval of their consciences ; of living with a due regard 
 for the opinions of their fellow men, the while oppressed 
 by the consciousness that their fellow men do not, will 
 not, or cannot, understand. I can give you my thoughts 
 in the language of a Northern writer better than in 
 words of my own. Let me ask you to take to your 
 hearts the words in which Professor Cutler expresses one 
 of his conclusions in his study of lynch law to which 
 I have already referred: "A judicial system adapted 
 to a highly civilised and cultured race is not equally 
 applicable to a race of inferior civilisation, and the 
 failure to realise this fact and act upon it, by making 
 special provision for the control of the Negro population 
 in the Southern states since slavery was abolished is a 
 fundamental reason for the disrepute into which legal 
 procedure has fallen as regards Negroes accused of 
 offences against the whites. The mistakes of Recon 
 struction times are not yet blotted out in the South. 
 Abstractions still control where racial characteristics, 
 circumstances, and conditions should be the determining 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 
 
 75 
 
 factors. Ever since the Civil War the Southern people 
 have been blindly groping after some system other 
 than slavery whereby two races of widely different 
 interests and attainments can live together in peace 
 and harmony under a republican form of government, 
 and at the same time a vast number of Northern people 
 have been misinterpreting their motives and watching 
 every move with a critical and suspicious eye, ready at 
 any moment to shout across Mason and Dixon s line 
 that the Negroes must have their rights under the 
 Constitution of the United States and the amendments 
 thereto."* 
 
 It is no Macedonian cry that I woujd send up in behalf 
 of the Southern people. Nor is it merely sympathy 
 we crave. All we ask is that the difficulties of our 
 environment be in some measure appreciated that 
 we ourselves be rightly understood. Dr. DuBois says 
 the Southern people are "essentially honest hearted 
 and generous," and that "this situation does not fail 
 to interest and perplex the best conscience of the South." 
 "Deeply religious and intensely democratic as are the 
 mass of the whites," he says, "they feel acutely the false 
 position in which the Negro problems place them."* 
 In measuring the success of efforts to give practical 
 effect to abstract conceptions of right and wrong, we 
 have a right to ask the world to be slow in drawing 
 invidious comparisons between those who struggle on 
 and do the best they can from day to day and year to 
 
 * "Lynch Law," 1905, pp. 224, 225. 
 
 *"Annals of the Am. Academy of Political and Social Science," Vol.iS, p.i3Q. 
 
76 The American Race Problem 
 
 year with conditions which are an inheritance and not a 
 creation, and those for whom such things no more exist 
 than does "the baseless fabric of a dream." We know 
 that we are to answer at the bar of history for our share 
 in the preservation and development of the civilisation 
 of our race, yet history herself offers us the guiding 
 light of no situation to parallel our own. Nor does she 
 show us an example of the dwelling together in "per 
 petual brotherly love" of large masses of a stronger and 
 a weaker race. The golden rule has not yet become 
 the universal guide of human life. If out of the mani 
 fold and trying relations between the millions of these 
 two races in the South the white man should emerge 
 with an unblemished record, it would be without a 
 precedent in the annals of mankind. 
 
 Let me once more ask that you do not misunder 
 stand the end I have in view. I do not mean simply 
 to tell you that if similarly situated you would do just 
 as we do and have done. That is the stump speaker s 
 convenient retort, and I am not a politician. My 
 purpose is a worthier one, I hope, than that of mere 
 parliamentary defence. In pointing out to you a few, 
 and only a few, of the innumerable parallels which mark 
 the history of racial contact, I have merely sought to lay 
 the foundation for a plea for the recognition of the 
 fundamental fact of our common ancestry and blood, 
 our common heritage of motives and feelings, of passions, 
 impulses and instincts, the oneness of our racial hopes 
 and fears. The people of this country cannot forever 
 misunderstand each other over this racial problem, and 
 
Foundations of Our Differences 
 
 77 
 
 I would ask no greater reward for the labour of life than 
 the thought that when the day of thorough understand 
 ing dawns I had in some small measure helped to hasten 
 its approach. And in all this I hold no firmer convic 
 tion than that the greatest beneficiary of a better knowl 
 edge of each other by American white men will be the 
 American Negro. 
 
 Just a few words more. The Southern people have 
 their faults and failings, and I would be the last to 
 attempt to minimise them but we must correct them 
 from within. Abuse and distortion from without never 
 yet accomplished a permanent reform, and never will. 
 The severest indictments of injustice to the Negro that 
 I have ever read were from the pens of Southern editors. 
 The most effective demands for justice to the Negro 
 that I have ever heard fell from the lips of judges pre 
 siding over Southern courts. But all these possessed 
 what outside criticism almost invariably lacks the 
 saving sense of discrimination. They did not seek to 
 arraign an entire people at the bar of public opinion, 
 but were addressed to particular conditions in this or 
 that particular community. 
 
 Reduced to its simplest terms, as it presents itself 
 to this generation, the most important phase of the 
 race problem is that of the quiet, mutually helpful, 
 peaceable, common occupancy of the soil. Right now it 
 seems to me that at this stage of the growth of the Negro 
 masses this dwarfs into insignificance all other con 
 siderations. Certainly this is the primary, possibly 
 it may also be the last, phase, for black and white in 
 
78 The American Race Problem 
 
 each locality mutually to solve as best they may. This 
 aspect is essentially local, but whether the problem be 
 national or not, it must have a local solution. If each 
 community be permitted to adjust its own relations 
 and solve its own particular phase of the problem, the 
 longest step will have been taken toward the ultimate 
 solution of the problem as a whole. There is no possible 
 workable basis of solution but the individual and com 
 munity basis. 
 
 Thousands of individuals and hundreds of communi 
 ties have already settled these questions for themselves, 
 and others are working out an adjustment along their 
 own lines. For such as these nothing is surer in human 
 life than that unsought, unsympathetic intervention 
 whether in the form of hostile and uncharitable denun 
 ciation of one party to the effort, or in that of foolish 
 and ill-considered advice to the other will only 
 retard the normal outcome whatever it is destined 
 to be. After all is said and done, the problem in its 
 larger sense, the ultimate effect upon one another of the 
 juxtaposition of two such different races, must be left 
 to the slow processes of time. We cannot even hasten 
 the end. But for the present each race and each sec 
 tion should summon to its aid the virtues of patience 
 and charity; the patience which should add to itself 
 "knowledge and brotherly kindness," the charity which 
 "vaunteth not itself, is not easily provoked, which 
 hopeth all things, and rejoiceth in the truth." 
 
PART TWO 
 SOME ECONOMIC ASPECTS 
 
 III. THE NEGRO IN THE YAZOO-MISSISSIPPI DELTA 
 
 IV. A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 
 
 V. THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO 
 
Ill 
 
 THE NEGRO IN THE YAZOO-MISSISSIPPI DELTA.* 
 
 AMONG the many disturbing questions entering into 
 our complex national life, the one which above all 
 others seems to have provoked discussion in every quar 
 ter is the so-called Negro problem. Under this general 
 designation have come to be embraced all the various 
 and complicated questions arising from the contact 
 at many points of the black race with the white. Not 
 since the formation of this Government has this dis 
 cussion ceased, and ignorance has never been a bar to 
 free participation in it. In a discussion of these ques 
 tions in their broader aspects, though I have devoted 
 some years to their consideration, I can claim no pecu 
 liar knowledge no superior wisdom. The problem 
 is so extensive in its ramifications, it presents so many 
 and such varied phases, that to my mind there is but one 
 proper and reasonable method of considering it: that 
 is, through the analysis and study of its component 
 parts the attempted grasp and comprehension of the 
 minor and elemental conditions and problems which 
 enter into the composition of the whole. The intelli 
 gent study of this question must resolve itself at last 
 into a study of local conditions. 
 
 * A paper read at the fourteenth annual meeting of the American Economic 
 Association, Washington, D. C., December, 1901. 
 
 81 
 
82 The American Race Problem 
 
 A lifetime spent in the "blackest" of the South s 
 "black belts"; a sharer in the association between the 
 two races in the life of the plantation the most 
 constant and intimate association that is possible be 
 tween them; a thorough acquaintance with the condi 
 tions surrounding the Negro in a section wherein I firmly 
 believe will be discovered the region of his greatest 
 material possibilities; these constitute my only equip 
 ment in venturing upon this discussion. It is to a 
 consideration of local conditions only that this paper 
 is addressed. 
 
 In the state of Mississippi, between the 326. and 35th 
 parallels of north latitude, its entire western border 
 washed by the Mississippi River, and most of its eastern 
 by the Yazoo, extending north from the confluence of 
 those streams at a point just above the city of Vicks- 
 burg, lies the strip of territory known as the Yazoo- 
 Mississippi Delta. The exact origin of the word delta, 
 as applied to this region, is not clear; though it was 
 probably a simple extension of the old and accepted use 
 of the word, descriptive both of the character and of the 
 peculiar conformation of the land built up by the diverg 
 ing mouths of large silt-bearing streams. The character 
 of the soil certainly justifies such a conclusion, for it is 
 entirely of alluvial formation, detritus deposited during 
 thousands of years in which the Mississippi has poured 
 out its muddy flood waters over the adjacent country. 
 
 The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta is about one hundred 
 and fifty miles in length, and its greatest width is about 
 one-third of that. Its front along the Mississippi is pro- 
 
 / 
 
 (UNIVERSITY 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 83 
 
 tected against overflows of that river by an unbroken 
 line of levees, 310 miles in length, averaging fifteen feet 
 in height, with a maximum of about thirty. The Delta 
 differs radically from the rest of Mississippi in many 
 important respects, but in none more than in those 
 wherein the Negro is immediately concerned; hence 
 only the nine counties lying wholly within it, Bolivar, 
 Coahoma, Issaquena, Leflore, Quitman, Sharkey, Sun 
 flower, Tunica, and Washington, are considered here. 
 The alluvial valley of which these counties form a most 
 important part has been called by the most distinguished 
 member of the Mississippi River Commission, Judge 
 Robert S. Taylor, of Indiana, "the cream jug of the 
 continent." Of it he has written: "Nature knows 
 not how to compound a richer soil. It can no more 
 lie idle than the sea can keep still. Every square foot 
 of it riots in vegetable life. . . . It s [the Missis 
 sippi s] floods came down loaded with skimmings from 
 the great watershed above. Overtopping its banks, 
 the enriched water spreads far and wide over the alluvial 
 area, so obstructed in its flow by the dense growth 
 covering the land that its slackened velocity compelled 
 it to let fall its load of sediment as it went. Thus the 
 floods built up the valley year by year in layers of 
 fatness, to live again in incalculable crops of grain, 
 fruits, and fibres."* 
 
 By what warrant does this region claim attention in 
 a consideration of America s gravest question ? Simply 
 because of the part it plays, and is destined to play, in 
 
 *Tompkins, "Riparian Lands of the Mississippi River," 1901, p. 234. 
 
84 The American Race Problem 
 
 the lives and fortunes of a constantly growing percent 
 age of America s Negro population. This has long been 
 recognised by the authority just quoted. He says: 
 "A feature of special interest in this connection [he 
 was discussing the matter of levee protection] is the 
 opportunity which the reclamation of the alluvial valley 
 offers to the Negro to better his condition. One-half or 
 more of its entire area is suitable for cultivation of 
 cotton. A bale per acre of ginned cotton, weighing 
 500 pounds, is the standard yield worth from thirty 
 to fifty dollars according to the ups and downs of the 
 market. . . . The Negro is not seizing this golden 
 opportunity as the white pioneer of the Northwest 
 would have seized it, but he is not wholly neglecting it. 
 In considerable and increasing numbers they are buying 
 land and becoming independent cultivators. . . . 
 Nowhere else in the South are as favourable opportuni 
 ties offered to the black man as in the reclaimed Missis 
 sippi lowlands, and nowhere else is he doing as much 
 for his own uplifting."* 
 
 The section of this territory with which we are con 
 cerned embraces an area of 5,480 square miles, contain 
 ing about three and one- quarter million acres of land, 
 with a population of 195,346. Of these but 24,137 
 are white, while the blacks number 171,209, a propor 
 tion of 7.1 blacks to i white. This proportion has 
 increased steadily from 4.9 to i in 1880 and 6. 7 to i in 
 1890, while in Mississippi as a whole it is almost station 
 ary, being now 1.4 to i, as against 1.3 to i in 1890 and 
 
 , pp. 236, 237. 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 85 
 
 1880. I think I am not in error in stating that the 
 largest proportion of blacks to whites exhibited by 
 the last census for any part of the United States is found 
 in one of the counties of this group, Issaquena, in which 
 it is 15.5 to i. In the same county the proportion was 
 15.7 to i by the eleventh census, and n.i to i by the 
 tenth. Of the white inhabitants of the state but 3.7 
 per cent, are found in the Delta, while 18.8 per cent, of 
 all Mississippi s Negro population make it their home. 
 Comparison with former censuses shows this per cent. 
 for whites to be practically at a standstill, while that 
 for the Negro is steadily increasing. In 1890 these 
 percentages were 3.5 for the white and 17.7 for the 
 Negro, and in 1880, 3.4 and 12.6 respectively. From 
 1880 to 1890 the per cent, of increase of the white popu 
 lation of the United States was 26.7, and that of the 
 Negro 13.5. For the state of Mississippi these percent 
 ages were 13.7 for the one, and 14.2 for the other. 
 During that decade the white population of the Delta 
 increased by only 17.3 per cent., while the increase of 
 the black was no less than 60.4 per cent. Between the 
 eleventh census and the twelfth, the white population 
 of the country increased 21.4 per cent., and the Negro 
 1 8. i. The figures for Mississippi exhibit a white increase 
 of 17.6 per cent., with 22.2 for the Negro. In the Delta 
 section of the state the increase was 23.5 for the white 
 race and 30.2 for the black. The last census shows that 
 the Negro constitutes n.6 per cent, of the total popula 
 tion of the country, 58.5 per cent, of that of Mississippi, 
 and 87.6 per cent, of that of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. 
 
86 The American Race Problem 
 
 Yet here we hear nothing about an ignorant mass of 
 Negroes dragging the white man down; we hear of no 
 black incubus; we have few midnight assassinations, 
 and fewer lynchings. The violation by a Negro of the 
 person of a white woman is with us an unknown crime ;* 
 nowhere else is the line marking the social separation 
 of the two races more rigidly drawn, nowhere are the 
 relations between the two more kindly. 
 
 For many years this region was largely a terra incog 
 nita, and the story of its development and opening ex 
 plains the figures of Negro population. The character 
 of its white population, and the conditions under which 
 its soil is tilled, explain the relations between the 
 white man and the black. Until recently the only 
 means of communication between the Delta and the 
 outer world were river boats, for not till 1883 was it 
 penetrated by a railroad. We have only to compare the 
 statistics of Negro population of the eleventh census 
 with those of the tenth to see the results of railway 
 construction. 
 
 The early settlers were from Virginia, Kentucky, 
 and Tennessee. They were all slaveholders, and the 
 nature of the enterprises upon which they embarked 
 demanded the possession of means. Hence this section 
 early came to be the seat of large planting operations. 
 There was no place for the man who was unable to own 
 slaves; no demand for his services, other than as an 
 overseer. There were no small farms, no towns, no 
 
 * Since the above was written, 1901, there have been two or three cases of 
 attempted assault. 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 87 
 
 manufacturing enterprises, no foothold for the non- 
 slaveholding white man, who was here a negligible, 
 if not an absolutely unknown, quantity. 
 
 Every step taken in the development of this section 
 has been dependent upon, and marked by, an increased 
 Negro population. The railroad rights of way through 
 its forests have been cut out by the Negro, and every 
 mile of track laid by his hands. These forest lands 
 have been converted by him into fertile fields, and their 
 subsequent cultivation has called for his constant 
 service. The levees upon which the Delta depends for 
 protection from floods have been erected mainly by the 
 Negro, and the daily labour in field and town, in planting 
 and building, in operating gins and compresses and oil 
 mills, in moving trains, in handling the great staple of 
 the country all, in fact, that makes the life behind 
 these earthen ramparts is but the Negro s daily toil. 
 The capital, the devising brain, the directing will, con 
 stitute the white man s part, the work itself is the 
 Negro s. Nowhere else does Negro agricultural labour ^ 
 find a higher or more certain wage; nowhere do better 
 relations exist between employer and employed; no 
 where are capital and labour on better terms. There 
 are no strikes, no lockouts, no combinations, no operat 
 ing on half time, no reductions of force, and the works 
 never shut down. 
 
 One of the gravest causes of trouble between the two 
 races is contact on a common industrial plane. A pe 
 culiar effect is almost invariably wrought upon the 
 Negro s attitude toward the white man by such asso- 
 
88 The American Race Problem 
 
 ciation, exemplifying the truth of the old maxim that 
 "familiarity breeds contempt." I am not now discuss 
 ing its cause, but one who knows the Negro masses 
 knows that their ingrained admiration for wealth and 
 station, strong as it is, is no more a controlling mental 
 habit than is their lack of respect for the opposite con 
 ditions. This is as true in the mines of the North as 
 in the fields of the South. 
 
 If I were asked what one factor makes most for the 
 amicable relations between the races in the Delta I 
 should say without hesitation the absence of a white 
 ^labouring class, particularly of field labourers.* It can 
 not be accounted for on the hypothesis that we have a 
 peculiar class of Negroes, for this population is a com 
 mingling of blacks from every section of the South, 
 brought here without the slightest process of selection. 
 The white population is composed of the professional 
 class, those engaged in mercantile and manufacturing 
 pursuits, and those interested in cotton planting, either 
 as owners or managers. The white artisans are so few 
 in number as not to affect this division, and the rela 
 tions between them and the Negro are identical with 
 those between the two masses of population. Of the 
 field of manual labour the Negro holds a practical 
 monopoly, f 
 
 In saying that each year his feeling grew stronger 
 "that perhaps in the heat of passion, growing out of 
 
 * Mr. R. C. Bruce confirms this statement. Publications American Economic 
 Association, February, 1906, pp. 298, 299. 
 
 t During the years which have elapsed since this was written this mo 
 nopoly has been visibly impaired. 
 
The YazooMississippi Delta 89 
 
 racial and sectional prejudice we have not given the 
 Southern people due credit for the immense amount 
 of help rendered the Negro during the period he was a 
 slave," that he was then "started on the foundation of 
 agriculture, mechanic, and household arts,"* Booker T. 
 Washington has but given expression to a conviction 
 which unprejudiced study would make universal. I am 
 thoroughly satisfied that the conditions existing here to 
 to-day are largely a heritage from the slavery regime. 
 By the violence of the civil strife which wrought the 
 destruction of Southern social and economic conditions, 
 the Delta was probably less affected than any other 
 equal area in the South. For this its isolation and in 
 accessibility easily account. Out of the ruin which was 
 the legacy of war to the Southern states no section 
 emerged with less of violent change as regarded race 
 relations. 
 
 In the Contemporary Review for July, 1900, Mr. 
 Philip Alexander Bruce has drawn a faithful picture of 
 the old plantation system of the South. He says truly 
 that the most distinctive feature of the old industrial 
 order," next to slavery, "was the large plantation." 
 He describes the plantation as having been frequently 
 a small principality in extent, the planter the absolute 
 master of his own domain, "his word the supreme law, 
 his wishes the governing influence." Mr. Bruce then 
 sets against this a picture of agricultural conditions in 
 the South of to-day, telling us that the "ruin of the old 
 plantation system is complete." His portrayal of the 
 
 *Tuskegee Normal Institute, annual report, 1901. 
 
9 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 essential features of the old system fairly describes 
 existing conditions in the Delta. Here the era of small 
 farms has not set in, the process of land division has 
 not begun. On the contrary, most of the large planta 
 tions are growing larger, and such small farms as 
 do exist have not been erected upon the ruins of 
 larger tracts. Change of ownership has not meant 
 disintegration, but has been effected by sales of prop 
 erty entire. 
 
 It may be remarked here, parenthetically, that the 
 census rule treating every tract of land on which agri 
 cultural industry is conducted as a farm, while doubt 
 less essential to thorough investigation, is misleading 
 to the student who is ignorant of local conditions that 
 materially modify the application of this method of class 
 ification. In the language of Census Bulletin 100, "Agri 
 culture in Delaware": "The number of farmers, that is, 
 persons operating farms as owners or tenants, is the 
 same at any period as the number of farms." Thus 
 every holding becomes a "farm," and a tract of 1,000 
 acres, known locally as a plantation, though entirely 
 under one ownership and management, would appear in 
 census reports as so many different farm holdings, the 
 number being dependent upon the number of tenants 
 living on it during the census year, the average acreage 
 governed by the size of these various arbitrary and 
 temporary subdivisions. That such figures, unless 
 accompanied by an explanatory note, lead to inac 
 curate conclusions is well illustrated in an article in 
 the Boston Transcript, May 25, 1901, based upon the 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 91 
 
 showings of the ninth census. Taking Mississippi as 
 a "typical state," the writer concluded and this was 
 for 1870 that the figures showed "a revolutionary in 
 crease in the small farms," "the great plantations of 
 some states being almost entirely eliminated, as in the 
 black counties of Mississippi." 
 
 The plantations of this section vary in size from five 
 hundred to several thousand acres, and the proportion 
 of Negroes to white men living on them, from 25 to i 
 to more than 100 to i. Yet there is now no more feel 
 ing of fear on the white man s part whether for him 
 self or his wife or his children, than in the days of 
 slavery.* As in the olden time, so now, the word 
 of the planter or his representative is the law of the 
 place, and on the one hand we have implicit obedience, 
 on the other firmness and moderation. Certainly the 
 relation of master and slave no longer exists here, but 
 out of it has been evolved that of patron and retainer. 
 I so designate it because I know of no other to which 
 it more nearly approaches. It is not at all one purely 
 of business, the ordinary relation of landlord and ten 
 ant, or of employer and employee. 
 
 The plantation owner or manager expects to do more 
 than merely see to the physical needs of the Negroes 
 under him, to provide for their wants and look over their 
 work. He is called upon to settle family quarrels, to 
 maintain peace and order between neighbours, to arbi 
 trate disputes, to protect wives from the punishment of 
 
 * Writing to-day, 1908, it would be necessary to modify this statement some 
 what certainly for some parts of this territory. 
 
92 The American Race Problem 
 
 irate husbands, frequently to restore broken conjugal 
 relations upon terms satisfactory to both parties, to pro 
 cure marriage licences, to advise as to divorces, to aid 
 in the erection of churches, to provide for the burial of 
 the dead, to give counsel in the thousand and one mat 
 ters peculiar to the plantation Negro s life, whether 
 whimsical or grave. Every plantation Negro expects the 
 discharge of these functions as a mere matter of course. 
 Yet further, when in more serious trouble, he looks to 
 the white man as to a friend, and appeals to him as to a 
 protector, when a possible term in jail or the peniten 
 tiary looms up before him, and lawyers and bail are to 
 be provided. All these things are mere incidents to the 
 plantation system, the commonplace affairs of its daily 
 routine. The Negro regards them as his due, in return 
 for the proprietary interest and pride he feels in the 
 plantation at large, his sense of being part and parcel 
 of a large institution, and the certainty, in his own 
 mind, that he himself is necessary to its success. Then, 
 too, there is his never failing assurance of ability to 
 pay his account, no matter how large, his labour, when 
 it is not too wet or too cold, his respect, and his implicit, 
 and generally cheerful, obedience. 
 
 The one thing which in the South, directly and indi 
 rectly, has been the source of the gravest trouble be 
 tween the races, and which has most disastrously worked 
 their separation, has been the crime of rape. That it 
 should lead to lynching was inevitable ; it was equally 
 inevitable that in time the same mode of punishment 
 would be extended to less grave offences. 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 
 
 93 
 
 At the April meeting of the American Academy of 
 Political and Social Science, Dr. George T. Winston, of 
 North Carolina, presented a most sombre picture of 
 existing Southern race conditions. He said: "The 
 Southern woman with her helpless little children in the 
 solitary farm house no longer sleeps secure in the absence 
 of her husband, with doors unlocked but safely guarded 
 by black men whose lives would be freely given in her 
 defence. But now, when a knock is heard at the door 
 she shudders with nameless horror. The black brute is 
 lurking in the dark, a monstrous beast, crazed with lust. 
 His ferocity is almost demoniacal. A mad bull or a 
 tiger could scarcely be more brutal. A whole commun 
 ity is now frenzied with horror, with blind and furious 
 rage for vengeance. A stake is driven; the wretched 
 brute, covered with oil, bruised and gashed, beaten and 
 hacked and maimed, amid the jeers and shouts and 
 curses, the tears of anger and of joy, the prayers and 
 maledictions of thousands of civilised people, in the 
 sight of school-houses, court-houses, and churches, is 
 burned to death. ... I do not hesitate to say 
 that more horrible crimes have been committed by the 
 generation of Negroes that have grown up in the South 
 since slavery than by the six preceding generations in 
 slavery. And also that the worst cruelties of slavery all 
 combined for two centuries, were not equal to the savage 
 barbarities inflicted in retaliation upon the Negroes by 
 the whites during the last twenty years."* 
 
 * American Academy of Political and Social Science, Annals 18, 1901, pp. 
 108, 109. 
 
94 The American Race Problem 
 
 This forbidding picture is the best support for my 
 contention that the wisest and most helpful study of 
 this combination of intricate problems is from the 
 local point of view the exhibition of conditions as pre 
 sented upon particular horizons. From contrasts and 
 comparisons some good may finally be realised. To 
 be able to say that to one section of the South, at 
 least, this picture presents not one familiar feature, 
 is possibly alone enough to justify my presence here. 
 I do not deny that this is a true statement of con 
 ditions in many sections of the South. I know too 
 well that for some it is not overdrawn. I do not even 
 assert that it is not more nearly typical of the South at 
 large than is my own. But I do say that into the 
 minds of the white men and women of my section, 
 where not far from 90 per cent, of all our people are 
 black, where im our rural districts they sometimes out 
 number us as much as one hundred to one, the thought 
 of the possibility of rape never comes. Nor do I believe 
 that in all this region there is a single plantation on 
 which may not be found Negroes who if left by the 
 owner or manager in charge of his home would not fail 
 to take the life of any man, white or black, attempting 
 violence. They would know what was expected of 
 them, and that for the uttermost discharge of that duty 
 net one hair of their heads would be harmed. 
 
 What is the cause of this difference between geo 
 graphic divisions of a common country ? I answer that 
 our freedom from this curse is merely incidental to the 
 general relations obtaining between the races, and prop- 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 95 
 
 erly ascribable to the general station and character of 
 the white population, to the persistence of the same 
 relative status between the masses of the two races that 
 existed when the one was master and the other slave. 
 Then the Negro was bred to absolute obedience, made to 
 respect the white race because it was white, taught that 
 the person, even the name, of the humblest white woman 
 was something not to be profaned by touch or word or 
 thought. That feeling among the Negroes, the result of 
 this training, had enough vitality to project itself 
 through the Civil War, and through that period rendered 
 safe the white woman who in the absence of her male 
 protector typified in herself the dominance of her race. 
 Through the influence of novel conditions in the pro 
 cess of time it was weakened and rape began to add its 
 horrors and complications to the race problem.* The 
 influences and relations and peculiar lines of contact 
 which wrought in the Negro that mental habit are po 
 tent to-day in the Delta, and in consequence rape is a 
 crime we do not fear. I believe that this psychological 
 habit is still latently persistent in the Negro masses, 
 and but requires contact with conditions approaching 
 those which produced it to become again a controlling 
 force. Thus I would account for the fact that in a Negro 
 population drawn from every quarter of the South there 
 is absence not merely of the crime of rape, but of even 
 the slightest disrespect to white women. 
 
 * This must not be understood to mean that rape was entirely unknown 
 before the war. It became more common after 1865, and its commission under 
 the later conditions exercised an influence upon race relations which was not 
 possible under the slavery regime. 
 
96 The American Race Problem 
 
 The peculiar attitude of the Negro toward those upon 
 an equality with himself, makes possible such relations 
 only where between the masses of the two races there 
 is rigidly maintained the status of superior and inferior. 
 This is not possible where a large white labouring class 
 conies into contact with the same Negro class. 
 
 To illustrate my general proposition, as seen from the 
 Negro s own standpoint, I may cite the following: In 
 owning and operating a cotton plantation I have come 
 into relations with Negroes from all sections of the coun 
 try, and have had fair opportunities for observation. 
 Before the abolition of the system I was for a time a 
 lessee of convicts from the state penitentiary. Among 
 the prisoners allotted me was a particularly bright and 
 efficient mulatto of about twenty-five years of age. He 
 had a common school education, and was apt and skil 
 ful. He was serving a sentence for an attempted crimi 
 nal assault upon a seventeen-year-old white girl in a 
 county of my state where conditions were radically 
 different from those existing with us. I was anxious to 
 know how, if at all, he accounted for his crime, but he was 
 reluctant to discuss it. Finally he said to me: "You 
 don t understand things over here are so different. I 
 hired to an old man over there by the year. He had 
 only about forty acres of land, and he and his folks did 
 all their own work, cooking, washing, and everything. I 
 was the only outside hand he had. His daughter 
 worked right alongside of me in the field every day, 
 for three or four months. Finally one day, when no 
 body else was round, hell got into me and I tried to 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 97 
 
 rape her. But you folks over here can t understand 
 things are so different. Over here a nigger is a nigger, 
 and a white man is a white man, and it s the same with 
 the women." There was not the slightest intimation 
 of accessory guilt on the girl s part; his only explana 
 tion of his act was that "things were different." There 
 was no fault upon the part of the attempted victim of 
 his lust. Her only crime was a poverty which com 
 pelled her to do work which, in the estimation of the 
 Negro, was reserved as the natural portion of his own 
 race, and the doing of which destroyed the relation 
 which otherwise would have constituted a barrier to his 
 brutality.* 
 
 I do not cite this as a typical instance, for many cases 
 of rape occur wherein there is not even the occasion or 
 opportunity of enforced familiarity. I give it for what 
 it is worth, as the expression of a very intelligent Negro. 
 
 If my theory is at fault, I should like to know why it 
 is that a Delta Negro never assaults a white woman, 
 but does commit rape upon the women of his own race. 
 This section while containing 18.8 per cent, of Missis 
 sippi s Negroes now furnishes 21.7 per cent, of the Negro 
 population of the state prison. Of the total number of 
 convicts from the Delta, 4.9 per cent, are serving sen 
 tences for rape. These convictions are upon present 
 ments to grand juries solely by Negroes, and from the 
 circumstances are necessarily had solely upon Negro tes 
 timony. It is a difficult crime to prove, but taking no 
 
 * Possibly I have not emphasised sufficiently the factor of opportunity 
 for assault afforded by economic contact between the races. 
 
98 The American Race Problem 
 
 account of the alleged cases, of those in which there 
 seemed to the grand jury insufficient evidence to warrant 
 an indictment, of those resulting in acquittals on the 
 ground of consent, and of those which never came to the 
 notice of the law at all, the number of convictions of 
 Delta Negroes for the rape or attempted rape of Negro 
 women during the past four years, is twelve. In 1898, 
 there were three ; one in the following year ; three in 
 1900; and in 1901, to September 3oth, there were five. 
 The ages of those committing this crime range from six 
 teen to fifty-four, all but three being between twenty 
 and thirty-one. Some of these assaults upon their own 
 women have been committed under circumstances as 
 revolting as it is possible for the human mind to conceive. 
 Returning to the description of the economic condi 
 tion of the Negroes in my neighbourhood let me say a 
 word as to one of the most discussed features of the 
 Negro s life in the South, the house in which he lives, 
 In the towns, where the Negro rents or owns his home, 
 it is whatever his ability commands, from a bare shelter 
 to a well-furnished house containing four to six rooms. 
 [** On the plantation the one-room cabin, that bete noire 
 of social scientists, is not in evidence. They disap 
 peared many years ago. Where one still stands it is 
 deserted or temporarily occupied by cotton pickers or 
 day hands. In the competition for labourers a steadily 
 improving class of plantation houses is not the least of 
 the inducements offered. If a family lives in a one- 
 room cabin, it is a matter purely of choice; there are 
 I hundreds of a different kind to be had. 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 99 
 
 In the cultivation of cotton we have in the Delta | 
 nearly every system of labour to be found in the South. 
 They are roughly divisible into two classes, the more 
 general being the true metayer, or some modification of 
 it, and the other the fixed cash rental. Where the 
 Negro does not own the soil he cultivates, his relation 
 to it is either that of a renter or a cropper. The share 
 system presents no peculiar features. The cropper fur 
 nishes his labour in planting, cultivating, and gathering 
 the crop; the land owner furnishes the land, the team 
 and the implements ; and the crop is divided equally be 
 tween them. The planter advances to the cropper such 
 supplies as are needed during the year, to be paid for 
 out of the latter s half of the crop. As soon as a quantity 
 of cotton sufficient to pay this account has been deliv 
 ered to the planter, the cropper usually receives his 
 portion of the cotton, to be disposed of as he sees fit. 
 The extent to which the cropper exercises control over 
 his cotton varies with the locality. 
 
 The features of land renting by Negroes vary accord 
 ing to the nature of the tenancy, whether the land is 
 part of a plantation under white supervision, or a small 
 tract, or part of a plantation entirely rented by a non 
 resident landlord. In the first case the land is rented 
 for a fixed sum per acre, varying with cotton prices and 
 the character of the soil, from five to seven dollars. 
 Where a lint rent is taken it varies from eighty to one 
 
 *** i 
 
 hundred pounds. Generally speaking, the supervision 
 over a renter is not as strict as that over a cropper, and 
 as soon as his account is paid his cotton is at his own 
 

 ioo The American Race Problem 
 
 disposal. More privileges and a larger measure of inde 
 pendence are considered by the Negro as incident to 
 this tenure, and as he becomes the owner of a mule it is 
 his ambition to become a renter. It frequently hap 
 pens that a planter will rent a mule to a Negro who has 
 nothing at all, the uniform rent being twenty-five dollars. 
 Under each of these systems certain general features 
 obtain. The planter takes no deed of trust, for the state 
 statutes give him a lien on the crop for rent and sup 
 plies. Nor is it usual to have any written contract 
 other than a mere memorandum.* There is generally 
 no definite understanding as to the amount of supplies 
 to be advanced, and it is well within the truth to say 
 that usually the planter is engaged in an effort to keep 
 the Negro s account within such limits as will make it 
 safe, while the Negro is equally anxious to obtain as 
 much as he can on credit. 
 
 The Negro discriminates between the two systems, 
 yet when results are considered, when one sees him 
 squander from year to year the proceeds of his labour, 
 however obtained, when he is seen to move restlessly 
 and aimlessly from place to place, gathering less moss 
 than the proverbial rolling stone, it must appear to the 
 close observer that, as a matter of fact, the system under 
 which he works makes but little difference in his 
 material welfare. 
 
 Where the Negro rents land not under the supervision 
 
 * Within the past few years labour conditions have grown worse, and it is 
 safe to say that probably 90 per cent, of the plantation labour of this region is 
 now under written contract. Specific agreements as to supplies are also now the 
 prevailing rule. 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 101 
 
 of plantation management, he obtains his supplies from 
 a merchant or cotton factor. Here we have the crop 
 lien system, so often, so earnestly, and, in my judgment, 
 so unjustly inveighed against. What the Negro obtains 
 from the factor, and the manner of his getting it, depend 
 largely upon himself. Usually his advances consist 
 only of supplies, furnished him monthly or weekly. 
 The only money advanced is such as the contingen 
 cies of cultivating or gathering the crop make neces 
 sary. The Negro is dealt with just as his established 
 reputation and the value of the security he has to offer 
 may justify. The factor s method of self protection is 
 to take a deed of trust on the live stock and prospective 
 crop, and is the same whether the applicant be a two- 
 mule Negro renter, or the white owner of a thousand 
 acres of land, wanting ten thousand dollars of advances. 
 The latter attaches his signature to a printed trust deed 
 like that signed by the former, covering his mules and 
 crop to be grown. The amount advanced is governed 
 by the character of the individual and the security. 
 There is, however, this difference: the white man gets 
 his advances in cash, available at stated intervals, while 
 the Negro gets the most of his in the shape of supplies. , 
 If, however, the Negro has established for himself a 
 reputation and credit, and is entitled to it under the 
 standard applying to the white man, he can secure 
 advances in the same manner. On the other hand, 
 if the white man is the owner of only two mules, he gets 
 his just as does the Negro. Of Negroes of reputation 
 and credit there are in the Delta a great many; of 
 
102 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 white men without property there are, fortunately for 
 all concerned, extremely few. It is a matter of credit, 
 and not of race. 
 
 Nor is the business custom which thus discriminates 
 an arbitrary one. Experience has taught no lesson 
 more severely than that the average Negro will throw 
 away and I use the expression advisedly whatever 
 money comes into his hands. If he would refrain from 
 this practice for a few generations, he could own from 
 top to bottom and from side to side the section in which 
 I live. Even where money is furnished the ordinary 
 Negro, it has to be done most carefully; for experience 
 with padded pay-rolls and cotton that failed to make 
 in the bale what the figures promised in the picking 
 is so common as to excite no comment. Aside, how 
 ever, from any consideration of honesty, the number 
 of Negroes who will not squander and utterly mis 
 apply funds coming into their hands whether received 
 under a solemn obligation to use them in making good 
 the security pledged, a growing crop, or as the result of 
 twelve months of toil is so small that considerations 
 of common business necessity dictate the course pur 
 sued. The Negroes who are independent renters sup 
 plying themselves, or land owners, constitute practically 
 the small thrifty class. 
 
 As to the crop lien system, per se, I regard it as dis 
 tinctly the poor man s opportunity. Under it a Negro 
 who is honest honest with himself in his work, and 
 honest with those with whom he deals who does not 
 waste his money on excursions, picnics, crap games, 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 103 
 
 whiskey, women, and pinchbeck jewelry, can out of 
 this soil easily and quickly become an independent man. 
 The proposition appears too simple to argue. Familiar 
 with the capabilities of the soil, the cotton factor knows 
 that it alone can be made to repay what he advances on 
 its cultivation. Upon the security of a lien upon what it 
 shall produce he is willing to make possible its cultiva 
 tion by one who would otherwise be unable to obtain 
 advances. I believe the figures submitted below will 
 demonstrate that the Delta Negro, by the exercise of 
 common thrift and economy, can become independent 
 as the result of two or three years labour. But so long 
 as he wastes his money and opportunities, as is now his 
 too common habit, the particular system under which 
 he accomplishes these barren results need occasion econ 
 omists and himself but little concern. Because better 
 results are not more visible in the way of a greater ap 
 parent Negro prosperity, we sometimes hear it asserted 
 that even here the black man is denied opportunities for 
 his betterment. This is a superficial observation, based 
 upon the conditions resulting from a failure of proper 
 achievement, rather than from the absence of oppor 
 tunity. 
 
 One of the greatest factors in our demand for Negroes 
 is the necessity of securing each year a great number of 
 extra cotton pickers. It is an axiomatic proposition 
 with us that no Negro family will pick the cotton which 
 it will raise. Not that it cannot be done; on the con 
 trary in an average year, and by the exercise of due dili 
 gence, it can; but it will not. In order to save the crop 
 
104 The American Race Problem 
 
 I it is necessary to employ additional pickers. The size 
 of the stalk and the great number of bolls make cotton 
 picking on alluvial land very easy work; the utter dis 
 regard, by planter and tenant alike, of the true economy 
 of the situation makes it a lucrative employment. Pick 
 ing is paid for without much regard to the price which 
 cotton commands. Whether it be worth ten cents per 
 pound or six, the price of picking remains very near to 
 fifty cents per hundred pounds of seed cotton. During 
 the fall months a good picker can easily average two 
 hundred pounds, while many can pick as much as three 
 hundred and fifty per day. One of the most difficult 
 matters of plantation management is to get the tenant 
 to act upon the proposition that every hundred pounds 
 of cotton picked by himself means a saving to him of 
 the cost of picking. The opening of each season finds 
 most of them clamorous for extra pickers. 
 
 To supply this autumnal demand for labour the towns 
 empty themselves of great numbers of their Negro popu 
 lation. The vagrant leaves for a season his accustomed 
 haunts, the crap shooter and "rounder," in fewer num 
 bers, betake themselves to the country to earn easily a 
 few unfamiliarly honest dollars, and to ply their voca 
 tion among their rural friends, the cooks and wash 
 women desert their regular callings to such an extent 
 as to make the season a time of dread for urban house 
 keepers. Yet this source of labour is soon exhausted, and 
 the business of securing pickers from towns outside this 
 section and from other states and other parts of Missis 
 sippi is regularly pursued by a number of Negro "agents." 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 105 
 
 Of the great number of Negroes thus brought yearly 
 into the Delta, many remain to make crops themselves, 
 attracted by the superior growth of cotton, and the 
 display of money always incident to the season. I 
 have seen more than a thousand dollars in silver paid 
 out of a plantation office on Saturday night for extra 
 picking alone, and in the presence of a curious, eager 
 throng, coming from sections in which such a thing as 
 a handful of Negroes handling so much cash as the 
 result of one week s plantation work would seem almost 
 incredible. Such things taken with the novel sur 
 roundings, the large talk of Negroes making more cotton 
 and handling more money than many white farmers 
 elsewhere, the scale on which affairs are carried on, 
 such as the measuring and selling of cotton seed by 
 Negroes by the ton instead of the bushel, the evidences 
 of plenty and to spare furnished by the spendthrifts 
 around them for the Delta Negro, especially when 
 in the presence of his brother from some less favoured 
 section, is as free a spender as the world affords all 
 this tends to fire the stranger with a desire to come 
 into this land of plenty. It is thus that much of our 
 labour is recruited, and some of it the best we 
 have, especially during the first two or three years of 
 residence. 
 
 So far as I can judge the Delta Negro presents no 
 peculiar social phenomena. His life is the same which 
 the race leads in sections where its material opportuni 
 ties are not so great. The only difference I can observe 
 is that there may be a greater tendency among them- 
 
io6 The American Race Problem 
 
 selves to the commission of crimes against the person. 
 For purposes of comparison, I have taken the Negroes 
 of a group composed of the nine counties of Mississippi 
 where they are most largely outnumbered by the whites. 
 To this group, for convenience I shall apply the local 
 designation, "Hill" counties. In this group the propor 
 tion of whites to blacks is more than 4 to i, as against 
 a reverse proportion of more than 7 to i in the Delta 
 group. We have seen that in the latter the Negroes 
 constitute 18.8 per cent, of the total Negro population 
 of the state; in the Hill group they constitute but 2.6 
 per cent. We have seen that the Delta furnishes 21.7 
 per cent, of the Negro state prison population ; the Hills 
 contribute 3.4 per cent. A comparison of the crimes 
 of the two groups discloses the fact that 50.1 per cent, 
 of those in the Hills, and only 19.3 per cent, of those in 
 the Delta, are burglaries, larcenies, forgeries and, arsons. 
 Crimes against the person make up 80.7 per cent, of the 
 offences of Delta Negroes, and 49.9 per cent, of those 
 in the Hills. It may seem somewhat singular that rape 
 constitutes 6.2 per cent, of the graver crimes of the Hill 
 Negroes, while, as has been shown, 4.9 are the figures 
 for the Delta. It is in the crimes of murder, manslaugh 
 ter, and attempts to kill that the Delta Negro exhibits 
 his criminal propensity most strongly. These compose 
 75.8 per cent, of all of their felonies, and 43.7 per cent, 
 of those of the Hill Negro. In the two crimes of larceny 
 and burglary the Hill district is far ahead of the other 
 section, the percentage of total felonies being respec 
 tively 40.6 and 15.2. 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 107 
 
 In the lower class of Negroes a predilection for petty 
 gambling amounts almost to a passion. Their oppor 
 tunity of indulging it depends upon their command of 
 ready money. A majority of the murders committed 
 in this section arise out of gambling. Therefore, I 
 would attribute the difference in the relative number of 
 homicidal crimes committed by the Negro in the two 
 sections to the Delta Negro s greater command of money. 
 Anyone who has witnessed a genuine crap game, 
 played as only the Negro can play it, has no difficulty 
 whatever in understanding how easy it is for human 
 life to be taken in a dispute arising over the most trivial 
 sum. It is an entirely conservative statement to say 
 that on or near every Delta plantation may be found 
 from one to four regularly patronised crap tables, while 
 in every town and village from one to a half-dozen 
 Negro crap dives are run. Around these tables, especi 
 ally on Saturday nights and Sundays, gather crowds of 
 men and boys of all ages, scarcely one in five without 
 a knife or pistol. It takes but a word to bring one 
 or both into the game. Making no attempt to esti 
 mate the number of such affrays in which both parties 
 are killed, and no trial possible, and not reckoning the 
 number of killings in which the surviving party escapes, 
 is acquitted by a jury, or hanged, there are now* in the 
 penitentiary from this section alone no less than 
 154 Negroes serving sentences for taking, or attempting 
 to take, human life. In the courts of this group of coun 
 ties there were for these crimes in 1898 thirty-three 
 
 * September 30, IQOI. 
 
io8 The American Race Problem 
 
 convictions ; in 1899, twenty-nine ; in 1900, thirty- 
 three; in 1901, to September 3oth, thirty-seven. 
 
 It would be idle to discuss such a matter as the sexual 
 looseness which marks the conditions obtaining among 
 the masses of these people. No new light could be 
 thrown upon it, and no good accomplished thereby. 
 It may be safely affirmed that the marriage contract 
 possesses for them little, if any, sanctity. This may 
 seem a hard saying, but no man acquainted with the 
 facts will deny its truth. 
 
 In discussions of the Negro we have been repeatedly 
 told of late years that the race should be judged by its 
 best element, and not by its worst, and that statistics of 
 criminality were an unfair index to Negro conditions. 
 That it is unfair to base opinions and conclusions upon 
 partial investigations is true. But it is equally true that 
 we cannot form just estimates by considering only the 
 few who have risen superior to general environments 
 and are confessedly exceptional. The only true index to 
 the life of a people is furnished by a study of its masses 
 its great general class. It is with this mass in my 
 section that I am dealing, and my statements would lose 
 none of their force or truth by being met with the 
 counterclaim that there are Negroes here who lead 
 decent, respectable lives. No race as a race can rise 
 superior to the condition of its average family unit, and 
 it is the disregard of the marriage relation, the brutality 
 of husbands to their wives and of both to their children, 
 which will probably for a long while most impress the 
 student of the Negro masses, rather than the fact that 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 
 
 109 
 
 here and there may be found families and individuals 
 who have adopted for themselves standards obtaining 
 generally among another people. 
 
 One of the traits which militates most against the 
 Negro here is his unreliability. Given certain condi 
 tions one may reason to fairly certain conclusions regard 
 ing a white man. It is not so with the Negro. He 
 presents a bundle of hopelessly unintelligible contra 
 dictions. Take his migratory habit, for instance, as 
 one manifestation of his characteristic unreliability. 
 The desire to move from place to place, the absence of 
 local attachment, seems to be a governing trait in the 
 Negro character, and a most unfortunate one for the 
 race. It has led to the fixed conviction on the part of 
 many people having constant business relations with 
 him that in this respect the Negro cannot be depended 
 upon at all, and that the treatment he receives has but 
 little real effect in shaping his course. It is undeniable 
 that there is abundant ground for the most extreme opin 
 ion. His mental processes are past finding out, and he 
 cannot be counted on to do or not to do a given thing 
 under given circumstances. There is scarcely a planter"! 
 in all this territory who would not gladly make substan 
 tial concessions for an assured tenantry. I do not mean 
 for Negroes who would stay with him always, and never 
 take advantage of an opportunity for genuine better 
 ment, but merely for such as would remain with him 
 only so long as they were willing to work at all under 
 the same conditions, and should receive honest and 
 considerate treatment at his hands. Yet no planter 
 
no The American Race Problem 
 
 among us can tell how many or which of his tenants of 
 jtp-day will be his tenants of another year. 
 
 Not all Negroes can become landed proprietors, any 
 more than all mill operatives can become mill owners, 
 or all wage earners capitalists. It is inevitable that 
 there must always be a large class of Negro tillers of 
 other men s soils, corresponding to relative classes 
 among all the races of mankind. It is then manifestly 
 to the interest of these that they should seek for them 
 selves conditions as nearly as possible approaching actual 
 land ownership a fixed tenure, and the comforts of a 
 home. This status need not mark the limit of advance 
 ment of all those entering it; it would but afford a step 
 ping stone to such as proved themselves capable of turn 
 ing good conditions into better. In all that I have said 
 I would not be understood as claiming that motives of 
 self-interest do not operate with the Negro at all; I 
 simply and emphatically assert that they do not at all 
 intelligently control him. 
 
 The Negroes in the Delta not only make in the aggre 
 gate a tremendous amount of money, but they squander 
 more than any similar class of people of whom I have 
 any knowledge. There is no way of computing the 
 amount expended by them in railway travel alone, but 
 it is an enormous sum. This travel is for the most part 
 entirely aimless, and it is a common thing for a Negro 
 to take a trip from a plantation to a town fifteen miles 
 distant, with bare train fare in his pocket, and a crop 
 badly in need of his attention at home. On Saturdays 
 field work is practically suspended and the day is usually 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 1 1 1 
 
 given up to such aimless moving about, or to assembling 
 around stations and stores to witness the arrivals and 
 departures of others. 
 
 The greatest diversions of these people, however, are 
 excursions and the circus. The former come at irregu 
 lar intervals, from four to six times a year, and mean 
 trips of from eighty to one hundred and fifty miles. The 
 money spent on this form of amusement is nothing in 
 amount to the annual tribute poured into the coffers of 
 the circus. In the months of October and November, 
 1901, two of the largest of these concerns now exhibiting 
 gave a total of ten performances in the Delta. Making a 
 careful and conservative estimate of the amounts spent 
 on the three items of railroad fare, incidentals, and ad 
 missions, the sum total could not have been under 
 $50,000.* 
 
 Among our Negroes we have few drunkards, and but 
 few who do not drink; nor is the drinking by any means 
 confined to the men. Considering the prevalence of the 
 habit, the only surprising feature is that so few drunk 
 ards should be found. 
 
 The line of demarcation between rural and urban life 
 is so indistinct, and persons pass so constantly from one 
 to the other, that there is not much difference between 
 the Negroes of the town and those of the country. In 
 each place we find the good, the bad, and the indifferent. 
 As in the country we have the moving, shiftless ele 
 ment, so do we also have the shiftless Negro of the 
 town; as in the one place we have the land owner or 
 
 * It was in fact close to $75,000, 
 
H2 The American Race Problem 
 
 prosperous tenant, so in the other we have the man who 
 owns his home, and has steady employment at excellent 
 wages; the "rounder," the pistol carrier, and the pro 
 fessional crap shooter alike infest each. Throughout 
 the Delta there are Negroes filling places of responsibility 
 and trust. In the country the gin crews and engineers 
 are practically all Negroes, and there are Negro fore 
 men, agents, and sub-managers. There are many con 
 stables, and there is in my county a Negro justice of 
 the peace. In my own town every mail carrier is a 
 Negro and we have a Negro on the police force. Some 
 are employed by cotton factors and buyers, and earn 
 from $600 to $1,000 per annum. Others are em 
 ployees of electric light companies, some are telephone 
 linemen, and some are engaged in merchandising. 
 Wages paid in the country range from 50 cents to 75 cents 
 _jper day for common hands, and from $i to $1.25 and 
 $1.50 for gin crews. In levee work the commonest 
 labourers receive $i per day, and the more skilled $1.50. 
 In towns the wages vary greatly. Hands in oil mills 
 and compresses are paid from $i to $2 per day, while 
 the wages and earnings of porters, hackmen, dray 
 drivers, teamsters, etc., range from $10 to $60 per month. 
 Mississippi makes no separate assessment of the prop 
 erty of the two races, and it is therefore impossible to 
 arrive at the value of the property owned by the Negro 
 in the Delta. The best that can be done is to estimate 
 it. In 1900 the total assessed value of all the property 
 in this group of counties was $29,095,167. Of this 
 amount railroad property constituted $5,396,008, leav- 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 113 
 
 ing a balance for realty and personalty of $23,699,159. 
 Without going into the methods employed in reaching 
 the result, I conclude that a conservative estimate of 
 the value of Negro holdings would be, in round figures, 
 not less than $1,000,000. This is probably encum 
 bered to the extent of one-half its value. I give this 
 estimate as a minimum figure, and the correct value 
 may be much greater. It is hardly possible to judge the 
 extent of the increase in Negro property, but it is con 
 siderable, though by no means in keeping with the 
 opportunities of the race. But even now one cannot 
 travel through this section without observing Negro land 
 owners everywhere. They are scattered over its entire 
 area, holding tracts varying in size from a town lot to 
 more than a thousand acres.* 
 
 In considering the Negro s condition and opportuni 
 ties here, three factors assume important proportions. 
 The amicable relations between the races, the peculiarly 
 fertile soil the absence of the necessity for fertilisers 
 alone meaning a great deal and the superior quality 
 of the cotton produced. Of race relations enough has 
 been said ; of the soil it is sufficient to say that it needs 
 no fertilisation. It has often been the occasion of 
 curiosity to me to know what became of the fertiliser 
 shown by the eleventh census to have been purchased 
 by these counties. The amount expended is stated to 
 have been only $12,472 it is true, with a value of farms 
 and products of $16,771,090, but I have always doubted 
 
 * The bulk of this property is held by mulattoes, the larger tracts almost 
 without exception being in their hands. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
ii4 The American Race Problem 
 
 the accuracy of even these figures. Commercial fer 
 tiliser is an article unknown to us, and not handled by 
 our dealers in plantation supplies.* 
 
 The figures of the last census showing the compara 
 tive cotton acreage yield of this section, the state, and 
 the South, are not available,f but it is not likely that 
 much variation will be shown from those of the eleventh. 
 These exhibit an average yield per acre of lint cotton 
 for the South of 176.67 pounds, and for the state of Mis 
 sissippi of 191.03 pounds. The yield of this county 
 group was 257.87 pounds. It is only fair to state that 
 the average of the state was increased by that of coun 
 ties lying partly in the Delta, but which, as explained 
 above, have not been included here. While for a given 
 year we have this average, the standard yield is with 
 us 500 pounds, and large areas will show a yield ranging 
 between this and 400 pounds. 
 
 The cotton grown on this soil is much superior, both 
 in the quality of its fibre and the length of its staple, to 
 upland varieties. Taking its name from the fact of its 
 growth in the bends of the Mississippi River at a time 
 when it found its way to the port of New Orelans by 
 means of boats plying that stream, it is known to the 
 Liverpool, New Orleans, and Eastern markets as "bend 
 ers," and commands a substantial though fluctuating 
 premium over "uplands." 
 
 In conclusion I shall submit some of the features 
 and results of a personal experiment with Negro labour, 
 
 * Notwithstanding this natural fertility, I am now convinced that excellent 
 results would follow the general use of proper fertilisers here, 
 t September, 1901. 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 115 
 
 carried on under conditions differing somewhat from 
 those generally obtaining. Several years experience in 
 cotton planting led to certain conclusions relative to the 
 usual manner of handling plantation labour. I became ^ 
 convinced of one thing, that too much latitude was al 
 lowed the Negro in the matter of his account and in the 
 handling of his crop. Observation and experience sat 
 isfied me that better results could be obtained for both 
 the Negro and the planter by requiring the former to 
 conform more strictly to business rules, and by making 
 the relations between the two, in crop and money 
 matters, more nearly of a purely business character. I j 
 also entertained the belief, not yet entirely dissipated,* 
 that a reliable, industrious, and largely self-sustaining, 
 plantation tenantry could be built up by effort along 
 proper lines, coupled with a degree of liberality at the 
 outset not entirely consistent with the general purpose 
 of putting the Negro on a strictly business footing. 
 
 Even casual observation will show that the greatest 
 opportunity enjoyed by the Negro for acquiring property 
 is as a renter. It was determined, therefore, to adopt 
 the rent system. The greatest objection to it is that, 
 as it ordinarily obtains, it allows the Negro privileges 
 which he too often abuses. He does not take kindly 
 to suggestion or direction as to what he shall plant, and 
 wants to put practically all his land in cotton because 
 it is a cash crop; he thinks he should be left free to 
 work his crop when and as he pleases, which means 
 
 * See the following paper, "A Plantation Experiment." For convenience 
 of narration, the above is expressed in the first person, while in fact the experi 
 ment described was the joint effort of my partner, Mr. Julian H. Fort, and myself. 
 
n6 The American Race Problem 
 
 frequently neglect, and oftener improper cultivation; 
 having control of mules, he thinks that he should enjoy 
 the privileges of riding them about the country, when 
 both he and they should be at work, and of neglecting 
 and poorly feeding them, if he so elect; in short, that 
 he should enjoy various privileges and immunities which 
 it is impossible to recite, but which are usually accorded 
 by the custom of the country. These things mean that 
 the Negro as a renter is generally undesirable, often 
 troublesome, and that his cultivation of land causes 
 deterioration. To rent and yet avoid the difficulties 
 ordinarily incident to the system was a problem solved by 
 the use of a contract specifying in detail what was under 
 taken by each party, and reserving to the plantation 
 management absolute control over all plantation affairs. 
 There is generally a great disproportion between the 
 Negro s ideas and his ability of execution; he wants to 
 plant on as large a scale as possible, and will usually 
 "overcrop" himself, undertake more land than he can 
 cultivate, leading to the neglect of some or all of it. 
 It was accordingly determined to allot to each family 
 only so much as it could cultivate thoroughly under all 
 ordinary contingencies, believing that not only more 
 money, but an actually greater yield could be had by 
 the tenant from twenty acres well handled than from 
 twenty-five half neglected. Mules and implements 
 were sold at reasonable prices and on two years time, 
 one-half the purchase price payable annually. For 
 handling the crop to the best advantage, as regards 
 economy and grade, a thoroughly equipped gin plant 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 117 
 
 was substituted for a less modern one, and as a means 
 of lessening the cost of living to the tenant, and of en 
 couraging the raising of corn, it was provided with a 
 mill capable of making an excellent quality of meal, 
 far more nutritious than the purchased, kiln- dried ar 
 ticle. The latter is operated once a week, the grinding 
 being done for toll only, a bushel of meal being exchanged 
 for a bushel of shelled corn. It may be remarked that 
 during the three years of its operation there has been 
 a marked increase in the demand for its services among 
 the Negroes of the neighbourhood, many coming to it 
 from distances of five and seven miles. Exercising the 
 contract right of requiring the planting of as much corn 
 as was deemed expedient, it was agreed, in return, that 
 all surplus corn raised by the tenant would be taken off 
 his hands at the market price. 
 
 In the accomplishment of the general objects in view, 
 it was of as much interest to the plantation as to the 
 tenant that the best possible price be realised for the 
 latter s cotton. For this and other reasons the privi 
 lege of absolutely controlling his crop was denied him. 
 This was clearly stipulated in his contract, but he was 
 not denied all voice in its disposition. He could sell it 
 to the plantation, if a mutually satisfactory price could 
 be agreed upon, or he could let it go forward with the 
 general crop, and have an accounting for its proceeds. 
 One of the essentials to successful cotton growing here 
 is thorough drainage. With this the tenant has nothing 
 to do, it being stipulated that the land is to be kept well 
 drained without cost to him. 
 
n8 The American Race Problem 
 
 Believing that not only is the labourer entitled to 
 proper shelter, but that comfortable homes are a matter 
 of plantation economy, these tenants are furnished ex 
 cellently constructed houses, well lighted and heated. 
 Each house has its driven well, kept in repair as an 
 item of plantation expense. These houses, with the 
 exception of some of three and four rooms, contain two 
 rooms each, and are constructed with a view to accom 
 modating a family working eighteen acres of land, that 
 being the amount, per average family, from which the 
 best results are found to be obtainable.* It has been de 
 termined, however, in order to avoid any possibility of 
 crowding, to add a third room to each of these houses. 
 This is now being done, and within a year there will be 
 no two-room houses remaining. Every effort is made 
 to encourage tenants to raise gardens, and to own cattle 
 and hogs, abundant pasturage being provided free. 
 The proper care of live stock is rendered compulsory 
 by close supervision. 
 
 To reduce the matter of advancing supplies as nearly 
 as possible to a business system, a furnishing basis of 
 50 cents per acre, per month, for supplies only, was 
 fixed upon. Incidentals usually require about 25 cents 
 per acre additional. Each month the tenant is fur 
 nished a coupon book for the amount, in money, of 
 his supplies, a twenty-acre family receiving a $10 book, 
 thirty acres securing one of $15, and so forth. These 
 books are good only for supplies, such as meat, meal, 
 
 *In the light of the seven years experience since the above was written 
 our firm, Stone & Fort, is now reducing this to fifteen acres per family. 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 119 
 
 tobacco, snuff, and molasses, but it is agreed with the 
 tenant that such coupons as he may have left in his book 
 at the expiration of each month will be honoured for 
 whatever he wants. This is done with a view to encour 
 aging economy, and to enable him to secure "extras" 
 without increasing his account. Getting their meal 
 without cost, by grinding corn, and getting flour in its 
 stead out of their books, none of those who were on the 
 plantation last year failed this year to secure with sur 
 plus coupons an abundance of sugar, coffee, rice, etc., 
 at the end of each month to carry them through the 
 following. This system possesses several advantages, 
 not the least of which are that it saves the making of 
 numerous small ledger entries, and enables the tenant 
 to tell at any time during the month, from his unused 
 coupons, the exact amount he has left to his credit, so 
 that he may govern himself accordingly. The Negroes 
 regard the system with the utmost satisfaction, and 
 would not exchange it for the usual method of "issuing 
 rations." 
 
 To make a success of the system outlined here, three 
 things were absolutely necessary: the utmost patience 
 and good sense at the office, wise management in the 
 field, and discrimination in selecting tenants. Every 
 Negro known to be a professional crap shooter or pis 
 tol carrier was run off the place, all families known to 
 be quarrelsome and troublesome were got rid of, and 
 everybody whom it was necessary to compel to work was 
 let go. Under no circumstances is a professional "ex- 
 horter," or lodge organising preacher, allowed on the 
 
120 The American Race Problem 
 
 property. The virtue of patience has been exercised 
 to a degree that has more than once threatened its 
 destruction. 
 
 It would be manifestly unfair to judge such an ex 
 periment by its first year. This was a most trouble 
 some, and, to the management, rather discouraging ex 
 perience. Little was accomplished beyond getting af 
 fairs in easier running order. The third year is not yet 
 closed,* but promises results about in keeping with the 
 second, the complete figures of which are available. 
 There were in cultivation in 1900, 1,300 acres. The 
 total value of the product was $54,000, an average of 
 a little more than $41.50 per acre. There were on the 
 place 6 1 families, containing 80 men and 81 women, in 
 cluding children old enough to work, and 67 younger 
 children, a total of 228 persons in families. These fam 
 ilies occupied 61 houses, containing 147 rooms, an aver 
 age of 1.5 persons to the room. There was an average 
 of 3.7 persons to the family, while the average number 
 of hands who assisted at some stage of the crop was 2.6. 
 In addition to the families, there were 18 wages hands 
 employed, who, though separately housed, must be 
 added to the number of working hands, giving a total of 
 179. We thus have an average acreage to the working 
 hand of 7.2, with an average product value of $301.67 
 per hand. Cotton was raised to the value of $41,000, 
 being 818 bales of 500 pounds average, or 4.5 bales, 2,250 
 pounds, to the working hand. It should be stated that 
 while these wages hands assisted in various stages of 
 
 September, 1901. 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 121 
 
 the crop, not all their time was thus employed by any 
 means, for some tenants did not need extra hands at all. 
 They were used, when not in crops, in clearing new land, 
 ditching, and other plantation work. 
 
 The Negroes with whom we started, in January, 1899, 
 with possibly three exceptions, had absolutely nothing, 
 barring their clothing, bedding, and furniture all of 
 the scantiest and poorest kind. It would be a most 
 liberal estimate to put their entire belongings at that 
 date at an average value per family of $30. Yet they 
 were an average lot of plantation Negroes; they were 
 of many ages, and came from many sections; of the 
 older ones, most had had something, but had lost it 
 in shifting from pillar to post, and at fifty and sixty 
 years of age were empty-handed ; some had lived on a 
 dozen different plantations in as many years. They 
 had thus to start with us actually owing for their first 
 week s supplies. After the lapse of three years, the 
 average value of the property owned by the sixty and 
 more families on the place may be conservatively esti 
 mated at $200. This, of course, includes no cash on 
 hand or to their credit on our books. After paying 
 their accounts, the tenants on the place in 1900 received 
 $11,000 in cash. Their balances this year (1901) will 
 amount to about the same figure. They have good cloth 
 ing, their houses are now comfortably furnished, and for 
 cooking purposes the open fireplace has given way to 
 the kitchen stove. 
 
 The following statement is drawn directly from the 
 plantation ledger of 1900. It is the account of two men 
 
122 The American Race Problem 
 
 who worked together as a family. These hands were 
 above the average in point of steadiness and efficiency, 
 but the account is fairly illustrative of the possibilities 
 to the Negro of good soil, fair prices, hard work, and 
 economy. It will be noted that the value of their pro 
 duct per acre appears to be greater by about $8 than 
 the average of the plantation, but this apparent differ 
 ence will be explained by stating that in computing 
 the latter the entire acreage of the plantation was in 
 cluded. If we exclude from consideration all raw, first 
 year land, such as was not allotted to renters, the differ 
 ence will be shown to be very much less. 
 
 ACCOUNT 
 
 Debits 
 
 Land rent, 21 acres $6 . . . . . . $126.00 
 
 Mule, paid for entirely in first year . . . 100.00 
 
 Gear and implements . . . . . . 18.50 
 
 Planting seed ....... 10.30 
 
 Seed corn . . . . . . . . 1.65 
 
 Supply account . . . . . . . 98.25 
 
 Sundries 18.20 
 
 Picking 6 bales cotton . . . . . 59-45 
 
 Ginning and wrapping 1 9 bales cotton, 500 Ibs. average 5 7 . i o 
 
 Mule feed . 43-5 
 
 $532.95 
 Credits. 
 
 Nineteen bales cotton . . $865.14 
 
 Cotton seed, 9.4 tons . . . . . H7-75 
 
 Corn, 105 bushels market price at time, 50 cents 52.50 
 
 $1,035.39 
 Profits, $502.44. 
 
 Holding their corn, they had, as the result of the 
 year s operations, property worth $171.00. It will be 
 
The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta 123 
 
 seen that their cash crop overpaid their account by 
 $449.94. 
 
 As to the effect of the showing exhibited here upon 
 the Negro, if any, it is impossible to judge. Some of 
 those who had least at the outset and have most to-day 
 are preparing to leave though they may change their 
 minds in a night, after having made their arrangements 
 to depart, while some have already left. To arrive at 
 a just conclusion on this point at least five years would 
 be required, and only such tenants as removed to other 
 places to continue the tenant relation could be consid 
 ered in enumerating the removals. It would be mani 
 festly unfair, in considering the extent and influence of 
 a migratory, restless habit, to attribute to it such as were 
 actuated by opportunity and desire to purchase land. 
 Of those who have thus far left the place, not one has 
 done so to become a land owner. 
 
 All that I have said of general conditions in the Delta 
 applies, in greater or less degree, to all the 29,790 square 
 miles of the alluvial valley of the Mississippi. The 
 future of this territory will inevitably be linked with the 
 future of the American Negro. The movements of black 
 population, as indicated by the last three censuses, show 
 this clearly enough. In discussing the conditions sur 
 rounding the Negro in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, I 
 have not attempted to present such a picture of rural 
 felicity as John Stuart Mill quotes from Chateauvieux 
 of the me tayers of Piedmont. But I am well within the i 
 limits of conservatism when I assert that in the material 
 potentialities of his environment the situation of the 
 
124 The American Race Problem 
 
 Negro here is infinitely superior to that of any European 
 peasant. It is not claimed that there are no instances 
 of injustic to the Negro. Not at all. But I do claim 
 that nowhere else is his general treatment fairer no 
 where is his remedy more certain. This is but corollary 
 to the proposition that nowhere in the same extent of 
 territory will be found a greater or more constant de 
 mand for his labour. Nowhere does he find a better mar 
 ket for his service, nowhere is he freer to change his 
 local habitation. 
 
 To say how long conditions, particularly as regards 
 the relations between the races, will remain as they are, 
 would be to enter the field of speculation a pastime in 
 which I am not engaged. The presentation which I 
 have attempted is believed to be a not unfaithful por 
 trayal of the present; with what the future holds in 
 store this paper has no concern. 
 
IV 
 
 A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT* 
 
 IN A PAPER on "The Negro in the Yazoo-Mississippi 
 Delta," read at the fourteenth annual meeting of the 
 American Economic Association,! I briefly touched upon 
 the conduct of a plantation in which I was interested. 
 Because of a certain degree of novelty attaching to 
 some of the features which characterised the business 
 relations between the plantation management and its 
 Negro labour, I felt justified in referring to these transac 
 tions as an "experiment." It is to a discussion of this 
 experiment, six years after its inception, that the present 
 paper is chiefly addressed. 
 
 An adequate supply of labour is the first essential in 
 the business of raising cotton. To secure it constitutes 
 the most serious problem confronting the plantation 
 management. Not for forty years has the supply equal 
 led the demand in the alluvial section of Mississippi. 
 Here the Negro still has almost a monopoly of the field 
 of manual labour, though at last his supremacy has been 
 threatened by the white man. So great is the annual 
 competition among planters for Negro labour that the 
 latter is afforded opportunities for driving bargains 
 
 * From the Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1905. 
 t Chapter III. 
 
 125 
 
126 The American Race Problem 
 
 superior to those possessed by any other class of 
 agriculturists with which I have any acquaintance. 
 
 There is absolutely no fixed basis among planters for 
 making terms with labour, and in consequence contracts 
 vary through a wide range of conditions. Any Negro 
 family, though it consist of only a man and his wife, 
 and have not a dollar on earth, will be taken into partner 
 ship with the planter; for that is the real nature of 
 the share contract. The planter will locate the family 
 for the year in a comfortable house, on its proper allot 
 ment of as good land as can be found in America. He 
 will furnish the land (which includes house, fuel, water, 
 and garden free), seed to plant it, and team and imple 
 ments with which to cultivate it. This is the planter s 
 part, and against it the Negro furnishes his labour, and 
 agrees to make and gather the crop. The two divide 
 whatever is raised, share and share alike. In addition 
 the planter supplies the sharehand with food, clothing, 
 tobacco, medicine, and medical attention. He does 
 this from the day the family reaches the plantation 
 until the day it decides to "move," or, rather, until the 
 planter learns of such decision. He hazards his advances 
 upon the sole security of the crop, and looks to the 
 Negro s share for his reimbursement. 
 
 In the paper to which I have referred I made this 
 statement: "There is scarcely a planter in all this 
 territory who would not gladly make substantial con 
 cessions for an assured tenantry. I do not mean for 
 Negroes who would stay with him always, and never 
 take advantage of an opportunity for genuine better- 
 
A Plantation Experiment 127 
 
 ment, but merely for such as would remain with him 
 only so long as they were willing to work at all under 
 the same conditions, and should receive honest and 
 considerate treatment at his hands."* I would to-day, 
 and with all possible emphasis, reiterate this assertion. 
 It was to the desire and hope of building up some 
 such "assured tenantry" that our experiment largely 
 owed its inception. Its salient features were: Uni 
 formity of tenant system, all land being rented at a 
 fixed cash rental; the sale of stock, implements, and 
 wagons to tenants upon exceptionally favourable terms ; 
 the exercise of proper supervision over the crop; the 
 use of a contract defining in detail the undertakings of 
 each party ; the handling and disposition of the gathered 
 crop by the plantation management. Let there be no 
 misunderstanding of the motives behind all this. There 
 was nothing philanthropic about it. It was a business 
 proposition, pure and simple, but certainly one with two 
 sides to it. The plan was to select a number of Negro 
 families, offer them the best terms and most advanta 
 geous tenant relation, and so handle them and their 
 affairs as to make them reach a condition approaching 
 as nearly as possible that of independence. The hope 
 was that, having accomplished this purpose, we would 
 thereby also have in large measure solved the labour 
 problem, having attached to the plantation by ties 
 of self-interest a sufficient number of these independent 
 renters to make us in turn measurably independent of 
 the general labour situation. The problem before us 
 
 * Idem, p, 109. 
 
128 The American Race Problem 
 
 was to place in the hands of these people the means of 
 acquiring something for themselves, and then, in every 
 instance of deficient individual initiative, by proper 
 supervision make them acquire it. 
 
 The principal statistical features of the experiment 
 during the five-year period which witnessed its beginning 
 and its practical abandonment may be thus summar 
 ised. We brought to the plantation, at the close of 
 the season of 1898, 30 new families, and began the first 
 year, 1899, with a total of 58.* On i ,064 acres of cotton 
 land we made but 459 bales of 500 pounds average, a 
 family average of 7.9 bales. The average price received 
 was 7.50 cents per pound; and the entire crop, cotton 
 and seed, brought $21,663.88, or a family average of 
 ^373-S 1 - Of the families on the place, 26, or 44.8 per 
 cent., left at the end of the year. We moved in 27 
 families, and, with the 59 which the addition gave us, 
 cultivated 1,048 acres of cotton in 1900. The crop was 
 817 bales, or 13.8 per family. It sold at an average 
 price of 9.94 cents, and with its seed brought $47,541.66. 
 This was an average cash product value of $805.79 per 
 family. f The number of families who left the place 
 at the close of the year was 13, or 22 per cent, of the 
 total. We secured 15 new ones, and had on the place 
 
 * The number of persons to the average family remains practically stationary 
 at about 3.7. See Chapter III., p. 120. 
 
 t The "cash product" value must not be confused with the total crop value 
 shown for this year in the previous chapter nor the total acreage given there 
 with the cotton acreage shown above. It may be explained that the number of 
 families given in the previous chapter, sixty -one, included two occupying some 
 what anomalous tenant relations, who have been omitted here. The number 
 of bales given here 817 is correct, instead of 818, as shown in the other 
 paper. Chapter III., p. 120. 
 
A Plantation Experiment 129 
 
 6 1 families in 1901. We had this year in cotton 1,348 
 acres, and raised 1,270 bales, 20.8 to the family. At an 
 average price of 7.90 cents for the cotton this crop, 
 including seed, realized $60,742.04, being $995.77 per 
 family. We lost 16 families this year, 26.2 per cent, 
 of the whole force, and moved in 24 new squads, which 
 gave us 69 for 1902. The latter year we raised 1,131 
 bales of cotton on 1,341 acres. Seed and cotton brought 
 $54,593.26, the average price of the latter being 8.08 
 cents per pound. The average product of cotton was 
 16.4 bales per family, the average value of cotton and 
 seed $791.20. At the end of the year we lost 17 families, 
 24.6 per cent, of the total, and moved in 23 for the 
 following year. This gave us 75 squads for 1903. We 
 cultivated 1,392 acres of cotton, and raised 741 bales, 
 9.8 to the family. This brought 11.77 cents per pound, 
 the cotton and seed selling for $53,527.73, or an average 
 of $713.70 per family. At the close of the season 31 
 families, 41.3 per cent, of our working force, left the 
 plantation.* 
 
 During the period under review the tenant system 
 of the plantation was changed from an exclusively 
 rent basis to just as nearly an exclusively share basis 
 as it was possible to reduce it. In the first two years the 
 entire plantation was in the hands of renters, while of 
 the cotton acreage in 1903 they worked but 54.6 per 
 cent., and produced but 45.3 per cent, of the crop. 
 
 * The above figures and others of more or less interest in connection with this 
 discussion are given in the table on p. 148. For aid in compiling the data I wish 
 to acknowledge my great indebtedness to my business associate, Mr. Julian H. 
 Fort. 
 
130 The American Race Problem 
 
 This has been still further reduced, and of a total culti 
 vated acreage of 1,577 m I 94 they worked but 465 
 acres, or less than 30 per cent. The number of families 
 on the place increased from 58 to 75 during this period; 
 the number renting fell from 58 to 36, a decline in per 
 cent, of the total number from 100 to 48. Here, again, 
 the renters lost still further in 1904, falling to 30 families 
 out of 79 a decline to less than 38 per cent, of the 
 total. In 1899 they held 73 head of work stock, 94.8 
 per cent, of the total number on the place. This fell 
 to 60 head in 1903, which was but 47.6 per cent, of the 
 total. Here, too, there has been another decline, the 
 60 in 1903 having fallen to but 23 in 1904. 
 
 But the story of the decline of the renter on Dunleith 
 Plantation of the failure to accomplish what was at 
 least hoped for under the system inaugurated in 1899 
 cannot be told in any statistical display, nor can the 
 reasons which compelled the abandonment of the 
 experiment be set forth in a column of figures. Back 
 of the inception of the scheme was the desire to create 
 a satisfied and satisfactory force of reasonably permanent 
 tenants. Not that we were ever sanguine enough to 
 hope to have them all in this category. We would 
 have been satisfied with a group of 50 per cent, of the 
 total, or even with less. It was hoped to accomplish 
 our object by a direct appeal to self-interest. We 
 demonstrated our ability to make independent property- 
 owning families out of poverty-stricken material. 
 These families in turn demonstrated the fact of their 
 independence by severing relations with us almost as 
 
A Plantation Experiment 131 
 
 promptly as we put them on their feet. After the 
 termination of three years we had begun to feel reason 
 ably certain that even the most practical appeal we 
 could make to radically improved material welfare 
 would be generally overcome by an apparently instinc 
 tive desire to "move." After the experience of five 
 years we were quite satisfied of our entire incapa 
 city to make the average plantation Negro realise 
 the remotest causal relation between stability and 
 prosperity. 
 
 We were not surprised to have twenty-six families 
 leave us the first year nor were we especially concerned 
 over the departure of thirteen the second. It was not 
 alone the number who left us each year, but likewise 
 the increasing annual drain on the property involved 
 in their departure that forced us to realise the utter 
 impossibility as a business proposition of continuing 
 our general system. In operating a plantation, stock 
 and implements rank with labour as necessary comple 
 ments. A cardinal feature of our plan involved the 
 placing of the first two essentials in the hands of the 
 latter. If the labour could be depended upon to remain 
 on the property under normal conditions a reasonable 
 average length of time, this result would of course have 
 been merely incidental to a successful conclusion of the 
 experiment. If, however, the labourers proved con 
 clusively that they could not be so depended upon, 
 then to have continued to put the business at their 
 mercy by giving them control over everything necessary 
 to its conduct would have been extending a foolhardy 
 
132 The American Race Problem 
 
 invitation to ultimate disaster. It is bad enough to 
 have to face a general exodus of labour, but such a 
 contingency becomes doubly serious when it involves 
 the loss of stock and implements as well. There are 
 on the plantation to-day but two head of work stock 
 that were there in 1 899. What has transpired gradually, 
 and without serious consequences, might easily have 
 occurred in a single year with disastrous results, had 
 we allowed the acquisition of stock by the labour to 
 proceed far enough. I wish it understood that not 
 the slightest obstacle is placed in the way of a tenant s 
 acquiring implements and stock, but also that we no 
 longer sell him these things on long time, nor do we 
 otherwise personally encourage their purchase. We 
 simply endeavour to fill the place of each departing 
 renter with a sharehand, and try to confine such renting 
 as we are compelled to do to such as come to us with 
 stock of their own. In short, we are no longer en 
 gaged in the altruistic enterprise of converting shift 
 less and empty-handed Negroes into desirable and 
 well-equipped tenants for the temporary benefit of other 
 planters. 
 
 From 1899 to 1903, leaving out of consideration the 
 30 new families brought in at the beginning of the former 
 year, we moved in 124 families. In the same period we 
 lost 103. Of the 79 families on the place in 1904 but 
 8 were with us in 1899. Of the 103 who have left, some 
 with little, some with much, not one has become an 
 owner of land. Most have simply continued as tenants 
 elsewhere. Many have lost what they carried away, 
 
A Plantation Experiment 133 
 
 and have become sharehands on other plantations. 
 Some have dropped into the ranks of day labourers. 
 A few have drifted into towns. Let me illustrate one 
 of these removals. In December, 1900, we moved in a 
 crew of seven people. They all represented themselves 
 as working hands, though one of the men was over sixty- 
 five, with a wife past sixty. Their entire outfit consisted 
 of a horse, worth at a liberal valuation $50, and $58 
 worth of miscellaneous and indescribable household 
 effects. In December, 1903, while riding over the place 
 one day, my attention was arrested by a procession 
 slowly approaching me. It consisted partly of two 
 wagons, one buggy, two mules, one horse, three cows, 
 two calves, and five dogs the property of this same 
 crew of seven. In addition they had with them out 
 side wagons enough to assist them in hauling away 
 285 bushels of corn, $190 worth of household effects 
 (including a sewing-machine for each woman and a gun 
 for each man), and a half-dozen crates of hogs and 
 several of poultry. During the three years they had 
 paid rent and accounts amounting to $4,168.96, had 
 received in cash $747.85, and had cash paid for help 
 in their crops to the amount of $393.90. Their accounts, 
 of course, included a variety of purchases in addition to 
 their living expenses. They carried away $1,100 worth 
 of personal property. They left to get rid of the super 
 vision incident to plantation management, and removed 
 a short distance to the property of a non-resident, and 
 secured their advances from a merchant. In November 
 last I learned that the head of the squad had applied to 
 
The American Race Problem 
 
 a neighbouring planter for a location for 1905, and 
 wanted the latter to lift a debt of $1,000 for him.* 
 
 Of those who have left I have said that it was not so 
 much their number as their condition that concerned 
 us. In this connection let us look into the condition 
 of the thirty-one families who left us at the close of 1903. 
 It may suggest itself to some that the single illustration 
 just given cannot be typical of the possible consequences 
 of the removal of a large number of renters at one time, 
 but that it is an isolated instance, selected to prove a 
 case. A study of the entire group of families who left 
 that same year will also serve as a reply. Thirteen of 
 these families were renters, and carried with them the 
 following personal property: 
 
 25 head of stock ....... $3,125.00 
 
 9 wagons ........ 360.00 
 
 8 cows and calves ...... 200.00 
 
 Implements ....... 325.00 
 
 Household effects ...... 650 . oo 
 
 i ,400 bushels of corn ...... 700.00 
 
 $5,360.00 
 
 They also had between $800 and $900 in cash; but, as 
 this is an estimate it is not included. One of these 
 families had rented twenty- three acres of land, and had 
 been paid a cash balance of $659.60. Another rented 
 twenty-five acres, and drew a cash balance of $734.72. 
 Of the thirty-one families eighteen were sharehands, 
 and had but $360 worth of property, and that in the 
 
 * Since the above was put in print this squad has returned to us to make a 
 crop the present year. It surrendered all it had, save household effects, to its 
 merchant, and in addition we advanced $75 to cover a balance. It begins where 
 it started before, with nothing, and this time will work on shares. 
 
A Plantation Experiment 135 
 
 shape of household effects. It is not difficult to see why 
 the removal of the thirteen renters was a more serious 
 matter than the loss of the eighteen sharehands. 
 
 We hear a great deal about the unequal distribution 
 of wealth in this country, but I have always believed 
 the wealth of the American Negro to be more unequally 
 shared than that of any other class of our population. 
 Of course these figures are too insignificant to be worth 
 anything whatever in this connection, nor is this paper 
 concerned with such a discussion. The remark is 
 suggested, however, by a glance at the average holdings 
 of these two groups of families. If we stop with the 
 statement that thirty-one families owned $5,720 worth 
 of property, we have the very fair showing of $184.51 
 per family. The actual distribution of their total 
 holdings, however, gives the renters $412.30 per family, 
 and the sharehands but $20. This inequality holds 
 also with the seventy-nine families on the plantation 
 in 1904. They own, all told, $7,180 worth of property. 
 This would be $90.88 per family. An analysis, however, 
 shows that thirty renters own $177.33 per family, or 
 $5,320 of the total. (This is within $40 of the exact 
 amount taken away by the thirteen renters in 1903.) 
 Of the balance; $1,120 is held by twelve sharehands, 
 an average per family of $93.33. The remaining $740 
 is made up of a distribution of $20 each to thirty-seven 
 sharehands, solely for household effects. But a further 
 analysis shows a still more striking inequality. The 
 eight families who have been with us since 1899 consti 
 tute but little more than 10 per cent, of the total in 
 
136 The American Race Problem 
 
 1904, but own more than 60 per cent, of the total prop 
 erty. They own $4,375 worth, or $546.87 per family. 
 While there is no question in my mind as to the cash 
 rent tenancy being preferable, from the labourers 
 standpoint, to any form of me tayer, yet I must not be 
 understood as holding that all the advantages by any 
 means accrue to the side of the former system. Earlier 
 in this discussion I gave an entirely unexaggerated 
 statement of what the planter will do in the way of 
 "staking" the sharehand who comes to him with a 
 capital consisting only of ability to work. Thanks to 
 a crop lien law and a fertile soil, such a man can secure 
 advances in my section of the country upon the sole 
 security of the crop to be grown by him. He has the 
 advantage over the renter of having the planter for a 
 partner, and the latter takes all the risk. If disaster 
 overtake him, the renter may lose his stock and imple 
 ments, but the sharehand operates on another s capital. 
 At worst he can lose but his labour, and for this he has 
 in any possible contingency at least been sheltered, 
 clothed, and fed. After all, the net results to the 
 tenant depend far more upon his individual efforts and 
 upon his habits, whether of extravagance or economy, 
 than upon any fixed features incident to one system of 
 tenure or the other. Upon every plantation are to be 
 found sharehands who make just as much as do any of 
 the renters, and the nature of whose tenant relation is 
 entirely of their own choosing. A number of accounts 
 could be adduced to illustrate the relative results of the 
 two systems, but the personal equation is so large a fac- 
 
A Plantation Experiment 137 
 
 tor as to impair the value of bare figures for purposes of 
 comparison. The two following are selected because they 
 are accounts of families equal in all essential respects. 
 They are for 1 903 , and are condensed as much as possible. 
 
 RENTER : l8j ACRES (15^ IN COTTON, 3 IN CORN). 
 
 Debits. 
 
 Rent $129.50 
 
 Merchandise . . . . . . . 96.75 
 
 Stock feed 5 2 - 6 5 
 
 Blacksmith, doctor, and planting seed . . . 25.58 
 
 Work in crop, picking and ginning . . . 42.60 
 
 Cash . . 162.48 
 
 $509.56 
 Credits. 
 Net proceeds of 8 bales of cotton, 4,543 pounds and 
 
 seed from same ...... $509.56 
 
 SHAREHAND : l8 ACRES (16 IN COTTON, 2 IN CORN). 
 
 Debits. 
 
 Merchandise $91-85 
 
 Work in crop, picking and ginning . . . 40 . oo 
 
 Cash . 196.40 
 
 $328.25 
 Credits. 
 One-half net proceeds of 10 bales of cotton, 5,327 
 
 pounds, and seed from same . . . $328.25 
 
 The renter made 75 bushels of corn, and the share- 
 hand s half of his was 25 bushels. The sharehand made 
 333 pounds of lint cotton per acre, the renter 293 pounds. 
 The latter was 2 7 pounds above the plantation average 
 for the year, and 73 pounds above the average yield of 
 renters. The sharehand s yield was 67 pounds above 
 the average of the plantation and 1 5 pounds below the 
 average sharehand s. The renter had three items on 
 his account which the planter has to provide under a 
 share contract, namely, blacksmith, stock feed, and 
 
138 The American Race Problem 
 
 planting seed. The sharehand happened to have no 
 doctor s bill. The renter drew $4 . 90 more in merchan 
 dise than the sharehand, but received $33.92 less cash. 
 The renter owned two mules, a wagon, and implements, 
 which may be said to have represented his operating 
 capital. He also owned a buggy. The sharehand 
 operated with plantation stock and implements, but 
 owned a riding horse and a cow. 
 
 In immediate bearing upon our experiment and as 
 illustrating the gradual transition from a rent to a share 
 system, the most significant figures in the appended 
 table are those which show the stock owned by renters, 
 those showing the rented acreage, and those giving the 
 number of families renting, with per cent, of total num 
 ber. There are other figures, however, of more or less 
 interest in any general discussion of plantation economy. 
 Take the acreage production of lint cotton, for example. 
 The figures show a range of from 215 pounds to 471, 
 and illustrate the fluctuations that may result from 
 various combinations of yield and price. Their study 
 will exhibit the ups and downs of the business its 
 possibilities and its hazards. The most valuable lesson 
 they offer is the heavy advantage shown to follow a 
 large yield per acre.* In the figures showing the 
 
 * The fluctuations of yield exhibited here were under conditions well-nigh 
 absolutely uniform during the five years save in the one respect of weather. 
 Cotton is essentially a "weather crop," and this truism points to the fallacy 
 of most of the deductions and speculations founded upon the indicated yield of 
 1904. The most assured conclusion as to labour and other conditions, and the 
 most solemnly announced prediction for ensuing years, may both be rendered 
 absurd by too much, or too little, rain during the growing season, by too much 
 while the crop is being saved, or by a killing frost too late in the spring, or one 
 too early in the fall. 
 
A Plantation Experiment 139 
 
 amount of cash advanced tenants each year on the two 
 accounts of outside work in making their crops and in 
 extra picking, we are dealing with two of the most 
 important factors in the net results of the Negro s crop. 
 These two items are shown to have been $4.52 for each 
 bale raised in 1902. Even if equally distributed, this 
 would have imposed an average charge that year of 
 $74.17 per family. But the amount of such assistance 
 needed or demanded by the Negro varies all the way 
 from nothing up to enough to consume what would 
 otherwise be handsome profits. These two items alone 
 during this five-year period would have increased 
 the cash balances to our tenants in the total sum of 
 $15,248.90. 
 
 The transaction between the planter and tenant are 
 frequently utterly devoid of any approach to a proper 
 business basis. This is largely on account of the char 
 acter of the labour, and rests partly on established 
 custom and partly on the competition for hands. At 
 all events, out of the combination of causes the Negro 
 manages to realise in much too large measure for his 
 own good the gratification of his whims and pleasures. 
 I have yet to know of one so deeply in debt or so far 
 behind with his crop as to cause the least hesitation in 
 the matter of demands for cash for the circus or excur 
 sion. But of all plantation customs the most pernicious, 
 in my judgment, is that of advancing " Christmas 
 money." This is just exactly what its designation 
 implies. It is never asked for under any pretext of 
 being devoted to some legitimate or substantial use. 
 
140 The American Race Problem 
 
 It is drawn for the sole and express purpose of promoting 
 the pleasures of the holiday season, which begins, 
 according to the recognised plantation calendar, several 
 days before the 25th of December, and terminates several 
 days after the ist of January. I have never heard of a 
 dollar of such money being diverted from its destined 
 aim. It is spent in various and sundry ways, according 
 to the individual estimate of what constitutes "a good 
 time." A good part goes for railroad fare for "riding 
 the train"; the saloon and the crap table receive more 
 than their share ; some goes for cheap finery and pinch 
 beck jewellery. We tried the experiment of putting this 
 matter on a business basis in 1899. In consequence 
 there was no "Christmas money," but we have put out 
 our share since. The figures show the aggregate amount 
 on this account to have been $3,034.70. This may 
 seem small, but it should be considered in conjunction 
 with the accompanying figures, showing the cash bal 
 ances and advances during this same month each year. 
 They show that in December during the five years 
 there was advanced a total of $7,990.63 in addition to 
 Christmas money. The items are placed in juxta 
 position, so that the significance of the latter annual 
 draught and waste may be the more readily appreciated. 
 To illustrate further the amount of cash handled by the 
 Negroes, the table also shows the cash balances and 
 advances to them during the ginning season. This 
 usually begins in September, and runs to January, 
 February, or March, according to conditions. During 
 these months there was paid our Negroes, exclusive 
 
A Plantation Experiment 141 
 
 of advances while the crop was being grown, cash to the 
 amount of $44,727.05, an average of $8,945.41 each year. 
 
 In concluding my earlier paper, to which in some 
 sense this may be considered a second and final chapter, 
 I said that it was impossible for me to judge fairly the 
 effect upon our Negro labour of the showing at that 
 time exhibited. I may quote this statement: "To 
 arrive at a just conclusion on this point, at least five 
 years would be required, and only such tenants as 
 removed to other places to continue the tenant relation 
 could be considered in enumerating the removals. It 
 would be manifestly unfair, in considering the extent 
 and influence of a migratory, restless habit, to attribute 
 to it such as were actuated by opportunity and desire 
 to purchase land."* 
 
 We have before us an exhibit of the transactions 
 of a somewhat longer period than the one suggested. 
 As far as possible, it is confined to a bare statement of 
 fact. It is entirely competent for anyone interested 
 in the subject to study the data presented and reason 
 to his own conclusions. In judging how far it might 
 be safe to generalise from a single plantation the fol 
 lowing suggestions may with some possible profit be 
 borne in mind. The operations cover a period practi 
 cally of six years, though all the crop data for the last 
 year are not available. The number of families covered 
 is 154, and of individuals affected more than 1,600. 
 The Negroes composing these families came from nearly 
 every section of the South, every Southern state con- 
 
 * Chapter III. p. 123 
 
142 The American Race Problem 
 
 tributing, with the exception of Texas and Florida. 
 The operations extend through years characterised by 
 extremes both of yield and price, with an excellent 
 general average of each. The plantation management 
 was strongly biased in favour of the rent system at the 
 beginning of 1899; it leans as strongly toward the 
 share system at the close of 1904. The relations be 
 tween management and tenants have been uniformly 
 kindly and necessarily most intimate. In the main 
 the families have been of good class, orderly, and well 
 behaved, but one homicide having occurred among 
 them during the six years. No one of the 103 families 
 that have removed has undertaken the purchase of 
 land. The average age of the heads of families has 
 been about forty years. Of the eight who have re 
 mained on the place during six years, four are over 
 sixty-five, one over sixty, two over and one under forty. 
 To my mind, the most suggestive fact which these 
 operations would seem to establish is, stated conser 
 vatively, that the attainment of a prosperous condition 
 by the plantation Negro does not influence him suffi 
 ciently to create an attachment for the local environ 
 ment which accomplishes his material betterment. 
 This seems to me true, unless the removals from such 
 environment are at least in some considerable measure 
 influenced by stronger appeals to intelligent self-interest 
 than are offered by the conditions surrounding the 
 initial improvement. This, of course, presumes the 
 persistence of normal and friendly relations between 
 tenant and management. I take it that in the case 
 
A Plantation Experiment 143 
 
 before us we are justified in eliminating at the outset, 
 as one legitimate occasion of removal, if I may use the 
 expression, the desire to become a land-owner, inas 
 much as no attempt was made in such direction. In 
 running down the list of recorded causes of removal, 
 I find one, and but one, that can be placed in the class 
 of appeals to self-interest, and then only by not insisting 
 that such self-interest be intelligent. This was the 
 case of several well-to-do renters who left us in 1902 
 because they were offered a reduction of land rent of 
 one dollar per acre elsewhere. Upon its face such 
 action cannot be criticised. As a matter of fact, it 
 emphasised the operation of an unfortunate racial 
 trait the thoughtless failure to distinguish between 
 the simplest forms of real and fictitious advantage, the 
 heedless pursuit of the shadow for the substance. The 
 property to which these people removed was run down, 
 its houses were scarcely habitable, its drainage was 
 poor, and there was not another family on it at the 
 time. The reduced rent was a concession to necessity, 
 yet the bait was seized as eagerly as though the hook 
 were not visible to the foresight even of a child. With 
 in a few weeks, whether prompted by characteristic 
 vacillation or by the operation of returning common 
 sense, I do not undertake to say, some of these families 
 wanted to return to us. 
 
 It would be well-nigh impossible to enumerate the 
 various causes, real and imaginary, behind the change 
 of abode of the hundred and odd families who left us 
 during these years. In several instances, hands left 
 
144 The American Race Problem 
 
 because we were unwilling to advance the amount of 
 "Christmas money" to which they felt themselves 
 entitled. Some departed with the rare frankness of a 
 declaration that they "just wanted a change." Family 
 troubles, the separation of husbands and wives, also 
 account for their share. Still others went because of 
 alleged dissatisfaction with the contract under which 
 they had successfully been brought to a state of inde 
 pendence.* 
 
 In saying that I have long since abandoned the hope 
 of fathoming the processes of the plantation Negro s 
 mind, I have "a conscience void of offence " toward these 
 people, to whom I have never knowingly been guilty 
 of an unjust act or word. I mean simply to give expres 
 sion to the conviction, speaking of the average, of 
 course, and not of the rare exception, that their actions 
 have no logical or reasonable basis, that they are no 
 tional and whimsical, and that they are controlled far 
 more by their fancies than by their common sense. 
 Not that the Negro is to be called upon to render to 
 the world a reason for his every act to account to 
 his critics for the motives behind his comings and his 
 goings upon the earth. But the student of sociology 
 and economics is interested to discover if it be true, 
 as is so generally stated, that a certain large and distinct 
 class of the world s labouring population is characterised 
 
 * In selling stock, our contract had required the renter to plant enough corn 
 to provide sufficient feed. After a number had paid for their mules, they 
 objected to this because corn is not a cash crop. One of the changes incident 
 to the abandonment of our experiment was the discontinuance of our compre 
 hensive contract, and the substitution of one of a dozen lines in the simplest 
 possible form and terms. 
 
A Plantation Experiment 145 
 
 by a restless, migratory tendency. This interest at 
 taches to the general subject, whether the concrete illus 
 tration be drawn from the fields of the Southern states, 
 from the diamond mines of Kimberley, or from the 
 gold workings of the Rand. The matters and results 
 treated in this paper merely offer cumulative evidence 
 to the correctness of a largely entertained conviction. 
 It is not maintained that they are a demonstration. 
 But the fact does stand out that, in the matter of build 
 ing up a group of reasonably permanent tenants, these 
 Negroes signally failed to respond to the influence of 
 the most favourable economic conditions with which 
 it was possible for a plantation to surround them. 
 This much is demonstrated, and I account for it in 
 two ways: first, on the hypothesis of a migratory in 
 stinct; second, on that of a characteristic easy-going 
 indolence, which seeks freedom to assert itself, and 
 chafes under restraints which measurably restrict its 
 enjoyment. 
 
 The Negro race, in the mass, is charged with numerous 
 faults and weaknesses. It is no purpose of mine to 
 discover new ones or to magnify the old. I but give 
 utterance to a sincerely entertained opinion, based 
 upon many years of close personal observation, when I 
 say that these traits to-day present the greatest obstacles 
 to the real, general, permanent advancement of the 
 race, whether in this country, Africa, or the West Indies. 
 I have read a great deal about the Negro s "love of 
 home," and have heard much of the strength of his 
 "local attachment," but in a not unkindly search I 
 
146 The American Race Problem 
 
 have been able to discover neither the one nor the 
 other among the masses of the race. To my mind 
 they are a restless people. Ever seeking change, they 
 sometimes wander far afield, and traverse the boun 
 daries of states in its pursuit. Again, like one lost in a 
 forest, they move but in a narrow circle, yet always in 
 the same vain, aimless quest. They have been wan 
 derers since emancipation gave free play to native 
 instinct, and I do not see how a love of home, in the 
 real sense, could characterise a people who in the mass 
 know so little of such an abode. Certainly, the planta 
 tion Negro changes his residence far too often for his 
 children to form local attachments or to develop any 
 thing akin to such a sentiment. I have often been 
 impressed with the peculiar significance which long 
 usage has attached to the very word "home" among 
 these people. It has come to mean no more than 
 "house," and the two are synonymous terms. When 
 the plantation Negro starts out in quest of an abiding 
 place for another year, he goes in search of another 
 "home." 
 
 On November 26th, 1904, the principal of Tuskegee 
 Institute gave to the press a statement which has been 
 very widely reproduced aid commented upon. It 
 recited "the main complaints of the coloured people," 
 given to him "time and time again," as explaining their 
 preference for the "uncertain existence" of cities and 
 towns to "comparative prosperity upon a farm." I 
 give them in full: "Poor dwelling-houses, loss of earn 
 ings each year because of unscrupulous employers, 
 
A Plantation Experiment 147 
 
 high-priced provisions, poor school-houses, short school 
 terms, poor school-teachers, bad treatment generally, 
 lynchings and whitecapping, fear of the practice of 
 peonage, a general lack of police protection, and want of 
 encouragement. 
 
 Whether or not the really effective causes behind the 
 urban drift observed by Mr. Washington in Georgia 
 are essentially different from those behind migrations 
 from place to place in the Mississippi Delta, we need 
 not stop to inquire. My only suggestion is that not 
 one charge in this comprehensive catalogue was ever 
 laid at our door, yet somehow the fact of local drift 
 and restless movement still remains with us an ever- 
 present reality. And what I say for ourselves I can 
 say likewise for scores of others. I do not say that the 
 complaints recited are not real in some counties of the 
 South. I do assert, however, that they fail to cover 
 the ground. When the friend of the Negro masses 
 would know the whole truth behind the forces which 
 to-day most militate against the material progress of 
 the race, he must go deep below the surface of troubles 
 which the white man can remove or rectify. 
 
148 The American Race Problem 
 
 PLANTATION STATISTICS 
 
 YEAR. 
 
 1899. 
 
 1900. 
 
 1901. 
 
 1902. 
 
 1903. 
 
 Number of families. 
 
 58 
 
 59 
 
 61 
 
 69 
 
 75 
 
 Number families leav 
 ing 
 
 26 
 
 T ? 
 
 16 
 
 j 7 
 
 
 Per cent, of total . . . 
 
 44-8 
 
 - 1 o 
 22 
 
 26.2 
 
 24.6 
 
 3 
 
 41.3 
 
 Cotton acreage 
 
 1,064 
 
 1,048 
 
 i,348 
 
 1,341 
 
 1,392 
 
 Bales (500 Ibs. aver 
 age) 
 
 459 
 
 Si? 
 
 1,270 
 
 1,131 
 
 741 
 
 Lint per acre 
 Bales per family 
 
 215 
 7*0 
 
 389 
 13.8 
 
 47i 
 
 20.8 
 
 421 
 
 16 4 
 
 266 
 
 o 8 
 
 Average price, cents . . 
 
 7.50 
 
 9-94 
 
 7.90 
 
 xu<4 
 
 8.08 
 
 y.o 
 
 11.77 
 
 Value of cotton and 
 seed 
 
 $21,663.88 
 
 $47,541.66 
 
 $60,742.04 
 
 $54,593.26 
 
 $53,527.73 
 
 Value per acre . 
 
 $20.36 
 
 $45.36 
 
 $45.06 
 
 &AO T T 
 
 $"?8 d? 
 
 Value per family. . . . 
 
 $373.51 
 
 $805.79 
 
 $995.77 
 
 SP4-U. / i 
 
 $791.20 
 
 SPjO.^O 
 
 $713.70 
 
 Stock of renters 
 Per cent, of total on 
 
 plclCC 
 
 73 
 94.8 
 
 7 6 
 ge , 
 
 89 
 
 78 7 
 
 77 
 
 6d 7 
 
 60 
 
 A.1 6 
 
 Cash advanced for 
 work in tenants 
 crops 
 
 $465.40 
 
 J O 
 
 $513.90 
 
 / . / 
 $856.90 
 
 u^.. / 
 
 $741.40 
 
 4.7. u 
 $161.80 
 
 Cash for picking 
 
 $759.8o 
 
 $1,536.10 
 
 $3,859.55 
 
 $4,376.40 
 
 $1,977-65 
 
 Cash for work and pick 
 ing per bale 
 
 $2.66 
 
 $2.50 
 
 $3-71 
 
 $4-52 
 
 $2.88 
 
 Work and picking per 
 family 
 
 Christmas money 
 
 $ 21.12 
 
 None 
 
 $34-40 
 
 $375.OO 
 
 $77.32 
 $1,735.35 
 
 $74-17 
 
 $473-85 
 
 $28.52 
 
 $4-5O. 50 
 
 Additional cash ad 
 vanced during De 
 cember 
 
 $641.59 
 
 $2,378.58 
 
 $1,87 I .OO 
 
 $1,1 63.95 
 
 $i Q35- 5 1 
 
 Total cash balances 
 and advances during 
 ginning season 
 
 $3,077-22 
 
 $12,747.14 
 
 $13,899.96 
 
 $7,436.39 
 
 $7,566.34 
 
 Average per family 
 during ginning sea 
 son 
 
 $53-05 
 
 $2l6.05 
 
 $227.86 
 
 $107.77 
 
 $100.88 
 
 Number families rent 
 ing 
 Per cent of total . 
 
 58 
 
 100 
 
 59 
 
 IOO 
 
 86 S 1 
 
 6 5 4 f 
 
 36 
 48 
 
 Rented cotton acre 
 age 
 
 1,064 
 
 1,048 
 
 I, 2OO 
 
 884 
 
 761 
 
 Per cent, of total . 
 
 IOO 
 
 IOO 
 
 89.02 
 
 65.9 
 
 54-6 
 
THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO* 
 THE FACTOR OF WHITE COMPETITION 
 
 THIS is too broad a subject to be treated compre 
 hensively within the limits of this paper. Hence I 
 shall address myself only to what I believe to be the 
 most important question in any practical consideration 
 of the Negro s economic future the factor of white 
 competition. 
 
 I shall not even attempt a discussion of census 
 statistics. Such figures, save in a general way, do 
 not speak for themselves. They must be interpreted. 
 As a result we have a variety of conflicting deductions 
 drawn from the same statistical material. A census 
 volume in some respects resembles the Bible. Each is 
 a repository of truth, and from the one we can fortify 
 almost any economic bias, while from the other we 
 can satisfy any religious opinion we happen to pos 
 sess. Two courses are open to those interested 
 particularly in this branch of the subject: either to 
 study the mass of data at first hand, and work out one s 
 own conclusions, or accept such findings of others 
 as appeal most strongly to one s judgment or predilec 
 tions. If I can contribute anything whatever of value 
 
 * Read at the eighteenth annual meeting of the American Economic Associa 
 tion, Baltimore, Md., December, 1905. 
 
 149 
 
150 The American Race Problem 
 
 to this discussion, I am persuaded it will be by drawing 
 upon those observations and experiences of common 
 life, which, to borrow an idea of Lord Erskine, after all 
 are themselves of the essence of truth. 
 
 At the outset of our speculations upon the future of 
 the Negro we are confronted with our ignorance of his 
 present economic status. We are in doubt about even 
 the elementary fact of his present accumulated wealth. 
 Mr. Schurz places it at $800,000,000. Mr Edward 
 Atkinson, shortly before his death, accepted a New 
 York World estimate of $750,000,000. Mr. Kealing, a 
 coloured authority, claims $1,000,000,000. A com 
 mittee of this association, under the chairmanship of 
 Professor Walter F. Willcox, and including Dr. DuBois 
 in its membership, places the figures at "approximately 
 $300,000,000." And after we have agreed upon such 
 figures what do they tell us of the stability and rate, of 
 even the extent, of economic progress? In the answer 
 to this question are involved two widely accepted 
 fallacies: first, that the Negro began life forty years 
 ago with nothing but his freedom; second, that the 
 period of his emancipation has been one of marvellous 
 economic achievement. 
 
 It is easy to prove progress if permitted to take zero 
 as our starting point and measure of comparison. 
 Frederick Douglass s plea, that the Negro race be not 
 judged by the heights to which it had attained, but 
 rather by the depths from which it had come, has met 
 with such a response that the acceptance of all it implies 
 has become a cardinal tenet with most of those who 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 151 
 
 discuss the Negro s industrial life. It is both pleasanter 
 and easier to accept this appeal than it is to test its 
 merit. But I take it that we are not willing to flounder 
 about in a maze of speculation, satisfied on the one 
 hand with fulsome eulogies of doubtful achievements, 
 or, upon the other, content to condemn a race to eco 
 nomic servitude without a trial or upon false testimony. 
 If we would know the truth as to where we are, we 
 should at least endeavour to learn how far we have 
 really come. This means a study of the economic 
 status of the Negro in 1865, and this I have time only 
 to briefly touch upon. 
 
 I merely suggest for your consideration certain facts 
 in this connection, tending to disprove the reiterated 
 assertion of the Negro s pauperism at the time of his 
 emancipation. We seem to overlook the fact that 
 there were half a million free Negroes (487,970) in this 
 country in 1860, distributed throughout practically 
 all the states of the union. In their ranks were to be 
 found men engaged in nearly every form of industrial 
 enterprise followed by such persons to-day. Another 
 fact is that the four million (3,953,760) slaves of 1860 
 occupied in 1865 an apparently impregnable economic 
 position. They furnished a great proportion of the 
 skilled labour of the entire South, and in many parts of 
 it enjoyed an absolute monopoly of this and the field 
 of common labour as well. The evidence as to such 
 conditions is conclusive, but it need not be sought in 
 census reports. It is to be found in the press of the 
 period; in the reported proceedings of Negro industrial 
 
152 The American Race Problem 
 
 bodies; in the correspondence of private individuals 
 who went South after 1863 ; in the reports of numerous 
 freedmen s aid commissions and societies; and to some 
 extent in the official reports of agents of the Freedmen s 
 Bureau. It is to be had also in pamphlets and other 
 writings of Negroes themselves. We may not be able 
 to say that in 1865 the race had accumulated a specific 
 number of dollars, though the amount was well into the 
 millions. We cannot do that even in 1905. We can 
 learn enough, however, to realise that we are only be 
 clouding the truth when we speak of the Negro s eco 
 nomic progress as an achievement of the past forty years. 
 It seems to me, then, that if we seek to measure such 
 progress by present property holdings, it is incumbent 
 upon us to answer the questions, How much has the 
 Negro accumulated during the last forty years? and, 
 How much had he acquired during the preceding hun 
 dred and forty? 
 
 It is inconceivable that any people who could increase 
 in numbers from four and a half millions in 1860 to 
 nine millions in 1900 could fail also to increase their 
 property during that period. In discussing as some 
 thing wonderful this very natural increase we lose sight 
 of factors and considerations which must enter into any 
 estimate of the extent to which such increase means 
 genuine and permanent economic racial progress. How 
 far has it been a mere advance along lines of least re 
 sistance ? In what degree is it indicated by the success 
 of more or less isolated groups, under favourable local 
 conditions ? How has this acquisition of property kept 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 153 
 
 pace with that of others about them, and how far does it 
 represent only the crumbs from the rich man s table ? 
 How great a proportion is held by the exceptional few 
 and how much distributed among the masses ? How 
 much of the total is traceable to the gifts and bequests 
 of white ancestors? To what extent does this increase 
 mean the holding of their own, or actual, positive 
 progress, in the face of slowly but steadily increasing 
 white competition? In how far is it attributable to 
 the training and steadying influences of the period of 
 slavery? In what proportion do the older and younger 
 elements of the race, respectively, contribute to the 
 total wealth of the whole? These are some of the con 
 siderations which must be taken into account, in an 
 estimate of the future based upon something more 
 tangible and stable than the skilful handling of figures 
 or flatteringly expressed sentiments of good will. 
 
 The greatest asset in possession of the Negro of 1865 
 was the great salient fact that at that time, in the sec 
 tion in which he lived, he was practically without the 
 competition of the white man. To-day the most por 
 tentous figure that looms upon his economic horizon is 
 that of his white competitor. But even in 1865 he 
 was slowly receding before such competition in the 
 North. To me the most significant utterance at the 
 New York convention of the National Negro Business 
 League in 1905 was the note of warning sounded 
 in Mr. Wanamaker s address. He recalled the fact that 
 Philadelphia once had a number of Negro business men 
 in whom the local business world took pride. But, he 
 
154 The American Race Problem 
 
 said, "many of them lost their business before they 
 passed away. As an old business man I am speaking 
 the fact ; they lost their business because the Swiss, the 
 Germans, and others who were American white men did 
 that same business better than they did it. Their color 
 had not the least thing to do with it."* 
 
 In an address in Brooklyn at about the same time Mr. 
 Samuel R. Scottron voiced thejapprehensions of a thought 
 ful, courageous man, not dazzled by the outer show of the 
 oft-proclaimed "marvellous progress " of his people. At 
 the same time he gave an insight into the economic 
 position of the Negro in New York half a century ago. 
 He said : "I have hardly to go beyond the years of my 
 own individual experience hereabouts to find cause for 
 grave doubt. Note in this city, which has grown so 
 rapidly that it seems to have been raised by the touch 
 of a wizard s wand, the place in its industrial history 
 that the Negro held forty or fifty or more years ago, the 
 opportunities that were his to build up and to accumu 
 late, and how these opportunities were neglected! This 
 is evidence of a people easily overcome; no, not over 
 come, but simply retiring without a contest from the 
 places which were not only theirs, but concededly 
 theirs, before the influx of those peoples who represent 
 all that remains of the ancient Greeks and Romans. 
 The Italian, Sicilian, Greek, foreign to America s lan 
 guage and institutions, occupy quite every industry 
 that was confessedly the Negro s forty years ago. They 
 have the bootblack stands, the news-stands, barber- 
 
 * New York Age, August 24, 1905, p. 2. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro- 155 
 
 shops, waiters situations, restaurants, janitorships, cater 
 ing business, stevedoring, steamboat work, and other 
 situations once occupied by Negroes ; and furthermore, 
 occupy the very houses which were once the homes of 
 Negroes only the Negro paid rent, while the Italian is 
 now the owner. Look at West Broadway, Lawrence 
 Street, Thompson Street, Sullivan Street, Bleecker 
 Street, West Fourth Street, Thomas, Worth, and Leon 
 ard Streets, in New York City to-day, and think of these 
 streets forty, or even thirty, years ago. Look at the 
 ground upon which we now stand, and on the section 
 about one mile square known in early days as Weeks- 
 ville, after one of our race, named James Weeks. 
 Think of those of our people who occupied all these 
 places when building lots could have been bought for 
 $25 and $50 and $100 each, and look upon the present 
 occupants Italians. Think of our city s most famous 
 caterers of forty or fifty years ago. They were the 
 Downings, Mars, Watson, Vandyke, Ten Eyck, Day, 
 Green, and others, all coloured. Their names were as 
 familiar and as representative in high-class work as are 
 Delmonico and Sherry to-day. Who have succeeded to 
 the business that these coloured caterers had in those 
 days? With one exception, Italians. Not one has left 
 a child in an enlarged business of the same line. With 
 all of us the business dies with the fathers. Is this 
 showing a capacity to build?" 
 
 Again referring to this former Negro quarter he says : 
 "I walked for blocks and blocks recently through that 
 district. I found it strewn with little stores, mainly of 
 
156 The American Race Problem 
 
 produce, native and foreign ; every store kept by an 
 Italian and scarcely one in which there was not a Negro 
 present as a buyer. One place only was kept by a Negro, 
 apparently, and that was a pool or billiard room filled 
 with young men who were making the echoes sound. 
 The guitar, fiddle, banjo, melodeon, and even piano, 
 were all giving evidence of happiness and contentment 
 amongst our people; but the Italian was doing the 
 business. Certainly these gloomy pictures are not all 
 that the Negro has to show in forty years hereabouts, 
 but it does show that he has by no means taken advan 
 tage of the position which he once held. If we were at 
 the top at any time in the past in any line of industry, 
 why are we at the bottom of it to-day? That s the 
 question. In lines concededly belonging to the Negro 
 years ago he has been entirely superseded by the Italian. 
 How far in this direction can we go without getting off 
 the earth entirely ? These changes the Negro cannot lay 
 to colour prejudice, surely. Using this as a basis of 
 calculation, what could one say of the Future of the 
 American Negro? "* 
 
 Along the same line, an editorial in the leading 
 American Negro newspaper declares that a small Italian 
 colony near New York, under the observation of the 
 writer, had "acquired more real estate and developed 
 more business interests of one sort and another in the 
 past four years than have ten times as many Afro- 
 Americans in the same locality in the past forty years, "f 
 
 * New York Age, July 27, iqos, p. 7. 
 t Idem., Jan. 12, 1905. p. a. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 157 
 
 If we go to Chicago, we find the same testimony from 
 another thoughtful and competent observer, Mrs, 
 Fannie Barrier Williams. She writes as follows: "It 
 is quite safe to say that in the last fifteen years the 
 coloured people have lost about every occupation that 
 was regarded as peculiarly their own. Among the oc 
 cupations that seem to be permanently lost are barber- 
 ing, bootblacking, cooking, hotel and restaurant waiting, 
 janitors in office buildings, elevator service, and calci- 
 mining." 
 
 She answers her own question as to the cause of such 
 loss in these significant words :f "White men wanted 
 these places and were strong enough to displace the 
 unorganised, thoughtless and easy-going occupants of 
 them. When the hordes of Greeks, Italians, Swedes, 
 and other foreign folks began to pour into Chicago, 
 the demand for the Negro s places began. One occu 
 pation after another that the coloured people thought 
 was theirs forever by a sort of divine right fell into 
 the hands of these foreign invaders. This loss was 
 not so much due to prejudice against colour, as to 
 the ability of these foreigners to increase the importance 
 of the places sought and captured. The Swedes have 
 captured the janitor business by organising and train 
 ing the men for this work in such a way as to increase 
 the efficiency and reliability of the service. White men 
 have made more of the barber business than did the 
 coloured men, and by organisation have driven every 
 Negro barber from the business district. The shoe- 
 polisher has supplanted the Negro bootblack, and 
 

 158 The American Race Problem 
 
 does business in finely appointed parlours, with mahog 
 any finish and electric lights. Thus a menial occupation 
 has become a well organized and genteel business with 
 capital and system behind it. "* 
 
 As to servant girls in the same city, Mrs. Williams 
 says that white girls prefer to pass by the clerkship, 
 which coloured girls cannot get, and enter schools of 
 domestic science to prepare themselves for trained do 
 mestic service, and to fill places scorned by coloured 
 girls though open to them. "It is really alarming," 
 she says, "to look forward to the next decade, when 
 the great changes now going on in the field of domestic 
 science shall have been worked out and developed into 
 a profession. Where will our girls be? Just about 
 in the position of our barbers in the large cities, who 
 have allowed themselves to be forced into the menial 
 service of blacking shoes and brushing the clothes of 
 their former customers, "f 
 
 On the same subject, but in a different part of the 
 country, The Richmond Negro Criterion warns the Ne 
 groes that they are losing their hold upon a, to them, 
 vital occupation. It says : "Our young women must 
 take these positions while they can get them. . . . 
 We are told that they (the foreign immigrants) will turn 
 in the direction of the South. When they come, woe, 
 woe to the Negro. His places will be gone, to come no 
 more. The time is fast approaching when domestic 
 employment for females of our race will be as far gone as 
 
 * New York Age, June 15, 1905, p. a. 
 t Idem, Sept. 28, 1905, p. 7. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 159 
 
 that of the barber and those who formerly worked in 
 the factories."* 
 
 The New York Age has commented editorially on the 
 fact that Negroes "in the Pullman service are up against 
 the relentless competition which has displaced them to 
 such a disastrous extent in the hotel and restaurant 
 service." It also notes the fact that already they have 
 been supplanted in the dining-car service of some of the 
 Northwestern railroads. f It has been only a few years 
 since an effort was made to supplant the coloured em 
 ployees of the New York Union League Club. It was 
 an open secret that only traditional and political con 
 siderations caused the failure of the movement. 
 
 We may go to Kansas and hear the same cry of the 
 disastrous results of white competition. The Topeka 
 bootblacks have been supplanted by Greeks, and the 
 Plaindealer thus accounts for the change : "The Negro 
 is the best bootblack. . . . but he studied too much 
 about baseball, policy, craps, etc., and not enough about 
 the comfort of his patrons. He was earning enough to 
 make him feel as though the poeple who patronised him 
 were under obligations to him, and would quit working 
 on a customer to jolly with a bystander."! 
 
 From Massachusetts comes the same story, with the 
 addition of other factors inimical to the Negro s future 
 welfare. In a discussion of the economic position of 
 the Negro in Boston, at the South End House, in April, 
 
 * Reproduced and endorsed in New York Age, Sept. 28, 1905, p. 4. 
 
 t New York Age, June 8, 1905, p. 2. Since this paper was read I have seen 
 a news item to the effect that the New York Central Railroad has introduced 
 white waiters on one of its dining-cars. 
 
 $ New York Age, May 25, 1905, p. a. 
 
160 The American Race Problem 
 
 1905, Mr. John Daniels said : "There are in Boston to 
 day probably 15,000 Negroes. The percentage of em 
 ployment among them is larger than that for the white 
 population as a whole, or for any element of it. This 
 statement, however, is not to be regarded altogether 
 optimistically. In the first place, the figures showing 
 percentage of employment are open to the doubt that 
 most figures of the census are open to. Then even if 
 the figures are correct they go to show how much the 
 Negroes have to work, how severe the economic stress 
 upon them is. This applies especially to Negro women, 
 among whom the percentage of employment is twice as 
 great as that among the whites." " It is not a thing to 
 rejoice over," continues Mr. Daniels, "but a thing to be 
 regretted, that so many Negro women have to work. 
 Turning now to the kinds of work the Negroes are en 
 gaged in, we find the majority of them engaged in the 
 meaner sorts of labour, unskilled labour, for the most part , 
 and commanding only the pay of unskilled labour. We 
 find very few of them in the handicrafts of the trades. 
 The problem then, is not so much to get more work as 
 to get better work." At the same meeting the Rev. 
 Henry J. Callis, a coloured minister, made the statement 
 that to-day in the city of Boston "not a single Negro 
 church building is owned by its congregation. "* 
 
 We have the same testimony on the condition of the 
 Boston Negro as regards domestic service that is so 
 abundant on the question of his practical exclusion 
 from the trades and handicrafts. The Bulletin of the 
 
 * New York Age. May 4, 1905, p. i. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 161 
 
 Inter-municipal Committee on Household Research is 
 authority for the statement that the Boston Reform 
 League has been unable to secure an equal chance for 
 coloured girls in obtaining employment, and cannot 
 secure places for more than half who apply. We are 
 told that "Negroes who specialise in house work dupli 
 cate the experience of a coloured butler for whom the 
 League tried for three months to find a place, but with 
 out success. He was rieat in his person and good look 
 ing, and was highly recommended. He stated that he 
 had answered, in all, two hundred advertisements, but 
 he was invariably refused the position simply because 
 he was a coloured man. It is not surprising, therefore, 
 that on leaving Boston to return to New York, he said: 
 These Boston people beat me. They will have mass- 
 meetings and raise money to help Mr. Washington 
 educate the "niggers" down South, but they will let 
 a decent Northerner starve before they will give him a 
 chance to earn an honest living. "* 
 
 Dr. William N. DeBerry, for five years pastor of a 
 coloured Congregational church in Springfield, Mass., 
 has made an interesting study of the general condition 
 of his people in that city. I cannot go into the details 
 of his report, but he speaks in very plain language 
 of the effects of "prejudice and ostracism," "intense 
 antipathy," and kindred race feeling. He does not try 
 to minimise the faults of the Negro, but speaks 
 frankly of "the malady of disunion," "bitter intolerance 
 and strife" in their religious bodies, and of "the worth- 
 
 * JJulletin. New York City, May, 1905, p. 15. 
 
1 6z The American Race Problem 
 
 less element, with no visible means of support." It is 
 to the economic feature of his report that I wish to call 
 your attention. He found on January i, 1905, a Negro 
 population of 1,253, with 375 men and 533 women. 
 He enumerates the number of these in each occupation, 
 and asks the question: "Why is it that 86 per cent, 
 of the coloured labour in this city is confined to the 
 lower strata of industry?" His answer is that the 
 large number who "are fitted for other occupations are 
 debarred by pure race prejudice." "Three hundred 
 and twenty black men out of 375," he continues, "are 
 confined to certain servile types of employment in 
 Springfield, not because they are all unfit for anything 
 higher, but because race prejudice has closed the door 
 of industrial opportunity against these men as a class. 
 But they continue to knock daily at this closed door and 
 plead only for the chance to fill such places as are open 
 where the service they can render is in demand." He 
 says they only ask "that as a class they may be emanci 
 pated from the merciless industrial ostracism which 
 shuts out the capable and worthy Negro because God 
 chose to create him black. . . . That for which 
 they most earnestly plead at the hands of their more 
 favoured fellow citizens is merited industrial opportun 
 ity." And Dr. DeBerry says that his study should be 
 "of more than local significance, inasmuch as the 
 situation here in Springfield is fairly typical of the 
 black man s condition throughout the North."* 
 
 * Springfield Weekly Republican, Feb. 10, 1905. I am indebted to Dr. De 
 Perry for a copy of his report. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 163 
 
 Generally, throughout the North, as Dr. DeBerry 
 tells you, the story is the same. With variations of 
 detail we find practically the same situation presented 
 in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Springfield, 
 and sections of New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas and 
 the Northwest. The Negro has lost ground. In a 
 plea for industrial education and opportunity, Booker 
 T. Washington says: "No one can fully appreciate 
 what I am saying who has not walked the streets of a 
 Northern city day after day seeking employment, only 
 to find every door closed against him on account of 
 his colour, except in menial service."* We need hardly 
 seek for further cumulative evidence on a fact now 
 admitted by all save the ignorant; viz., that in the 
 Northern section of our country, with all its wealth, 
 with all its splendid industrial achievement, with all 
 its promise to the child of the white man, the door of 
 economic opportunity is closed before the faces of the 
 masses of the Negro race, even though it reluctantly 
 yield to the knock of the chosen few. 
 
 There seem to be two contributing causes to this 
 situation: inefficiency, unreliability, and lack of thrift 
 upon the part of the Negro, and prejudice upon the 
 part of the white man. I shall not attempt to weigh 
 the one against the other, to see where the greater 
 responsibility lies. Upon the statements of eminent 
 Negro authorities their people have themselves to blame 
 certainly in very great measure. I can hardly believe 
 that any considerable body of labouring men, regardless 
 
 * "Future of the American Negro," p. 76. 
 
164 The American Race Problem 
 
 of colour or race, anywhere have ever been successfully 
 and permanently deprived of their opportunities by 
 any other body of men, unless the latter proved them 
 selves the more competent to do the work sought by 
 the two. 
 
 It would seem then that it is to the South that the 
 Negro masses must look for their economic salvation. 
 As I have quoted Booker T. Washington on the North 
 ern situation, I may quote him now on the Southern. 
 Of the latter he says: "Whatever other sins the South 
 may be called upon to bear, when it comes to business, 
 pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is 
 given a man s chance in the commercial world."* 
 Again, he says: " It has been my privilege to study the 
 condition of my people in nearly every part of America ; 
 and I say, without hesitation, that, with some excep 
 tional cases, the Negro is at his best in the Southern 
 states, "f 
 
 For some years I have attempted to study the social 
 and economic relations between white and black races 
 wherever they come in contact, but have not amalga 
 mated, as in this country, some of the West Indies, 
 Africa, and Australia, and I have only to confirm Mr. 
 Washington s opinion. To me it seems that the plain 
 est fact to-day confronting the Negro is that there is 
 but one area of any size in the world wherein his race 
 may obey the command to eat its bread in the sweat 
 of its face, side by side with the white man. That 
 
 * Up from Slavery, pp. 219, 220. 
 
 t "Future of the American Negro," p. 202. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 165 
 
 area is composed of the Southern United States. I 
 cannot go into details and sift the evidence for you. 
 You may find it in the observations of travellers, dis 
 tinguished and obscure, in the writings of resident and 
 foreign historians, economists, and sociologists, in the 
 complaints of the black man and his friends, in the 
 enactment of laws and the recorded operations of 
 prejudice. The evidence is voluminous, and it seems 
 to me conclusive, that only in the land wherein for so 
 many years the world has been taught to believe that 
 "the white man despises manual labour," may the black 
 man work by his side. 
 
 Washington says that "wherever the Negro has lost 
 ground industrially in the South, it is not because 
 there is prejudice against him as a skilled labourer on 
 the part of the native Southern white man."* This 
 absence of prejudice applies in the case of the skilled 
 white Southern labourer as well as in the case of the 
 employer of such labour. This is not difficult to account 
 for. Here is where the Negro profits by the drawing of 
 the general Southern colour line; through this and the 
 obliterating effect of generations of contact upon what 
 would elsewhere seem to be natural repugnance to 
 physical association. The white mason and carpenter 
 work side by side with the Negro because they know 
 that that line exists for them just exactly as it does for 
 the lawyer or doctor. The Negro recognises that the 
 white man is not lowered one particle in the estimation 
 of the community because of his occupation. Each 
 
 * "Future of the American Negro," p. 78. 
 
i66 The American Race Problem 
 
 knows that the status of the other remains unchanged 
 the Negro is still a Negro, the white man still a white man. 
 
 In a country where lines are drawn between races 
 this has its significance; in one where the line is not 
 racial, but is drawn between occupations, or depends 
 upon wealth or other conditions, it would have no such 
 significance. Mr. Bryce speaks of race feeling and the 
 drawing of the colour line in South Africa. He relates 
 the incident of a white man accepting employment 
 under a native of means, but only on condition that 
 the latter call him "boss." This may have been in 
 comprehensible to Mr. Bryce, but a Southern man 
 would have known what was going on in the white 
 colonist s mind. It is my explanation over again. 
 As long as he had verbal evidence that the native Negro 
 still recognised the racial difference between them, 
 that one was still white and the other still black, he had 
 no objection to the altered outward relation. 
 
 But while we may be interested in this, as in any 
 other abstract racial phenomenon, for the Negro the 
 cause of the condition is of less importance than is the 
 duration of the condition itself. How long will it be 
 before the Northern attitude impresses itself upon the 
 Southern racial industrial situation, or the Northern 
 situation is reproduced in the South? This is difficult 
 to answer, but we may see two principal causes operat 
 ing in this direction. One of these is the general spread 
 of trade unions in the South, the other is an increasing 
 demand for better industrial service than the South 
 hitherto has been satisfied with from the Negro. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 167 
 
 As to the second of these influences a discussion which 
 throws some light upon the Northern situation is also 
 suggestive of the probable course of Southern people, 
 if they should ever awaken to a realisation of the differ 
 ence between competent and incompetent service. 
 Speaking of the disastrous loss of employment by the 
 Boston Negro, Mr. Archibald H. Grimke, of that city, 
 states that it is not due entirely to prejudice, though he 
 says that "all things being equal, the average Northern 
 white man prefers to be served by waiters of his own 
 race and colour." He says: "The battle for employ 
 ment, for bread, has gone against us as a race at these 
 three points in the domestic and hotel service of Boston. 
 At one point our service body has been almost wiped 
 out, while in the others we are yielding ground, and 
 have been doing so for years, before aggressions of 
 white servant bodies." Summing up the various causes 
 behind this loss, he says: "The coloured coachman 
 got a black eye when people began to travel abroad 
 and to discover in England, for instance, how much 
 more an English coachman knows about horses 
 and their care than a coloured one in Boston. The 
 English coachman not only knows how to sit on his 
 box and hold the ribbons with style, but he is a master 
 of horse lore. He keeps abreast with up-to-date 
 methods and utilities in his world. He is, in fact, a 
 horse doctor of no mean attainments and skill. He 
 has fitted himself to do his work not in one line only 
 but in an all-round way. And as the coloured coach 
 man was inferior to him in this respect, he had only to 
 
i68 The American Race Problem 
 
 come and see and conquer wherever he and his coloured 
 competitor engaged each other in the struggle for 
 employment, for bread."* 
 
 Apropos of horses and coachman, it may be remarked 
 that another striking loss suffered by the Negro is in 
 the almost total displacing of the coloured jockey by 
 the white within the last twenty years. 
 
 Among Southern men who patronise barber shops 
 there are the fewest number who will go to one con 
 ducted by Negroes after having once tried "white 
 shops." This is true despite the deep-rooted general 
 Southern prejudice in favour of the Negro for all forms 
 of personal service. What is true in the case of the 
 barber is likely to be repeated in other lines of work, 
 more or less associated, when Southern people begin to 
 learn, as the Northern did long ago, that the Negro is 
 not the only race on earth engaged in such occupations. 
 
 The opposition of the union is as old as the freedom 
 of the Negro, but it is difficult to measure the rapidity 
 of its progress. Mr. Washington declares that the 
 absence of industrial prejudice at the South furnishes 
 "the entering wedge for the solution of the race prob 
 lem." "But too often," he says, "where the white 
 mechanic or factory operative from the North gets a 
 hold the trade union soon follows, and the Negro is 
 crowded to the wall."f He candidly acknowledges 
 that in no part of the South is the Negro "so strong in 
 the matter of skilled labour as he was twenty years ago." 
 
 * New York Age, October 5, iQ5, P- 3- 
 f "Future of the American Negro," p. 79. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 169 
 
 We need not be surprised that so far seeing a man 
 watches with what we may well believe is genuine appre 
 hension the slow but steady encroachment of Northern 
 white men and foreigners upon the Negro s ancient 
 Southern stronghold. Nor to hear him reiterate, time 
 and again, such expressions as those in an address before 
 the American Academy, in Philadelphia, last February: 
 "In many respects," he said, "the next twenty years 
 are going to be the most serious in the history of the 
 race. Within this period it will be largely decided 
 whether the Negro is going to be able to retain the 
 hold which he now has upon the industries of the South 
 or whether his place will be filled by white people from 
 a distance."* 
 
 A few years ago I happened to be in the office of a 
 leading contractor in my town when he was discussing 
 the erection of a local cold storage plant with a repre 
 sentative of a Chicago packing house. The Chicago 
 man broached the question of the kind of labour to be 
 used on the building. The contractor told him, as a 
 mere matter of course, that it would be Negro labour, as 
 practically his entire force was so constituted. The 
 Chicago party said that if this got back home all the 
 carpenters they had from Chicago to Omaha would 
 strike. The contractor replied that we had no labour 
 unions, that he employed whom he pleased, and that it 
 was Negro labour or nothing. Suppose such a situation 
 should arise in a Northern town, if indeed enough 
 Negro carpenters could be found to make it possible. 
 
 * Same language in "Future of the American Negro," p. 75. 
 
170 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 The result would be the discharge of the coloured car 
 penters. How long will it be before the same story 
 shall be told in the South? 
 
 There is evidence that the tide of industrial ostra 
 cism of the skilled Negro is turning southward. After 
 the great fire in Baltimore I was somewhat curious to see 
 the part which the eighty-odd thousand Negroes in its 
 population would take, or be permitted to take, in its re 
 building. During the twelve months following the 
 fire I visited Baltimore a number of times, and on 
 each occasion spent considerable time in research work 
 in the burned district. I was hunting for a Negro 
 mason, or carpenter, or plumber but if he was 
 there, I failed to discover him. And yet labour 
 had been draughted for this emergency work from every 
 city in the North and East. I found him only as a hod 
 carrier, or employed in wheeling away debris. In Wash 
 ington last March I watched the erection of a great plat 
 form on the east plaza of the Capitol, with a seating 
 capacity of five thousand people. Upon it was to 
 stand, while taking the oath of office, the man who 
 more than any other recent American has been held in 
 the public eye as the exponent of the square deal 
 for the Negro as well as for the rest of us. Yet in all 
 that work no Negro found employment, save in some 
 menial capacity. 
 
 How far this movement shall extend before it is 
 arrested, or whether or not it will ever be arrested at 
 all, are questions upon which I shall not stop to specu 
 late. Perhaps your own conclusions may be aided 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 171 
 
 somewhat by those of the best living authority on 
 American Negro statistics, carefully and conservatively 
 stated as they are, for the decade ending with 1900. 
 In stating the loss and gain of the Negro in industrial 
 pursuits during this period, Professor Walter F. Willcox 
 thus closes the account: "He has lost ground in the 
 South as a whole in the following skilled occupations: 
 carpenter, barber, tobacco and cigar factory operative, 
 fisherman, engineer or fireman (not locomotive), and 
 probably blacksmith. He has lost ground also in the 
 following industries in which the degree of skill implied 
 seems somewhat uncertain: laundry work, hackman 
 or teamster, steam railroad employee, housekeeper or 
 steward." "The balance seems not favourable," he 
 says. "It suggests that in the competition with white 
 labour to which the Negro is being subjected he has not 
 quite held his own."* 
 
 If we may predict with reasonable certainty anything 
 whatever of the future of the Negro, it seems safe to 
 lay down the elementary proposition that the home of 
 the masses of the race must remain in the Southern 
 states, and that their destiny must be worked out upon 
 the soil. Their wisest leaders apparently are in accord 
 upon this point. Says Mr. Washington: "More and 
 more each year, I feel that . . . the salvation of 
 my race will largely rest upon its ability and willingness 
 to secure and cultivate properly the soil."f 
 
 The field of the Negro s activities thus becomes 
 
 * pp. 493-494 
 
 t Annual Report, May 30, 1901, p. 8. 
 
172 The American Race Problem 
 
 doubly circumscribed, and the fixing of his hold upon 
 that field ceases longer to remain a mere question of 
 expediency and wisdom. It becomes a matter of vital 
 moment and racial concern. It is here that the masses 
 will have to meet the crucial test of the future. Here, 
 in the field that has been the Negro s for so many genera 
 tions, I believe is to be witnessed some day the ultimate 
 economic struggle in America between the Negro and 
 the white man. Mr. Washington says that he does 
 not believe that "the masses of coloured people are yet 
 fitted to survive and prosper in the great Northern 
 cities to which so many of them are crowding. The 
 temptations are too great," he says, "and the competi 
 tion with the foreign population, with which they there 
 come in contact, is too fierce."* The tide of immigra 
 tion is turning slowly southward, and in my judgment 
 the competition of the cities of the North is to be re 
 peated in Southern fields. Mr. Washington sees this 
 coming, if I read his words aright, for he thus warns his 
 people: "If we neglect to occupy the field that is now 
 before us in the South, it will become there as it is in 
 the North we will be excluded by those who are 
 strangers to our tongue and customs, "f 
 
 More than twenty-five years ago Frederick Douglass 
 took the so-called Kansas exodus of Southern Negroes 
 for the text of an exultantly boastful address on the 
 dependence of the South upon the Negro. His words 
 and predictions are of peculiar interest now, as a sort of 
 
 * Charities, October 7, 1905, p. 19. 
 t Idem. p. 17. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 173 
 
 warning to sociologists to avoid the shoals of prophecy. 
 "Only a few years of non-tillage," he said, "would be 
 needed to give the sunny and fruitful South to the bats 
 and owls of a desolate wilderness. From this con 
 dition, shocking for a Southern man to contemplate, it 
 is now seen that nothing less powerful than the naked 
 iron arm of the Negro can save her. For him as a 
 Southern labourer, there is no competitor or substitute. 
 The thought of filling his place by any other variety of 
 the human family will be found delusive and utterly 
 impracticable. Neither Chinaman, German, Norwegian, 
 nor Swede can drive him from the sugar and cotton 
 fields of Louisiana and Mississippi. They would cer 
 tainly perish in the black bottoms of these states if 
 they could be induced, which they cannot, to try the 
 experiment. . . . Hence it is seen that the depend 
 ence of the planters, land-owners, and old master-class of 
 the South upon the Negro, however galling and humili 
 ating to Southern pride and power, is nearly complete 
 and perfect. . . . He stands to-day the admitted 
 author of whatever prosperity, beauty, and civilization 
 are now possessed by the South, and the admitted 
 arbiter of her destiny."* 
 
 -\ 
 
 * "Life and Times," Hartford, 1881, pp. 437 and 438. In its immediate \ 
 contrast to this statement of Frederick Douglass, the following, which I 
 am permitted to quote from a personal letter from Professor Willcox, is in 
 teresting and significant: "Perhaps you have noticed the rapidity with 
 which the Italians have been getting into the sugar cane districts of Louisi 
 ana. My attention was called to it to-day by noticing the statement in the 
 report of the Industrial Commission that the Italians of those states (Missis 
 sippi and Louisiana) are rapidly dislodging the Negroes from the sugar cane 
 plantations. I have picked out the five parishes of Louisiana each of which 
 had more than 20,000 acres in cane in 1899. These five had 54 per cent, of the 
 total sugar cane area of the state. In 1890 they included 960 Italians, or 12 per 
 
The American Race Problem 
 
 About twelve years after this dogmatic proposition 
 was enunciated I had occasion to investigate the con 
 dition of a few Italian families living in my section of 
 Mississippi. This is a region which for years was con 
 sidered the Negro s impregnable stronghold, the one 
 place, indeed, wherein his freedom from competition 
 and the white man s dependence upon him were as ab 
 solute as Douglass imagined. Before this my attention 
 had been attracted by a reference of John Stuart Mill 
 to the achievements of the Italian metayer. I, too, 
 wrote an article and indulged in a little prophecy. As 
 the latter happens to have been verified, I am willing 
 to resurrect it. It was that within fifteen or twenty 
 years we would see the white man s ability to more than 
 successfully compete with the Negro in the latter s 
 strongest field demonstrated through the medium of 
 the peasant farmers of Italy. My prediction was ridi 
 culed by newspapers, North and South, and even many 
 of my friends thought I was indulging in impossible 
 theorisings. For Douglass s idea, not mine, was the 
 popular one. It has been the curse of the South for a 
 hundred years that her people have clung tenaciously 
 and stubbornly to a conviction, never reasonable or well 
 founded, that Negro labor was essential to the cultiva 
 tion of her soil. Douglass simply gave expression in 
 
 cent, of the total number in the state. In 1900 they contained 5,007 Italians, 
 or 29 per cent, of the total number in the state. In each parish also the per cent. 
 of Negroes in the total population decreased, and in four out of the five decreased 
 more rapidly than the average for the whole state." The parishes in question 
 are St. Mary, Lafourche, Assumption, Terrebonne, and St. James. It is some 
 what curious that in enumerating the various people who could not compete 
 with the Negro in the South Douglass should have overlooked the Italian. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 175 
 
 offensive and exaggerated terms to a belief which in 
 its essentials had for years been a tenet of Southern 
 political and economic faith. 
 
 No wisdom was necessary to such a forecast as I made. 
 Common sense, an acquaintance with what the Italian 
 agriculturist had accomplished at home under a far less 
 favourable natural environment, and a long and intimate 
 familiarity with the Negro farmer only these were 
 required. No great credit may be claimed for simply 
 pointing out the probable outcome of a contest between 
 thrift and improvidence, between steady, continuous, 
 intelligent labour, and the mere brute strength of the 
 Negro s "naked iron arm," spasmodically and shiftlessly 
 applied. Do not understand me as suggesting that any 
 sudden revolution in Southern agricultural and indus 
 trial conditions is about to take place. Thousands, I : 
 might say hundreds of thousands, of Southern white 
 men prefer the Negro, under any and all circumstances, . 
 to any class of white labour. The problem for the Negro 
 is a larger one than that; it is whether in the years to 
 come he is to acquire his share of the soil; whether he 
 or the white man is to bring and hold under the sub 
 jection of the plough the millions of now undeveloped 
 acres of the South; whether in the progress of what 
 seems destined to be one of the greatest economic 
 developments America or the world has seen, he is to 
 play the part of an active, forceful, dominant, con 
 tributing factor and beneficiary, or is to be a mere 
 hewer of wood and drawer of water, content with felling 
 the trees for others to reap the reward. We are now 
 
176 The American Race Problem 
 
 merely at the insignificant beginning of a movement of 
 the years, the very opening of a struggle between white 
 and black in which there will be no element of sentiment, 
 where sympathy will have no place, where the Negro 
 will be called upon to prove his right to live, or accept 
 the consequences of failure where "success" will be 
 "equality s" one and only test. The contest will not 
 be in the slums and alleys of the city. It will be fought 
 out in the open field, under the sun and upon the soil 
 where the world may look on. 
 
 It is only in the last few years that we have begun 
 to approach such questions as the one before us with a 
 determination to sift the evidence with the sole object 
 of learning the truth. In consequence, as yet we have 
 little comparative data at hand, and few widely separ 
 ated local studies, upon which to base safe conclusions. 
 We have a great deal to learn along this line, and sweep 
 ing generalisations are worth but little when it comes to 
 testing the economic efficiency of a race. But in the 
 light of what we know of the results of competition 
 along industrial lines, we may be justified in hazarding 
 a few speculations as to the outcome of such a contest 
 in the field of agriculture. 
 
 Professor Willcox properly says that the most import 
 ant occupations for Negroes are those of "agricultural 
 labourers, farmers, planters and overseers, and labourers 
 not specified." These occupations "include two-thirds 
 of all the Negro breadwinners." Some light is thrown 
 upon the matter of competition along these lines by Pro 
 fessor Willcox s statement that the Southern Negroes so 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 177 
 
 occupied "increased between 1890 and 1900 by 30.4 per 
 cent., the Southern whites in the same occupations in 
 creasing in the same period by 43.5 per cent. As a 
 result, the non-Caucasians constituted in 1890 44.4 per 
 cent, of the population in these classes, while in 1900 
 they constituted 42.0 per cent."* While such figures 
 would seem to indicate that already the white agri 
 culturist is gaining on the Negro numerically, they 
 furnish no warrant for assuming that the Negro s posi 
 tion is thereby necessarily seriously threatened. They 
 tell us nothing of the comparative efficiency of the two 
 classes one of the most important tests by which to 
 measure the probable outcome of competition. 
 
 The President of the Mississippi Agricultural and 
 Mechanical College has contributed something toward 
 assisting us in forming an opinion on this matter of 
 efficiency in a study of conditions in several Mississippi 
 counties. "Lowndes county, with three Negroes to one 
 white man, having 21,972 blacks and 7,121 whites, re 
 quires 3.15 acres to make a bale of cotton, while Jones 
 county, with three whites to one Negro, having 13,156 
 whites and 4,670 blacks, requires 1.98 acres to make a 
 bale. The farm lands of Jones county are valued, as 
 found in the census reports, at $2.85 an acre, and the 
 farm lands of Lowndes county are valued at $9.83 an 
 acre. Yet the poor lands of Jones county, under intel 
 ligent cultivation, produced nearly twice as much per 
 acre as the rich lands of Lowndes county when culti 
 vated mostly by Negroes. Noxubee county, with more 
 
 * P. 489 
 
178 The American Race Problem 
 
 than five blacks to one white, having 26,146 blacks and 
 4,699 whites, requires 3.50 acres to make a bale of cotton, 
 while Union county, with three whites to one black, 
 having 12,380 whites and 4,142 blacks, requires only 
 2.56 acres to make a bale. The farm lands of Noxubee 
 county are valued at $7.12 and the lands of Union are 
 valued at $4.81. Hinds county, with three Negroes to 
 one white man, having 39,521 blacks and 13,037 whites, 
 requires 2,50 acres to make a bale, while Perry county, 
 with more than two whites to one Negro, requires only 
 1.96 acres to make a bale. The farms lands of Hinds 
 are valued at three times as much as are those of Perry. 
 In the counties of Leflore, Bolivar, and Washington, 
 where they have about eight Negroes to one white man, 
 but almost without exception the Negroes are under 
 white managers, they make one bale to every acre and 
 a-half, while in Lowndes, Noxubee, and Monroe, where 
 not many white managers are employed, they make on 
 an average about one bale to three acres. While this 
 difference is partly caused by a difference in the fertility 
 of the two groups of three counties, yet the principal 
 reason is the superior intelligence used in the man 
 agement of the first group. This is proved by the 
 fact that in every comparison made between a white 
 county and a black one the black was the most fertile, 
 ^ yet the white was nearly twice as productive."* 
 
 The necessity and effect of some form of white super 
 vision of Negro farm labour, as alluded to by President 
 
 * Professor J. C. Hardy in "The South s Supremacy in Cotton Growing," 
 p. 9, Manufacturers Record Publishing Company, Baltimore Md, 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 179 
 
 Hardy, are now recognised throughout the South, where- 
 ever such labour receives from white merchants or 
 planters advances of cash or supplies. Many thousands 
 of Negroes who appear in a census enumeration as 
 "farmers" really work under the constant and im 
 mediate supervision of a plantation owner or manager. 
 Thousands of others, similarly enumerated, are under 
 either the general and occasional supervision of a 
 "riding boss" or some other form of crop inspection. 
 A number of years of observation, and a correspondence 
 covering the entire cotton belt, satisfy me that such 
 supervision is steadily becoming more generally rec 
 ognised as a necessary incident to the business of 
 advancing to, or operating with, Negro labour. 
 
 Mr. Kelsey, in his very valuable monograph thus 
 alludes to this system : "The landlord and the advan 
 cers have found it necessary to spend a large part of 
 their time personally, or through agents called riders, 
 going about the plantation to see that the crops are 
 cultivated. The Negro knows how to raise cotton, but 
 he may forget to plough, chop, or some other such trifle, 
 unless reminded of the necessity."* I recently asked 
 a friend who has lately begun to introduce Italians on 
 his plantation, in what particular respect he most pre 
 ferred them to Negro labour. His reply was: "I don t 
 have to spend my life in trying to make them work. 
 After the first year I don t even have to show them 
 what to do." 
 
 As in this paper it is the white immigrant, and more 
 
 * "The Negro Farmer," p. 30. 
 
i8o The American Race Problem 
 
 particularly the Italian, whom I have in mind as the 
 possible competitor of the Southern Negro, I have been 
 to considerable pains in personally investigating the 
 efficiency and general economic condition of the largest 
 group of cotton growing Italians which I have been able 
 to discover. This probably is the most important ex 
 periment of its kind in the South for the reason that 
 it is not only the largest but also the oldest and, 
 further, because it has been the subject of a great deal 
 of discussion. Repeatedly it has been pronounced a 
 failure by men and writers who could have had no first 
 hand information concerning it. I have reference to 
 the colony at Sunny Side, Chicot County, Arkansas, 
 on the Mississippi River, between Memphis and Vicks- 
 burg, and nearly opposite Greenville, Miss. 
 
 I need not go into the details of the early history of 
 this experiment. It is enough to say that it had its 
 inception in the plan of the late Austin Corbin, of New 
 York, to sell to Italians a large body of cotton land in 
 Arkansas. Through no fault of Mr. Corbin s the 
 Italians sent over as purchasers consisted of families 
 representing a number of heterogeneous occupations, 
 instead of being taken solely from the farming class. 
 
 If I were to attempt to make a cotton crop in Mississippi 
 with a lot of Negro oyster shuckers gathered along the 
 Maryland and Virginia coasts, failure would be stamped 
 upon the experiment before it was forty-eight hours 
 old. Italian fruit venders, cobblers, and organ grind 
 ers are no more farmers than are Negro oyster shuckers. 
 There may have been incidental faults of manage- 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 181 
 
 ment also, but they do not concern us. Mr. Corbin died, 
 and his experiment was pronounced a failure. One more 
 prop had been placed behind the wall of the American 
 superstition of the eternal and necessary conjunction of 
 a Negro and a mule for the production of a bale of cotton. 
 
 Of those families who left some went in one direction, 
 some in another. A number of them settled about 
 seventy miles from Fort Smith, Ark., and founded 
 what is now the flourishing and growing colony of 
 Tontitown. In 1898 a business arrangement was 
 entered into between the Sunny Side Company and 
 Messrs. O. B. Crittenden & Co., cotton factors, of 
 Greenville, Miss., and the active management of the 
 property passed into the control of experienced resident 
 cotton planters. These gentlemen were business men, 
 pure and simple, and with them the whole matter was, 
 and is, solely a business proposition. They knew nothing 
 of the Italian and cared nothing, from any sentimental 
 or altruistic standpoint. They were not engaged in an 
 attempt either to solve the problem of the distribution 
 of our foreign immigration, or to relieve the congestion 
 of New York tenement districts. I doubt if any mem 
 ber of the firm had ever read "How the Other Half 
 Lives." On the other hand, they did know a great deal 
 about the plantation Negro. But neither were they 
 engaged in any philanthropic experiment in this line. 
 They simply took the two as they found them, without 
 favour or prejuidce on either side save some misgivings 
 as to the remnant of Mr. Corbin s " Italian experiment." 
 
 The number of Italian squads in 1898 was 38, with 
 
1 82 The American Race Problem 
 
 200 working hands, cultivating 1,200 acres of cotton. 
 Of Negro squads there were 203, with 600 working 
 hands, cultivating 2,600 acres of cotton. At the end of 
 1905, after eight years, there are on the property 107 
 Italian squads, with 500 working hands, and 38 Negro 
 families, with 175 working hands an increase of 69 
 squads and 300 hands for the Italians, a decrease of 
 165 squads and 425 hands for the Negro. The total 
 cotton acreage has increased to 3,900, of which the 
 Italians are cultivating 3,000 acres and the Negroes 
 900. This bare statement of numerical loss and gain 
 is of itself pregnant with meaning. It becomes doubly 
 significant when we analyse the operations of the period 
 under investigation. Beyond the number of families, 
 hands, and acreage, the details for 1898 are not avail 
 able. As the year s business for 1905 is not yet closed, 
 I shall eliminate it also. This gives us a six-year period 
 for a comparative exhibit of the two classes of labour, 
 working literally side by side, their land indiscrimin 
 ately allotted, each on the same tenure, each under the 
 same conditions of soil, climate, and management. I 
 shall confine this exhibit to the salient features of the 
 operations. These are the number of families and hands, 
 cotton acreage and production, and value per hand. I 
 shall consider only the cash commodities of cotton and 
 seed, and shall reduce the figures to annual averages.* 
 
 * For the privilege of securing this and other data concerning the operations 
 of this property, I am greatly indebted to Messrs. O. B. Crittenden & Co., of 
 Greenville, Miss. My thanks are also due Mr. J. B. Ray, bookkeeper, and Mr. 
 Shelby Wright, manager, Sunny Side, Ark., and to my partner, Mr. Julian H. 
 Fort, Dunleith, Miss. Without their generous cooperation this study could 
 not have been made. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 183 
 
 This gives us the following results: Average number 
 of squads, Italians 52, Negroes 167; average number of 
 working hands, Italians 269, Negroes 433; average 
 number of acres per working hand, Italians, 6.2, Negroes 
 5.1; average pounds of lint per hand, Italians 2,584, 
 Negroes 1,174; average pounds of lint per acre, Italians 
 403, Negroes 233 ; average cash product value per hand 
 (cotton and seed), Italians $277.36, Negroes $128.47; 
 average cash product value per acre, Italians $44.77, 
 Negroes $26.36. Thus the Italian is seen to have pro 
 duced more lint per hand, by 1,410 pounds, or 120.1 
 per cent., and to have exceeded the Negro s yield per 
 acre by 170 pounds, or 72.9 per cent. The difference 
 in money value in favour of the Italian was $148.89 
 per hand, or 115.8 per cent., and $18.41 per acre, or 
 69.8 per cent. 
 
 It is apparent that in the matter of the showing of 
 production per hand the Italian had the advantage of 
 the Negro by reason of the fact that his average exhibit 
 is for a smaller number of hands. But he worked 6.2 
 acres per hand as against 5.1 acres for the Negro, and 
 produced 170 pounds more lint per acre. It must also 
 be borne in mind that the Negro was cultivating a crop 
 with which his race has been familiar for generations, 
 while the Italian had never seen a stalk of cotton before 
 coming to America only a few years ago. Until shown, 
 they did not even know the difference between the 
 plant they were to save and the weeds they were to cut 
 out in the process of cultivation. But notwithstanding 
 the difference between the two in point of efficiency, 
 
184 The American Race Problem 
 
 a difference which is no longer a matter of controversy 
 where the two are practically known, the vital differ 
 ence is to be found in the story which each has to tell 
 from year to year and season to season. 
 
 To state it bluntly and coldly, it is for the Negro a 
 recital of conditions as old as his freedom: too much 
 time spent out of his crop, and away from his work; 
 too much waiting for the weather to improve; too 
 much putting off to a more convenient season; a too 
 constant and too successful besieging of those in author 
 ity for money accommodations and supplies; too little 
 reckoning against the future day of settlement; too 
 much "leaning on the Lord," and too little upon him 
 self, in things not spiritual; too much living for to-day 
 and not enough for to-morrow. With the Italian it 
 seems to be simply a grim determination to have more 
 at the end of this year than he had at the end of last, 
 regardless of weather or price; to wrest from every 
 square foot of the soil he rents all that nature can be 
 forced to yield; to get a visible, tangible return for 
 every dime and hour he spends; to live on less than 
 he makes, whether the latter be much or little; to 
 hire nothing done that he can do himself; to keep the 
 future ever in mind, and to lay by a store against age 
 and a rainy day. 
 
 Let a few typical accounts speak for themselves. A 
 Negro with three grown working hands in his family 
 cultivates nineteen acres and has an account of $750.58. 
 He makes $506.80 worth of cotton and seed, and owes 
 a balance of $243.78. He made only 230 pounds of lint 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 185 
 
 per acre, or 1,460 pounds per hand, but even this would 
 have left him in fair shape but for his account for sup 
 plies and extra work in his crop. These items alone 
 amounted to $11.98 per acre, or $7 5. 96 per hand. On the 
 other side of a "turn row" we have an Italian with 
 three working hands, two grown and one a child, work 
 ing 20 acres. They owe a balance of $139 for trans 
 portation from Italy, and their total account for the 
 year is $394.54. Of this they owe not one cent for help 
 in their crop, and their supply bill is $3.17 per acre, or 
 $21.14 per hand. They make $804.25 worth of cotton 
 and seed, and have a cash balance of $409.71. The 
 essential difference, I believe, lies in their accounts. 
 They will not hire work done for them where they can 
 possibly avoid it, but when it does become necessary, 
 they will exert every effort to make enough themselves 
 by outside work at convenient times to offset what they 
 hire. 
 
 Take the account of a Negro who paid his current 
 debts and had a balance. He had three grown hands, 
 cultivated twenty-five acres, and made $730.20 worth 
 of cotton and seed. His account was $671.26, leaving 
 him a balance of $58.94 above his account. His supply 
 bill amounted to $13.12 per acre and $109.37 per hand. 
 His yield of lint was 253 pounds per acre and 2,106 
 pounds per hand. 
 
 Near by an Italian with four grown hands and two 
 children demonstrated the possibilities of "intensive 
 farming" on alluvial land by working only twenty 
 acres with his extra large force. He produced 685 
 
i86 The American Race Problem 
 
 pounds of lint per acre, while his yield per hand was 
 only 2,283 pounds but little more than that of the 
 last mentioned Negro. His account was $543.35, and 
 his crop brought $1,596, leaving a balance of $1,142. 65. 
 In contrast to this we have another group of Italians, 
 with the same force as the one just mentioned, four 
 grown hands and two children, working more than 
 twice as much land. They had forty-three acres, and 
 made 437 pounds of lint per acre, and 3,135 pounds per 
 hand. This squad has been on the place several years, 
 and is reputed to have accumulated more than $15,000 
 in cash. It goes without saying that they owed no 
 supply account. Their other account, rent, ginning, 
 etc., amounted to $426.66. Their crop brought 
 $2,172.10, leaving a net balance of $1,745.44. 
 
 The first of these two squads illustrates what may 
 develop into a tendency of considerable sociological 
 importance. This is the withdrawing of their women 
 and children from regular field labour as soon as the 
 step is warranted by an improved economic condition. 
 Here and there this is being done, though in no case 
 until the stage in which their labour is necessary has 
 been passed. It is frequently true that although women 
 and children are included in the statement of working 
 hands, they merely assist at intervals, according to the 
 necessities of the crop. Any forecast here would be 
 gratuitous, but it is not unlikely that after a single 
 decade any large group of Italian agriculturists would 
 make a much better showing in this regard than either 
 the Negro farmer or the Southern white mill operative. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 187 
 
 No large class of our population can make substantial 
 social progress as long as its women and children are 
 compelled to play the role of breadwinners in the field 
 of manual labour. I have seen Italian families dis 
 embark in my town from New Orleans fruit luggers, 
 and within ten to fifteen years pass through all the 
 gradations of peddlers, oyster dealers, and restaurant 
 keepers, and finally emerge as prosperous merchants 
 and property holders. In every instance the women 
 did their share of the drudgery as long as it was neces 
 sary, but eventually became only the mistresses of their 
 homes. The point of the matter is that there is not one 
 Italian fruit vender in the town who is not to-day 
 striving to emulate the successful examples of his fel 
 lows. I do not believe the Italian agriculturist is 
 different in this respect from his urban brother. 
 
 To again glance at their accounts. Here is an Italian 
 who worked nineteen and one-half acres with two grown 
 hands and two children. He has practically the same 
 acreage and force as that of the Negro first mentioned 
 above. The Negro had three grown hands, and nine 
 teen acres. The difference between the results of the 
 year s work for the two was due more, probably, to the 
 fact that the Italian contracted no supply account 
 than to their respective crops. The Italian made 488 
 pounds of lint per acre, which was more than double 
 the Negro s yield. But his 1,586 pounds per hand 
 was only 126 pounds more than the Negro s 1,460. 
 But the Negro s account for supplies and extra work 
 amounted to $75.96 per working hand, while the Italian 
 
1 88 The American Race Problem 
 
 has no such account at all. The Italian s account, all 
 told, rent, etc., was only $216.81, while his crop brought 
 $1,096.15. He thus had a net balance of $879.34. 
 I believe the difference is to be found in their accounts 
 as well as in the character of their work. Of course, 
 with a greater production there is room for heavier 
 accounts, if the tenant sees fit to gratify his wishes. 
 But I know it to be a fact that even with his present 
 degree of efficiency, the Negro could very greatly im 
 prove his condition if he would constantly try to keep 
 his account down as the Italian does, instead of con 
 tinually seeking to gratify his wishes and whims with a 
 blindly fatalistic disregard of the future. In a planta 
 tion experience of more than twelve years, during which 
 time I have been a close observer of the economic life 
 of the plantation Negro, I have not known one to anti 
 cipate the future by investing the earnings of one year 
 in supplies for the next. On the contrary, I have per 
 sonally known scores of them to fritter away thousands 
 of dollars paid them in cash balances, in ways that would 
 be absolutely beyond discovery. I have seen a man and 
 his wife leave a plantation office in the morning with 
 $150 in cash, spend the day in town, and return in the 
 evening with no money, and practically nothing to 
 show for it. I have also known them, time and again, 
 to leave money to their credit on the plantation books, 
 and absolutely insist on buying their supplies on credit, 
 and at time prices. We have such accounts on our 
 books to-day, notwithstanding that we repeatedly 
 attempt to show them the folly of such methods, and 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 189 
 
 try to induce them to use their money in a businesslike 
 way. The idea seems to be that the money from a crop 
 already gathered is theirs, to spend as fancy suggests, 
 while the crop to be made must take care of itself, or be 
 taken care of by the "white folks." This sounds ridicu 
 lous, and is ridiculous, but it is also none the less true. 
 The money thus thrown away by the Negro the Italians 
 put to cold-blooded business uses. They will take 
 advantage of a discount offered on a $150 purchase of 
 supplies, and I have known instances of their offering 
 to pay land rent a year in advance for a similar con 
 sideration. 
 
 It is a knowledge of such facts as these, and a famili 
 arity with the "average traits" of the Negro agricul 
 turist, which cause me to believe that from the Negro s 
 standpoint the problem is much graver and more diffi 
 cult than one of mere efficiency alone. Professor H. 
 T. Kealing, himself of the race, thus speaks of the 
 Negro s "improvidence and extravagance": "He will 
 drop the most important job to go on an excursion or 
 parade with his lodge. He spends large sums on ex 
 pensive clothing and luxuries, while going without 
 things necessary to a real home. He will cheerfully 
 eat fat bacon and pone cornbread all the week in 
 order to indulge in unlimited soda-water, melon, and 
 fish at the end. In the cities he is oftener seen dealing 
 with the pawnbroker than the banker. His house, 
 when furnished at all, is better furnished than that of 
 a white man of equal earning power, but it is on the 
 instalment plan. He is loath to buy a house, because 
 
1 90 The American Race Problem 
 
 he has no taste for responsibility nor faith in himself 
 to manage large concerns; but organs, pianos, clocks, 
 sewing-machines, and parlour suits, on time, have no 
 terrors for him."* 
 
 I can bear witness to the accuracy of this picture. 
 We have to post plantations against various kinds of 
 itinerant "agents," or be harassed at the end of each 
 year by the efforts of foreign concerns, generally in the 
 Middle Western states, to force money out of our Negroes 
 for every imaginable article peculiar to such commerce. 
 These things range from gaudily illustrated "family 
 Bibles" to "sure cures" for rheumatism and nostrums 
 guaranteed to straighten the hair and bleach the skin. 
 Western mail order houses also do a heavy c. o. d. 
 business in this territory, largely in pistols, sewing- 
 machines, and medicines. Meanwhile, throughout the 
 year, the Italian peddler drives through the country in 
 a, covered wagon and exchanges with the Negro the 
 "soda pop," sausage, fish, et cetera, mentioned by Mr. 
 Kealing, for the few stray dimes that chance to remain 
 on hand from the last trip to town. 
 
 We need not multiply accounts for the mere pur 
 pose of comparison. The general results possess a 
 meaning sufficiently significant. Of the no Italian 
 squads who started to work at the beginning of the 
 current year, 44 were new arrivals. Yet of the total 
 number, 65 squads, or 59 per cent., had no supply 
 accounts during 1905. That is to say, practically all 
 who were on the place last year were in a condition 
 
 * "The Negro Problem," p. 176. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 191 
 
 of independence this year. Of the 61 Negro families 
 who began to make crops this year only 2, or 3.2 per 
 cent, of the whole, are independent. This situation 
 may be understood when we know that back of it lies 
 the fact that to the 66 Italian families in 1904 cash 
 balances above accounts were paid in the sum of 
 $38,764.58, an average of $587.35 per squad. Of the no 
 Negro families in 1 904 two drew total balances of $480.50, 
 while the firm had on its books at the end of the year 
 the sum of $6,456.20 in Negro balances due. (I have 
 a friend, operating on a much smaller scale, who last 
 year charged off to profit and loss $4,300 due him by 
 the Negroes on his place.) 
 
 Take another illustration of what these operations 
 have meant for the two races: There were 107 Italian 
 squads at the end of 1905. Of these 104 owned 123 head 
 of work stock and other live stock, such as cattle, 
 sheep and hogs, to the total value of $23,400. Only 
 three squads owned no stock. Of the 38 Negro squads 
 21 owned work and live stock to the total value of $3,360, 
 and 1 7 owned no stock. This indicates a failure to im 
 prove their condition upon the part of the Negroes 
 as a whole, and a grossly unequal distribution of prop 
 erty as well. Of 107 Italians but 2.8 per cent, have 
 no share in the general wealth; of 38 Negroes 44.7 per 
 cent, have no such share. 
 
 Further testimony to the prosperity of the Italian 
 in his new environment is hardly necessary. I may 
 only add that the best evidence of their satisfied estate 
 is the fact that each year some of them furnish trans- 
 
The American Race Problem 
 
 portation for friends or relatives at home. But where 
 in lies the advantage to the landowner over the Negro 
 tenant system? This question is pertinent, for in its 
 ultimate answer will be found the key to the attitude 
 of the employer of agricultural labour toward the ques 
 tion of foreign immigration to the Southern states. 
 Without touching the broader aspect of the question 
 the advantage to the general welfare of efficient over 
 inefficient labour I would answer specifically by 
 suggesting three points of superiority for the Italian: 
 First, I would put a permanent and assured tenantry; 
 secondly, thorough and careful cultivation of the soil, 
 without the necessity for an almost paternalistic super 
 vision of the labour; thirdly, following as a natural 
 sequence to the other two, greater safety and larger 
 freedom from losses in furnishing, and, ultimately, the 
 employing of a smaller operating capital. 
 f- As a. cotton planter, the greatest fault I find with 
 / Negro labour is not its improvidence or shiftlessness. 
 Certainly these are a source of annoyance to the planter, 
 but they much more vitally concern the Negro himself. 
 They constitute the handicap which, unless removed, 
 will cause him to lose the race to the foreigner. But 
 the planter s greatest trouble arises out of the Negro s 
 unreliability the fact that he cannot be depended on 
 to be governed by considerations of self-interest; that 
 he changes his habitation in response to the most trif 
 ling and whimsical suggestions, and frequently for no 
 reason at all; that out of any group of plantation 
 families we never know toward the close of one year 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 193 
 
 upon how many we may depend for the next regard 
 less of what they tell us, nor how many will carry 
 through a crop after they have contracted to do so. 
 
 Here again we may draw on Sunny Side for an in 
 structive comparison. One hundred and ten Italian 
 squads began crops in 1905, and 107 carried them 
 through. One left because of sickness, one ran off, 
 and one was made to leave. Sixty-one Negro squads 
 began the year, and thirty-eight went through; seven 
 teen "turned back" their crops, and six ran off. Of 
 the Italians 97.2 per cent, stayed through the year; 
 of the Negroes, 62.2 per cent. Whereas with the Negro 
 we have the constant difficulty I have mentioned, of 
 not knowing with certainty at the end of one year whose 
 places will have to be filled for another, with the Italians 
 the reverse is true. They come up of their own voli 
 tion during August and September and arrange their 
 affairs for the following season. And so quickly do 
 they become wedded to a particular allotment of land 
 they are rarely willing to change. When they do, 
 it must be clearly to their interest to make the move. 
 A few have returned to Italy, but a year before their 
 departure they arranged to have their land taken by 
 some relative, and thus retained it in the family. The 
 opportunity which the Negro yearly casts to the winds 
 of improvidence the Italian embraces as something 
 too valuable to fritter away. There is nothing new 
 about any of these traits. 
 
 This Italian group has been built up largely through 
 additions brought over by those on the ground, from 
 
194 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 year to year. Possibly they may be above the average 
 of their class, but I have no reason to think so. Cer 
 tainly these Negroes are not below the average of theirs. 
 The statement of the characteristics exhibited by these 
 Italians might be received with incredulity by a man 
 accustomed all his life to Negro labour. But this would 
 be due to ignorance on his part. They are as old as 
 the metayers of Lombardy, Piedmont, and Tuscany 
 themselves those frugal and industrious peasants who 
 made the valley of the Arno one of the garden spots of 
 the world. I wish I could give you a description of 
 these people at home as quoted by John Stuart Mill 
 from Arthur Young, Chateau vieux, and Sismondi. I 
 commend the chapter on me tayers in Mill s first volume 
 to anyone interested in the subject we are discussing. 
 But perhaps a more modern picture may serve our 
 purpose, especially as it is by a practical cotton planter, 
 who recently went from Mississippi to Italy to study at 
 first hand its peasant population. Mr. Charles Scott, 
 of Rosedale, Mississippi, says: "I visited some of these 
 people in their homes. They received me cordially, 
 and I was most favourably impressed with them. 
 They are a stalwart, industrious, and hardy race. I 
 found them frugal and temperate in most things, and 
 while somewhat peppery and excitable, as might be 
 expected from their climate and antecedents, they 
 are not vindictive, but seem to carry anger as the flint 
 does fire. . . . Their diet was simple and inexpen 
 sive. A Southern plantation Negro would scorn to 
 accept a similar ration. . . . These men are 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 195 
 
 already good farmers, and on the whole have the right 
 material in them for the making of good American 
 citizens."* 
 
 Perhaps the most broadly characteristic feature of 
 Negro argiculture is to be found in the almost uni 
 versally neglected garden. Nowhere else is the con 
 trast presented more strongly by the Italian. Right 
 here is told in humble eloquence the story of thrift, 
 economy, care, the thought of small things, the whole 
 gamut of homely traits which go to distinguish the 
 ultimately successful tiller of the soil from the man who 
 ultimately fails. Mr. Kelsey says: "In all parts [of 
 the South] it is the custom for the Negroes to save a 
 little garden patch about the house, which, if properly 
 tended, would supply the family with vegetables 
 throughout the year. This is seldom the case." He 
 quotes as follows from a Tuskegee Catalogue: "If 
 they have any garden at all, it is apt to be choked witm? 
 weeds and other noxious growths. With every ad 
 vantage of soil and climate, and with a steady market 
 if they live near any city or large town, few of the 
 coloured farmers get any benefit from this, one of the 
 most profitable of all industries. ! 
 
 To this Tuskegee description I would add this testi 
 mony, as I have given it elsewhere: "Given equal 
 soil and equal climatic conditions for growing cotton, 
 and the odds are with the man who cultivates his crop 
 best and most carefully. The Italian works more 
 
 * Manufacturers Record, Nov. 9, 1905, p. 433. 
 t "The Negro Farmer," p. 31. 
 
196 The American Race Problem 
 
 constantly than the Negro, and, after one or two years 
 experience, cultivates more intelligently. In compar 
 ing the two it is scarcely necessary to go beyond the 
 appearance of their respective premises and fields to 
 gain an insight into the difference between them. The 
 general condition of the plantation premises occupied by 
 Negroes, under whatever system of cultivation, has 
 been an eyesore in the cotton states for more than a 
 generation. The spectacle of broken-down fences, 
 patchwork outhouses, half-cultivated fields, and garden 
 spots rank with weeds, is too familiar to the traveller 
 through the Southern states to need description here. 
 The destructive propensity of the Negro constitutes 
 to-day a serious problem on many a well ordered plan 
 tation. On the property in which the writer is interested 
 the effort to maintain the premises of the Negro tenants 
 in keeping with the general appearance of the planta 
 tion seems yearly to become a more hopeless under 
 taking. It seems difficult to escape the conclusion that 
 back of all this lie the characteristics that apparently 
 have always been a curse to the race whether in 
 Africa, the Southern states, or the West Indies shift- 
 lessness and improvidence. 
 
 "On the other hand, the appearance of the Italian 
 cotton grower s immediate surroundings, working on 
 the same tenant system as the Negro, is alone sufficient 
 to tell the story of the difference between the ultimate 
 end and purpose of the labour of the two. The contrast 
 is not alone in the things that appeal to the eye; it is 
 much more emphasised in the respective uses made of 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 
 
 197 
 
 the same material and opportunities. From the 
 garden spot which the Negro allows to grow up in weeds, 
 the Italian will supply his family from early spring until 
 late fall, and also market enough largely to carry him 
 through the winter. 1 have seen the ceilings of their 
 houses literally covered with strings of dried butter 
 beans, pepper, okra, and other garden products, while 
 the walls would be hung with corn, sun-cured in the 
 roasting ear stage. In the rear of a well kept house 
 would be erected a woodshed, and in it could be seen 
 enough fire- wood, sawed and ready for use, to run the 
 family through the winter months. These people did 
 not wait till half-frozen feet compelled attention to the 
 question of fuel, and then tear down the fence to supply 
 their wants. Nor would they be found drifting about 
 near the close of each season, in an aimless effort to 
 satisfy an unreasoned desire to move. "* 
 
 Elsewhere I have given the results of "A Plantation 
 Experiment," as made on the property in which I am 
 interested, f A study of the figures given there will 
 lead to the conclusion that the Negro can produce as 
 much as the Italian. And so he can; but production 
 is only half the story. And another consideration 
 must be borne in mind: namely, that the Dunleith 
 experiment was conducted on new land, far above the 
 average in fertility, and, above all, that it was a highly 
 paternalistic enterprise. I know of no other plantation 
 in the South where the Negro has been, or is likely to 
 
 * "The Italian Cotton Grower, The Negro s Problem," Alfred Holt Stone. 
 South Atlantic Quarterly, Jan. 1905, pp. 44, 45. 
 t Paper IV, supra. 
 
198 The American Race Problem 
 
 be, surrounded by economic conditions equally as favour 
 able. But the milk in that cocoanut is that the experi 
 ment failed, absolutely and lamentably failed, to ac 
 complish its purpose. This was to build up a respect 
 able, industrious, and reliable body of tenants, while 
 this very thing has been accomplished on the Sunny 
 Side property, by the simple expedient of the substitu 
 tion of a different class of labour. Further than this, 
 from the Negro s standpoint also it failed. For, de 
 spite an artificially stimulated efficiency, there was 
 lacking the final essential of thrift. He made, but he 
 did not save. 
 
 I hold no brief for the Italian. As far as he is con 
 cerned my interest is purely one of abstract economics. 
 For the masses of the Negro race I have only the kind 
 liest feeling. There is not a white tenant on Dunleith 
 Plantation, nor will there be until we are driven to 
 that recourse by the Negro himself. I do not believe 
 it will ever come my way to do these people a greater 
 service than right here, if only my voice could reach 
 them, by pointing out, as I see it, the only key to the 
 safety of their future economic position. There is a 
 great deal of unrest in my section over the labour ques 
 tion. In 1905 I travelled more than twenty-five 
 hundred miles through ten Southern states, and also 
 corresponded with men in every part of the South. I 
 do not speak idly when I say that Southern people in 
 constantly increasing numbers are more and more 
 coming to the conclusion that they must at last put 
 forth a determined effort to render themselves inde- 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 199 
 
 pendent of the Negro to begin in some degree the 
 final supplanting of the latter by the white man. 
 
 My study of conditions is not so superficial as to be 
 tray me into ignoring the fact that Southern economic 
 development during the past two decades has greatly 
 outstripped the growth of Southern population. But 
 this does not tell the whole story. The resulting "labour 
 scarcity" is more apparent than real. The streets and 
 purlieus of our towns are filled with idlers by day and 
 prowlers by night. If the vagrancy statutes of every 
 Southern state were suddenly enforced the jails would 
 be filled to overflowing. We offer the wages demanded, 
 but it is difficult to find those who are willing to accept 
 steady employment. In a town full of Negroes we have 
 had to largely substitute coal as a cooking fuel because 
 we could not get stove wood cut. On a plantation with 
 nearly three hundred Negroes surrounding them my 
 partner s wife has frequently, for long periods, had to 
 patronise a city laundry. I sometimes wonder if the 
 story of Jamaica and the West Indies is to be repeated 
 in the South. It is so easy to exist, by various and 
 devious means, that our Negroes in alarming numbers 
 are ceasing to care to do much more than live from 
 hand to mouth. Thousands of them are doing it to 
 day, and too many other thousands are tending that 
 way. Already, here and there, scattered throughout 
 the South, even in many smaller towns white domestic 
 servants may be seen. There are white barbers and 
 bootblacks, and white men in every other trade and 
 calling. States and railroads and private organisations 
 
200 The American Race Problem 
 
 are discussing the question of foreign immigration with 
 increasing earnestness. I know that a few leading 
 Negroes have ridiculed this incipient movement, even 
 as Frederick Douglass ridiculed it as a possibility a 
 quarter of a century ago. The most prominent Negro 
 editor in the United States has said that the South is 
 merely putting up a "bluff." But I believe the South 
 ern people are in earnest. 
 
 As I have said, the Negro possibly has it in his power 
 to arrest this movement, at least for many years. He 
 can do it, in a measure at least, by making of himself 
 a reliable, dependable factor in the economic life of 
 the South, but not by any other means within my view. 
 I say he can do this. But will he? It would mean a 
 revolution in the present social and industrial life and 
 habits of the masses. To me the outlook for such a 
 course does not seem encouraging. And how long will 
 he require for the process? For meanwhile the world 
 will not stand still. 
 
 But in a broader view even this would be but tempo 
 rary ; a mere postponing of the inevitable. This life of 
 ours is, and is likely always to remain, a ceaseless 
 struggle for supremacy among nations, and races, and 
 individuals. Heretofore he has been largely shielded 
 by conditions, partly economic and partly geographic, 
 but it would be unwise for the Negro to cherish the de 
 lusion that he alone of all mankind is to remain forever 
 exempt from such a contest. Nothing is more surely 
 written in the book of fate than that he will have to 
 meet it, soon or late. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 201 
 
 I have quoted Mr. Washington s opinion that he did 
 not believe the masses of his people fitted to face the 
 competition of Northern cities. There the result of 
 such competition has turned mainly upon the considera 
 tions of efficiency, reliability, and thrift, with some 
 account to be taken of Northern economic race pre 
 judice, if I may use the expression. The white people 
 of this country are fundamentally alike as regards 
 their attitude toward the Negro. However much this 
 may be denied on each side the line, as to some partic 
 ular aspect of the question, its essential truth will grad 
 ually be made manifest, as economic and political con 
 ditions shape themselves toward greater uniformity be 
 tween the two sections. Even though we may safely 
 eliminate the factor of industrial prejudice from a 
 present consideration of competition in the South, we 
 need not deceive ourselves, v Eventually we shall have 
 to face it; as soon probably as the South awakens to a 
 realisation of the fact that in her industrial rivalry 
 with the rest of the world she is handicapped by labour 
 of a normally low degree of efficiency and begins 
 really to stimulate foreign and domestic immigration. 
 
 But aside from this, what of the other factors? 
 Have we any grounds for assuming that they would be 
 any less potent South than North, in turning the scales 
 against the Negro? I have never indulged in dogmatic 
 assertions about the present of the Negro, and I shall 
 certainly not begin with a dogmatic prediction as to 
 his future. I have merely tried to indicate some of 
 the factors and results of such a contest, as they have 
 
202 The American Race Problem 
 
 already been wrought out before us in a sort of mimic 
 warfare. Is any man, qualified to speak by familiar 
 ity with the Negro masses, prepared to promise that 
 in a larger field, upon a broader stage, the end of the 
 struggle would not be the same ? 
 
 It will be a slow process of attrition, when it really 
 comes, this working out of the results of competition. 
 It will not be attended by any sensational features. 
 There will be nothing sudden about it, nor will it mean 
 the extinction of the Negro as an economic factor. 
 It seems to me that its effect will be merely to submerge 
 the incompetent mass, and elevate, in that very process, 
 such as can weather the storm. In its last analysis, it 
 will be his own, not the white man s hand, that closes 
 in the Negro s face the door of economic hope, for only 
 he can keep it open. If the story of the fate of the old 
 time business Negro of New York and Philadelphia in 
 the years to come shall be related of the Negro agricul 
 turist of the South, it will be for the latter but a final 
 reaping of the fruits of Reuben s ancient curse : "Un 
 stable as water, thou shalt not excel." 
 
 My conception of the treatment of the question before 
 us does not involve an outlook upon the thirteenth 
 census. On the other hand, I am not projecting it into 
 a future too remote for practical consideration. I have 
 not founded conclusions upon isolated phenomena, nor 
 am I particularly concerned with this or that group of 
 conditions, save as they disclose the results of the work 
 ing out of what reasonably seem to be persistent factors. 
 The particular demonstration of relative efficiency be- 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 203 
 
 tween Italians and Negroes which has been used here 
 would lose nothing of its significance if through some 
 adventitious circumstance the Sunny Side colony were 
 wiped out of existence to-morrow; or if for reasons suf 
 ficient unto themselves the operators of that property 
 were immediately to displace every Italian on it, and 
 return to Negro labour. I have merely endeavoured to 
 deal with forces already widely and actively at work, 
 and with human traits the operation of which has 
 already been unfolded to our view. If these constitute 
 two groups of fixed elements in the problem then the 
 future is no more uncertain than are the operations of 
 the natural laws by which we forecast the outcome of 
 any other struggle between weakness and strength. 
 True, "the race is not always to the swift, nor the 
 battle to the strong ;" but in this case the initial dis 
 tance between the contestants would seem too great to 
 be overcome by time or chance. 
 
 Very likely it will be urged that I have given the 
 point of view of the employer of Negro labour, and have 
 too greatly emphasised the force of the weaker side of 
 the Negro masses. The other side has been presented 
 many times, in the attempt to make out a case against 
 the white man which would lift the onus for existing 
 conditions from the shoulders of the Negro. 
 
 Mr. T. Thomas Fortune quotes from Dr. DuBois the 
 statement that "in well-nigh the whole rural South the 
 black farmers are peons, bound by law and custom to an 
 economic slavery, from which the only escape is death 
 or the penitentiary." He adds his own to this effect: 
 
204 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 "It is a dark and gloomy picture, the substitution of 
 industrial for chattel slavery, with none of the legal and 
 selfish restraints upon the employer which surrounded 
 and actuated the master. And this is true of the entire 
 mass of the Afro-American labourers of the Southern 
 states. "* I submit the picture just as it is drawn. This 
 is not the place to discuss the question of its fidelity to 
 truth. My only comment is that I am not able to 
 fathom the buoyancy of spirit which can believe in the 
 accuracy of this presentation of the Negro s present eco 
 nomic condition and at the same time profess a hope for 
 his future. 
 
 It is idle here to confuse the practical question of 
 actual conditions with the ethical question of cause. 
 For our purpose we need not stop to multiply words 
 in an effort to determine where rests the burden of 
 responsibility. Between the white man and the black 
 it is likely always to remain a disputed question. This 
 is human nature. But a man who has ceased to breathe 
 is equally dead, whether he came to his death by 
 assassination or suicide. If the end is to be the same, 
 the Negro masses will not be particularly interested in 
 the academic question of causes and means. If the 
 white man is responsible for the Negro s condition; 
 if the latter cannot remove the obstacles from his own 
 path, then his economic future no longer remains within 
 the field of speculation, and the efforts toward his in 
 dustrial training become a mockery to him and a fraud 
 upon those who support them. 
 
 * "The Negro Problem," pp. 228, 229. 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 205 
 
 But I take the view which at least holds something of 
 hope for the Negro, in that it does not entirely remove 
 his present or future from the range of his own indi 
 vidual efforts. As I have expressed it elsewhere: 
 "When the friend of the Negro masses would know 
 the whole truth behind the forces which to-day most 
 militate against the material progress of the race, he 
 must go deep below the surface of troubles which the 
 white man can remove or rectify."* 
 
 In the larger sense there is another aspect of the 
 Negro s life that must be considered in attempting to 
 estimate his future. The two gravest obstacles to be 
 overcome by the race are improvidence and immoral 
 ity, each in its broadest significance. Of the first I 
 have already said quite enough. Of the second I 
 shall let Mr. Washington and Dr. DuBois speak for 
 me. The former says: "No one who wants to be 
 honest and at the same time benefit the race will deny 
 that here is where the strengthening is to be done."f 
 Dr. DuBois says: "The evil is still deep seated, and only 
 a general raising of the standard of living will finally 
 cure it." In this connection he says of the Negroes of a 
 Georgia county: "Perhaps 10 per cent, compose the 
 well-to-do and the best of the labourers, while at least 
 9 per cent are thoroughly lewd and vicious. The rest, 
 over 80 per cent., are poor and ignorant, fairly honest 
 and well meaning, plodding, and to a degree shiftless, 
 with some but not great sexual looseness, "f I might 
 
 * P. 147 
 
 + "The Future of the American Negro," p. 169. 
 J "Souls of Black Folk, p. 143. 
 
2o6 The American Race Problem 
 
 alter some of these proportions, but, applied to the 
 country as a whole, they tell the story well enough 
 as they stand. 
 
 Here, then, it seems to me, is the first great problem 
 of this people, the problem of the moral elevation of 
 the masses, whose status will at last determine that of 
 the race as a whole. No man is further than I from 
 attempting to discount the value to a race or nation of 
 its exceptional few the wealth it has in the possession 
 of a "talented tenth." But, after all is said and done, 
 the race, it seems to me, must stand or fall by the 
 character of the masses of its people. It cannot be 
 saved by the poetry of Dunbar, by the novels of Chest- 
 nutt, by the music of Coleridge-Taylor, by the surgical 
 skill of Williams, or by the culture and intellect of 
 DuBois. 
 
 In his work on "Social Evolution" Mr. Benjamin 
 Kidd says that the future demands that we realise more 
 clearly just what constitutes superiority and inferiority 
 of race. He says that science gives us no warrant for 
 claiming superiority for a certain race on the ground 
 alone of colour, descent, or even high intellectual capacity. 
 In his opinion the only test lies in the measure of the 
 possession of " qualities contributing to social efficiency," 
 and high among these he places "strength and energy 
 of character, humanity, probity and integrity, and 
 simple-minded devotion to conceptions of duty in such 
 circumstances as may arise." Mr. Kidd quotes Mr. 
 Lecky s opinion as to the causes of the prosperity of 
 nations. The latter s words are more impressive than 
 
Economic Future of the Negro 207 
 
 his own, for they apply to races as well as nations, to 
 black as well as white. And here is his judgment 
 on real "prosperity," which the friends and leaders of 
 the American Negro may not unprofitably take to heart: 
 "Its foundation is laid in pure domestic life, in com 
 mercial integrity, in a high standard of moral worth 
 and of public spirit, in simple habits, in courage, up 
 rightness, and a certain soundness and moderation of 
 judgment which springs quite as much from character 
 as from intellect." And his conclusion seems to me to 
 be especially applicable to our discussion: "If you 
 would form a wise judgment of the future of a nation, 
 observe carefully whether these qualities are increas 
 ing or decaying."* 
 
 The Negro has often demanded another standard than 
 that of race as a measure of his capacity and value as a 
 people. Here is one, severe possibly, but fair : The ex 
 tent to which the race as a whole shall prove its ability 
 to lay the foundation of "a pure domestic life," and 
 erect thereon a superstructure of character and moral 
 worth. If it shall establish the capacity of its masses 
 to meet this test, then it will have proved its title to a 
 place among the superior races of the earth, and this 
 regardless of your opinion or of mine, or of that of our 
 fathers before us. But, though it become ten thousand 
 times richer than it is to-day, and overflow the land in 
 numbers, and fill all offices of profit, if it fail in this 
 supreme criterion it will still be an inferior people. 
 
 *" Social Evolution," Kidd, N. Y., 1898, pp. 348-350, quoting from Mr. 
 Becky s "The Political Value of History." 
 
208 The American Race Problem 
 
 The foundation of the greatness of England and Ger 
 many and America does not consist of material things 
 alone, nor of the brilliant achievements of their "tal 
 ented tenths." It is to be discovered in the character 
 of the home life of their great average classes the 
 masses of their people. It is the latter which makes 
 possible and assures the former, and there is no shorter, 
 easier road for the Negro than for the white man. Then 
 the current measure of the real progress of the race is to 
 be found in the extent to which the characteristics of 
 one of the other of its two extremes its highest or its 
 lowest class are most impressed upon the mass. It is 
 not alone in the possession of houses that the founda 
 tions of prosperity, as Mr. Lecky defines it, are laid; 
 nor in their possession alone that racial advance is indi 
 cated. It is, rather, in the extent to which these houses 
 possess for their owners the true significance of homes. 
 This test is sound, but difficult of certain application. 
 It is easier to enumerate the houses of a people than it 
 is to count their homes. 
 
PART THREE 
 
 CRUCIAL POINTS OF POST BELLUM 
 RACIAL CONTACT 
 
 VI. RACE FRICTION 
 
 VII. MR. ROOSEVELT, THE SOUTH, AND THE NEGRO 
 VIII. THE NEGRO IN POLITICS 
 
VI 
 
 RACE FRICTION* 
 
 ON THE evening of December 17, 1855, there as 
 sembled a gathering of the coloured citizens of the 
 city of Boston to do honour to a member of their race. 
 The man was William C. Nell, a name familiar to 
 students of Negro history. The occasion was the 
 presentation to him of a testimonial of appreciation 
 of his labours in behalf of the removal of the colour 
 line from the public schools of Boston. The event 
 commemorated the crowning achievement of a purpose 
 formed and a work begun some twenty-six years before. 
 It marked the close of a quarter century of patient and 
 unremitting struggle with established law and custom. 
 The meeting was made memorable by the presence of 
 such men as Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garri 
 son, who rejoiced with their coloured brethren that 
 "the prejudice against colour was dying out." This 
 was the keynote of all the addresses made the faith 
 that the final surrender of this long-stormed citadel 
 marked the passing of the prejudice of race. 
 
 Fifty-two years later, in November, 1907, a great 
 concourse of Boston s coloured citizens assembled in 
 
 * A paper read before the Second Annual Meeting of the American Sociological 
 Society, Madison, Wis., Dec. 30, igof.on the question, "Is Race Friction Between 
 Blacks and Whites in the United States Growing and Inevitable?" 
 
 311 
 
2i2 The American Race Problem 
 
 Faneuil Hall to protest against the steady and wide 
 increase of race prejudice in America. The meeting 
 was addressed by the gray-haired son of the great 
 abolitionist, in tones which were far from sounding an 
 echo of the hopeful, long forgotten words of his father. 
 
 And after this more than half century of American 
 advance in moral and intellectual and material things, 
 we too have come together, in the free atmosphere of 
 this academic seat, to consider coolly and dispassion 
 ately the causes which really lay behind these two 
 meetings in Boston further apart in spirit and in 
 purpose than in time. We have come to inquire 
 whether friction between the white and Negro races 
 in America is growing and inevitable. 
 
 In the first place, what is race friction? To answer 
 this elementary question it is necessary to define the 
 abstract mental quality upon which race friction 
 finally rests. This is racial "antipathy * popularly 
 spoken of as "race prejudice." Whereas prejudice 
 means a mere predilection, either for or against, antip 
 athy means "natural contrariety," "incompatibility," 
 or "repugnancy of qualities." To quote the Century 
 Dictionary, antipathy "expresses most of constitu 
 tional feeling and least of volition"; "it is a dislike 
 that seems constitutional toward persons, things, 
 conduct, etc.; hence it involves a dislike for which 
 sometimes no good reason can be given." I would 
 define racial antipathy, then, as a natural contrariety, 
 repugnancy of qualities, or incompatibility, between 
 individuals or groups which are sufficiently different!- 
 
Race Friction 213 
 
 ated to constitute what, for want of a more exact 
 term, we call races. What is most important is that 
 it involves an instinctive feeling of dislike, distaste, 
 or repugnance, for which sometimes no good reason 
 can be given. Friction is defined primarily as a "lack 
 of harmony," or a "mutual irritation." In the case 
 of races it is accentuated by antipathy. We do not 
 have to depend on race riots or other acts of violence 
 as a measure of the growth of race friction. Its exist 
 ence may be manifested by a look or a gesture as well 
 as by a word or an act. 
 
 A verbal cause of much useless and unnecessary 
 controversy is found in the use of the word "race." 
 When we speak of "race problems" or "racial antip 
 athies," what do we mean by "race"? Clearly 
 nothing scientifically definite, since ethnologists them 
 selves are not agreed upon any classification of the 
 human family along racial lines. Nor would this so- 
 called race prejudice have the slightest regard for 
 such classification if one were agreed upon. It is 
 something which is not bounded by the confines of a 
 philological or ethnological definition. The British 
 scientist may tell the British soldier in India that the 
 native is in reality his brother, and that it is wholly 
 absurd and illogical and unscientific for such a thing 
 as "race prejudice" to exist between them. Tommy 
 Atkins simply replies with a shrug that to him and his 
 messmates the native is a "nigger, " and in so far as their 
 attitude is concerned that is the end of the matter. 
 The same suggestion, regardless of the scientific ac- 
 
2H The American Race Problem 
 
 curacy of the parallel, if made to the American soldier 
 in the Philippines, meets with the same reply. 
 We have wasted an infinite amount of time in inter 
 minable controversies over the relative superiority 
 and inferiority of different races. Such discussions 
 have a certain value when conducted by scientific men 
 in a purely scientific spirit. But for the purpose of 
 explaining or establishing any fixed principle of race 
 relations they are little better than worthless. The 
 Japanese is doubtless quite well satisfied of the superior 
 ity of his people over the mushroom growths of Western 
 civilisation, and finds no difficulty in borrowing from 
 the latter whatever is worth reproducing, and improving 
 on it in adapting it to his own racial needs. The 
 Chinese do not waste their time in idle chatter OVQT the 
 relative status of their race, as compared with the wnite 
 barbarians who have intruded themselves upon them 
 with their grotesque customs, their heathenish ideas 
 and their childishly new religion. The Hindu regards 
 with veiled contempt the racial pretensions of his 
 conqueror, and while biding the time when the darker 
 races of the earth shall once more come into their own, 
 does not bother himself with such an idle question as 
 whether his temporary overlord is his racial equal. 
 Only the white man writes volumes to establish on 
 paper the fact of a superiority which is either self- 
 evident and not in need of demonstration, on the one 
 hand, or is not a fact and is not demonstrable, on the 
 other. The really important matter is one about 
 which there need be little dispute the fact of racial 
 
Race Friction 215 
 
 differences. It is the practical question of differences 
 -the fundamental differences of physical appearance, 
 of mental habit and thought, of social customs and 
 religious beliefs, of the thousand and one things keenly 
 and clearly appreciable, yet sometimes elusive and 
 un definable these are the things which at once 
 create and find expression in what we call race problems 
 and race prejudices, for want of better terms. In 
 just so far as these differences are the fixed and per 
 manently associated characteristics of two groups of 
 people will the antipathies and problems between the 
 two be permanent. We speak loosely of the race 
 problems which are the result of European immigration. 
 These are really not race problems at all. They are 
 purely temporary problems, based upon temporary 
 antipathies between different groups of the same race, 
 which invariably disappear in one or two generations, 
 and which form only a temporary barrier to physical 
 assimilation by intermarriage with native stocks. 
 
 Probably the closest approach we shall ever make 
 to a satisfactory classification of races, as a basis of 
 antipathy will be that of grouping men according to 
 colour, along certain broad lines, the colour being ac 
 companied by various and often widely different, but 
 always fairly persistent, differentiating physical and 
 mental characteristics. This would give us substanti 
 ally the white not Caucasian, the yellow not 
 Chinese or Japanese, and the dark not Negro, races. 
 The antipathies between these general groups, and 
 between certain of their sub-divisions, will be found 
 
216 The American Race Problem 
 
 to be essentially fundamental, but they will also be 
 found to present almost endless differences of degrees 
 of actual and potential acuteness. Here elementary 
 psychology also plays its part. One of the sub-divi 
 sions of the Negro race is composed of persons of mixed 
 blood. In many instances these are more white than 
 black, yet the association of ideas has through several 
 generations identified them with the Negro and in 
 this country friction between this class and white people 
 is on some lines even greater than between whites and 
 blacks. 
 
 Race conflicts are merely the more pronounced 
 concrete expressions of such friction. They are the 
 visible phenomena of the abstract quality of racial 
 antipathy the tangible evidence of the existence of 
 racial problems. The form of such expressions of antip 
 athy varies with the nature of the racial contact in each 
 instance. Their different and widely varying aspects 
 are the confusing^ and often contradictory phenomena 
 of race relations. They are dependent upon diverse 
 conditions, and are no more susceptible of rigid and 
 permanent classification than are the whims and moods 
 of human nature. It is more than a truism to say that 
 a condition precedent to race friction or race conflict 
 is contact between sufficient numbers of two diverse 
 racial groups. There is a definite and positive difference 
 between contact between individuals and contact 
 between masses. The association between two isolated 
 individual members of two races may be wholly different 
 from contact between masses of the same race groups. 
 
Race Friction 217 
 
 The factor of numbers embraces indeed the very crux 
 of the problems arising from contact between different 
 races. 
 
 A primary cause of race friction is the vague, rather 
 intangible, but wholly real feeling of "pressure" which 
 comes to the white man almost instinctively in the 
 presence of a mass of people of a different race. In a 
 certain important sense all racial problems are dis 
 tinctly problems of racial distribution. Certainly the 
 definite action of the controlling race, particularly as 
 expressed in laws, is determined by the factor of the 
 numerical difference between its population and that 
 of the inferior group. This fact stands out prominently 
 in the history of our colonial legislation for the control 
 of Negro slaves. These laws increased in severity, up 
 to a certain point, as the slave population increased 
 in numbers. The same condition is disclosed in the 
 history of the ante bellum legislation of the Southern, 
 Eastern, New England, and Middle Western states for 
 the control of the free Negro population. So to-day, 
 no state in the Union would have separate car laws 
 where the Negro constituted only 10 or 15 per 
 cent, of its total population. No state would burden 
 itself with the maintenance of two separate school 
 systems with a Negro element of less than 10 per cent. 
 Means of local separation might be found, but there 
 would be no expression of law on the subject. 
 
 Just as a heavy increase of Negro population makes 
 for an increase of friction, direct legislation, the pro 
 tection of drastic social customs, and a general feeling 
 
2i8 The American Race Problem 
 
 of unrest or uneasiness on the part of the white popula 
 tion, so a decrease of such population, or a relatively 
 small increase as compared with the whites, makes 
 for less friction, greater racial tolerance, and a lessening 
 of the feeling of necessity for severely discriminating 
 laws or customs. And this, quite aside from the fact 
 of a difference of increase or decrease of actual points 
 of contact, varying with differences of numbers. The 
 statement will scarcely be questioned that the general 
 attitude of the white race, as a whole, toward the Negro 
 would become much less uncompromising if we were to 
 discover that through two census periods the race had 
 shown a positive decrease in numbers. Racial antip 
 athy would not decrease, but the conditions which 
 provoke its outward expression would undergo a change 
 for the better. There is a direct relation between the 
 mollified attitude of the people of the Pacific coast 
 toward the Chinese population and the fact that the 
 Chinese population decreased between 1890 and 1900. 
 There would in time be a difference of feeling toward 
 the Japanese now there if the immigration of more 
 were prohibited by treaty stipulation. There is the 
 same immediate relation between the tolerant attitude 
 of the whites toward the natives in the Hawaiian Islands 
 and the feeling that the native is a decadent and dying 
 race. Aside from the influence of the Indian s warlike 
 qualities and of his refusal to submit to slavery, the 
 attitude and disposition of the white race toward him 
 have been influenced by considerations similar to those 
 which to-day operate in Hawaii. And the same 
 
Race Friction 
 
 219 
 
 influence has been a factor in determining the attitude 
 of the English toward the slowly dying Maoris of New 
 Zealand. 
 
 The character and violence of race friction or conflict 
 will depend upon the immediately provoking cause, 
 but will be influenced by a variety of accompanying 
 considerations. Open manifestations of antipathy will 
 be aggravated if each group feels its superiority over 
 the other. They will be fewer and milder when one 
 race accepts the position of inferiority outwardly or 
 really feels the superiority of the other. In all cases 
 the element of individual or racial self-assertiveness 
 plays an important part. The white man on the 
 Pacific coast may insist that he does not feel anything 
 like the race prejudice toward the Chinaman that he 
 does toward the Japanese. In truth the antipathy 
 is equal in either case, but the Chinaman accepts the 
 position and imputation of inferiority no matter 
 what or how he may really feel beneath his passive 
 exterior. On the other hand, the Japanese neither 
 accepts the position nor plays the role of an inferior 
 and when attacked he does not run. Aside from all 
 question of the relative commendable traits of the 
 two races, it is easy to see that the characteristics of 
 one group are much more likely than those of the other 
 to provoke outbreaks of antipathy when brought into 
 contact with the white race. We need not ask what 
 would be the situation in India, and what the size of 
 the British garrison there, if the Hindu had the assert 
 ive and pugnacious characteristics of the Japanese 
 
220 The American Race Problem 
 
 veiled though the latter are behind a bland and smiling 
 demeanour. 
 
 It is a common remark that the relations between 
 the white and Negro races in this country are not "as 
 good," as the expression runs, as they were before the 
 war. The fundamental cause of most race friction 
 is in the operation of racial antipathy which leads to 
 the denial by one race of the racial equality of another, 
 coupled with the assertion of equality by the other 
 party to the contact. Post bellum racial difficulties 
 are largely the manifestation of friction growing out 
 of the novel claim to equality made by the Negro after 
 emancipation, either by specific declaration and as 
 sertion, or by conduct which was equivalent to an open 
 claim, with the refusal of the white man to recognise 
 the claim. The commonest mistake of race problem 
 discussions is that of treating such problems as a heri 
 tage from slavery. Slavery was responsible only in 
 so far as it was responsible for bringing the races into 
 contact. The institution, per se, was not only not the 
 cause of the problem, but, on the other hand, it actually 
 furnished a basis of contact which as long as it existed 
 minimised the problems which result from racial con 
 tact upon a plane of theoretical equality. We may 
 obtain a conception of an American race problem 
 without the background of antecedent slavery relations, 
 if we can imagine the situation which would be created 
 by the precipitation upon the population of the Pacific 
 coast of a million Japanese. The late Professor Shaler, 
 of Harvard, summed up with absolute accuracy the 
 
Race Friction 221 
 
 function of slavery in making possible relations of 
 mutual amity between the white and Negro races in 
 this country, when he declared that, "The one condi 
 tion in which very diverse races may be brought into 
 close social relations without much danger of hatred, 
 destructive to the social order, is when an inferior race is 
 enslaved by a superior." His opinion was that "this 
 form of union is stronger than it has appeared to those 
 who have allowed their justifiable dislike of the relation 
 to prejudice them as to its consequences." Professor 
 Shaler struck one of the keynotes of the ante bellum 
 situation when he said that slavery made impossible 
 any sort of rivalry between the races. He declared 
 his utter detestation of the institution, but said it 
 should be recognised that "it was effective in the 
 prevention of race hatreds." To quote his words: 
 "Moreover, it brought the two races into a position 
 where there was no longer any instinctive repugnance 
 to each other, derived from the striking differences 
 of colour or of form. If the Negroes had been cast 
 upon this shore under any other conditions than those 
 of slavery, they would have been unable to obtain this 
 relation with the whites which their condition of bond 
 age gave."* 
 
 But Professor Shaler recognised the innate potential 
 force of antipathy of race and he observed that, "It 
 remains to be seen whether the race hatred, which was 
 essentially lost during the period of slavery, will return 
 in the conditions of freedom." Twenty-one years have 
 
 *"Race Prejudice," N. S. Shaler, Atlantic Monthly, October 1886, pp. Si 6, 517, 
 
222 The American Race Problem 
 
 elapsed since Professor Shaler wrote, and it is in the 
 light of these two decades of additional experience 
 that we are to-day attempting to answer his query. 
 
 It is impossible to discuss here, as I should like to do, 
 the broader question of race relations, as preliminary 
 to an inquiry into relations in this country between 
 whites and Negroes. We may, however, suggest some 
 of the more elementary principles of such relations as a 
 basis for a reply to the concrete question before us. 
 In the first place, I lay down as a fundamental law of 
 racial contact the proposition that the terms and 
 conditions of racial association will be dictated by the 
 stronger of the two parties to such association 
 actuated by motives of self-interest, or by instincts of 
 self-preservation.* In the second place, the resulting 
 relations will be least conducive to friction when the 
 terms insisted upon by the stronger race are accepted 
 without protest by the weaker. The converse of this 
 follows as a corollary that the relations which are 
 most conducive to friction are those under which the 
 conditions laid down by the stronger party are not 
 accepted by the weaker. The friction which racial 
 contact engenders under such conditions will be in 
 proportion to the degree of the insistence of one party 
 upon its terms of association, and of the resistance to 
 such conditions offered by the other. 
 
 The absence of ante bellum racial friction was due 
 to the general acceptance by the Negro of the status 
 assigned him by the white race. The further removed 
 
 * For a fuller statement see pp. 54 et seq. and 57 et seq. 
 
Race Friction 223 
 
 the two races are from this basis of association, which 
 Professor Shaler declared to be the only one upon which 
 they could safely have been brought together in the 
 first place the greater the probability that friction 
 will follow contact between them. The whole matter 
 resolves itself into very simple terms. The simpler 
 the relations between diverse races, the less friction 
 there will be ; the more complex the relations, the greater 
 the friction. The simplest relations possible are those 
 in which the relative status of superior and inferior is 
 mutually accepted as the historical, essential, and 
 matter-of-fact basis of relationship between the two. 
 The most complex relation possible between any two 
 racial groups is that of a theoretical equality which 
 one race denies and the other insists upon. The ac 
 cepted relation of superior and inferior may exist not 
 only without bitterness on one side or harsh feelings 
 upon the other, but it may be characterised by a senti 
 ment and affection wholly impossible between the same 
 groups under conditions demanding a recognition of 
 so-called equality. We should try to gain a clear grasp 
 of the importance of this mutual recognition of a 
 different racial status in minimising racial friction, 
 and of the significance of the converse condition in 
 increasing it. 
 
 The Northern white man often remarks upon the 
 inconsistent position of the Southern white man. The 
 former objects more than the latter to personal contact 
 and association with the Negro but theoretically 
 he is willing to grant to the Negro the full exercise of 
 
224 The American Race Problem 
 
 all the legal rights and privileges which he himself 
 enjoys. The Southern white man, on the other hand, 
 does not object to personal association with the Negro 
 provided it be upon terms which contain no suggestion 
 of equality of personal status but he is not willing 
 to grant the privileges which his Northern brother 
 concedes to the race in the mass. The truth is that 
 the difference between their respective attitudes is 
 largely a matter of fiction. It is more apparent than 
 real. The attitude of the Northern man toward the 
 matter of personal association is really the natural 
 attitude of the white man. It is the unconscious 
 expression or feeling of instinctive racial antipathy 
 in its elementary form. The attitude of the Southern 
 man toward the same association is in reality the 
 wholly artificial product of the relations made possible 
 by slavery. The Northern man prides himself on not 
 "looking down on the Negro," as the expression goes. 
 He regards him unconsciously as theoretically, poten 
 tially, his racial equal. His unconscious mental attitude 
 does not immediately upon personal contact establish 
 between himself and the Negro the relation of superior 
 and inferior. He is conscious only of strangeness, 
 difference. But in the presence of this difference his 
 mind reacts normally, and a sufficient degree of latent 
 antipathy is aroused to create a natural barrier, which 
 he merely "feels" and does not attempt to explain. 
 On the other hand, through the influence of generations 
 of association under the purely artificial relations of 
 slavery, the mind of the Southern white man instinc- 
 
Race Friction 225 
 
 tively responds to accustomed contact upon inherited 
 lines with the unconscious concept of an inequality 
 of racial status which neutralises or prevents the 
 operation of racial antipathy. In other words, to 
 borrow Professor Shaler s illustration of the operation 
 of slavery in destroying race hatred the long con 
 tinued association has destroyed the normal operation 
 of elementary racial antipathy. In its primary form, 
 it is simply not provoked by an association to which 
 it has long become accustomed. It may be asked 
 at once, if such association has been sufficient to thus 
 impair what is claimed to be an instinctive mental 
 impulse, and not only to do this, but to establish in 
 lieu of such a feeling relations and sentiments of 
 genuine and unquestioned affection why then is it 
 not able to destroy all racial antipathy and thereby 
 in time enable the races to live together in absolute 
 concord? Where is the ground for even the possibility 
 of increased racial friction? The answer is not difficult. 
 The potential results of such long continued racial con 
 tact and association may be fully granted, for the sake 
 of discussion. But the question is the primary one of 
 accomplishing the association. Our original proposi 
 tion is that racial harmony is greatest under an associa 
 tion determined by one party and accepted by the 
 other. This was precisely what made for such relations 
 under slavery. But slavery is dead and with the 
 passing of the generation of whose life it was an accepted 
 part, both black and white, the relations which it slowly 
 evolved are passing also. A new basis of contact is. 
 
226 The American Race Problem 
 
 presented that of unconditional equality. It is a 
 basis which the white race is not willing to concede 
 in practice, whatever the white man may do in theory 
 and hence we have the essential elements of racial 
 friction a demand for and a denial of racial equality. 
 Whether or not race friction in the United States 
 is increasing and inevitable depends upon the attitude 
 of the two parties to the racial contact. Does the 
 American Negro demand racial equality, and does the 
 American white man deny it? The latter branch of 
 the question we shall attempt to answer first. Racial 
 antipathy, which we have said to be the basis for the 
 "lack of harmony," the "mutual irritation," which 
 we translate as race friction, is practically universal 
 on the part of the white race toward the Negro, and is 
 beyond question stronger in the so-called Anglo-Saxon 
 stocks than in any other. If it is less apparent in one 
 place than in another, the difference is a mere incident 
 to differences of local condition. It is protean in its 
 manifestations and subject to such a variety of 
 provoking causes as to defy classification. It is ex 
 hibited here in the individual and there in the mass, 
 and elsewhere in both. One man may draw the line 
 against association in a public conveyance, another at 
 the relations of domestic service. One may draw it in 
 the public dining-room of a hotel another at his 
 private table. One man or one section may draw it in 
 the public schools another only in fashionable 
 establishments for fashionable young women, or in 
 private academies for boys. Here and there we find 
 
Race Friction 227 
 
 a man who realises no feeling at such contact, and he 
 imagines himself to be "free from race prejudice." 
 But even for him there exists the point of racial recoil 
 though it may be reached only at the altar or the grave. 
 It is, after all, merely a difference of degree. Racial 
 antipathy is a present, latent force in us all. As to 
 this we need not deceive ourselves. 
 
 At no time in the history of the English speaking 
 people, and at no place, of which we have any record, 
 where large numbers of them have been brought into 
 contact with an approximately equal number of Negroes, 
 have the former granted to the latter absolute equality, 
 either political, social, or economic. With the exception 
 of five New England states, with a total Negro popula 
 tion of only 16,084 in 1860, every state in the Union 
 discriminated against the Negro politically before 
 the Civil War. The white people continued to do so 
 North as well as South as long as they retained 
 control of the suffrage regulations of their states. The 
 determination to do so renders one whole section of 
 the country practically a political unit to this day. 
 In South Africa we see the same determination of the 
 white man to rule, regardless of the numerical superiority 
 of the black. The same determination made Jamaica 
 surrender the right of self-government, and renders 
 her satisfied with a hybrid political arrangement to-day. 
 The presence of practically 100,000 Negroes in the 
 District of Columbia makes 200,000 white people 
 content to live under an anomaly in a self-governing 
 country. The proposition is too elementary for dis- 
 
228 The American Race Problem 
 
 cussion, that the white man when confronted with a 
 sufficient number of Negroes to create in his mind a 
 sense of political unrest or danger, either alters his 
 form of government in order to be rid of the incubus, 
 or destroys the political strength of the Negro by force, 
 by evasion, or by direct action. 
 
 If we survey the field of economic contact we find 
 but one considerable area in which the white man 
 permits the Negro to share his occupancy practically 
 upon equal terms. That field is the Southern part of 
 the United States. The unusual conditions there are 
 the direct and immediate product of relations es 
 tablished or made possible by slavery coupled 
 with the maintenance of a rigid colour line, which 
 minimises, if it does not prevent, racial friction. This 
 condition, like the other purely artificial products of 
 slavery favourable to amicable race relations, is chang 
 ing, and will disappear with the increased tendency 
 toward general uniformity of labour conditions and 
 demands throughout the country. Such measure of 
 freedom of economic opportunity as the Negro has is 
 not due to any superior virtue on the part of Southern 
 people, any more than is the larger political tolerance 
 of the North due to any peculiar virtue of that section. 
 Each situation is a mere incident of general racial 
 conditions. Outside the South, whether in New York, 
 Philadelphia, Chicago, the Middle West, or New England, 
 the absence of economic racial friction is due to the 
 economic segregation of the Negro. The race outside 
 the South is in the main confined to humbler occupa- 
 
Race Friction 229 
 
 tions, where the absence of white competition makes 
 for racial peace. I am speaking of the many, not of 
 the exceptional few who here and there are not dis 
 criminated against. What is true of the North is 
 true of South Africa. Economically, every country 
 apparently is either a "white man s country" or a 
 "black man s country." It does not exist half one 
 and half the other always excepting the South. In 
 South Africa the great problem is to get white men to 
 work at trades with black men, or to permit black men 
 to work at them at all. The white colonist either 
 monopolises a field himself despite the fact that his 
 numbers render the effort ruinous or he permits the 
 Negro to monopolise it. He will not share it equally. 
 
 But it is in the sphere of relations which the world 
 calls social that the white man s attitude toward the 
 Negro becomes most uncompromising at least the 
 attitude of the English speaking white man. This, 
 too, is universal. This social prejudice is no respecter 
 of geographical lines. Its intensity varies of course 
 with local influences primarily with differences of 
 numerical distribution. But that is a mere superficial 
 consideration. This form of "race prejudice," if we 
 elect so to designate it, is probably more fundamental 
 and far reaching than any other. 
 
 This fact is clearly recognised by Professor Kelly 
 Miller, of Howard University, who says: "Where two 
 races of widely different corporal peculiarities and 
 cultivated qualities are brought into contact, serious 
 frictional problems inevitably arise. . . . The 
 
230 The American Race Problem 
 
 American Negro may speak the same language, con 
 form to the same institutions, and adopt the same 
 mode of religious worship as the rest of his fellow men, 
 but it avails him nothing in the scale of social eligibility, 
 which is the one determinative test of all true equal 
 ity. . . . Without social equality, which the Teu 
 ton is sworn to withhold from the darker races, no other 
 form of equality is possible."* 
 
 I shall add this further reflection: If slavery is the 
 cause of race prejudice, why has slavery not produced 
 it among the Arabs toward their Negro slaves ? Slavery 
 is not the cause, nor is the Christian religion its cure, 
 nor does Mohammedanism or Catholicism prevent it. 
 The reason of its non-existence among the Moham 
 medans is not because of Mohammedanism, but because 
 the Mohammedan is an Arab or a Moor. It does exist 
 among the Berbers of Morocco, notwithstanding their 
 Moslem faith. These Berbers are not only prejudiced 
 against the Negroes, but their prejudice has created 
 continual unrest in Morocco, through their refusal to 
 fully acknowledge the present Sultan because of his 
 Negro blood. The reason this prejudice is less pro 
 nounced in Catholic than in Protestant countries is 
 because of the fact that the Catholic countries which 
 have had most to do with Negroes are mainly Latin 
 countries, and the Latin s prejudice of colour is no 
 where as strong as the Teuton s. Under similar racial 
 conditions the Catholic Teuton is just as much influenced 
 
 * Southern Workman, November, 1900, pp. 601, 602. See also page 325 for 
 fuller quotation. 
 
Race Friction 231 
 
 by racial antipathy as his Protestant brother. It is 
 not a question of religion or slavery of Protestantism 
 or Catholicism. It is finally and fundamentally a 
 question of race. 
 
 In spite of all our protestations of democracy, the 
 people of this country are not superior in their racial 
 charity to the people of other parts of the world. I 
 question if we are even as liberal in that regard as the 
 average of Caucasian mankind. I sometimes feel 
 that the very democracy among American white men 
 of which we boast so much develops a concomitant 
 intolerance toward men of another race or colour. 
 Without other fixed or established distinctions in our 
 social order, we seem instinctively to take refuge in 
 that of colour as an enduring line of separation 
 between ourselves and another class. Now and then, 
 as the Southern part of our country comes to be more 
 dispassionately studied, an occasional observer finds 
 himself puzzled by the conclusion that among its white 
 population the South, taken as a whole, is the most 
 democratic part of America. In the presence of the 
 Negro, and by contrast and comparison, all white men 
 are equal. A horizontal racial line is drawn between 
 the two sections of the population. All on one side of 
 the line are conceded certain privileges and a certain 
 status, based not upon merit but solely upon the ac 
 cident of colour. To the whole group on the other 
 side of the line a certain status is assigned solely be 
 cause of identity with another racial class. In each 
 case what should be controlling differences within each 
 
232 The American Race Problem 
 
 group, along certain fairly tangible lines, are wholly 
 ignored. In steadily increasing degree, it seems to 
 me, certain privileges and a certain place in the larger 
 life of the country are coming to be regarded as the 
 peculiar and particular asset of Caucasian racial 
 affiliation. 
 
 We have seen the fulfilling of DeTocqueville s pro 
 phecy that emancipation would be but the beginning of 
 America s racial problems. The history of the world 
 is a more open book to-day than it was a half or three- 
 quarters of a century ago, and we have a larger per 
 spective of racial contact. One of the editors of "The 
 Wealth of Nations" has justly said that Adam Smith 
 was instrumental in bringing different nations and 
 cities closer together through a realisation of their 
 interdependence. But there is apparently a line 
 which distantly related races cannot yet cross in safety. 
 Such races have been brought into more intimate 
 contact since the great economist lived, and the as 
 sociation has given rise to problems unknown to his 
 generation, yet probably as old as the time when the 
 first two groups of strangers on earth came together 
 in suspicion and distrust. The diverse peoples of the 
 world do not yet understand each other. Perhaps 
 they never shall. We have no excuse if we wilfully 
 blind ourselves to the stubbornest facts in human 
 experience, and persist in regarding racial antipathy, 
 or "race prejudice, " as a mere passing relic of slavery, 
 peculiar to one part of the country. We can make 
 no progress even in the comprehension of our problem 
 
Race Friction 233 
 
 if we circumscribe our vision by any such narrow view. 
 It was Jefferson s opinion that the emancipation of the 
 American Negro was one of the inevitable events of 
 the future. It was also his conviction that the two 
 races could never live together as equals on American 
 soil. His solution was colonisation, but the time for 
 that had probably passed when he wrote. As late as 
 1862 Mr. Lincoln expressed practically the same opinion 
 as Jefferson s. To a delegation of Negroes he said: 
 "You and we are different races . . . Your race is 
 suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on 
 any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, 
 you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality 
 with the white race . . . The aspiration of men is 
 to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this 
 continent not a single man of your race is made the 
 equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are 
 treated the best, and the ban is still upon you."* 
 
 To me the problems of racial contact, of which fric 
 tion is but one, seem as inevitable as apparently they 
 did to DeTocqueville and Jefferson and Lincoln. But 
 I have no solution because of my conviction that 
 in a larger, final sense there is no solution of such 
 problems except the separation of the races or the 
 absorption of one by the other. And in no proper 
 conception is either of these a "solution." We do not 
 solve a problem in geometry by wiping from the black 
 board the symbols which are the visible expression of 
 its terms. The question which the American people 
 
 * "Works of Abraham Lincoln," Nicolay and Hay, N. Y., 1894, II., pp. 222-225. 
 
234 The American Race Problem 
 
 must first be prepared to answer, if they demand a 
 solution of their problem, is whether, within a period 
 which may be practically considered, they will grant 
 to another race, darker, physically different, and per 
 manently distinguished from themselves, all and 
 singular the rights, titles, and privileges which they 
 themselves enjoy, with full and complete measure 
 of equality in all things, absolutely as well as theoreti 
 cally. If they can do this, they will reverse the whole 
 history of their own people, and until they do it, not 
 only will there be race friction here, but it will increase 
 as the weaker race increases its demands for the equality 
 which it is denied. 
 
 Thus we return to the first branch of our inquiry 
 the attitude of the Negro as one of the determining 
 factors in the increase or decrease of race friction. 
 It is more difficult to answer for him than for the white 
 man. The latter has a history in the matter of his 
 relations with other races perfectly well defined 
 to anyone who will study it candidly. He has either 
 ruled or ruined to express it in a few words, and 
 pretty often he has done both. It has been frequently 
 said that the Negro is the only one of the inferior, or 
 weaker, or backward, or undeveloped races (the terms 
 are largely interchangeable and not at all important), 
 which has ever looked the white man in the face and 
 lived. But for all the significance the statement holds 
 we have only to go to ^Esop s fable of the tree which 
 would, and the tree which would not, bend before the 
 storm. I know of no race in all history which possesses 
 
Race Friction 235 
 
 in equal degree the marvellous power of adaptability 
 to conditions which the Negro has exhibited through 
 many centuries and in many places. His undeveloped 
 mental state has made it possible for him to accept 
 conditions, and to increase and be content under them, 
 which a more highly organised and sensitive race would 
 have thrown off, or destroyed itself in the effort to do so. 
 This ability to accept the status of slavery and to win 
 the affection and regard of the master race, and gradu 
 ally but steadily to bring about an amelioration of the 
 conditions of the slave status made possible the 
 anomalous and really not yet understood race relations 
 of the ante bellum South. The plain English of the 
 situation was that the Negro did not chafe or fret and 
 harass himself to death, where the Indian would have 
 done so, or massacred the white man as an alternative. 
 In many respects the Negro is a model prisoner the 
 best in this country. He accepts the, situation 
 generally speaking bears na malice, cherishes no ill 
 will or resentment, and is cheerful under conditions to 
 which the white man refuses to reconcile himself. 
 
 This adaptability of the Negro has an immediate 
 bearing on the question before us. It explains why 
 the Negro masses in the Southern states are content 
 with their situation, or at least not disturbing themselves 
 sufficiently over it to attempt to upset the existing 
 order. In the main, the millions in the South live at 
 peace with their white neighbours. The masses, just 
 one generation out of slavery and thousands of them 
 still largely controlled by its influences, accept the 
 
236 The American Race Problem 
 
 superiority of the white race as a race, whatever may 
 be their private opinion of some of its members. And, 
 furthermore, they accept this relation of superior and 
 inferior, as a mere matter of course as part of their 
 lives as something neither to be questioned, wondered 
 at, or worried over. Despite apparent impressions to 
 the contrary, the average Southern white man gives no 
 more thought to the matter than does the Negro. 
 As I tried to make clear at the outset, the status of 
 superior and inferior is simply an inherited part of his 
 instinctive mental equipment a concept which he 
 does not have to reason out. The respective attitudes 
 are complementary, and under the mutual acceptance 
 and understanding there still exist unnumbered thou 
 sands of instances of kindly and affectionate relations 
 relations of which the outside world knows nothing 
 and understands nothing. In a Boston coloured 
 magazine some months since,* Miss Augusta P. 
 Eaton gives an account of her settlement work among 
 Negroes in that city. In describing relations where 
 coloured and white families live in contact, she says: 
 "The great bond of fellowship is never fully established. 
 There is tolerance, but I have found few cases of friendly 
 intimacy." Here is just the difference between the 
 two situations. "Friendly intimacies," probably not 
 in the sense meant by Miss Eaton, but friendly and 
 kindly intimacies none the less, do exist in the South, 
 despite all we hear to the contrary. They are the 
 leaven of hope and comfort for white and black alike 
 
 * Alexander s Magazine, June, 1907, p. 93. 
 
Race Friction 237 
 
 in what does appear to be a pretty big lump of discord. 
 In the mass, the Southern Negro has not bothered 
 himself about the ballot for more than twenty years 
 not since his so-called political leaders let him alone; 
 he is not disturbed over the matter of separate schools 
 and cars, and he neither knows nor cares anything about 
 "social equality." 
 
 Ill I believe there may develop in process of time and 
 evolution a group of contented people, occupying a 
 position somewhat analagous to that of the Jamaican 
 peasant class, satisfied in the enjoyment of life, liberty, 
 and ttte pursuit of happiness, and afforded the full 
 protection of the law. I believe it is possible for each 
 of the various groups of the two races which find them 
 selves in natural juxtaposition to arrive at some basis 
 of common occupancy of their respective territories 
 which shall be mutually satisfactory, even if not wholly 
 free from friction. I express a belief that this is possible 
 but to its accomplishment there is one absolute 
 condition precedent; they must be let alone and they 
 must be given time. It must be realised and accepted, 
 whether we like it or not, that there is no cut and dried 
 solution of such problems, and that they cannot be 
 solved by resolutions or laws. The process must be 
 gradual and it must be normal, which means that the 
 final basis of adjustment must be worked out by the 
 immediate parties in interest. It may be one thing 
 in one place and another thing in another place - just 
 as the problem itself differs with differences of local 
 conditions and environment. We must realise that 
 
238 The American Race Problem 
 
 San Francisco is not Boston that New Orleans is 
 not New York. Thus much for the possibilities as to 
 the rank and file. 
 
 But what of the other class? The "masses" is at 
 best an unsatisfactory and indefinite term. It is very 
 far from embracing even the Southern Negro, and we 
 need not forget that seven years ago there were 900,000 
 members of the race living outside the South. What 
 of the class, mainly urban and large in number, who 
 have lost the typical habit and attitude of the Negro 
 of the mass, and who, more and more, are becoming 
 restless, and chafing under existing conditions?* There 
 is an intimate and very natural relation between the 
 social and intellectual advance of the so-called Negro 
 and the matter of friction along social lines./ It is in 
 fact only as we touch the higher groups that we can 
 appreciate the potential results of contact upon a 
 different plane from that common to the masses in the 
 South. There is a large and steadily increasing group 
 of men, more or less related to the Negro by blood and 
 wholly identified with him by American social usage, 
 who refuse to accept quietly the white man s attitude 
 toward the race. I appreciate the mistake of laying 
 too great stress upon the utterances of any one man or 
 group of men, but the mistake in this case lies the 
 other way. The American white man knows little or 
 nothing about the thought and opinion of the coloured 
 men and women who to-day largely mould and direct 
 Negro public opinion in this country. Even the white 
 man who considers himself "a student of the race 
 
Race Friction 
 
 239 
 
 question" rarely exhibits anything more than pro 
 found ignorance of the Negro s side of the problem. 
 He does not know what the other man is thinking and 
 saying on the subject. This composite type which 
 we poetically call "black," but which in reality is every 
 shade from black to white, is slowly developing a con 
 sciousness of its own racial solidarity. It is finding 
 its own distinctive voice, and through its own books 
 and papers and magazines, through its own social 
 organisations is at once giving utterance to its dis 
 content and making known its demands. 
 
 And with this dawning consciousness of race there is 
 likewise coming an appreciation of the limitations 
 and restrictions which hem in its unfolding and develop 
 ment, j One of the best indexes to the possibilities of 
 increased racial friction is the Negro s own recognition 
 of the universality of the white man s racial antipathy 
 toward him.J This is the one clear note above the 
 storm of protest against the things that are that in 
 his highest aspirations everywhere the white man s 
 "prejudice" blocks the coloured man s path. And 
 the white man may with possible profit pause long 
 enough to ask the deeper significance of the Negro s 
 finding of himself. May it not be only part of a general 
 awakening of the darker races of the earth? Captain 
 H. A. Wilson, of the English army, says that through 
 all Africa there has penetrated in some way a vague, 
 confused report that far off somewhere, in the unknown, 
 outside world, a great war has been fought between a 
 white and a yellow race, and won by the yellow man. 
 
240 The American Race Problem 
 
 And even before the Japanese-Russian conflict, " Ethio- 
 pianism" and the cry of "Africa for the Africans" 
 had begun to disturb the English in South Africa. 
 It is said time and again that the dissatisfaction and 
 unrest in India are accentuated by the results of this 
 same war. There can be no doubt in the mind of any 
 man who carefully reads American Negro journals 
 that their rejoicing over the Japanese victory sounded 
 a very different note from that of the white American. 
 It was far from being a mere expression of sympathy 
 with a people fighting for national existence against a 
 power which had made itself odious to the civilised 
 world by its treatment of its subjects. It was, instead, 
 a quite clear cry of exultation over the defeat of a white 
 race by a dark one. The white man is no wisejr than 
 the ostrich if he refuses to see the truth that in the 
 possibilities of race friction the Negro s increasing 
 consciousness of race is to play a part . scarcely less 
 important than the white man s racial antipathies, 
 prejudices, or whatever we may elect to call them. 
 
 In its final analysis the sum and substance of the 
 ultimate demand of those Americans of African descent 
 whose mental attainments and social equipment iden 
 tify them much more closely with the Anglo-Saxon 
 than with the Negro masses, is definitely and clearly 
 stated in the words of Dr. DuBois: "There is left the 
 last alternative the raising of the Negro in America 
 to full rights and citizenship. And I mean by this, 
 no half-way measures; I mean full and fair equality. 
 That is, the chance to obtain work regardless of colour. 
 
Race Friction 241 
 
 to aspire to position and preferment on the basis of 
 desert alone, to have the right to use public conveniences, 
 to enter public places of amusement on the same terms 
 as other people, and to be received socially by such 
 persons as might wish to receive them. These are not 
 extravagant demands, and yet their granting means 
 the abolition of the colour line. The question is: Can 
 American Negroes hope to attain to this result?"* 
 
 With equal clearness and precision, and with full 
 comprehension of its larger meaning and significance and 
 ultimate possibilities, the American white man answers 
 the question in the language of another eminent Ameri 
 can sociologist, Professor Edward A. Ross, in contrasting 
 the attitudes of Anglo-Saxons and Latins toward other 
 races on this continent: "The superiority of a race 
 cannot be preserved without pride of blood and an 
 uncompromising attitude toward the lower races . . . 
 Whatever may be thought of the latter policy, the 
 net result is that North America from the Behring 
 Sea to the Rio Grande is dedicated to the highest type 
 of civilisation; while for centuries the rest of our hemi 
 sphere will drag the ball and chain of hybridism, "f 
 
 And thus the issue is joined. And thus also perhaps 
 we find an answer to our own question, whether racial 
 friction in this country is increasing and inevitable. 
 
 * "The East and the West," January, 1904, p. 16 
 t "The Foundations of Sociology," 1905, p. 379. 
 
VII 
 
 MR. ROOSEVELT, THE SOUTH, AND THE NEGRO* 
 
 IN GREATER degree than that of any other President 
 since the Negro was set free has Mr. Roosevelt s 
 administration been the storm centre of the modern 
 American race problem. It is probably safe to say 
 that he went into the White House without having 
 given a thought to the question of formulating a "Ne 
 gro policy." It is equally safe to say that he has not 
 at any time in his official career been guilty of the 
 childish whim of deliberately offending any section of 
 the country. Yet before he had been in office many 
 months he succeeded in offending the South as no other 
 
 *The following paper is an attempt to interpret the true significance of the 
 incidents which led to the estrangement between Mr. Roosevelt and the South 
 ern people. These incidents are treated in their relation to the American race 
 problem. There is no such barren purpose as that of stirring dead embers. 
 It is not intended to discuss the mere facts themselves. The object is to endea 
 vour to discover the meaning of the attitudes which the Negro and the South 
 respectively assumed toward the President, as determined by certain executive 
 actions with which those parties were concerned. The spirit is not contro 
 versial, howsoever far the words may have inadvertently departed from 
 their proper purpose. The incidents are first stated and the meaning which 
 the South and the Negro attached to them is suggested. The historical reasons 
 underlying the attitude of the South are traced, and the logical relation between 
 such attitude and the period of reconstruction is sought to be established. 
 The psychological force of suggestion is pointed out. The real significance to 
 the Negro of one of the incidents is shown. Its interpretation is given as a 
 manifestation of a developing consciousness of race, the true import of which 
 has been lost sight of in preoccupation with the incident itself. In conclusion, 
 there is indicated the historical association which Mr. Roosevelt s "referee 
 system" possessed for the Southern people, as a contributing element of dis 
 cord. 
 
 242 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 243 
 
 public man has done in recent years. Before a year 
 had passed he had adopted a well-defined policy to 
 ward the political aspect of the race problem. This 
 policy was simple enough. Its one tenet was that colour 
 should not bar him from making political appointments. 
 He doubtless thought that the Constitution was a safe 
 enough platform for a President to stand upon, even 
 as regards the race problem. And so it would be, if 
 the latter were something which had respect for the arti 
 ficial metes and bounds laid down in our organic law. 
 Fortunately or unfortunately, according to one s point 
 of view, it is beyond the control of any legislative act 
 which the ingenuity of man has thus far been able to 
 devise. Mr. Roosevelt s attempted application of his 
 policy to the field of practical conduct, his general 
 attitude, the hue and cry which his actions at once 
 aroused, the inability of the South and the President 
 to understand each other, the inability of the North to 
 understand the South and its attitude toward him, 
 all furnish an inviting field for study to anyone inter 
 ested in the problems of American democracy. 
 
 The Facts in the Case 
 
 Three incidents marked the progress of the contro 
 versy which broke upon the country shortly after 
 Roosevelt s succession to the presidency. These were 
 the Booker Washington dinner, the appointment of 
 Crum, and the closing of the Indianola post-office. 
 There were four parties in interest Mr. Roosevelt, the 
 
244 The American Race Problem 
 
 Southern press and people, the Northern press and 
 people, and the American Negro. The attitude of 
 the first three will be stated in general terms. The 
 President acted clearly within his "rights" in each 
 case. This point must be conceded without argument. 
 The dinner episode was in itself no more than a matter 
 of White House routine. It was more a business con 
 ference than a social function.* 
 
 There is no reason to believe that either party to 
 the much magnified affair regarded it in any other light. 
 Such instances are of daily occurrence and are familiar 
 to all readers of Washington papers. They are an 
 nounced as locals, in two or three line statements to the 
 effect that "yesterday at luncheon," or "last night at 
 dinner," Mr. Blank "discussed with the President the 
 question of Western forest reserves," or something 
 
 * Francis E. Leupp gives the following authentic account of the incident: 
 "I happen to know that this affair was not of Mr. Washington s seeking. 
 He had been sent for because the President wished to consult him on a special 
 subject. Realising that any needless publicity given to his relations with the 
 President might lay him open to the suspicion of having political ends to serve 
 and thus interfere with his educational work, he wished to avoid newspaper 
 mention of his visit to the capital as far as possible. To that end one of his 
 friends came to me in his behalf for advice as to how he could get into and out 
 of the city and make his brief call at the White House without meeting any 
 reporters. I suggested a plan which worked admirably as far as it went, but 
 failed at its final stage because we could not very well make the President a 
 party to it. Mr. Washington escaped the dreaded interviewers, but fell a 
 victim to the routine of the executive mansion. It was a custom, devised for 
 the convenience of the local press, to furnish to the doorkeepers the names of all 
 guests received by the President out of office hours, and the doorkeepers com 
 municated this list to any reporter who called in the evening. The uniform 
 practice was followed in this instance, and the next morning s Washington 
 Post contained a two-line paragraph, in an obscure place at the bottom of an 
 inside page: Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee, Ala., dined with the Presi 
 dent last evening. These facts appear here for the first time in print, because 
 I feel that their correct statement is only just to both parties to the dinner epi 
 sode. It was highly creditable to Mr. Washington that he did nothing to pro 
 mote, but everything in his power to prevent, the exploitation of the honour 
 shown him." "The Man Roosevelt," Francis E. Leupp, pp. 218-219. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 245 
 
 else equally lifeless. On the day in question the usual 
 perfunctory announcement was charged with dyna 
 mite, through the casual insertion of the name of Booker 
 T. Washington.* 
 
 Within forty-eight hours the President was being 
 denounced for having crossed the "social equality" 
 dead-line, through breaking bread with a Negro. Sur 
 prise was probably the first emotion excited in the mind 
 of Mr. Roosevelt by the storm which burst upon him 
 from the South. But for once he was silent. There 
 was no official "announcement" from the White House. 
 Not until three years later did he state his position, 
 and then it was as an abstract, unrelated proposition. 
 This was the declaration, in his New York Lincoln 
 Day race problem address, that social association be 
 tween the races was a matter of purely private and 
 personal interest between the parties concerned. 
 
 The attitude of the South was one of general disap 
 proval. In some instances the disapprobation was 
 couched in violent and abusive terms. In many the tone 
 was one of dignified resentment. By some papers the 
 affair was dismissed as not worth noticing. The one 
 
 * "Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee, Alabama, dined with the President 
 last evening." Washington Post, Oct. 17, 1901, p. 3, col. 8, bottom of page. 
 "Prof. Booker T. Washington was in the city yesterday, and dined with the 
 President last night. While here he was the guest of Mr. Whitefield McKinlay. " 
 Washington Star, Oct, 17, 1901, p. i, col. 6. The item furnished by wire to 
 the Southern press was in the main similar to the following: "Washington, 
 Oct. 1 6. Booker T. Washington, principal of the Negro school at Tuskegee, 
 Ala., dined with the president this evening. It was largely at Washington s 
 suggestion that ex-Governor Jones of Alabama was appointed a judge on 
 the Federal bench in that State. It is understood that Washington will make 
 a number of recommendations for appointments in the South, but just what 
 they are cannot be learned yet. He seems to be very influential with the 
 administration." Memphis Commercial Appeal, Oct. 17, 1901, 
 
246 The American Race Problem 
 
 universal note was that the incident would have a harm 
 ful effect on the relations between the races.* 
 
 The attitude of the Northern press was generally an 
 unqualified defence of the President, with an occasional 
 questioning of the wisdom of his act. Of course the 
 inevitable newspaper controversy at once ensued 
 with the usual result of adding nothing either to sectional 
 good feeling or to sectional enlightenment. 
 
 Before these echoes had died away the other two 
 incidents occurred. When Dr. Crum was appointed 
 to the collectorship of the Port of Charleston the Presi- 
 ident did not hesitate to define his position. He took 
 and maintained the ground that unless some valid 
 reason, other than colour, could be urged against the 
 appointment it would stand. It was in this connec 
 tion that he issued his "door of hope" declaration, in 
 an open letter to a Charleston man. The nomination 
 was finally confirmed, and Crum is still in office. The 
 attitude of Southern papers was no less positive, though 
 
 * The following extracts are fairly illustrative of the social emphasis placed 
 upon the incident by a number of Southern papers: "That was a deliberate act, 
 taken under no alleged pressure o necessity, as in the Albany case, and may 
 be taken as outlining his policy toward the Negro as a factor in Washington 
 society. . . . With our long-matured views on the subject of social inter 
 course between blacks and whites, the least we can say now is that we deplore 
 the President s taste, and we distrust his wisdom." Richmond Dispatch, Oct. 
 18, 1901. "There is not the least reason, however, to fear that his (Washington s) 
 position in the South will be improved on this account. Call it what you please, 
 call it prejudice, or race hatred, or significance, or what not, the people of the 
 South have to deal with the coloured question as it is, and as it affects their 
 civilization, and they may be depended upon to deal with it as it touches 
 them and their interests. We do not know, of course, what we should have done 
 if we had been in his place, but, knowing the conditions as they are, Washington 
 might have protected the President from much unpleasant criticism, and himself 
 and his people from possible injury, by respectfully declining the President s 
 invitation." News and Courier, Charleston, Oct. 21, 1901. See Literary 
 Digest, Oct. 26, 1901, pp. 486-487 for resum6 of newspaper comment. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 247 
 
 in the main much more conservative in tone, in 
 regard to this appointment than in reference to the 
 dinner episode. The extreme Northern view found 
 expression in threats of a reduction of Southern 
 representation in retaliation for continued Southern 
 opposition to a political "square deal" for the Negro. 
 Some papers even suggested the possibility of another 
 force bill. The position of the more conservative, or lib 
 eral, section of opinion was that of attempting to show 
 the folly and injustice of attacking Roosevelt, by an argu 
 ment based upon a comparison of the number of Negro 
 appointments during his and McKinley s administrations. 
 Almost simultaneously with the Crum appointment 
 came the closing of the Indianola post-office. The 
 Negro postmistress was a Harrison and McKinley 
 appointee, and had for some years held office under 
 both administrations. Her resignation was requested 
 by a so-called mass-meeting. It was tendered, but its 
 acceptance was refused by the department. The post 
 mistress declined to serve and the office was closed. 
 Mail for Indianola was ordered sent to Greenville, twenty- 
 five miles distant, though there were other offices nearer. 
 Thus apparent spite was added to useless punishment.* 
 
 * Indianola is a town of 2,000 or 2,500 people. It is a place of large local 
 business importance. It has banks, oil mills, compress, a $20,000 public school 
 building and a $40,000 court house. It is the capital town of Sunflower County 
 and the seat of circuit and chancery courts. In its character as the seat of a 
 county government it is guaranteed postal facilities by Federal statute. The 
 evasion of the law was accomplished by resorting to a rather petty subterfuge. 
 The position was taken that the post-office had not been "abolished," but 
 merely temporarily "closed." The act was clearly punitive in intent. If 
 there was anything unlawful in the conduct of those who asked the resignation, 
 the United States Court could easily have been resorted to. It was in charge 
 of Republican officials, some of them Mr. Roosevelt s own appointees. 
 
248 The American Race Problem 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt again became silent. He gave out 
 no statement in regard to the case. Southern papers 
 denounced him as guilty of a "high-handed outrage." 
 Northern papers denounced the white people of Indian- 
 ola for having "intimidated and bullied" the post 
 mistress into resigning. With practical unanimity 
 they upheld the President s course, and saw in the 
 deprivation of the entire town of postal facilities, on 
 account of the alleged "lawless conduct" of a few of its 
 people, only an act of righteous justice. The most 
 significant feature of this affair, it may be remarked 
 in passing, is the fact that the Indianola post-office is 
 open to-day, with a white postmaster, while the former 
 postmistress and her husband are still residents of the 
 town, and enjoy the confidence and regard of its white 
 people. 
 
 Query: Why could not the powers that be have recog 
 nised the inevitable a few months earlier, and effected 
 the final harmonious adjustment without the interven 
 ing process of Sturm und Drang. However, if things 
 were always handled that way we would be approaching 
 dangerously near a dissolution, if not a solution, of the 
 race problem. 
 
 The attitude of the fourth party, the Negro factor, 
 will be considered later. 
 
 If these incidents were mere tempests in a teapot, 
 as was repeatedly declared by Northern papers, they 
 would not merit thoughtful consideration. If the 
 storm which they raised was a mere newspaper squall 
 they might be dismissed as not worth an effort at analy- 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 
 
 249 
 
 sis of their significance. But they had a deeper meaning. 
 In a letter to the writer in March, 1903, the editor of 
 one of the most ably conducted magazines in the North 
 expressed the opinion that "the present irritation over 
 Negro appointees is incidental and ephemeral." The 
 irritation may have been ephemeral. But it is true 
 of many inherently trivial incidents that they leave 
 behind them a train of consequences whose import is 
 out of all proportion to the irritating cause. The bur 
 dens of an administrative official are rendered doubly 
 difficult in any country where to the ordinary affairs 
 of government are added the necessity of dealing with 
 two or more diverse racial elements. The capacity 
 of such an official may be measured by his ability to 
 weigh and determine in advance the reasonably probable 
 consequences of acts in themselves unimportant, and 
 then to chart a proper course across the reefs and shoals 
 of racial complications. It is with the consequences 
 and significance of the incidents before us, rather than 
 with the incidents themselves, that we are here con 
 cerned. 
 
 The Reconstruction Background 
 
 In many of its most perplexing phenomena the 
 American race problem is largely a matter of sentiment 
 and psychology. It exhibits few manifestations which 
 a just apprehension of the very essentials of the problem, 
 the factors of race, might not have discounted in ad 
 vance. The chief difficulty has been that the treat 
 ment of the modern American problem has been char- 
 
250 The American Race Problem 
 
 acterised throughout by an incomprehensible disregard 
 of these essentials. Its history since 1865 is an almost 
 unbroken succession of policies and conduct based 
 upon the assumed non-existence of any such funda 
 mental complicating factor. The entire question has 
 from the very beginning been made the plaything of 
 partisan politics, rather than the grave concern of non- 
 partisan statesmanship. If England had adopted to 
 ward her numerous and widely scattered racial prob 
 lems the peculiarly American attitude, her colonial 
 empire would have been a miserable failure, instead of a 
 bulwark to the Mother Country. If we had attempted 
 to apply to the racial problems which have con 
 fronted us in the Philippines the same policy which 
 we apply to our race problem at home, we would have 
 made of ourselves a laughing-stock in the eyes of 
 the world. 
 
 It is not uncommon to charge that the South attempts 
 to lay too much responsibility for existing conditions 
 upon the blunders of reconstruction. Theories of 
 incidence are often difficult to apply, whether in econo 
 mics or politics. The ultimate placing of responsibility 
 is not always an easy problem to solve. Cause and 
 effect are not always readily associated. The correla 
 tion is sometimes difficult to establish or apprehend. 
 It has occasionally been declared in reply to this posi 
 tion that the Southern people themselves were respons 
 ible for reconstruction, and are responsible for present 
 conditions, because "they hardened their hearts and 
 would not let their people go." Causal association 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 251 
 
 between the South s failure to voluntarily adopt some 
 plan of emancipation, and the problems which to-day 
 confront her people, cannot be established. The two 
 propositions are too remotely removed. This is too 
 great a straining of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc to be 
 practically tenable ground. We would as well seek to 
 locate the trouble with those responsible for the first 
 importation of African slaves in 1619. On the other 
 hand, the connection between reconstruction policies 
 and incidents and existing race problem phenomena 
 is that of direct and historical sequence. 
 
 Booker T. Washington discloses the connecting link 
 in a single sentence. With the judgment which has 
 always marked his consideration of policies affecting 
 his people, he declares that relations of kindliness and 
 friendship between the Southern white man and the 
 Negro afford the latter "a protection and guarantee 
 of his rights that will be more potent and more lasting 
 than any our Federal Congress or any outside power 
 can confer."* The complement of this proposition is 
 that whatever tends to break down such amicable 
 relations also necessarily tends to erect, and leave in 
 their place, relations of a less kindly, if not positively 
 hostile, nature. The essence of the race problem is 
 that of the peaceful common occupancy of the same 
 territory by two widely differing people. Whatever 
 builds up amicable relations between these tenants 
 in common tends to minimise the problem of their 
 tenancy. Whatever tends to create friction between 
 
 * "The Future of the American Negro," p. 216. 
 
252 The American Race Problem 
 
 them renders their problem more acute. It is only 
 necessary to show what effect our particular method 
 of inaugurating the novel relations of freedom upon the 
 old relations of slavery had upon the new relations 
 themselves, to determine the measure of responsibility 
 of the system for its results. If it is shown that the 
 system and policies of reconstruction tended to destroy 
 those relations which Mr. Washington now regards 
 as the chief guarantee of the right of his people, and 
 that the replacing of these natural relations by the 
 purely artificial guarantees of legislation tended to 
 create racial friction, then the responsibility of the 
 system for certain of its consequences would seem to be 
 established. 
 
 To take the ground that all the complicated phases 
 of the modern problem of race relations are attributable 
 to Reconstruction, or to any other one line of policy, 
 anywhere or at any time, would be to assume a wholly 
 untenable position. The simpler the form of relation 
 between two different races the simpler will be the 
 problems between the two; the more complex the re 
 lation the more complex its problems. The simplest 
 relation that could exist between the white and Negro 
 races, in the mass, was that of the physical control of 
 one by the other. The most complex relations that 
 can exist between the two, or between any racial groups, 
 are those predicated upon a condition of actual or tech 
 nical equality. And the complications to which this 
 relation gives rise will be difficult and severe in propor 
 tion to the degree of artificiality which characterises 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 253 
 
 the equality sought to be established. The greater the 
 natural differences in the way, the more complicated 
 and serious will be the problems incident to the artifi 
 cially created relations. The mere grant of immediate 
 freedom to a large mass of Negro slaves would inevitably 
 have produced its own racial problems. Every step 
 taken toward the removal of the further barriers be 
 tween white and black multiplied such problems and 
 created new ones. The only escape from a cataclysm 
 lay in allowing sufficient time to elapse between the 
 removal of one barrier after another for the races to 
 adjust their relations to the change along normal lines. 
 But this would not have been "Reconstruction." 
 That was a process the logical dogma of which was the 
 proposition that nature has erected no barrier to racial 
 equality which legislation cannot remove. 
 
 The only defence which can be attempted of the 
 policy of giving the Negro the ballot in 1867, and of 
 confirming the grant in 1870, is that it was necessary to 
 enable him to "protect" himself. The very thought 
 suggests the idea of a conflict between former master 
 and slave. Apparently it has been impossible for poli 
 ticians and publicists to comprehend the existence of 
 the relation of master and slave without a resulting 
 state of inconceivable hostility between the individuals 
 thus associated. We are prone to interpret the things 
 which affect other people in terms of our own conscious 
 ness. This is the basic error of many people who dis 
 cuss the problems before us. They would be miser 
 able and unutterably wretched in a state of "bondage," 
 
254 The American Race Problem 
 
 ergo, the Negro was miserable and wretched. The 
 mistaken policy of Reconstruction was but the practical 
 application of a mistaken theory of race relations under 
 slavery.* Many thoughtful men were amazed that 
 the Negroes did not massacre their masters at the first 
 opportunity. There is no escape from the candid 
 conclusion that Mr. Lincoln had prepared himself to 
 accept a "servile insurrection" as an entirely possible 
 result of his calling Negro slaves to freedom and to 
 arms. That none of these things occurred has been 
 ascribed to the "forgiving and benignant gentleness" 
 of the Negro. It is only occasionally that someone 
 sees deeply enough to realise the whole truth. 
 
 We need not take too literally the pleasing romances 
 which deal with Southern ante bellum life, in order 
 to realise the fact that there was much in the relations 
 between the races under the old regime which was, 
 and is, incomprehensible to the mind of anyone to whom 
 slavery was merely the sum of all villainies. On the 
 one hand we have balls and chains, auction blocks and 
 weeping children, bloodhounds and swamps, the slave 
 driver and the lash all the accessories and parapher 
 nalia necessary to equip a Southern plantation in a 
 New England novel. On the other, we have the big 
 house and its gentle mistress, the kind and indulgent 
 master, the black mammy, the enduring friendship 
 between the races, the Christmas frolics, and the various 
 other things which live in the picture painted upon 
 
 * I am here eliminating from consideration all the baser motives of that 
 policy, and am reviewing only that which honestly, even though mistakenly, 
 sought the welfare of the Negro. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 255 
 
 another canvas. We need not be deceived on either 
 side. The truth will usually be found between any 
 two given extremes. 
 
 Slavery was neither all the one nor all the other. 
 It was essentially a human institution, and as such was 
 no better and no worse than the individuals with whose 
 lives it was inseparably associated. It was mild or 
 harsh as the individual was mild or harsh. The history 
 of its relations has not been written, and probably will 
 not be by this generation. By whomsoever the task 
 may be assumed, two people will have to collaborate 
 in the work a Southern Negro and a Southern white 
 man. And the record will miss an essential truth if 
 it fail to recognise the great potential force for usefulness 
 in adjusting succeeding relations which was bound up 
 in the ties which existed between the higher type of 
 master and the higher type of slave. We are apt to 
 miss this truth, through dwelling on the limited number 
 of the higher domestic class as compared with the 
 whole. We fail to realise that it was this higher class, 
 in the main mulatto types, who in such large measure 
 constituted the "Negro" leaders of the Reconstruction 
 era. It was through them that a great beneficent 
 force might have been exerted upon the mass, just as 
 it was through them that this force was in fact too 
 largely exerted for evil. Such men as Hampton, Lamar, 
 Hill, and Gordon on the one side, and Revels, Bruce, and 
 many more on the other, both bond and free, might 
 not have been able entirely to control their respective 
 constituencies. It is morally certain, however, that 
 
256 The American Race Problem 
 
 acting together, as under normally developed condi 
 tions they would have acted, they could and would have 
 brought to bear a powerful pressure for good. That 
 the normal relations between these men were all too 
 nearly destroyed is one thing for which Reconstruction 
 was immediately responsible. We have abundant 
 testimony as to what in very large degree such relations 
 were under slavery, and much from people of colour 
 themselves. As barely suggestive only, we give two or 
 three expressions from men who certainly cannot be 
 charged with partiality toward the institution itself: 
 
 Dr. DuBois says: "Nothing has come to replace 
 that finer sympathy and love between some masters 
 and house servants, which the radical and more un 
 compromising drawing of the colour line in recent years 
 has caused almost completely to disappear."* 
 
 With a touch of genuine pathos Professor Councill 
 says: "The Negro must just take his chances. That 
 is all. When the old, gray-haired veterans who fol 
 lowed General Lee s tattered banners to Appomattox 
 shall have passed away, the Negro s best friends will 
 have gone; for the Negro got more out of slavery than 
 they did. Now there arose up a new King over Egypt, 
 which knew not Joseph. "f 
 
 Mr. John Henry Smyth, of Virginia, ex-minister to 
 Liberia says: "To my mind but one merit can be 
 claimed for the old system of enslavement a discipline 
 as to labour which produced the best results to the 
 
 * "Annals of the American Academy," July, 1901, Vol. 18, No. i, p. 138, 
 t "The Future of the Negro," Forum, July, 1899, p. 575. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 
 
 257 
 
 master class and made the slave orderly and systematic 
 in the performance of his tasks. Though smarting, 
 even now, under the resultant influences of a destroyed 
 system, we can afford to do justice to the good men 
 and women of the white race who constituted a part 
 of the system. Slavery as it has been known in the 
 outside world, is not slavery as it was in the genteel 
 and pious homes and households of the South. Here 
 the people were treated almost as members of the 
 family, uncles and aunts and mammies and play 
 mates. They were necessary supplements, sharers 
 of all great occasions of joy or sorrow, of feasts and 
 sufferings. And the tenderest and most watchful care 
 was bestowed upon them. Consideration for the ser 
 vants was the test of the quality. Mutual influences 
 went to make as pure, high and beautiful a civilisa 
 tion as the system was capable of. And no philan 
 thropist on earth has ever had a deeper horror for the 
 evils that have been represented as slavery in the South 
 than many of the quality. Nor anywhere was the 
 wise abolition of slavery more earnestly studied and 
 desired than by the good people of the Southern states."* 
 In an appreciation of "The Services of Dunbar," 
 Mr. George Davis Jenifer says: "In those days when 
 master and man were united in the bonds of slavery, 
 there was abundant intercourse between the races and 
 much of trustfulness and of affection. The black man s 
 hand received the new born master; the black man s 
 
 * "Negro Criminality," John Henry Smyth, Southern Workman, Nov.. "goo, 
 pp. 628, 629. 
 
258 The American Race Problem 
 
 feet were patient to stay beside the faltering baby steps 
 of his charge and swift to the rescue when danger 
 threatened; the black man chastened the unruly spirit 
 of the child that it might grow strong and comely in 
 character as a gentleman s spirit should; trembling 
 with eagerness and affection, black hands clad the 
 master for his marriage and when the white man s 
 hour was come, black hands, faithful to the last, gently 
 closed his eyes in death. In spite of slavery, the people 
 of the South recognised a common humanity. . . . 
 If habit tended to assuage the poignancy of this after 
 math of war, and to restore the old affability between 
 the races, time interfered; for the men of the old 
 regime, both black and white, who had known and 
 loved each other well, fast went the way of all flesh 
 and new generations arose. . . . Unto these, who 
 should be brethren, comes Dunbar singing of the Negro, 
 not as a beast, not as a fiend, but as a gentle, simple- 
 hearted man. And the Southern white man remembers 
 again the traditional kindliness between his fathers 
 and the fathers of his black neighbour; while the 
 Northerner, perplexed to find a refutation of his theo 
 ries, is disposed to be more generous. Possibly, then, 
 when the future has witnessed a complete revival of 
 that friendship between the races, for lack of which our 
 common country suffers to-day, men may see fit to 
 raise in our national capital a monument to the black 
 poet, whose songs made two angry peoples mindful of 
 their common brotherhood."* 
 
 * Voice of the Negro, June, 1906, pp. 408, 409. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 259 
 
 And comes also a discovery in the columns of the 
 paper which probably more than any other in America 
 still talks of the "Southern slave driving spirit," when 
 it would typify the attitude of the Southern white man 
 toward modern racial conditions. A special corre 
 spondent tells this paper of a favourable opinion of the 
 Negro which he has found in the South: "This opin 
 ion," he says, "is confined, of course, to the better ele 
 ment of whites mostly, one is bound to add, to the 
 descendants of slave-owners."* 
 
 Of all the miserable heritage of Reconstruction, 
 probably the most harmful, all things considered, was 
 the bequest to this generation of the foundation and 
 beginning of a peculiarly uncompromising, indiscrim- 
 inating colour line, one such as was unknown in older 
 days.f There is no other element in the present situa 
 tion so pregnant with hurtful possibilities, no factor 
 the inexorable operations of which are so difficult to 
 escape. It is hard for a Southern man fully to under 
 stand the attitude of mind which persistently holds the 
 belief that such relations as we have just suggested 
 did not exist under slavery, or at best were rare and 
 curious phenomena. That this was a fundamental 
 tenet with thousands of honest and intelligent people 
 is not a matter of debate. It is testified to by innumer- 
 
 * "Traveller, " in New York Evening Post, Jan. 29, 1907, p. 7. col. 4. 
 
 t The purpose of this paper is to explain certain phases of conditions in which 
 all of us, white and Negro, are more or less concerned. If in the pursuit of 
 this object the writer seems occasionally to go somewhat far afield, it is only 
 that he may weave into the narrative some more or less related thread. So 
 here, he trusts he may be pardoned for following this digression one step further 
 along the line of the historic background of modern relations. 
 
260 The American Race Problem 
 
 able specific declarations, by countless acts, by a policy 
 too definitely based upon the theory to admit of doubt 
 as to its controlling force. There was also always 
 in evidence the corollary to this idea, a proposition 
 equally as logical in its ignorance of fact. This was that, 
 conversely, there must be, from the very nature and 
 constitution of the Southern institution, a bond of 
 unity and sympathy between the " oppressed Negro 
 slave" and the "oppressed non slave-holding white 
 man." To the Northern view they were the sharers of 
 a common fate, and, upon the logic of well reasoned 
 human conduct, they could be counted upon to make 
 a common cause against their common oppressor. 
 The great war governor of Massachusetts tells his 
 people in 1865 to "remember that the poor oppressed 
 democracy of Georgia and the Carolinas are their breth 
 ren." He warns against letting "sentimental politics 
 surrender either them, or the black man, with whom 
 they have shared the voiceless woe of his servitude. . . 
 to the possibilities of any reactionary theory."* 
 
 Governor Andrew almost completely reversed his 
 own attitude toward Reconstruction, but the logic 
 of his counsel lived. Though he would have had it 
 otherwise, the policy of that period was not addressed 
 to the former slave owner, and it met with no response 
 from those who were said to have "shared the voice 
 less woe" of the former slave. By no people in the 
 South was the equalising programme of Congress more 
 
 * Governor John A. Andrew s address to Massachusetts Legislature, Jan. 
 , 1865, Massachusetts Senate Documents, i, pp. 96, 97, 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 261 
 
 bitterly resented and opposed. One inevitable result 
 of that programme was to estrange from the Negro 
 those men the habit of whose lives was that of personal 
 kindliness to the race. There was created for the first 
 time a partial identity of abstract attitude toward the 
 Negro between the slave-holder and those whom the 
 North vainly imagined were the only logical friends of 
 the slave. But one division was permitted by the 
 policy which allied the Negro with his new found North 
 ern friends and taught him to regard his master as his 
 enemy. Upon one side of this dividing line were the 
 Negro and the carpetbagger; upon the other were the 
 white people of the South, save the scalawag, without 
 regard to previous party affiliation or other association, 
 without question as to natural identity of interests 
 or normal community of thought. The odium thus 
 attached to political association between whites and 
 blacks not only perpetuated itself in the popular mind, 
 but communicated its taint to all other forms of public 
 association as well. The community of interest be 
 tween master and slave was destroyed, and hostility 
 was the bitter fruit of the attempt to create a hope 
 less and senseless "equality" between the two. 
 
 But the old relations were too strong to be wholly 
 broken down by even the iron policy of Reconstruction. 
 To this day there yet survives more of ante bellum 
 racial kindliness than the outside world, with its ignor 
 ant wisdom, is able to comprehend. But what re 
 mained was peculiarly personal. In all public affairs, 
 wherever there was an open alignment of men, white 
 
262 The American Race Problem 
 
 men stood by white men, and the Negro stood by the 
 stranger and the renegade. All public support of the 
 Negro became measurably identified with the odium 
 of this political association, and the Negro suffers the 
 consequences. In any matter which becomes a question 
 of race, in any matter wherein the white man is bound 
 by public opinion to openly espouse one side or the 
 other, as between that which is historically and senti 
 mentally identified with the cause of his own people, 
 and that which is identified with those who were their 
 enemies in peace, there is little doubt as to where the 
 decision will lie. From the warning of Councill we 
 may read that the Negro in large part has himself to 
 blame himself and those who were the real creators 
 of the Southern colour line. 
 
 The man who does not know, may catch some faint 
 hint of the significance of this line as the coloured 
 man sees it, if he will listen to Dr. DuBois. He 
 says: "It is usually true that the very represen 
 tatives of the two races who for mutual benefit and 
 the welfare of the land ought to be in complete 
 understanding and sympathy are so far strangers 
 that one side thinks that all whites are narrow and 
 prejudiced and the other thinks educated Negroes 
 dangerous and insolent. Moreover, in a land where 
 the tyranny of public opinion and the intolerence of 
 criticism is for obvious historical reasons so strong as 
 in the South, such a situation is extremely difficult 
 to correct. The white man as well as the Negro is 
 bound and tied by the colour line, and many a scheme 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 263 
 
 of friendliness and philanthropy, of broad-minded 
 sympathy, and generous fellowship between the two 
 has dropped still-born because some busybody 
 has forced the colour question to the front and brought 
 the tremendous force of unwritten law against the 
 innovators."* 
 
 As I look back over the events which followed the 
 Civil War, and think of the sundered race relations of 
 the period which preceded it, I feel as a supreme con 
 viction that if any one of the Southern states had been 
 a far off island in the sea, it would have known no such 
 problems as were forced upon it from without; but 
 that the best in its life, both white and black, 
 would have given the world such an example of the 
 possibilities of racial cooperation along normal lines 
 as it has not the benefit of to-day in all its wide 
 experience. 
 
 For a student of race relations, seeking light upon 
 the results of the artificial adjustment which followed 
 the Civil War, rather than upon the barren facts of 
 such adjustment, most of the literature which deals 
 with the period possesses little value. It is of course 
 worth while to know with accuracy just what the " Black 
 and Tan" legislatures of Southern states spent on 
 their printing bills and stationery accounts. The truth 
 should of course be established as to the public debts 
 which they did or did not create. Also by all means 
 let them be given credit for the good they did, as well 
 
 * "The Relation of the Negroes to the Whites in the South," W. E. B. Du- 
 Bois, "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science," July, 
 1901, pp. 137, 138. 
 
264 The American Race Problem 
 
 as the evil, and for all of the former which research can 
 bring to light. 
 
 But this was but a comparatively small part of 
 Reconstruction, as that term was seared into the minds 
 and hearts of Southern people. Tradition may not be 
 history, but if we would interpret the meaning and 
 significance of the great epoch-marking events in the 
 life of a people, we must take account of the one as 
 well as of the other. History was handed down by 
 word of mouth before it was recorded with the pen. 
 For the light we need it is idle to point out with scien 
 tific exactness that in actual fact technical "Recon 
 struction" lasted just so many months and weeks and 
 days. For this purpose it is equally idle to point 
 out the exact part which the Negro played in those 
 troubled times to give the number of Negro voters 
 in each state and county, and the number who were 
 members of state legislatures. This writer has more 
 than once declared that unscrupulous mulattoes and 
 white men carpetbaggers and scalawags have more 
 and greater sins to answer for in Southern political 
 history than the Negroes who became their ignorant 
 dupes and tools. The latter have simply shared the 
 catspaw s fate. And of this one crime against the 
 Negro, that of deliberately pitting him against his 
 former master in a contest about the inevitable end 
 of which there could have been no shadow of doubt, 
 the South can wash its hands. It did not invite the 
 unequal contest. 
 
 What, then, is this thing which we call "Reconstruc- 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 265 
 
 tion"? In the South it is that period of misery which 
 covered the decade or more between 1865 and 1875 
 or 1880, and measured the time during which the con 
 trol of their domestic affairs was lost and regained 
 by Southern white men. It is in popular comprehension 
 the more or less clearly defined, but always darker, 
 part of the bitter twenty years after 1860, during which 
 the South was the scene of war, rehabilitation and 
 the undoing of the latter process. It was the period 
 during which, amid the wreck of its old order and in 
 the midst of its poverty, it was delivered up, as Presi 
 dent Hyde, of Bowdoin, puts it, in the name of racial 
 equality to political and social chaos. And these peo 
 ple trod the wine press alone. They were pilloried 
 in public print, "investigated" time after time, al 
 most as a holiday task, and "reported on" by com 
 mittees of hostile congresses. They were cartooned 
 by the pen of Thomas Nast, their every fault was hunted 
 out and magnified and set upon a hill, for all the 
 world to gaze at as typical of "a barbarous people." 
 Their misfortunes were paraded as the well earned 
 fruit of treason. They were branded and set apart 
 in outer darkness, to work out their salvation as best 
 they might, under a handicap such as has not been 
 imposed upon any other group of English-speaking 
 people in modern times. 
 
 We are faced with the simple but pregnant fact that 
 since 1865 the Southern people have constituted what 
 is probably the most doggedly determined and compact 
 body of men this country has known. Racial solidar- 
 
266 The American Race Problem 
 
 ity has become the fixed and natural habit of their 
 thought and lives. People running well into the mil 
 lions in numbers and occupying a vast expanse of 
 territory, do not, cannot, maintain such an attitude 
 through an unbroken reach of more than forty years 
 without the existence of some great fundamental rea 
 son. It is folly to suppose that this could be kept up 
 as a result of senseless race prejudice." We must 
 account for conditions of such significance, when we 
 write wise monographs on the "Negro question" or 
 learnedly descant upon the best methods of spreading 
 education for the developing of "backward Southern 
 civilisation." Much as we might like to forget this 
 period of our history, it cannot be ignored. The race 
 problem is a broad one, and these conditions form one 
 of its essential parts the forbidding background of 
 the recent past, upon which the picture of the present 
 must be thrown if all its lights and shadows would be 
 brought to view. 
 
 The Association of Ideas 
 
 It is a far cry from Southern Reconstruction to the 
 present peace-loving chaplain of the United States 
 Senate. Yet Dr. Hale gives us a clue which should 
 help us to understand how the stress of the Negro s 
 first days of freedom is naturally associated with that of 
 his later life. In one of his "Tarry at Home Travels" 
 the venerable New Englander indulges the follow 
 ing reflective passage: "The French always brought 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 267 
 
 Indians with them. And you may charge it to the 
 French religion or not, as you choose, but the savage 
 warfare which they carried on under French direc 
 tion was of the most horrible kind. If anybody cares, 
 it is to be observed that the hatred of the Roman 
 Catholic Church which existed formerly in New Eng 
 land was due to the memory that the savage raids of 
 the eighteenth century were in all instances mixed up 
 with French invasion, and were ascribed by the sufferers, 
 more or less, to the machinations of Latin priests."* 
 
 One of the simplest psychological processes of the 
 human mind is that of the association of ideas. And, 
 "if anybody cares, it operates as effectively in the 
 South in associating the Negro in politics with the 
 odium of a hundred acts of Reconstruction days, which 
 apparently lie beyond the reach of history, as it did in 
 New England in associating Catholicism with Indian 
 massacres. And we might call on psychology to help 
 us interpret more than one other phenomenon which 
 seems to puzzle the race problem specialist. The 
 writer has a friend, born and reared and living in a 
 Northern state, whose family was "expelled" from 
 Haiti at the time of its slave insurrection. His people 
 suffered unspeakable barbarities in the process. Whether 
 or not family tradition has magnified those suffer 
 ings might interest the historian bent upon an exclusive 
 search for time-worn actualities. It is not of so much 
 concern to our present purpose as is the knowledge of 
 the very real and existing fact that this man can with 
 
 * Outlook , May 6, 1905, p. 76. 
 
268 The American Race Problem 
 
 difficulty to-day tolerate a Negro in his presence. Yet 
 he is a kindly man and a just. 
 
 A picture comes to my mind of a gentle, almost 
 womanly tender old man, telling in the monotone of 
 age, around a winter s fireside, some of his Reconstruc 
 tion experiences the kind which only Southern 
 children have heard from reminiscent lips, the kind 
 which find no place in Reconstruction histories. He 
 had surrendered in good faith at Appomattox, and 
 had found his way back to the place he had once called 
 home, thinking in his heart that war and invasion were 
 really over, now that the fighting was done. He told 
 of the humiliations and heartburnings and bitter things 
 which followed the second invasion. And of how mild 
 and commonplace by comparison became the incidents 
 of real war, in which he had been given a fighting man s 
 chance. He told of how he had been arrested by a 
 Negro bureau officer upon some trivial charge. He 
 was a peaceable and law-loving man, and accompanied 
 his custodian without hesitation or suspicion. The 
 bureau headquarters were some distance away and the 
 night was bitter cold. Darkness coming on, the officer 
 suggested stopping at a Negro cabin for the night. 
 He demurred, but finally consented. While standing 
 in front of the fire he was suddenly seized by the officer 
 and his Negro host. He was tied hand and foot and 
 taken to the stable lot. Here a rail fence was raised 
 and his head thrust under it, his neck resting on the 
 bottom rail. In this position he was left during the 
 long winter night, his face beat upon by driving sleet, 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 269 
 
 his war-worn body racked with pain. That was a 
 long while ago, and he all but smiled as he told the 
 story a queer, non-humorous sort of smile. I dare 
 say it would be almost a useless waste of time to tell 
 him and his family and his country neighbours that 
 the so-called "horrors of Reconstruction" were in fact, 
 upon the latest scientific analysis, found and actually 
 demonstrated to have been mere creations of the over 
 wrought Southern mind. 
 
 And how many such "trivial incidents," as the 
 great world s history is measured, incidents long since 
 forgotten elsewhere, were necessary to create a more 
 or less fixed and definite mental attitude toward the 
 period with which they are inseparably associated? 
 Scattered throughout all this region there were enough 
 and to spare. Each county, each little community 
 or isolated group, has in its own simple way its own 
 tales to tell to its children even though they may 
 not be recounted in the books from which we learn 
 the history of that time. 
 
 If you live in a part of the world where present 
 environment makes it possible to do so, attempt to 
 frame for yourself a picture of the horrors through 
 which the white people of Haiti lived during the in 
 ception of a government founded upon a massacre and 
 perpetuated by assassination. Then read Wendell 
 Phillips s apostrophe to Toussaint L Ouverture, or 
 Harriet Martineau s "The Hour and the Man." Pic 
 ture to yourself the mental suffering inflicted by such 
 experiences as I have described above. Estimate 
 
270 The American Race Problem 
 
 the abiding effect upon the communities in which they 
 occurred, and you may then begin to appreciate how far 
 such an observation as the following falls short of 
 fathoming the depth of the real relation between Recon 
 struction and present conditions: "Now ensued the 
 trial of Negro suffrage, and most Southern writers on 
 the subject of the present relations of the Negroes and 
 whites trace all the trouble back to those unholy acts 
 of Congress and Constitutional Amendments. Every 
 southern child as he grows up becomes possessed of a 
 fixed belief that from 1865 to about 1875 the South 
 was governed by an unrighteous combination of Neg 
 roes with a few scalawags or on-the-soil Republicans, 
 and Carpetbaggers, or Northern political adventurers. 
 These things are within the memory of thousands 
 of living men and women, and yet how warped al 
 ready is the popular impression!"* 
 
 Any postgraduate man at Harvard, Columbia, or 
 Johns Hopkins might easily submit as a thesis a more 
 "accurate" account of Reconstruction than would 
 probably be written by anyone who had himself under 
 gone the process, saving a few rare exceptions. It 
 would answer every purpose of any investigator who 
 wished for knowledge of the exact dates between which 
 this state or that lived its Reconstruction life, who 
 wanted to know the amount of each and every issue 
 of bonds made during the period in question, the tax 
 levy of each county, and the amount of taxes squan- 
 
 * "The Realities of Negro Suffrage," Albert Bushnell Hart, Proceedings of 
 the American Political Science Assn., second annual meeting, Baltimore, 1905, 
 p. iS4- 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 271 
 
 dered, as well as properly used. From it possibly we 
 could learn much about the proper division of respon 
 sibility between Negroes, scalawags, and carpetbaggers. 
 We might be told just how honestly or dishonestly 
 the affairs of the Freedman s Bureau were administered. 
 But after all, for the purpose of measuring the effect 
 of Reconstruction upon present relations between 
 Negroes and whites in the Southern states our informa 
 tion would be of little value. 
 
 The heart of it all is simply the common-sense fact 
 that, like New England hatred of Catholicism, to revert 
 to Dr. Hale, the still surviving Southern hatred of 
 Reconstruction and opposition to Negro suffrage are 
 due in large part to the "mixing up" of many things, 
 "ascribed by the sufferers, more or less," to the in 
 jection of the Negro into politics. The one inevitable 
 result of this programme was to hopelessly, almost 
 cruelly, and as it now seems perhaps even permanently, 
 identify him with a period for which in our history we 
 find no parallel. Professor Dunning, with a discern 
 ment of the acute mental aspects of the situation, 
 which are usually lost sight of in a mass of physical 
 details, has likened the condition of the Southern 
 people, in the presence of the "remorseless approach 
 of Negro rule," to that of "the prisoner of tradition 
 who watched the walls of his cell close slowly in from 
 day to day to crush him."* But neither " The Pit and 
 the Pendulum," nor any other creation of Poe s imagin 
 ation, nor even the miseries of the crimes in the South 
 
 "Essays on the Civil War and Reconstructipn," p. 243, 
 
272 The American Race Problem 
 
 of France, as touched by the magic pen of Dumas, can 
 convey to the mind which does not know and the heart 
 which has not felt, a sense of the exquisite mental 
 torture through which these people passed. Mr. 
 Lamar, great apostle of peace as he was, said that 
 "the iron thrust into the hearts of the Southern people 
 by this wicked and relentless policy burned deeper 
 than the wounds which followed hostile armies." 
 
 Before we go further we may learn something else 
 from this association of ideas. Probably one of the 
 most difficult things for a Northern man to understand 
 about Southern conditions is the attitude so generally 
 assumed in the South toward Northern teachers of 
 Negro schools. It is largely a matter of sentiment 
 and suggestion. There is no opposition to such schools, 
 per se, and no personal feeling toward those who conduct 
 them.* The chief ground of complaint is against the 
 social attitude of Southern people toward teachers 
 in these schools. This is not difficult to explain. If 
 we will study the one phase of Reconstruction of which 
 the North is proud, the crusade for education, we will 
 have little difficulty in catching the spirit which seemed 
 to characterise the times. A candid reading of contem 
 porary literature compels the realisation that where 
 the white people were considered at all it was too often 
 
 * When the Mary Holmes Seminary, at West Point, Mississippi, burned 
 some years ago, its president wrote: "The kindness of the citizens here 
 white and black has been very marked. The best people in the town came 
 out during the fire and urged us and the teachers to come to their houses. Twice 
 our number could have been comfortably provided for in the places that were 
 offered. Certainly we can not doubt the unselfish sympathy and interest of the 
 people in this place in our work." Letter from Rev. H. N. Payne, in Assembly 
 Herald, N. Y., May, 1899, p. 285. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 273 
 
 in the spirit of a " charity" more galling than bayo- 
 netted tyranny itself. These early teachers came from a 
 section which had long boasted its intellectual and 
 educational superiority over the South. Feeling their 
 superiority they too often showed that they felt it. It 
 is not uncommon even now, to see this idea coupled 
 with the very complaints of which we speak. 
 
 During the decade after 1865 the South was made to 
 realise this attitude in a way which must have been 
 irritating beyond measure. The keynote to the too 
 common spirit behind this propaganda may be read in 
 the following extracts from an "official" sermon before 
 the Massachusetts legislature: Speaking of "the obdur 
 acy of rebellion" the preacher said it was "Of God"- 
 "like the hardening of Pharaoh s heart, that the whole 
 Southern system of life, labour, and society may be 
 drowned together in this red sea and not a vestige 
 of the old malign civilisation of that portion of our 
 country survive these bloody years." Then he told 
 of "our new duties" "to send thither the seeds of 
 New England life and institutions, to be scattered broad 
 cast and first of all to occupy the ground. There 
 will be also a work," he continued, "worthy our best 
 endeavours, to bring up, ennoble and save a degraded 
 remnant of Southern population* Here all that is 
 generous and charitable, all that is magnanimous and 
 forgiving in the heart of New England, will have free 
 scope. We shall have to show our former enemies how 
 sincerely and truly we can be, and are their friends. 
 
 * Italics in the original. 
 
274 The American Race Problem 
 
 We shall have to bless them in spite of their prejudices 
 and all the depressing weight of their old habits. We 
 shall have to show them how much better we can do for 
 them than they have ever done for themselves. . . . 
 to inspire them with hope, diligence, economy, and 
 the ambition for self-improvement to set before 
 them on their own soil the models of our own sweet 
 and comfortable domestic life to build school houses 
 and churches and send them teachers and preachers, 
 and sift into all their brightening consciousness the 
 light of letters, the issues of the daily press, and a fresh, 
 healthful, evangelical literature. This grand charity 
 will tax our faith and our self-denial to the utmost for 
 years to come."* Less than thirteen years ago this 
 writer listened to an address by a Northern woman, 
 before a convention in a Southern town, which breathed 
 in its every word the same sentiment, spirit, and ideas 
 which permeated the sermon from which we have 
 quoted. 
 
 And these teachers did but little to seek the good 
 will of white people. How could they hope to, coming 
 as they did? They were peculiarly evangels of light 
 to the brother in black. And it is too true that many 
 of them taught politics as well as books. The two were 
 closely associated. The controlling purpose in many 
 minds was the fitting of the freedmen for the share in 
 public life which they were told was theirs of "right." 
 
 * "The Work of New England in the Future of Our Country." A sermon 
 before the Executive and Legislative Departments of the Government of Massa- 
 chuetts at the Annual Election, January 4, 1865, by A- L. Stone, D. D., Boston, 
 1865, pp. 43, 44. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 275 
 
 In a rhapsody on "labour and education linked hand 
 in hand" one enthusiastic heart predicted that the 
 freedmen, "ambitious only for an extended freedom 
 of soul and mind," "are destined shortly to become the 
 ruling race in the South."* 
 
 It is hardly strange that the Southern people, situated 
 as they were during this period, should have adopted 
 the rigid policy which became almost a law of their 
 social life. Their attitude was simply this: "You 
 come here as the friends, deliverers, and saviours of 
 the Negro. You have taught him that we are his 
 hereditary enemies, and have been for generations his 
 heartless taskmasters. In season and out you delight 
 to tell him of his rights, while to us you speak only 
 of duties. You instill it into his mind, as a cardinal 
 tenet of his new found faith, that he is the equal of the 
 white man as good as, if not better than, his former 
 master. Holding your ideas, and pursuing the policy 
 you do, there is nothing in common between you and 
 us. Go your way and we shall go ours. We shall not 
 molest you, but we will let you alone." We must 
 appreciate and bear in mind the conditions which 
 surrounded Southern people, if we would understand 
 their course. They were helpless in the presence of 
 what they felt to be another invasion, and used such 
 weapons as they could command. One of the most 
 powerful of these was social ostracism, and it was in 
 voked against all who in their minds sought to keep 
 the iron heel upon their necks. Northern teachers 
 
 * "Freedmen of the South," Slaughter, 1869, p. 179. 
 
276 The American Race Problem 
 
 shared the fate of association with the Northern carpet 
 bagger, the Negro, and the scalawag. They all came 
 in together, and it was inevitable that to some extent 
 for many years they should share in Southern minds 
 the odium attached to the period and institution whose 
 inauguration was first heralded by their approach. 
 We are not concerned here with the question of the 
 correctness or incorrectness of the Southern attitude. 
 This is neither an indictment nor a defence. It is an 
 attempt to in part explain a condition which so many 
 people seem not able to understand. 
 
 McKinley, Roosevelt, and the Negro 
 
 It must not be understood that the Negro was not 
 a very real, and often controlling, political factor 
 during Reconstruction. The most far reaching, as it 
 was criminally inexcusable, feature of the politics of 
 the time, was the deliberate engendering of animosity 
 between the Negro and his former master. In a hun 
 dred ways hatred of the master was taught as a tenet 
 of political faith. The inculcating of lessons of racial 
 estrangement rose to the dignity of a party dogma 
 and became the stock in trade of party success. This 
 was the work of a class of white men and mulattoes 
 whose sole object was that of turning the Negro s 
 ignorance to their own unscrupulous ends.* There is 
 
 * I have often had recalled to my mind a personal incident which made a 
 lasting impression upon me, and which throws a suggestive side light upon 
 this feature of the period in question. Shortly before the election of Mr. Cleve 
 land, in 1884, I was one day fishing with a very close and confidential friend 
 a very black little darkey of about my own age. He edged closer to me on the 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 277 
 
 abundant testimony to their success. As late as 1901 
 Booker T. Washington tells us of Negroes who, "through 
 the encouragement, help, and advice of Southern white 
 people, have accumulated thousands of dollars worth 
 of property, but who, at the same time, would never 
 think of going to those same persons for advice con 
 cerning the casting of their ballots."* 
 
 Mr. Baldwin remarks of Negro suffrage that "From 
 this source alone the difficulties of the problem have 
 been infinitely increased. . . . The legal right of 
 the Negro to vote has been the only serious cause of 
 hostility on the part of the Southern white man." 
 He thus confirms Mr. Washington: "The Negro is 
 the friend of the white man in all matters except poli 
 tics; but in politics he has seldom joined forces with 
 his white neighbours for the common interests of the 
 community in which he lives, "f 
 
 This is merely one of the seemingly permanently 
 harmful results of the policy in question. Its immedi 
 ate effect was to give to the dominant white and mu 
 latto factions absolute control of a compact body 
 of votes which they could always use as at least a 
 
 projecting log on which we sat, and almost in a whisper asked me if I knew 
 that if Mr. Cleveland were elected the white folks would have slavery again. 
 Close as was the daily companionship between us, he would not accept my 
 youthfully indignant denial of such a programme, nor disclose the source of his 
 private information. Between laborious whiffs at our "crossvine cigars," 
 he finally told me that "de word had been spread" by a local political preacher, 
 of the dire consequences of a Democratic victory and that "it had been sont 
 down to him fum de Noth." And this was more than nineteen years after the 
 Civil War. 
 
 * "Up from Slavery," p. 236. 
 
 t Wm. H. Baldwin, Second Capon Springs Conference, 1899, Proceedings, pp. 
 98-99. 
 
278 The American Race Problem 
 
 balance of power. Hiram R. Revels, once a Senator 
 from Mississippi, himself an excellent man of mixed 
 blood, in a letter to Grant, urging the use of the Presi 
 dent s influence on the Senate in seating Mr. Lamar, 
 declared that his people had been "enslaved in mind by 
 unprincipled adventurers. The South has been charged 
 for more than a generation with drawing the colour 
 line for political advantage, and the term " Solid South " 
 is sought to be converted into one of reproach. The 
 South established no colour line when she attempted 
 the rehabilitation of her fortunes under the Lincoln- 
 Johnson reconstruction plan in 1865. There was 
 simply no such thought as that of taking the Negro into 
 political partnership. To people who lived in the 
 South and appreciated the conditions which surrounded 
 them, such a thing was unthinkable. The failure or 
 refusal to offer suffrage to the Negro was merely the 
 natural, as it should have been the expected, course, 
 and was entirely devoid of any colour-line significance. 
 The foundations for this line were laid when the white 
 man was discriminated against politically, penalised 
 and deprived of controlling voice in his own domestic 
 affairs. It came with the military Reconstruction 
 Act of 1867, and the first "Solid South " known to Ameri 
 can political history was not white but black. When 
 the white man slowly, and in the face of almost over 
 whelming obstacles, regained control of his own, the 
 colour line had been drawn by other hands than his 
 distinctly and pitilessly drawn. He simply accepted 
 what he found, 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 279 
 
 Twenty-six years ago Professor W. H. Councill, 
 now head of the coloured Agricultural and Mechanical 
 College of Alabama, warned his people against continu 
 ing to perpetuate this line. In a speech at Tuscumbia, 
 Ala., in 1881, he frankly recognised the conditions 
 referred to here the solid racial alignment of Negroes 
 under pernicious leadership. A prophetic extract from 
 his speech is worth recalling, in view of a subsequent 
 fulfilment to its very letter: "If you do not now 
 make friends of, and unite with, the white people 
 among whom you live, on all questions touching our 
 civil and political welfare, you will regret it in time to 
 come. It will not be twenty-five years before the 
 white people of this country, if they have found that 
 you go en masse against them, right or wrong, on all 
 political questions, will come into power and take from 
 you the ballot which you continue to cast against them. 
 The Republican party will grow tired of you, and seek 
 to unload the Negro element, and like the bat which 
 was disowned by the beasts, and not recognised by the 
 birds, you will find favour with neither Democrats nor 
 Republicans."* 
 
 But aside from its general bearing on the modern 
 problem, what has Reconstruction to do with Mr. 
 Roosevelt s appointment of Negroes to office? How 
 do we account for the storm which his actions raised, 
 when we are told that the South accepted without 
 protest similar appointments at the hands of his prede- 
 
 * Reproduced in "Bright Side of the Southern Question" an address at 
 Corona, Ala., Aug. 25, 1903, p. 10. 
 
a8o The American Race Problem 
 
 cessor? Probably the best statement of the case for 
 Mr. Roosevelt was that made in an editorial on the 
 President and the South, in the Outlook, of February 
 7, 1903. That thoroughly fair and honest journal in 
 part thus diagnosed the then rather turbulent situation : 
 "Nor is it out of the common that this race prejudice 
 should disregard the plain facts of current history, 
 for none are so blind as those who do not wish to see. 
 Certain it is that the notion that President Roosevelt 
 has been forcing the race issue upon the South is in 
 curious contradiction to the actual facts. Probably 
 no man ever went into the Presidential chair with a 
 more sincere desire to promote harmony between the 
 North and the South as well as between the races, 
 and at the same time to do something really to help the 
 blacks through rewarding those who by their lives had 
 won the confidence of the whites, and who possessed 
 high individual character." Then follows a recital 
 of various appointments, and the statement is made 
 that "The net result is that at the present time there 
 are fewer Negroes, by two, holding Presidental offices 
 in the South than there were under President Mc- 
 Kinley." The review concludes as follows: "We 
 think ourselves warranted in saying that the President 
 believes that the Negro should give himself to the 
 work of securing education, property, and the culti 
 vation of high character, and that it has been and is 
 far from the President s intention to do anything that 
 would unduly excite the political ambition of the 
 black man; but he also believes that the recognition 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 281 
 
 of some of the worthy coloured men of the country 
 is wise and proper, and tends to encourage others to 
 make themselves worthy and deserving of recognition. 
 We believe that the best men in the South agree with 
 the President in this conviction now, and more of them 
 will agree with him as time goes on." 
 
 It is here assumed that opposition to the appoint 
 ments in question was based on a blind "race pre 
 judice" which ignored "the plain facts of current his 
 tory"; that the Southern idea of the forcing of "the 
 race issue" was based upon the assumption that Roose 
 velt had made more Negro appointments than Mc- 
 Kinley, whereas the contrary was true; that "the 
 blacks" were helped through thus "rewarding" the 
 worthy; and that "the best men in the South" agreed 
 with the President s opinion in this regard. Who, 
 then, and what, were responsible for the indisputable 
 attitude of the South toward the President? Surely 
 there must have been at least a few "best men" in that 
 section who did not share the President s "conviction," 
 and yet were actuated by something higher than blind 
 and unreasonable "race prejudice." The matter can 
 not be thus dismissed, if we really care to sound its 
 depths whether from motives of interest or curiosity. 
 
 The truth is, there was much more in the situation 
 than could be comprehended within the limits of a 
 mathematical demonstration that the number of Negro 
 office-holders was greater under McKinley than under 
 Roosevelt. The mere making of such appointments 
 did not differentiate one of these men from the other. 
 
282 The American Race Problem 
 
 In a speech in the House, on June 4, 1900, Mr. Grosve- 
 nor, of Ohio, placed upon enduring record this eulogium 
 of William McKinley s official recognition of the Ameri 
 can Negro: "And here it is proper to say that while 
 Mr. McKinley has been deeply engrossed with the 
 most intricate problems of statecraft, he has not been 
 unmindful of the just claims of the race. He has dis 
 tributed the official rewards with rare tact and judg 
 ment, and no element which assisted in the masterful 
 triumph of 1896 is without representation. The Negro 
 vote has fared handsomely at his hands. Coloured 
 men of intelligence and character have been selected 
 from every section of the country to fill positions of 
 trust and profit under the administration, and the 
 instance has yet to be recorded where the honour has 
 been bestowed unworthily. Indeed, while it is a fact 
 of great significance that the President has within 
 nineteen months appointed twice as many Negroes as 
 any previous administration, developments are now 
 being so shaped by him, through a revision of the civil- 
 service regulations, that the number of Negro office 
 holders will be increased fourfold."* 
 
 Not only did Mr. McKinley appoint more Negroes 
 to office than did Mr. Roosevelt, but he was equally 
 as much abused for doing so. Here is where some of 
 the "plain facts of current history" have really been 
 ignored, both North and South. Nor was the violent 
 opposition to his Negro appointments confined to the 
 Southern press. A resolution passed by the legisla- 
 
 * Congressional Record, Vol. 33, Part 8, appendix, p. 441. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 283 
 
 ture of Georgia censured him in unequivocal terms 
 for appointing a Negro postmaster at the town of 
 Hogansville in that state. He not only appointed 
 more Negroes to office than Roosevelt, but he appointed, 
 in the main, a "meaner" class of Negroes or 
 more of the meaner class. With the indisputable facts 
 of the records of both men before us, with Grosvenor s 
 unstinted praise of McKinley in mind, we must go 
 deeper than the bare matter of official conduct if we 
 would find the explanation we seek.* 
 
 In an interesting essay on "Representative American 
 Negroes" the late Paul Lawrence Dunbar declares 
 that "Some men are born great, some achieve great 
 ness and others lived during the Reconstruction period."! 
 From the very circumstances of the Negro s introduc 
 tion to the world of freedom, the man who had greatness 
 thrust upon him, the Negro of the Reconstruction 
 period, became the type of representative Negro to 
 Southern people. The "Negro" in office in the South, 
 
 * It is not possible here to discuss the history of Negro office holding in this 
 country, but historically the idea of Negro officialism has always been much 
 more repugnant to American white people than that of mere Negro suffrage. 
 The history of the XV. Amendment resolution discloses the contemporaneous 
 white attitude on the former proposition with unmistakable clearness. That 
 resolution was barely forced through, as it was, and then only by a conference 
 committee compromise which eliminated the words which inhibited restrictive 
 state and Federal action as to holding office. Senator Edmunds refused to sign 
 the conference report, because the compromise amendment, as we have it now, 
 did not go far enough, in that it left with the state the right to prohibit Negroes 
 from holding office. Suffrage merely, not office holding, was the only thing 
 thought to have been effected at the time. In the Georgia readmission case 
 Congress dodged the question, and I do not now recall any decision on the 
 precise point by the Supreme Court of the United States. Historically, there 
 is nothing in the XV. Amendment to prevent a state from fixing different quali 
 fications for white and Negro office-holders or even declaring Negroes entirely 
 ineligible to office. Voting and holding office are two distinct privileges, for 
 which different qualifications are quite commonly required. 
 
 t "The Negro Problem," 1903, p. 189. 
 
284 The American Race Problem 
 
 when placed there over local protest, means, much more 
 to the protesting community than a more or less pom 
 pous, and more or less efficient mulatto official. He 
 stands for something else to them, for something they 
 would like to forget. Put in over protest, he becomes 
 typical of a period and condition much too recent to 
 have been forgotten. Once more, in ways not notice 
 able to those for whom he has no such significance, 
 he represents the idea of a government of force. He 
 becomes, almost unconsciously to themselves perhaps, 
 the living symbol of a government alien to local senti 
 ment, one to which the wishes, instincts and traditions 
 of those most concerned by every claim of local interest, 
 are all mere relics of a bygone time. 
 
 Dunbar would draw the line against the political 
 Negro as a representative of his race. This is easier 
 said than done. If we could blot from the history of the 
 past generation the strife occasioned by the Negro in 
 politics, there would not be left enough of sectional 
 differences to furnish material for a question for a 
 schoolboy s debating society. Remove that from the 
 record, and you would not have a baker s dozen of 
 contested election cases. There would have been 
 nothing for investigating committees to "investigate," 
 and Reconstruction would possess no such significance 
 as it holds to-day for millions of Americans. The 
 Negro has played too prominent a part in Southern 
 politics to be relegated in a moment to the limbo of 
 things not only dead but unreturnable. Now and 
 then he is forced to the front again, and comes just 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 285 
 
 sufficiently in evidence to stir old embers and galvanise 
 dead issues into seeming life. And the extent to which 
 this effect follows Negro appointments depends in 
 large degree upon all the attendant circumstances 
 upon the manner in which the appointment is made 
 and the manner of man who makes it. And here is in 
 part an explanation of the difference of the significance 
 of this aspect of the McKinley and Roosevelt adminis 
 trations to the Southern people. 
 
 In an address in Worcester, Mass., in 1905, Mr. 
 Roosevelt stated the proposition that "even justice 
 can be administered in a manner which leaves you 
 with the heartiest dislike for the person who adminis 
 ters it."* Here he gives a clue to the secret of part of 
 his trouble with Southern people. He has in large 
 measure been the victim of his own personality. In 
 the relations of men with men there is a difference be 
 tween the suaviter in modo and the fortiter in re. It 
 often marks the difference between success and failure 
 in matters wherein tact must play its part. It is some 
 times the difference between the simple and the strenu 
 ous life, between William McKinley and Theodore 
 Roosevelt. In his every public and private relation 
 Mr. McKinley was one of the most diplomatic presidents 
 this country has known. Tender and gentle in marked 
 degree, his was easily the most lovable personality 
 that has filled the executive chair. The possession of 
 either of these attributes gentleness or diplomacy 
 so valuable to McKinley in inaugurating the era of 
 
 * Press report, Washington Post, June 22, 1905, p. i. col. 2. 
 
286 The American Race Problem 
 
 good feeling which was the chief glory of his final days, 
 unfortunately can in no sense be truthfully ascribed 
 to his successor. 
 
 In none of McKinley s Negro appointments was there 
 an accompanying flourish of trumpets. They were 
 not heralded as ushering in the dawn of the day in whose 
 sun was to ripen the final fruit of emancipation. They 
 were plain, every-day political rewards for political 
 service, placed where they were supposed to do the 
 most good for the party. This was all there was of 
 McKinley s "Negro policy." His appointments were 
 devoid of other significance. On the other hand, 
 Mr. Roosevelt s course could not have been better 
 adapted to making an impression upon the minds of 
 these childish people if he had been a lifelong student 
 of Negro character. Without knowledge that he was 
 doing so, he appealed irresistibly to the Negro s love 
 of talk, his fondness for palaver, his delight in the 
 cajoling jugglery of words, however specious the prom 
 ises they frame. The frequent declarations of a 
 policy of "square deal for black and white alike" 
 the enunciation of the platform of "all men up, not 
 some men down," the solemnly proclaimed opening 
 of "the door of hope," with himself as its beckoning 
 warder, all this expressed in printed or spoken words 
 was music to the Negro s ears. All of it was repro 
 duced and magnified and dwelt upon in every Negro 
 publication in America, and quickly earned for its 
 author the affectionate title of "Our President," "the 
 first since Lincoln set us free." His photograph be- 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 287 
 
 came a stock cut with Negro magazines, and its number 
 less reproductions were generally accompanied by some 
 endearing phrase. And McKinley s record was for 
 gotten by the Negro before the grass was green upon 
 his grave. It was only resurrected by white men, 
 to prove that he had made more Negro appointments 
 than the man whose face and words had suddenly 
 become familiar in every Negro home in the land. 
 
 It is a plantation saying that a man can do more 
 with a Negro by talk and cajolery than by fair dealing 
 without indulging in palaver. It is one trait which 
 makes it so difficult to do business with the race in a 
 business way. The average plantation Negro would 
 rather transact business with a man who will rob him 
 with much fair speech than with one who will give 
 him a square deal with few words. It is said that the 
 late Thomas B. Reed once referred to Mr. Roosevelt 
 as "the young man who discovered the Ten Command 
 ments." Certainly no other man of this generation 
 has made so frequent use of the common injunctions 
 and precepts of the Decalogue in public speech. His 
 announcements in regard to the Negro "the door 
 of hope " for example were little more than platitudes. 
 No one was trying to close "the door of hope" in the 
 Negro s face. There was no such question at issue. 
 But the phrase sounded well, and it immediately took 
 with the Negro. To his untutored mind the President 
 was engaged in a fierce struggle with the South over 
 the question of the Negro s "rights." The South had 
 been trying to strangle the Negro to death, with Me- 
 
288 The American Race Problem 
 
 Kinley in collusion, when like a rescuing knight Mr. 
 Roosevelt appeared upon the scene. This is no picture 
 of fancy. If anyone questions its accuracy, let him 
 search the files of Negro periodicals and papers, and 
 read the almost amazing evidences of the Negro s 
 peculiar mental attitude toward these two men. If 
 Me Kinley had talked more about Negro rights and 
 opportunities and hopes, even with fewer appointments 
 his memory would have fared better at their hands. A 
 writer in the leading coloured magazine of the country 
 declared that "After President Hayes, the Republican 
 party of William Me Kinley has done the coloured man 
 the greatest harm." The article states that "President 
 Roosevelt found us standing on the ragged edge of 
 despair." From this position the race was rescued by 
 Mr. Roosevelt. The "door of hope" declaration is 
 quoted, and the writer adds this comment: "These 
 words are full of hope for the Negro and deadly miasma 
 for the Southern whites."* 
 
 But the Negro was not the only one to thus peculiarly 
 identify Mr. Roosevelt with the idea of openly avowed 
 and active hostility to "the Southern racial attitude." 
 The record of his predecessor was forgotten, and "the 
 plain facts of current history " ignored, in other quarters 
 than the South. Throughout the country, with little 
 regard to party lines, he was either hailed or accepted, 
 as the spirit might be, as the special champion of the 
 Negro. The leading humorous journal of the country, 
 
 * "Latest Phases of the Race Problem," Coloured American Magazine, 
 Boston, Feb. 1903, pp. 245, 246. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 289 
 
 never politically identified with Mr. Roosevelt s party, 
 produced a cartoon which told the story of the popular 
 mind. It was entitled "Justice versus Prejudice." 
 It shows the Emancipation Statue of Lincoln, in Wash 
 ington. At its base stands Mr. Roosevelt, facing a 
 Negro, his left hand on a scroll of the XV. Amendment, 
 his right hand on the Negro s shoulder. The President 
 is saying to the latter: " Lincoln emancipated you, 
 the people gave you citizenship and I 11 protect your 
 rights."* These cartoons were reproduced as separates, 
 and, along with other pictures more or less related, but 
 some less innocent for harm, found their way into the 
 Negro s hands in all sections of the country. f 
 
 Clearly, the naked facts of the records of McKinley 
 and Roosevelt give us but little light. For this we 
 must attempt an analysis of the general attitude of the 
 Negro toward these two men. This is a difficult sub 
 ject to make clear to anyone who is not himself familiar 
 with the large mass of the Negro s own literature, 
 the organs and books of the race, upon which we must 
 depend for most of our interpretative material. We 
 should understand at the outset that there is a great 
 difference between the classes into which the Negro in 
 
 * Puck, January 28, 1903. 
 
 t See advertisement, Coloured American, Washington, D. C., May 16, 1903, 
 and later dates. Three or four years ago, within five miles of the plantation 
 on which this is written, two white men from a Middle Western state were 
 arrested for selling nude pictures to Negroes. As part of their stock, and as 
 their "leader," was an assortment of pictures illustrating the White House 
 incident narrated here. Since the action of the President in the Brownsville 
 affair a leading Southern Negro paper has said that in consequence of such action 
 the Negroes "have turned the Roosevelt social equality picture to the wall." 
 It is impossible to trace the ramifications of the results of an incident unimport 
 ant in itself. 
 
290 The American Race Problem 
 
 this country may be roughly grouped. These classes 
 are made up on the one hand of the great mass of the 
 race, with a constantly decreasing percentage of illiter 
 acy, and of a large and increasing number of more or 
 less educated, thinking and writing Negroes on the 
 other. In the main, the first class is found in the South 
 and the second in the North, though this is of course 
 by no means an exact division. There are thousands 
 of ignorant and uneducated Negroes in the North, 
 while very many of the best educated and most forceful 
 writers and speakers of the race are in the South. 
 
 Through the medium of newspapers, magazines, and 
 books the militant members are making an impression 
 upon the steadily increasing literate mass. When 
 we speak of the Negro s attitude toward Mr. Roose 
 velt, we have in mind those who have found their voice, 
 and who are giving expression, in more or less coherent 
 form, to the feelings and emotions by which they are 
 swayed. And among the educated also we must 
 realise the established lines. In this second class 
 are to be found men and women who in respect of 
 education, travel, and general mental culture, are en 
 titled to rank with the corresponding group in any race. 
 There are two distinct schools of American Negro 
 thought which in their turn may be classed as radical 
 and conservative. It is worth remarking that it is 
 not from the highest types of the radical school that 
 Roosevelt has received his vociferous, emotional support. 
 They attach no undue significance to a Presidential 
 appointment, and many of them are entirely capable 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 291 
 
 of discriminatingly weighing the acts and words of 
 public men. These could not be led into nonsensical 
 eulogies of a Republican President for giving a Southern 
 Negro an office, nor would they go into hysterics over 
 a White House dinner. But it is not likely that they 
 represent a very large element of Negroes nothing 
 like as large as that for which the more "conservative" 
 stand. The latter, with exceptions, are nearer the real 
 Negro in certain peculiar racial characteristics though 
 in its leadership neither group is "Negro" in more than 
 name. Save one here and there, the leaders are all 
 mulattoes, some more white than "black" hardly 
 any related to their Negro brethren further than 
 sentimentally, and by a more or less attenuated consan 
 guineous bond. The doings of the great white world 
 about them are translated to the Negro masses by 
 these two groups. It is possible that the group which 
 is nearer the masses through a larger identity of emo 
 tional racial traits exercises the greater influence of 
 the two. It is this group with whose attitude toward 
 Mr. Roosevelt we are at present concerned. It must 
 not be understood, however, that any hard and fast 
 line is attempted to be established here. Individual 
 alignment, as well as the differentiating characteristics 
 of the two groups, are not yet sufficiently defined and 
 fixed to make this possible. 
 
 It seems at times as if the gulf between Southern 
 white people and most of the leaders of educated Negro 
 thought and opinion is hopelessly impassable. Nothing 
 seems clearer to the analyst of race relations than that 
 
292 The American Race Problem 
 
 those relations are best between the higher groups of 
 white people and the Negro masses, and most strained 
 between the higher groups of Negroes and the white 
 race as a whole. Our earlier observation as to the in 
 creasing complexity of race relations as they approach 
 the plane of racial equality, applies here as well as in 
 the connection in which it was used. The differences 
 of points of view between white people and the higher 
 Negro groups are too pronounced to be misunderstood. 
 And they are the source, or at least the evidence, of 
 many of the most regrettable manifestations of the 
 problem. 
 
 The official careers of Mr. McKinley and Mr. Roose 
 velt, when they touch the racial sectional line, illus 
 trate the practical results of the operation of this ap 
 parently well established, but exceedingly unfortunate, 
 law of race relations. So invariable is the rule, that 
 we are practically safe in stating the proposition that 
 if we are given the attitude of the South as a whole, 
 toward any specific act or policy of national adminis 
 tration, in matters of racial or sectional concern, we may 
 predicate upon it the converse attitude of the higher 
 Negro groups, and vice versa.* We have seen how 
 easy it is to confuse current history, in the matter of 
 the respective McKinley and Roosevelt attitudes to 
 ward Southern Negro appointments. We shall see 
 how easy it is to understand why the confusion arose, 
 
 *Thus in the third year of Mr. Roosevelt s second administration we see 
 Southern papers speaking of his "changed attitude toward the Negro and the 
 race problem," while Negro papers are denouncing him as "the worst enemy 
 the race ever had." It is doubtful if Mr. Roosevelt himself would admit the 
 slightest change of attitude on his own part. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 293 
 
 why in both the white and Negro mind McKinley ceased 
 to be associated with such a policy, and why Roosevelt 
 became so closely identified with it, if we but follow 
 the operation of our law, if it can be dignified by that 
 convenient and elastic term. 
 
 Mr. McKinley went into office as a result of a hard- 
 fought political fight in 1896, but one in which sectional 
 lines were disregarded to a greater extent, probably, 
 than in any other election since the war. If any Repub 
 lican President might have been expected to attempt 
 to seize an opportunity to build up a respectable Repub 
 lican party in the South, McKinley was that one, if 
 conditions were to count for anything at all. But 
 William McKinley was not a reformer." He was a 
 politician, pure and simple, and nothing else save an 
 honest and amiable man. He had been nominated by 
 a well organised machine, of which the Southern Negro 
 was an important part. When elected he very naturally 
 followed the political policy which had been that of 
 his party since 1868, as to the Negro and Federal offices 
 in the South. Turn back to the speech* of his Ohio 
 friend and champion, and read the open bid for con 
 tinued Negro allegiance, and you can see the practical 
 politics in it all. Many of his appointments were un 
 opposed, just as many of Roosevelt s have been. But 
 others met with as bitter denunciation as ever greeted 
 any political act of his successor. We have mentioned 
 the resolutions adopted by the Georgia Legislature. 
 They should be recalled if we would grasp the signifi- 
 
 * p. 282. 
 
294 The American Race Problem 
 
 cance of the subsequent change of attitude. The 
 legislature declared that the President had seen fit 
 to appoint a Negro postmaster at Hogansville over 
 the protest of "90 per cent, of the property owners and 
 responsible citizens" of the town; that in no other 
 section of the country would the best interests and 
 people of a community have been thus disregarded ; that 
 on the Pacific slope he would not dare appoint a China 
 man over such a protest; nor would such a protest be 
 ignored in any town in the North. It condemned the 
 alleged attempt to kill the postmaster in question. 
 
 The resolutions concluded as follows: "Resolved, 
 That we deplore this and similar appointments as 
 exhibitions of petty spite and narrow sectional hate, 
 unworthy of the high office of chief magistrate of this 
 great nation. Resolved, That we appeal to impartial 
 public opinion to enter its powerful protest against 
 presidential appointments to office for the manifest 
 purpose of affronting and humiliating a community 
 of American citizens for no other reason than difference 
 in party affiliation."* 
 
 * Constitution, Atlanta, Ga., Oct. 28, 1897, p. 5. The full text is given under 
 the caption: "The Georgia Legislature Denounces President McKinley." 
 Under date of Sept. 18, 1897, the Constitution declared that McKinley s Negro 
 policy should warn the white people of the South to stand "closer together than 
 ever," that more than any other administration, McKinley s had demonstrated 
 "that Republican victory means Negro office-holders and Negro domination." 
 On Sept. 23, 1897, the Charleston News and Courier spoke of the "cheap senti 
 mentality" which talked of "brotherly love" and "the unity of the country," 
 while "contemptuously disregarding the strongest and most radical sentiment 
 of the Southern States." Both these comments, in fact all Southern papers, 
 contain the suggestive note of the identity of interest throughout the South. 
 The News and Courier says: "The one thing to be borne in mind is that these 
 instances of discrimination against the white people of the South do not concern 
 alone the particular community against which they are aimed. Every town 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 295 
 
 One trouble in this country is that in racial matters 
 the Southern people take Republican Presidents and 
 politicians entirely too seriously, while the latter do 
 not take the former seriously enough. It is absurd 
 to say that McKinley ever appointed a Negro to office 
 "for the manifest purpose of affronting and humiliating 
 a community of American citizens." It is equally so 
 to charge that Roosevelt dined with Booker T. Washing 
 ton "for the deliberate purpose of defying Southern 
 sentiment, breaking down Southern social barriers, 
 and establishing social equality." One proposition 
 is about as silly as the other. In the Hogansville 
 appointment there was nothing more significant than 
 a purpose to reward a "Negro" politician. In the 
 Washington episode, whatever the potential effect, 
 there was about as much "deliberation" as there is in 
 most of the actions of an uncertain and erratic Presi 
 dent. The most that can be justly said of either man 
 is that he showed an entire disregard of the wishes and 
 sentiments of Southern white people, coupled with a 
 curiously obtuse unconcern for the real interests of 
 the real Negro. 
 
 Mark Twain says that after one of his early satirical 
 efforts he enjoyed the unique distinction of being the 
 only man on earth whom good old Captain Isaiah 
 Sellers would actually "sit up nights" to hate. One 
 
 and city in this section is liable to the humiliation which has been imposed on 
 Hogansville, Atlanta and New Orleans. Their experience this year may be 
 that of any other place, or places, at any time when there is a Republican 
 administration at Washington." The Literary Digest, Oct. 9, 1897, and March 
 5, 1898, contains resume s of Northern and Southern press comments on McKin 
 ley s policy. 
 
296 The American Race Problem 
 
 would imagine from some expressions of Southern 
 opinion that it was the daily routine of Republican 
 Presidents to spend part of their time in devising means 
 of "humiliating and offending Southern people." 
 The trouble is that such Presidents do not give enough 
 time to any sort of consideration of Southern conditions. 
 They do not know, or will not understand, the signifi 
 cance of their unstudied acts to the Southern people 
 and to the American Negro. Many Northern people, 
 politicians and laymen, err too greatly on the other 
 side. Their environment robs these acts of the least 
 significance to them, and they are too prone to mea 
 sure the South by their own yardstick. There is more 
 in such things than is expressed in the violent language 
 of occasional intemperate newspaper criticism. There 
 are many thousands of thoughtful Southern people 
 who ponder these things in their hearts, but, feeling 
 deeply, say not a word. It is not altogether wise, 
 as is so often done, to dismiss these "Southern out 
 bursts" as "tempests in a teapot." 
 
 As long as McKinley s Negro appointments were 
 the most prominent feature of his " Southern policy," he 
 enjoyed the usual affection and esteem of Negroes all 
 over the country, and received the average amount 
 of criticism and denunciation in the South. But with 
 the approach of the Spanish-American war there came 
 a change. The immediate result was to bring the 
 sections closer together. Mr. McKinley s military 
 appointments of Southern white men effaced for the 
 time the rankling memory of his civil appointments 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 297 
 
 of Southern Negroes.* The country became engrossed 
 in other than racial and sectional affairs. In the hall 
 of the Georgia House of Representatives, where four 
 teen months before he had been denounced in almost 
 unmeasured terms, Mr. McKinley gave utterance to 
 those sentiments of sectional good will and fraternal 
 kindliness which seemed to place the capstone upon 
 the last work of an amiable and lovable life. The 
 legislature which had spoken so harshly but a short 
 while before, at once eulogised him in terms strikingly 
 in contrast to those in which his political actions had 
 been characterised. 
 
 The Southern people have their full measures of 
 sentiment possibly more than their share. There 
 has not been a day since 1865 when the country could 
 not have touched their inmost heart, touched it so 
 that great and enduring good would have come to us 
 all, black as well as white, above as well as below the 
 line. No people in history ever accepted more honestly 
 and manfully the hostile verdict of war than those 
 who had raised the ill-fated standard of a second 
 English-speaking republic in America. They accepted 
 as absolute, conclusive, and irrevocable the verdict 
 which sounded the doom of the ultimate rights of the 
 States and destroyed the institution of slavery. These 
 things were the legitimate fortunes of war, and as such 
 they were acquiesced in without complaint and with 
 out equivocation. They were not prepared for all 
 
 * But even then he appointed an old time Reconstruction mulatto politician, 
 formerly of Mississippi, paymaster in the Army. Of course there was trouble 
 the first time his duties brought him into contact with a Southern regiment. 
 
298 The American Race Problem 
 
 that followed, for the illegitimate fruit of victory, and 
 they did not accept it all. They have not accepted 
 it yet. 
 
 We talk about the effect of the association of ideas 
 upon the present relations between the white and 
 Negro races in the South. What about its effect upon 
 the present relations between the Southern States 
 and the Federal Government? Answer the question 
 fairly. Could a Southern man, though he were not 
 born until 1860, and though he were the embodiment 
 of all that makes a man could such a man be elected 
 President of the United States, all things else being 
 equal? The South was surfeited with the interminable 
 eulogies of her "loyalty" in 1898. It seemed to dawn 
 upon the country as something novel, something which 
 had just arrived. The Southern people have been 
 "loyal" since they laid down their arms forty years 
 ago. But in the minds of the rest of the country it is 
 only within recent years that they have ceased to be 
 associated with the idea of "treason," and a foreign 
 war was required to accomplish the result. Even in 
 1898 an act of Congress was necessary to make possible 
 the acceptance by men who had fought for their States 
 of the commissions which the President was tendering 
 amid the sentimental applause of the country 
 
 The world does not know how easily the confidence 
 and affection of the South may be won There was 
 nothing inconsistent in the two Georgia resolutions 
 to which we have referred. And the country makes 
 a mistake if it assumes because of the second that the 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ERSITY 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 299 
 
 first was mere brutum fulmen. The two together 
 should rather prove to the skeptical man that the 
 most profound feeling on the first question is not in 
 compatible with the highest sentiments of sectional 
 fraternity and good will. Mr. Roosevelt, though he 
 could never evoke Southern affection as McKinley did, 
 has himself been most kindly received in the South. 
 On the occasion of one of his extended visits this writer 
 carefully studied the utterances of more than a dozen 
 leading Northern Republican and Independent papers. 
 On the whole the impression made was clearly enough 
 that the attitude of the South and the meaning of its 
 reception of the President were almost hopelessly mis 
 understood. It was said time and again that Mr. 
 Roosevelt had won the South s approval of his acts 
 of the things for which she had once reviled him. Noth 
 ing is further from the truth, and nothing is more 
 probable than that a repetition of those acts would 
 meet with criticism even more severe than that which 
 they first aroused. 
 
 In the ratio in which Mr. McKinley gained the 
 esteem and regard of Southern white people he lost 
 that of the groups of American Negro leaders to whom 
 we have referred. The average man might take issue 
 with this statement. But the average man would 
 have Booker T. Washington in mind, while the latter 
 is not included in either of the two groups as we define 
 them here. He and his policies are, rather, the subject 
 of controversy between the two. Though practically 
 identified with the conservative group, he does not 
 
300 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 discuss men and measures from the political stand 
 point. He preaches the gospel of industrialism to the 
 masses of his people. He does not interpret to them 
 through magazines and newspapers and personal utter 
 ance the significance of incidents and policies. He 
 was himself the storm centre of one such incident, 
 the significance of which others are left to interpret 
 for themselves. 
 
 The opinion which we have quoted above, that Mc- 
 Kinley did the race more harm than any President 
 since Hayes, and that Roosevelt found the "Negro" 
 "standing on the ragged edge of despair," is one of the 
 mildest expressions which could be used to illustrate 
 our position. The chief indictment against McKinley 
 was that he had encouraged "the Negro-hating South" 
 by his conciliating attitude during the Spanish- American 
 war. Even death did not shield him. His memory 
 has been reviled by the foremost living American 
 "Negro" editor in terms unworthy of respectable 
 reproduction. But to the masses of the race, the 
 Southern millions whose lives are lived in a world of 
 their own, McKinley and Roosevelt are not much more 
 than names. To these people "policies" mean little, 
 whether national or state. For them the only meaning 
 of the Civil War was its association with their emanci 
 pation. They cherish no abstract ideas of resentment 
 on account of the institution of slavery. They did not 
 care how close McKinley and the South drew to one 
 another. They do not care how far the South and 
 Roosevelt may draw apart. They do not look to 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 301 
 
 Washington or the President, but to the white people 
 nearer home. And in the main they would go first 
 to the man, or his children, to whom they may once have 
 "belonged." This is not the case with the other class. 
 How far these may be able to impress their ideas and 
 teachings upon such of the mass as may come under 
 the influence of their writings, cannot be told and 
 need not be speculated upon. 
 
 A Concrete Racial Attitude 
 
 The following fairly illustrates the attitude and 
 temper of the writings which at once express and 
 mould Negro thought in the United States. The ex 
 tract is from an editorial discussion of the candidates 
 and platforms of 1 904 in a prominent magazine : Presi 
 dent Roosevelt has made his record on the question of 
 human rights, and in doing it provoked all the venom 
 which lurks habitually in the fangs of those who believe 
 that the War of the Rebellion was fought in vain and 
 that Afro-Americans should be slaves or pariahs in 
 the body politic, without the pale of citizenship, to be 
 governed by a body of special laws as infamous and 
 degrading as the slave code."* 
 
 Here we have the idea of a perpetual conflict between 
 North and South, in which the South is trying to en 
 slave the Negro. Mr. Roosevelt s "human rights" 
 stand in behalf of the Negro provokes the habitual 
 venom of the South whom he has defied just as we 
 
 * Coloured American Magazine, Aug., 1904, p. 534. 
 
302 The American Race Problem 
 
 have seen how his "words of hope to the Negro" were 
 "full of deadly miasma" for Southern white people. 
 According to the carefully expressed and probably 
 authoritative opinion of the Outlook, in connection 
 with the Crum case, the object of the President s ap 
 pointment was to encourage worthy "blacks," through 
 rewarding the specially fit among them. Here is the 
 point of view of the type to which Dr. Crum really 
 belongs, the "rewarding" of which has about as much 
 to do with "encouraging" the real Negro as it has to 
 do with promoting kindly relations between the races. 
 It is given as follows, in an editorial under the caption 
 "The Confirmation of Dr. Crum": "It was only 
 after the American people had emphatically and 
 almost unanimously endorsed the nomination and re 
 buked the Senate for its stupid fear of the champion 
 of the opposition to Negro culture and education, 
 that the committee mustered enough courage to report 
 the nomination to the Senate. . . . The coloured 
 American has witnessed his greatest political triumph 
 in twenty years. This struggle was indeed one, not 
 of a man, but of a principle. And this time might and 
 right were arrayed on one side against arrogant weakness 
 and prejudice on the other. ... In this crusade 
 against the confirmation of Crum, the South has greatly 
 weakened the growing regard which the North has 
 here of late entertained for it. Body and soul, it went 
 in to oppose Crum; with sleeves rolled up and a red 
 bandana around its red neck to wipe the perspiration 
 which it anticipated in such a warm contest. . . . 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 303 
 
 Under a general of less courage and honour than Roose 
 velt, history would read differently. It has been 
 thoroughly established that the law recognises no man 
 by the colour of his skin; but rather that no drunken 
 Democrat who revels in the aristocracy of his slave- 
 holding parents, is as good as a coloured Republican 
 of ability and character. More coloured men should 
 be appointed to office in the South. The brains and 
 character of that section are in its black men." * 
 
 This is the frankly avowed opinion not of some in 
 significant country newspaper, but of one of the two 
 leading "Negro" magazines in America formerly 
 published in Boston but now in New York. We have 
 here another inner glimpse of the so-called "Negro s" 
 point of view of the situation which elicited Mr. Roose 
 velt s letter on the door of hope. From the educated 
 mulatto standpoint, at least from the group stand 
 point which we are trying to interpret, these affairs 
 are all mere contests between the South and the Negro, 
 with the North and the Republican party on the Negro s 
 side. The result is neither more nor less to them than 
 an augury of larger victories upon a broader field. 
 Whether or not this apparently fixed idea which the 
 Northern mulatto holds of an unending struggle 
 between the South and "the race," also has its roots 
 deep in the soil so thickly sown with racial troubles, 
 that of Reconstruction, I shall not attempt to say. 
 We may note, however, that there is a difference be 
 tween the significance attached by these people to 
 
 * Coloured American Magazine, Feb., 1905, pp. 64, 65. 
 
304 The American Race Problem 
 
 appointments in the two sections of the country. One 
 of the shallowest of sectional retorts to Southern objec 
 tion .to Negroes in Southern offices is that made so 
 frequently by Northern papers during Mr. Roosevelt s 
 administration that of reciting the occasional in 
 stances of such appointments in the North.* There is 
 no connection between the two things. The South is 
 not concerned with such appointments. It is no 
 business of hers if the President appoints a Negro post 
 master at Boston, New York, or Chicago. The fact 
 would be no argument for, or justification of, such an 
 appointment in New Orleans or Atlanta, though this 
 is frequently superficially urged. The historical back 
 grounds are so different that such appointments have 
 no such significance in the North as in the South. 
 Historically, there are abundant reasons in favour of 
 such appointments in the North, and just as many 
 against them in the South. There is not one logical 
 and fair ground for opposing them in the former section, 
 and they should there neither create comment, arouse 
 protest, nor excite racial ill feeling. Decidedly the 
 contrary. 
 
 We are a practical people, we Americans at least 
 we think we are. Why not be practical about the 
 
 * The vital difference of actual attitude toward the Northern and Southern 
 situations, respectively, is illustrated in the Crum and Tylor cases. When 
 opposition to a coloured appointee came from South Carolina Mr. Roosevelt 
 was absolutely uncompromising in his refusal to concede anything whatever 
 to "Southern race prejudice." When positive opposition developed in Ohio 
 against a coloured appointee, Mr. Roosevelt at once took a very sane, not to 
 say "practical," view of the situation, and provided a place for the objectionable 
 though influential coloured politician in the Navy department at Washington. 
 This was a method often adopted by Mr. McKinley in placating Southern com 
 munities, while at the same time caring for coloured appointees. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 305 
 
 gravest problem which vexes our national life to-day? 
 If we are to appoint coloured men to office in Southern 
 States, regardless of local sentiment or protest, why not 
 learn something from the real and only beneficiary, 
 as we have quoted him above, and do it at the face 
 value of each transaction? Why not do it as McKinley 
 did, as a plain proposition in practical politics, and 
 let the fact be advertised openly and above board, as 
 Grosvenor did for McKinley, as a keeping of party 
 faith or a bid for party advantage? Why attempt 
 to deceive ourselves with the fanciful notion that by 
 appointing educated mulattoes to office we are "doing 
 something for the black man"? There is something 
 difficult to comprehend in the serious declaration of 
 purpose behind Mr. Roosevelt s Negro appointments. 
 As given by the Outlook this was "to do something 
 really to help the blacks, through rewarding those who 
 by their lives had won the confidence of the whites 
 and who possessed high individual character." What 
 have "the blacks" to do with Southern offices, and 
 how many are filled by "blacks" to-day? And how 
 are the "blacks" to be "helped" by such appoint 
 ments? 
 
 In all the controversy over "Negro appointments" 
 there have not been a baker s dozen of Negroes con 
 cerned. These appointees are almost invariably 
 mulatto politicians, frequently with less of real interest 
 in the "blacks" than have the white people among 
 whom the latter live. There are scores of such Southern 
 appointments to which there never was the slightest 
 
306 The American Race Problem 
 
 outspoken opposition. The world hears only of the 
 insignificantly few cases in which some audible but 
 ineffectual protest is made by the white community. 
 These unopposed appointments probably do no harm 
 within themselves. But it passes belief that it can be 
 seriously thought that such an appointment, when 
 bitterly opposed and bitterly acquiesced in, or even if 
 uncomplainingly accepted, can really help the labouring 
 millions of the Negro people. Does it open to them 
 new opportunities, or enlarge existing ones, for im 
 proving the status of themselves and their families? 
 Does it bring about better feeling between themselves 
 and their white neighbours? Does it make the latter 
 more kindly disposed toward them, or more willing 
 to lend them a helping hand? Does it make the 
 Negro s path less thorny or more easily trod? Above 
 all, does it hasten the day when, as Booker T. Washing 
 ton says, the South will no longer feel that at times 
 she is still the object of a government of force? Does 
 it add to the number of those friendships which he 
 considers more valuable to his race than Federal laws? 
 It seems to me that he who for some absurd and 
 fanciful abstraction touching the "elevation of the 
 race" forces a political appointee upon an unwilling 
 community, barters away the now almost priceless 
 birthright of a whole people the birthright of peace, 
 for much less than a mess of pottage for a chosen few. 
 He is the truest friend of the real Negro who contrib 
 utes most to sectional and racial harmony and good will. 
 It would be well if those who sit in high places could 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 307 
 
 finally realise that they govern most wisely for the 
 weaker race when they frankly recognise the universal 
 and indisputable truth that in the last analysis it is 
 the actual living sentiment of the masses that most 
 largely determines the attitude of the white race toward 
 the black. This sentiment cannot be altered by coer 
 cive action, nor can it be disregarded with impunity. 
 In dealing with the manifold problems of our complex 
 national life, common sense is the essence of wisdom. 
 The greatest civic courage, as well as the wisest states 
 manship, will be found to lie sometimes along the line 
 of temporary concession to conditions we cannot control. 
 The doubtful boon of a relation with, or share in, 
 local administration of political affairs will not be 
 gained or hastened for the Negro through the medium 
 of Federal appointments. In the chapter on his 
 Atlanta Exposition address Booker T. Washington 
 says: "My own belief is, although I have never before 
 said so in so many words, that the time will come when 
 the Negro in the South will be accorded all the political 
 rights which his ability, character, and material pos 
 sessions entitle him to. I think, though, that the 
 opportunity to freely exercise such political rights 
 will not come in any large degree through outside or 
 artificial forcing, but will be accorded to the Negro by 
 the Southern white people themselves, and that they 
 will protect him in the exercise of those rights." Even 
 if the relation between Reconstruction and present 
 conditions is a matter of doubt in some minds, it ap 
 parently is clear to Booker T. Washington. He con- 
 
308 The American Race Problem 
 
 tinues: "Just as soon as the South gets over the old 
 feeling that it is being forced by foreigners, or aliens, 
 to do something which it does not want to do, I believe 
 that the change in the direction that I have indicated 
 is going to begin." 
 
 How long will it be before the South gets over "the 
 old feeling " of outside coercion? The answer depends 
 on forces and movements beyond the South s control, 
 largely upon the common sense of those in Federal 
 power. But one thing is as certain as the dawning 
 of another day: the approach of that time will not be 
 hastened by threatening planks in national platforms; 
 by forcing upon an unwilling community a distasteful 
 official; by the punitive denial of the common postal 
 facilities of the Government to a Southern town. It is 
 useless to reply that these are isolated cases. Their 
 effect is like that of an isolated case of assault. Here 
 white people instinctively draw closer together, pre 
 pared to make the case of one the concern of all. In 
 such matters there are in the South neither state, nor 
 county nor community lines.* 
 
 To return to Mr. Washington. He adds: "Let 
 me illustrate my meaning. Suppose that some months 
 before the opening of the Atlanta Exposition there had 
 been a general demand from the press and public 
 outside the South that a Negro be given a place on the 
 opening programme, and that a Negro be placed upon 
 the board of jurors of award. Would any such recog 
 nition of the race have taken place? I do not think 
 
 * See observation on Southern community of feeling in note on p. 294. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 309 
 
 so."* Here is another illustration. After the Indian- 
 ola affair, which would not have occurred but for Mr. 
 Roosevelt s Southern " referee system," and which 
 could have been straightened out with an ounce of tact, 
 the people of that town were compelled to devise their 
 own postal facilities. In doing so they employed a 
 Negro driver for their private mail wagon. I collected 
 a number of Northern editorial efforts to convict the 
 white people of the town of almost criminal inconsis 
 tency in thus engaging a Negro to assist in doing the 
 very thing which they had objected to having a Negro 
 do for them. The essence of the difference lay in the 
 respective relationships of the two Negroes to the 
 community. One represented a voluntary connection 
 of their own creation, the other the enforced continuance 
 of a relation to which they objected. 
 
 Professor Dunning says: "Seven unwholesome years 
 were required to demonstrate that not even the govern 
 ment which had quelled the greatest rebellion in history 
 could maintain the freedmen in both security and 
 comfort on the necks of their former masters. The 
 demonstration was slow, but it was effective and per 
 manent, "f We are no longer confronted with the 
 extreme aspect of that question thanks to the thor 
 oughness of the demonstration to which Professor 
 Dunning alludes. But there are other things also 
 which the Government, with all its power, cannot do. 
 It cannot "solve the race problem," nor determine 
 
 * "Up from Slavery," p. 235. 
 
 t "Civil War and Reconstruction," p. 
 
310 The American Race Problem 
 
 the status of the Negro, nor insure his "rights," by 
 coercive or penalising measures. If we will hold in 
 mind the prediction of Professor Councill and the 
 words of Professor Dunning, we shall not have to learn 
 anew the lesson of an experiment that failed. We 
 may realise, with Mr. Washington, that whatever share 
 the Negro is destined to have in the political life of the 
 Southern states must come as a grant from the Southern 
 people. We need not argue abstractions and theo 
 ries, we would be wiser to face and accept the fact. 
 If the time which has been wasted in America since 
 1865 in discussing the Negro s abstract "rights" had 
 been applied to a non-sectional effort at realising and 
 providing for his real "needs," both the Negro and 
 the country would be better off to-day. But it seems 
 difficult for us to realise that questions of race are not 
 questions of law, that problems of race cannot be solved 
 by decrees of courts. The Negroes in the District of 
 Columbia can tell you just how much a "civil rights" 
 law is worth in the face of local public sentiment. 
 
 To return from this digression to Mr. Roosevelt and 
 the South, and the racial and sectional troubles upon 
 which we were trying to find some light from the only 
 source worth considering, the Negro himself, the princi 
 pal party in interest. If we grant that Mr. Roosevelt 
 had no intention of "forcing the race issue upon the 
 South," that is about as far as the facts will warrant 
 us in going. That the issue was brought to the front 
 cannot be questioned. No matter what the President s 
 intentions were. We are not at all concerned with 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 311 
 
 that phase of the question. We are interested in the 
 results of his general attitude rather than with any 
 consideration of motive. If we go below the surface 
 at all we realise how much more there was involved in 
 the question at issue than could be embraced within a 
 mathematical statement of the respective number of 
 Negro appointments by McKinley and Roosevelt. 
 The essence of the whole matter lies in what Mr. Roose 
 velt stood for in the eye and mind of the Negro. And 
 this is not difficult to discover. 
 
 In a discriminating essay on Mr. Roosevelt, Judge 
 Robert H. Terrell, the husband of the most distinguished 
 woman now identified with the Negro race, writes as 
 follows: "In the annals of events the muse of history 
 will tell how this remarkable man, this advocate of 
 universal liberty, strove to make effective and to bring 
 to a triumphant issue all that his great predecessor 
 and prototype, Abraham Lincoln, planned for the 
 people whose chains he broke. We are too close to 
 his efforts to do them justice now. The influence, 
 however, of his activity in behalf: of a race young in 
 opportunity, and without prestige in any particular 
 walk of life, has already made a profound impression 
 upon the thoughtful men of our day and generation." 
 Mr. Roosevelt s attitude toward Negro appointments 
 is then touched upon, and it is stated that he began 
 to take interest in the matter when he first became 
 connected with the Civil Service Commission. We 
 are told that on his motion examinations were held 
 in the larger Southern cities. Notices were so given of 
 
312 The American Race Problem 
 
 these tests that coloured young men of scholastic train 
 ing eagerly sought an opportunity to take them. Hun 
 dreds of them passed the examinations, many at the 
 head of the lists. Through the influence of Mr. Roose 
 velt large numbers of them were designated for appoint 
 ments." Mr. Terrell says that Mr. Roosevelt "watched 
 with unusual solicitude the career of this new element 
 of coloured men, the products of post-bellum days," 
 and that "their efficiency was commended in terms 
 of the warmest praise" in the report of the Commission 
 for 1890.* Mr. Terrell says that he wishes to show 
 that what Mr. Roosevelt has said and done about "col 
 oured men in office" is "no new propaganda so far as 
 he is concerned." "When this great and good and 
 just man writes of the door of hope for the coloured 
 American, he is simply reiterating a doctrine which he 
 has always cherished, and one altogether consistent 
 with his deep sense of right and equity, "f 
 
 And yet how many times are we told that the posi 
 tion of the South, in claiming that Mr. Roosevelt had 
 revived the "race question" to a greater extent than 
 any other President in recent years, was wholly absurd 
 and untenable. And for proof we were furnished with 
 
 * Under the caption "Benefit to the Coloured Race," the report states that 
 an excellent feature of the Southern examinations "has been the elimination 
 not only of the questions of politics and religion but of the question of race." 
 The chance to enter Government service on their merits is said to have been a 
 boon to "these coloured men and women." It is also said that a much larger 
 proportion of coloured people receive appointments than under the patronage 
 system. Report of Civil Service Commission, July i, 1890, June 30, 1891, p. 
 6. Report signed by all three Commissioners. Note Grosvenor s speech in this 
 connection. 
 
 t "Theodore Roosevelt," Robert H. Terrell, Coloured American Magazine, 
 August, 1904, PP. 542-544- 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 313 
 
 the "facts" of his and McKinley s Negro appointments. 
 Evidently then, there must have been something more 
 than Mr Roosevelt s appointments operating upon the 
 processes of the American " Negro " mind. One enthu 
 siast declares that "few men in any age have ever been 
 adored by a people as President Roosevelt is adored 
 by the Afro- American people, and few men ever so 
 fully deserved such honour as they would pay him."* 
 It is hardly worth while to multiply evidence of the 
 extravagant adoration in which Mr. Roosevelt was 
 at one time held by a large group of so-called Negroes. 
 It would be better to attempt a further search for the 
 cause of such adulation. 
 
 Social Equality 
 
 We have alluded above to the operation of a racial 
 trait to which Mr. Roosevelt unconsciously but strongly 
 appealed by his characteristic habit of speech. There 
 is another which has played an equally important part 
 in influencing Negro attitude. This is the tendency 
 to magnify and exalt out of all true proportion matters 
 of personal concern, and to distort, as well as magnify, 
 their personal significance. I am aware that one skates 
 on thin ice who touches the "social equality" aspect 
 of the race problem, much less attempts an interpre 
 tation of the significance of the Washington-Roosevelt 
 dinner episode. This writer has*iiever concerned him 
 self over either racial or sectional hysteria, whether 
 
 * R, C. Murray in Coloured American Magazine, Dec,, 1905, p. 712. 
 
314 The American Race Problem 
 
 North or South. He is interested in all the varying 
 phenomena of race relations, whether elementary or 
 complex, whether manifested in this country or else 
 where. And to the serious student of such phenomena, 
 one of the most peculiarly interesting to be found any 
 where in recent years was this inherently insignificant, 
 unofficial White House incident. Trivial as it was in 
 itself, in the relations between Mr. Roosevelt and the 
 South, as established by the latter, and in those between 
 the Negro and Mr. Roosevelt, as established by the 
 former, it explains more than any other group of factors 
 which must be considered in this connection. Appoint 
 ments, per se, did not control on either side. Mr. Mc- 
 Kinley made more than Mr. Roosevelt. Personality, 
 as far as the South was concerned, must certainly be 
 taken into account, but it was not half the story. Roose 
 velt s "Southern referee system," which will be noticed 
 later, is also responsible for its share of complications. 
 With both the South and the Negro, the "manner" of 
 Roosevelt s appointments, impossible of definition 
 though it is, played a most important part. To this 
 we have called attention above. 
 
 I have kept in touch with white public opinion, 
 North and South, on the race problem attitude of both 
 McKinley and Roosevelt, and have studied carefully, 
 and I believe honestly, Negro opinion on both, as 
 expressed publicly through group leadership, and as I 
 could learn it by personal discussion. And there is 
 left little room in my mind for doubt that without the 
 background of that Wednesday dinner at the White 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 315 
 
 House the canvas which subsequently absorbed and 
 reflected such lurid colours would have given us an 
 almost lifeless picture, as tame and dull as the usual 
 afterglow of Southern appointments by Mr. Roosevelt s 
 predecessors. That episode tinged for the South every 
 subsequent act of his in which the Negro was concerned. 
 It is foreign to our purpose to discuss the Southern 
 attitude toward "social equality." It is enough to 
 say that amid the confusion of ideas as to just what is 
 required to constitute the relation, the one clear fact 
 is that the breaking of bread between the races upon 
 equal terms is its ultimate and positive expression. 
 That is the one unpardonable violation of the Southern 
 racial code. We shall not stop to consider here the 
 wisdom, necessity, expediency, or justice of this state 
 of public opinion. We need concern ourselves only 
 with the facts as we find them before us. This much 
 we may say: Within the sphere of her own peculiar 
 environment any position assumed by the South as a 
 development of her racial difficulties cannot be success 
 fully attacked or criticised from without. On the 
 other hand, the world without is not to be dictated to 
 and should not be undiscriminatingly criticised by the 
 South in matters which are no proper concern of the 
 Southern people. If any man outside the South see 
 fit to do those things which in the South are by public 
 opinion not permitted to be done, he is not to be criti 
 cised by Southern people for his acts. The South 
 cannot arrogate to herself a censorship of the opinions 
 or tastes which govern the social intercourse of people 
 
316 The American Race Problem 
 
 beyond her jurisdiction. On this ground her criti 
 cism of Mr. Roosevelt, for violating a social canon 
 which she has erected for the conduct of the relations 
 of her own people, will not be justified by the public 
 opinion of the world or the country at large. In so 
 far as such criticism was based upon an honest belief 
 in the ill effects of the action upon conditions with 
 which she was intensely concerned, she stands upon 
 more tenable ground. It is in this aspect of the case, 
 the Negro s own attitude toward the incident in ques 
 tion, that we are interested here. 
 
 The American Negro has had no truer friend that 
 the late William H. Baldwin. The country has found 
 in no other man a better balanced combination of phil 
 anthropy and good works with the saving grace of com 
 mon sense. He gives his point of view in the following 
 statement: "It may be proper for me to say that my 
 observations are those of a New Englander, with all 
 the inherited tendencies and sympathies of that people, 
 supplemented by three years of active and intimate 
 relations with the whites and blacks of the South, and, 
 all told, about six years service as a trustee of the 
 Tuskegee Institute."* With these qualifications, he 
 thus expressed his opinion on "the social question": 
 "Whoever lives in the South for a year or more is 
 inclined to reach the same conclusion as the intelli 
 gent Southerner on the social question. 
 Social recognition of the Negro by the white is a simple 
 
 * Proceedings of Second Capon Springs Conference for Education in the 
 South, 1899, p. 93. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 317 
 
 impossibility, and is entirely dismissed from the minds 
 of the white, and by the intelligent Negroes. There 
 is no need of social recognition. It is largely demanded 
 by sentimental theorists, who would be the last to 
 grant such recognition if they were to live with the 
 problem. The ordinary Negro would have as much 
 difficulty in obtaining a room and board in a hotel 
 in Boston as he would have in the city of Atlanta. 
 Social recognition, for this generation at least, is denied; 
 properly so, naturally so. Any attempt to force it 
 merely complicates the situation and injures the cause 
 of the black man."* 
 
 The last observation is a clear statement of the ill 
 effects, from the standpoint of the Negro s interests, 
 of attempting to "force" "social equality." The 
 injury to "the cause of the black man" follows as a 
 natural and inevitable consequence of the irritation 
 to the white. The situation is just as much compli 
 cated by acts which both the Negro and the white man 
 interpret as such attempts as Mr. Baldwin warns 
 against, as by acts which are really meant to be such 
 attempts. Under the influence of feeling the mind 
 does not always draw nice distinctions between the 
 apparent and the real. The necessity for careful con 
 duct and prudent policy on the part of those whose 
 very position clothes their simplest acts with peculiar 
 and individual significance, cannot be too constantly 
 kept in view and acted upon. Whether the South 
 was right or wrong, wholly or in part, in its apprehen- 
 
 * Second Capon Springs Conference, 1899, p. 98. 
 
318 The American Race Problem 
 
 sions of the effect of this incident in complicating its 
 situation, is a matter for individual opinion to determine 
 for itself. As to one factor in shaping such effect, how 
 ever, we need not be in doubt. This is the significance 
 of the incident, as interpreted by many of the men 
 who through their utterances are to-day moulding 
 and directing American Negro thought. The most 
 striking feature of the situation which the incident 
 created was the identity of opinion between these men 
 and Southern white men on this matter of understood 
 and accepted significance and meaning aside from 
 the question of intent. 
 
 The volume of evidence as to the significance immedi 
 ately attached to this episode is measured only by the 
 number of Negro newspapers and magazines published 
 in this country at the time. It may be found also in 
 the expressions of Negroes in South Africa and the 
 West Indies. One of these leading papers, published 
 in Washington, had the following notice of the incident 
 under the caption, "President Roosevelt. The Lie 
 Nailed that He Is Opposed to the Negro. The First 
 President to Entertain a Negro. Booker T. Washington 
 Dined": "The many false reports that have been 
 circulated that President Roosevelt was opposed to 
 the Negro have been eliminated by the many kind acts 
 that he has done prior to his election, and while he 
 was Vice-President, and since he has been President. 
 While Governor of New York a distinguished coloured 
 singer was denied lodging in Albany, New York, in one 
 of the hotels. The circumstances having reached Mr. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 319 
 
 Roosevelt he went in person and invited the citizen to 
 his residence, where he gave him lodging. When he 
 assumed the office of Vice-President his first act was to 
 appoint a coloured man an executive messenger against 
 the protest of certain officials. Since he assumed the 
 office of President he entertained Professor Booker T. 
 Washington in the Executive Mansion on last Wednes 
 day evening. The first President of the United States 
 to entertain a coloured man. These many acts of 
 recognition of the Negroes show that President Roose 
 velt is a man."* 
 
 In the next issue of the same paper the subject is 
 discussed at some length, and a number of extracts 
 from Southern papers are given: "The Southern 
 Democrats," we are told, "hoped and expected to 
 blarney the President so as to continue unrestrained 
 in their wicked reign of terror and proscription against 
 the coloured race. They are shocked, boiled, smitten, 
 and exasperated. In one fell swoop Mr. Roosevelt 
 has smashed to smithereens their fondest idol. They 
 are fuming with dire imprecations against him, and 
 all because he took a meal of victuals with a coloured 
 gentleman who had been entertained by the nobility 
 of England, and the best people of America. "f 
 
 Among the Southern editorials quoted in this issue, 
 two or three will serve to illustrate the point contained 
 in Mr. Baldwin s warning on the subject: "Roosevelt 
 has done an injury to the Negroes of the whole country, 
 
 * Washington Bee, Oct. 19, 1901. 
 t Idem., Oct. 26, 1901. 
 
320 The American Race Problem 
 
 especially those in the South, and has damaged the 
 wisest and most useful Negro in America." "The 
 people of the South, who had warmed up to the Presi 
 dent, have had their feelings rasped. In irritating 
 the South he has lost power for good." "The President 
 could not have committed an act not actually unlaw 
 ful that would have excited as much popular feeling 
 or aroused as much public attention. Nobody knows 
 what he will do next. He has seriously fallen from 
 popular favour in the Southern states." The same 
 issue of the Bee contained a cut of Mr. Washington 
 with this legend: "Professor Booker T. Washington. 
 Dined by President Roosevelt No Colour Line in the 
 White House An Object-lesson for the South." In 
 its issues for several weeks the affair was treated in the 
 same vein. In one it was declared that "that Roose 
 velt-Booker Washington episode still remains a big 
 thorn in the side of Southern chivalry, and the endorse 
 ment of the President s course by the American Mission 
 ary Society, Union Veterans Union and other organisa 
 tions, and the Northern press, only adds to the dis 
 tress. . . . The late elections do not show a great 
 reaction in the political world on account of the cele 
 brated dinner and prove that a fair recognition of 
 the merit of coloured men does not detract from the 
 power and popularity of the Republican party."* 
 
 The general line of discussion in the coloured press 
 was the same throughout the country. There was 
 the same magnifying of the affair to the proportions of 
 
 * Washington Bee, Nov. 9, igoi. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 321 
 
 a set White House function; the same popular and 
 enthusiastic admiration of the President for thus 
 recognising the race"; the same "no colour line in 
 the White House," with the same resulting "object- 
 lesson for the South"; the same "smashing" of the 
 Southern social equality "idol." The sameness might 
 be wearisome, but it possessed an unmistakable signi 
 ficance for such as could read as they ran. Even 
 from Haiti there has come a tribute to the Pres 
 ident for his "stand for the race." An author in 
 that distracted republic, a M. Firmin, has written a 
 volume on Mr. Roosevelt.* A coloured reviewer in 
 this country says: "We shall of course not be sur 
 prised to find this Negro statesman warmly praising 
 the President for the Booker Washington dinner episode, 
 for the "square deal" doctrine, and for his staunch 
 declaration against closing the door of hope and of 
 opportunity to the aspirations of his coloured fellow 
 citizens. Such doctrines and declarations make a 
 very natural and congenial appeal to the admiration 
 of Negroes the world over."f 
 
 Not all the appointments made by McKinley or prom 
 ised by Grosvenor could have won for the former 
 any such universal and fulsome praise as was bestowed 
 upon Mr. Roosevelt. We have ventured the opinion 
 that the dinner episode had more to do with this storm 
 of applause than most of us imagine. Suppose we 
 glance at the connection and see if there is any logical 
 
 * "M Roosevelt, President des Etats-Unis et la Republique d Haiti." 
 
 t "Roosevelt and Hayti," F.R. Steward, Voice of the Negro, June 1906, p. 435. 
 
322 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 background for the feeling which Mr. Roosevelt stirred 
 in a greater degree than had been done by any man 
 who had gone before him. 
 
 He who undertakes to fathom human conduct, and 
 ventures to assign motives and reasons for the actions of 
 his fellow men, engages in a difficult and dangerous 
 enterprise, provided he has either a name to make 
 or a reputation to lose. Nothing is simpler, and noth 
 ing exacts less of honest mental effort, than to indulge 
 in sweeping generalisations upon the causes behind 
 the conduct of others. The human element enters 
 so largely into our own motives that our judgments 
 upon those of others are too often of no real interpre 
 tative value. If such conduct is displeasing to us, 
 or in any way is inimical to our interests, it is human 
 to condemn it, and to ascribe it to unworthy motives. 
 On the other hand, if it appeals to us, or pleases us, 
 or redounds to our good, we are quite apt to attribute 
 to it the mainspring of a very proper and noble im 
 pulse. This is particularly apt to be true when we 
 have the presence of a complicating racial factor. 
 When a member of either the white or Negro race in 
 this country attempts a study of the impulses and 
 motives of the other, he is quite likely to hasten to 
 conclusions from superficial observation, or make 
 deductions as to the race as a whole from the more or 
 less accurately noted conduct of a few of its members.* 
 
 * The two things this writer most wishes in this connection are, first to avoid 
 this pitfall of shallow controversialism, and, second, to keep the record clear 
 as to his own animus. I have studied the problems of race relations long 
 enough and broadly enough for the subject to have become saturated with a 
 thoroughly impersonal interest for me. I follow with as close attention the 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 323 
 
 In the Southern white man s disapproval of the 
 particular incident before us, and in his attitude on the 
 general subject, the Northern white man and the Negro 
 usually read race hatred, race prejudice in its lowest 
 sense, barbarous social standards, a desire to humiliate 
 the Negro, and so forth. In the incident itself, and in 
 the attitude of the Northern press and the educated 
 Negro toward it, the Southern white man is likely to 
 read an effort, or desire, to establish "social equality" 
 between the races. In fact there is a deeper meaning 
 than either of these in the attitude of both the Southern 
 white man and the educated Negro. The case of the 
 Northern white man is, in the main, a very natural 
 inability to reach the true inwardness of the situation, 
 to sift the few sound grains from the mass of chaff. 
 It will not be questioned that there are individual white 
 men whose attitude toward the Negro is dictated by 
 "race hatred" pure and simple. It is equally true 
 that there are some educated Negroes who personally, 
 for themselves, desire "social equality," as that term 
 is commonly understood. But these individuals are an 
 insignificant and negligible quantity in the masses of 
 
 problems which confront the English colonists in Natal, or those incident to the 
 attempted adjustment of the native question in the grant of responsible govern 
 ment to the Boer colonies, or the problems which the native in politics presents 
 at the Cape, as I do others nearer home. The problem of racial contact between 
 the white man and the black is a world problem to my mind, and I believe 
 that some day it will be generally recognised as such. The problem of inter 
 preting the fundamental causes behind, and the far reaching significance of, 
 the Ethiopian movement, as inaugurated and directed by Mokane, Duane, 
 Mazimba and others, is equally as interesting as that of interpreting the causes 
 and significance of minor racial incidents and movements in our own country. 
 But here we are attempting the one with which we are more immediately con 
 cerned. 
 
324 The American Race Problem 
 
 either race. We are not concerned here with the 
 attitude of the white race at all. And we may dismiss 
 from consideration the great mass of Negroes, both 
 North and South. Social equality for them has no 
 earthly meaning. It is a concept which their minds 
 do not grasp, even in its simplest form. They do not 
 even think about it. It is not possible to establish any 
 logical connection between "social equality" and 
 criminal assault and the latter crime is not com 
 mitted by educated Negroes. When I use the term 
 "educated" I do not mean the education which is 
 limited to the ability to read and write. I am referring 
 here to those race groups which contain leaders of 
 positive force and ability, men of activity and deter 
 mination. These are editors of newspapers and maga 
 zines, lecturers, lawyers, teachers, ministers, authors 
 of books and pamphlets, contributors to the current 
 periodical and permanent literature of this country 
 and England. From such men and women it would be 
 possible to quote numerous isolated clean cut, unequi 
 vocal declarations which might be construed as mere 
 advocacy of "social equality," per se. But this would 
 miss the mark. If we accepted such declarations at 
 their face value we would be grasping at the shadow 
 and letting the substance go. They mean more than 
 appears upon the surface, more, probably, than even 
 most of their authors fully comprehend. 
 
 In the leading Negro school journal in this country, 
 the organ of the oldest coloured industrial school, we 
 may find as clear a statement of the truer meaning and 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 325 
 
 significance of real "social equality" to the Negro 
 race as it would be possible to frame. It is from the 
 pen of Professor Kelly Miller. His suggestion as to 
 the inevitableness of "frictional problems" between 
 widely different races is also worthy the thought alike 
 of the dilettante who declares there is no problem, 
 and of the optimistic enthusiast who constantly 
 reads its "solution" in the execution of some favourite 
 curative programme. The author s position and name 
 should commend his opinion to the thoughtful con 
 sideration of all students of the question. 
 
 He says: "Where two races of widely different 
 corporal peculiarities and cultivated qualities are 
 brought into contact, serious f fictional problems in 
 evitably arise. The difficulty of adjustment will be 
 greatly aggravated if the prevailing social scheme be of 
 individualistic rather than communistic type. Moham 
 medanism is superior to Christianity, the Catholic to the 
 Protestant sect, in effective control over the prejudice 
 and rancour of race. There is less race conflict in the 
 Mohammedan than in the Christian world; albeit 
 the disciples of the great prophet still foster the insti 
 tution of slavery. The Koran demands conformity 
 to the faith but it is indifferent to the ethnological 
 aspect of the adherent. This is also true, though per 
 haps in a less degree, of the Catholic Church. But 
 not so with the Protestant Teuton. With him blood 
 is not only thicker than water, but its spissitude passes 
 that of knowledge, culture, and the Christian graces. 
 The American Negro may speak the same language, 
 
326 The American Race Problem 
 
 conform to the same institutions, and adopt the same 
 mode of religious worship as the rest of his fellow-men, 
 but it avails him nothing in the scale of social eligi 
 bility, which is the one determinative test of all true 
 equality. The political, civil, and industrial disabili 
 ties under which the Negro labours are but the in 
 evitable outcome of the social fiction which divides 
 the races. Without social equality, which the Teuton 
 is sworn to withhold from the darker races, no other 
 form of equality is possible. The difference between 
 the Negro in Constantinople and Chicago, in Rio Ja 
 neiro and Baltimore, in Havana and Philadelphia, is a 
 concrete illustration of the truth of the principle above 
 set forth."* 
 
 There is a somewhat similar vein of thought running 
 through some of the writings of another eminent man 
 identified with the race, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois. As 
 a suggestive and fairly typical specific expression, we 
 may select the following, from a significant and well 
 tempered address: "It is hardly necessary for me to 
 add to this very much in regard to the social contact 
 between the races. Nothing has come to replace that 
 finer sympathy and love between some masters and 
 house servants, which the radical and more uncom 
 promising drawing of the colour line in recent years 
 has caused almost completely to disappear. In a 
 world where it means so much to take a man by the 
 hand and sit beside him; to look frankly into his eyes 
 
 *"The Modern Land of Goshen," Kelly Miller, Southern Workman, Nov. 
 igoo, pp. 601, 602. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 327 
 
 and feel his heart beating with red blood in a world 
 where a social cigar or a cup of tea together means 
 more than legislative halls and magazine articles and 
 speeches, one can imagine the consequences of the 
 almost utter absence of such social amenities between 
 estranged races, whose separation extends even to 
 parks and street cars. Here there can be none of that 
 social going down to the people; the opening of heart 
 and hand of the best to the worst, in generous acknowl 
 edgment of a common humanity and a common des 
 tiny. On the other hand, in matters of simple alms 
 giving, where there be no question of social contact, 
 and in the succour of the aged and sick, the South, as if 
 stirred by a feeling of its unfortunate limitations, is 
 generous to a fault. The black beggar is never turned 
 away without a good deal more than a crust, and a 
 call for help for the unfortunate meets quick response. 
 I remember, one cold winter, in Atlanta, when I re 
 frained from contributing to a public relief fund lest 
 Negroes should be discriminated against; I afterward 
 inquired of a friend: Were any black people receiv 
 ing aid? Why, said he, they were all black. And 
 yet this does not touch the kernel of the problem. 
 Human advancement is not a mere question of alms 
 giving, but rather of sympathy and cooperation among 
 classes who would scorn charity. And here is a land 
 where, in the higher walks of life, in all the higher 
 striving for the good and noble and true, the colour 
 line comes to separate natural friends and co-workers, 
 while at the bottom of the social group, in the saloon, 
 
328 The American Race Problem 
 
 the gambling hell, and the bawdy-house that same 
 line wavers and disappears."* 
 
 We may add as a third illustrative expression the 
 words of a somewhat younger man than either Dr. 
 DuBois or Professor Miller. His medium is the organ 
 of the more radical school of Negro thought. In a 
 presentation of the respective positions of this school 
 and of the conservatives, identified in this instance 
 with the "Tuskegee idea," Mr. William Pickens has 
 this to say of "social equality": "There is another 
 question, a question purely of personal liberty and 
 individual equality, but which is usually mystified 
 by the following phrase of vicious association, social 
 equality. Here one side advises, quietly accept the 
 imposition of inferiority. It is a lie, but just treat 
 it as the truth for the sake of peace. Diligently 
 apply to the white man the title of gentleman, and 
 care not if he persists in addressing you as he calls his 
 horse and his dog. Be patient. This general dis 
 respect and discrimination will develop into the proper 
 respect and impartiality at some time in the long lapse 
 of geological ages, just as the eohippus has developed 
 into the race-horse, and the ancestor of the baboon 
 into a respectable Anglo-Saxon. The other side says, 
 * I ask for nothing more or less than the liberty to associ 
 ate with any free man who wishes to associate with 
 me. Your colour discriminations, legal or not, are 
 all damnable, inasmuch as they draw an artificial 
 
 * "The Relation of the Negroes to the Whites in the South," W. E. B. Du 
 Bois, "Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science," Vol. 18. 
 No. i, July, 1901, pp 138, 139. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 329 
 
 and heartless line, give encouraging suggestions to the 
 vicious, and allow the stronger in brute power to force 
 bastardy upon the weaker without remedy. Colour 
 has absolutely no virtue for me, and however much I 
 am outnumbered I will not retreat one inch from that 
 principle. However little my position might affect 
 savage opposition, by the God of your fathers and 
 mine, I will never by voluntary act or word acknowl 
 edge as the truth what I know to be the grossest of 
 lies. And you might ask all the truly valiant hearts 
 of the world and the ages how they beat toward these 
 contrary tenets."* 
 
 Here are the frankly avowed expressions of three 
 representative men. They are men of education, in 
 the highest sense, of trained minds, of broad culture 
 and of irreproachable private character. Personally, 
 they have their associates among others of similar 
 acquirements and tastes. The group to which they 
 belong is to-day easily superior intellectually to any 
 other identified with the Negro race here or elsewhere. 
 It is a group of which the country is likely to hear 
 more some day, if education and brains count for any 
 thing in moulding Negro opinion. It is the school 
 with which the advocates of the programme of "indus 
 trialism" may also have to reckon. f It would be shal- 
 
 * "Choose," William Pickens, Voice of the Negro, June, 1906. p. 405. 
 
 t In the article from which we have just quoted Mr. Pickens says, in speaking 
 of political conditions: "Acquaintance with such conditions without at the 
 same time being acquainted with the Negro, particularly with the rising genera 
 tion , would render one pessimistic. But, thank God, there is one great advan 
 tage in it all: The Negro is not being fooled. The aspiring, ambitious, intelli 
 gent members of the race know what is the matter. And especially is the 
 coming generation alive to the situation. If you have any doubt of the young 
 
330 The American Race Problem 
 
 low and absurd to dismiss these declarations as mere 
 expressions of personal desire for "social equality," 
 as that term is commonly used. Probably the only 
 individual outward change which would be wrought 
 for such men by a full compliance with all they would 
 ever demand, would be to afford them greater comfort 
 in travelling and better accommodations at the end 
 of a journey. They do not "crave white society." 
 They have no desire to associate with any man save 
 on mutually agreeable terms. What they would 
 demand is the American privilege of using such purely 
 public accommodations as they might desire to use 
 and for which they might be able to pay, and as indivi 
 duals to associate with any other individuals who 
 might wish to associate with them. The first is purely 
 a "civil" right; the second, as the world reckons it, 
 is a matter of personal concern; yet, wholly or in 
 part, each is denied the average man of the race in 
 America, regardless of sectional lines. And to the 
 enjoyment of both privileges the white man has applied 
 the comprehensive and forbidding term "social equality," 
 without regard to its derivation or its accuracy of defi 
 nition. What, then, is the real meaning of their words? 
 
 A Phenomenon of Race Consciousness 
 
 Somewhere, probably in his "Africander Land," 
 Archibald R. Colquhoun interprets the "Ethiopian 
 
 Negro s choice of the foregoing opinions just acquaint yourself with an intelligent 
 body of them in any part of this country. Spite of seductive influence of 
 gold and silver the Negro of the future promises to be the humanitarian bit of 
 leaven in the American mass of commercialism." Ibid., p. 407. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 33 l 
 
 Church" movement as a manifestation of the dawning 
 of race consciousness to the South African Negro mind. 
 He thinks that the movement is one of inevitable race 
 cleavage, and that it is racial rather than religious. 
 This seems to me a correct diagnosis. The church is 
 used to effect an organisation. It becomes a nucleus 
 around which social ideas and policies may be developed 
 toward a definite objective. The latter may never be 
 realised, probably will not be, but its articulate expres 
 sion is "Africa for the Africans" a slogan which 
 need not be misunderstood. The development of the 
 American Negro has also centred largely about the 
 church organisation. And it is not singular that the 
 movement started in far off Africa should have received 
 its strongest support from the distantly related tribes 
 of the west coast, transplanted to American soil. Nor 
 need we wonder that the cry thus raised in a part of 
 their native land finds an echo to-day in thousands of 
 American Negro hearts. It is probable that every 
 race has its own peculiar "human nature," but there is 
 also a "human nature" common to all the races of 
 mankind. This is the response of people to the calling 
 voice of their own kind, whether the call be a cry of 
 exultation or a wail of despair. It is the response of 
 race instinct, which, and which alone, makes blood 
 thicker than water. It is the common trait which deep 
 in the heart of the mass makes the white man sympa 
 thise with the white man and the Negro with the Negro, 
 wherever the lines are drawn between the two. It is 
 this which makes nations and races potentially great. 
 
332 The American Race Problem 
 
 Its development marks the progress of men from scat 
 tered and helpless tribal organisations to a unified, 
 cohesive racial life, and finally makes possible the 
 growth of nation from race. 
 
 The white man deceives himself if he cherishes the 
 idea that this universal human impulse is not latent in 
 Negro life. The Negro has not yet developed a race 
 consciousness, and he is still very far removed from 
 anything approaching a national life. But in both 
 Africa and America the dawn of the first is beginning 
 to be seen. And in South Africa he is groping, more 
 or less blindly and awkwardly perhaps, but still groping, 
 toward the light of possible nationality. Their ancient 
 continent is the only place on the globe where a national 
 life is possible if indeed it prove to be possible there. 
 It is the only place where the experiment may be even 
 tried. We need not stop to so much as consider the 
 artificial travesties erected upon the blood-stained 
 ruins of white civilisation in Haiti and Santo Domingo. 
 They will sometime disappear in a night, when the 
 American white man wants another island for some 
 real or fancied use, even as the " Republic of Panama" 
 was born in a day after a similar conception. In Amer 
 ica, and this is all, we may see the Negro instinctively 
 striving after identity with the national existence of 
 which he forms an artificial and unassimilated part. 
 Back of this lies the same impulse of awakening racial 
 life. What the movement here may be, no man may 
 say, nor how it will manifest itself from time to time. 
 Having here no possible separate national life of his 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 333 
 
 own, his developing instinct manifests itself in an 
 effort toward equality of opportunity and place in that 
 of the white man who surrounds him and hems him 
 in. Every step toward such fancied equality is hailed 
 as a mark of racial progress. 
 
 The Negro has had theoretical political equality 
 for many years. It is no longer a novelty in principle, 
 and everywhere in the country to-day the privilege 
 of voting is also practically exercised by varying num 
 bers of the race. The same thing holds as to theoretical 
 "civil rights," save as to such as may chance to fall 
 within the white man s uncertain and somewhat con 
 fusing definition of "social equality." And here we 
 come to the ultimate test of real equality in any form. 
 This is the final test which those members of any race 
 which finds itself in contact with another, who feel 
 themselves the moral and intellectual equals of that 
 other, will soon or late make the measure of the degree 
 and character of association which exists between the 
 two. To sum up the case in Mr. Miller s words: "So 
 cial eligibility is the one determinative test of all true 
 equality." 
 
 If we apply the test to our own individual lives we 
 may better realise its force. What are all the political 
 and civil rights in the world to the man who is a social 
 pariah? And just as the granting of this form of equal 
 ity is taken to be the final and only admission of equal 
 ity in every form, so is its denial held to be a denial 
 of true equality in any form. And the rights which 
 we call social play their part in intercourse among 
 
334 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 nations as well as in intercourse among men. No 
 admission of equality which America could make to 
 Japan would atone for the stigma of a national approval 
 of the separation of Japanese children from white in the 
 schools of San Francisco. Social equality has a differ 
 ent significance, a broader, more comprehensive mean 
 ing, at the point of racial contact than is apprehended 
 by those against whom it is not threatened and to 
 whom it is not denied. It means more to the Southern 
 white man in his environment than to the Northern 
 white man in his, and racially more to the Negro than 
 to either. If we will but reason it out we need not 
 be troubled to understand the Southern white man s 
 attitude. 
 
 The existence of the white American s social barrier 
 is all that stands between the American Negro and 
 American "equality." Every incident which possesses 
 a significance translatable into evidence of its possible 
 removal means for the cruder Negro mind one other 
 faltering step toward the goal which is to mark the end 
 of ostracism. It is hailed by such as these as we have 
 seen the Washington dinner hailed. And the white 
 man whose actions in high position place the stamp 
 of powerful disapproval upon a detested social law 
 is acclaimed an emancipator from a thralldom more 
 galling to the higher Negro groups to-day than was 
 ever the physical bondage of those who fifty years ago 
 cheerfully stood upon a lower plane. But we should 
 keep in mind the groups into which the American Negro 
 has gradually divided. I have said that the lower 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 335 
 
 group, the masses of the South and of the country, 
 care nothing for social equality in any form. The 
 presence of a white man in any social relation 
 would be to them an intolerably disquieting associ 
 ation. Race consciousness for them is still in its 
 first and lowest stage that of the instinctive draw 
 ing together of a weaker people for defence against 
 a stronger which, for example, guarantees the 
 fleeing criminal a haven with his race, if only [his 
 pursuers are white. 
 
 Some inkling of the happenings in higher Negro 
 life filters down to this lower stratum, with more or 
 less of possible, though very indefinable, effect. But 
 nothing is heard from this lowest group on such in 
 cidents as we are discussing, just as very little is 
 heard from the highest, such as the men from whom 
 I have quoted. The latter are not deceived by the 
 isolated cases which create such strife in the world 
 about them and below them. They know that one 
 swallow does not make a summer, and, as Kelly 
 Miller quite clearly shows, they know the race which 
 stands before them. For the most part they merely 
 voice the abstract intellectual conviction of the necessity 
 of the removal of social barriers as a condition precedent 
 to the final recognition of a full measure of equality 
 for any race. The clamour comes from the group 
 below these higher types the editors and essayists 
 who talk about the "smashing of social equality idols" 
 and the "object lessons" furnished one section of the 
 country by the actions of individuals elsewhere. They 
 
336 The American Race Problem 
 
 are a numerous and a growing class, and their influence 
 upon the masses is probably greater than that of those 
 above them, for they are not as far removed. It is 
 greater, perhaps, than we know. 
 
 We shall conclude this branch of the subject with 
 this observation: In a very important sense no "race 
 problem" is susceptible of "solution." A race problem 
 arises from contact along frictional lines between races 
 possessing such inherited physical and mental differ 
 ences as produce a natural and easily defined line of clea 
 vage between the two. As long as either the charac 
 teristic physical or mental differences persist a problem 
 will remain. The more marked the differences the 
 greater the resulting problem. The essence of the 
 difficulty is the inability to reconcile these natural 
 differences upon a basis of artificial equality. The 
 problem becomes more acute as the assertion of equality 
 becomes more pronounced. It disappears only with 
 such a degree of assimilation as eliminates the differ 
 entiating factors, by merging the two constituent 
 elements of the problem into one. But this is not a 
 "solution." There may be a possible basis of com 
 promise between two races, a sort of treaty of peace, so to 
 speak, under which the two may occupy a common terri 
 tory with a minimum degree of friction. But on analysis 
 every such adjustment will be found to contain, as a 
 fundamental condition, a recognition, open or implied, 
 of the superiority or dominance of one race, and the 
 reciprocal inferiority or dependence of the other. Such 
 a modus vivendi may easily amount to a practical solu- 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 
 
 337 
 
 tion of certain phases of the problem for the masses 
 of the dependent race. It is a mockery and a sham 
 in so far as the superior members of that race are con 
 cerned. For them there is but one "solution," and 
 its very essence, its beginning and its end, all are sum 
 med up in the one word "equality." Just in so far as 
 the relation and association between the superior 
 and inferior classes of the weaker race are intimate or 
 remote, will this adjustment between the two races 
 themselves be difficult or easy to establish and main 
 tain. When the superior individual identifies himself, 
 or is identified by the world, with the inferior mass, 
 he may be counted upon to protest against such a 
 compromise. Where he is not so identified, but is 
 treated solely upon his merits as an individual, he will 
 be less apt to prove an opposing factor to such an 
 arrangement.* 
 
 Racial conditions in Jamaica fulfill this last require 
 ment, and illustrate our position, better than in any 
 other territory which contains a large Negro population. 
 The absence of a race problem in Jamaica, such as we 
 have here, is often commented on by travellers and 
 publicists, both English and American. It is not 
 uncommon for the island to be held up as an example 
 
 * Dr. Woodworth, President of Tougaloo University, Miss., relates a conver 
 sation with "a. prominent Negro lawyer about the separate car law," which 
 illustrates the point I would suggest. Dr. Woodworth says: "He had nothing 
 to say against the inherent unrighteousness of a colour discrimination, as might 
 have been expected. He summed up his objections in the emphatic statement, 
 What I dislike about the law is that it puts me in with a lot of niggers with 
 whom I do not wish to associate." He favoured the European system of class 
 cars." "Discrimination," Frank G. Woodworth, Southern Workman, Nov., 
 1900, p. 616. 
 
338 The American Race Problem 
 
 of what the South could do, if only it were as just and 
 wise. The answer to this involves a consideration of 
 certain fundamental differences between Jamaica and 
 the Southern states which these commentators seem 
 unable to comprehend and which we cannot take up 
 here. Jamaica is a Crown Colony, from which politics 
 were practically eliminated, and largely on the Negro s 
 account, forty-two years ago. At most they can only 
 play at the game. Jamaica is also a detached, ocean- 
 bound island, with the peculiar insular freedom from 
 continental complications. Its people are at liberty 
 to work out their own destiny along their own normal 
 lines, without the interference of outside ignorance 
 or interest. The agitator or malcontent finds no field 
 for his vocation. The island is too small for him and 
 he usually drifts to the "States." In Jamaica emanci 
 pation occurred practically a generation earlier than 
 in America, which means three decades longer in 
 which to have effected an adjustment than we have 
 had here. And in Jamaica the abolition of slavery 
 was not followed by Reconstruction. But next to 
 differences of political and governmental condi 
 tions, the most important consideration is that first 
 suggested.* 
 
 The mulatto and Negro types constitute separate 
 and distinct elements of the population. The former 
 is enumerated as "coloured" by the census, while the 
 
 * Since the above was written Mr. W. P. Livingstone the best student of 
 the Negro ever sent to the West Indies by England has very clearly pointed 
 out the fundamental basis of difference between the American and Jamaican 
 situations which I have indicated here. "The American and West Indian 
 Negro," North American Review, July 19, 1907. 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 339 
 
 latter is classed as " black." The mixed class furnishes 
 the business and professional men of "the Negro race," 
 and such representation in the official life of the island 
 as is accorded it. The "blacks" form a peasant class, 
 practically contented, which constitutes no problem 
 graver than that of police surveillance and adminis 
 tration. Theoretically, and sometimes actually, if one 
 of the "blacks" shows evidence of superior capacity 
 he obtains recognition, but he also loses his identity 
 with the real Negro element, as we understand the 
 association here. Whatever basis of racial adjust 
 ment might be agreed upon between whites and mu- 
 lattoes, or evolved in the process of time, was final. 
 It did not need the ratification of the blacks. Before 
 1 86 1 the property-holding, free mulatto class of Louisi 
 ana had gained for itself such measure of recognition 
 as for many practical purposes removed it largely 
 from the "Negro" class. With emancipation this 
 type became largely identified with the "equalised" 
 Negro, and has been gradually submerged by the 
 heavier mass of the latter. It is not necessary to ques 
 tion the sincerity of the attachment of the superior 
 mulatto, or occasional Negro, individual to the inter 
 ests of the black masses. When we say that if such 
 individuals were accorded by white people the measure 
 of recognition to which as individuals and as a class 
 they felt themselves entitled by education, culture, and 
 attainments, we would probably hear much less than 
 we do about "the denial of rights to the Negro," we 
 merely recognise a very elementary trait of human 
 
340 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 nature. In doing this we simply take cognizance of 
 the operation of a practically applied theory in the 
 island of Jamaica. 
 
 The Southern Referee 
 
 An analysis of the onetime differences between Mr. 
 Roosevelt and the South would be incomplete without 
 a few words for the former s system of Southern "re 
 ferees." To a " reformer," Southern Republican poli 
 tics offered an irresistibly attractive field. Mr. Roose 
 velt was also naturally inclined to break up the old 
 Hanna-McKinley machine. He did it most effectively, 
 North and South. But in the South he was peculiarly 
 unfortunate in his methods. For an appreciation of 
 the full significance of such methods, and of the part 
 they played in erecting a barrier between Mr. Roose 
 velt and the Southern people, we must again turn to 
 pyschology, sentiment, and Reconstruction. 
 
 We may say what we please, and draw as many 
 logical conclusions as we like, about duty and treason. 
 We may be wholly right and accurate in our technical 
 definitions. But what if we are? In the great uni 
 versal heart of man the only traitor is he who is false 
 to his people, the only treason is that of turning one s 
 back upon one s neighbours and friends. This differ 
 entiates foreign from civil wars. In the former the 
 people are one and men are neighbours without re 
 gard to distances between them. The cause of the 
 country is the cause of all its people, and treason to 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 341 
 
 one s country is heinous only because it necessarily 
 involves treason to one s people also. Who were the 
 "patriots" and who were the "traitors" in the War 
 of the Revolution? The answer depends upon whether 
 we are Englishmen or Americans? The "loyalist" 
 of one was the traitor of the other, the traitor of one 
 was the patriot of the other. In a civil war, a war 
 among sectional divisions of the people of the same 
 country, who are traitors and who are loyalists, and 
 what are they treacherous or loyal to ? It is idle to talk 
 about theories of government as determining such 
 questions. The final estimate of the world will no 
 more make a "traitor" of a man who, through good 
 repute and ill, stands or falls with his own people, than 
 it can make a "patriot" of one who has to leave his 
 home and desert his people in order to be "loyal" 
 Robert E. Lee is not a "traitor" in the estimation of 
 mankind. There is something almost grotesque in 
 such a suggestion. But this is not because of some 
 fancied virtue derived from the fact that Lee had 
 been taught that a state had the right to withdraw 
 from the Union. It is because of the fact that with a 
 self-abnegation not surpassed in any time and not 
 equalled in our own, putting behind him every consid 
 eration of self-interest and every opinion of his own 
 as to the wisdom of the action of his state, he cast his 
 lot with his people and without a murmur shared their 
 fortunes and their fate. We have but to ask ourselves 
 what would have been his place in the estimate of the 
 world, had he remained in the army and fought on the 
 
342 The American Race Problem 
 
 Federal side? He would have been a great general, 
 and probably had an equestrian statue in Washington, 
 and Arlington would not now be a national cemetery. 
 He might have been elected President. But he 
 would not have been the Lee which the world 
 knows to-day. 
 
 The converse of this is the estimate in which a man 
 is held who deserts his people in their hour of need. 
 The measure of sentiment against him will be the causes 
 which prompted his course, whether he is credited 
 with motives of principle or charged with impulses of 
 greed. Always the depth and duration of feeling 
 against him will depend upon the circumstances and 
 condition of the people whose cause he renounced. 
 It meant little to a man in the North to espouse the 
 side of the South after war was over, and to plead for 
 fair play toward a defeated and helpless people. He 
 might clearly claim, and possibly be accorded, the 
 tribute due a generous nature. The situation was 
 different in the South. There was but one course to 
 pursue, particularly after the congressional policy 
 began to assume definite form. Desertion then be 
 came a crime more odious and detestable than would 
 have been cowardice or desertion in war. And the 
 course of such as these immortalised an old word and 
 gave a new one to our political vocabulary. As " Burk 
 ing" once came to stand for the very capstone of Scot 
 tish crime, so "Scalawag" stood and still stands in 
 the minds of Southern people as the almost breathing 
 embodiment of an infamy peculiarly its own. Occa- 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 343 
 
 sionally it is sought to turn the point of Southern criti 
 cism of Reconstruction with the statement that many 
 of its most vicious features were due to the participation 
 of men born on Southern soil. No Southern man will 
 be found to defend the Southern renegade on such an 
 issue. The outside world probably does not compre 
 hend the depth of Southern feeling toward the creature 
 who forsook his people in their darkest hour and sold 
 himself for a mess of pottage. 
 
 Southern people would be less than human if Mr. 
 Roosevelt s referee system did not recall to their minds 
 with painful vividness the most despised of Reconstruc 
 tion tools. The system, as we are considering it here, 
 consists in appointing a Southern white Democrat to 
 some Federal office, and referring to him all matters 
 of Federal patronage in his state. It is an anomaly 
 in American politics. The referee at once takes the 
 place of the state s Representatives and Senators 
 and of the state party organisation as well. He be 
 comes the official, or unofficial, medium of communica 
 tion between the President and the people of the state 
 in all matters of Federal concern. He makes and un 
 makes politicians, fills local offices, and dispenses ad 
 ministration favours. He is a creature without a place, 
 neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. The system is thoroughly 
 vicious, but that is not our concern. People do not 
 like to see their immediate fellows bought in the poli 
 tical market, even though there are of course some 
 who are always for sale. The system simply served to 
 perpetuate and emphasise the difference between the 
 
344 The American Race Problem 
 
 South and the rest of the country. The Southern 
 states, those in which the system was inaugurated, 
 were once more reminded of their satrapical Recon 
 struction character. There was absolutely no question 
 of politics involved, in so far as the people of the States 
 were concerned. They of course expected no patronage 
 from a hostile administration. The question has its 
 practical bearings, however, for at least in one state 
 the results were as detestable as some features of Recon 
 struction itself. But above all, the matter was one 
 of sentiment. The referee was too closely related 
 to the "scalawag" not to be a thorn in the flesh. 
 Like his prototype, however, he served his day, and 
 has all but disappeared, save from memory and 
 in name. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 In applying the conclusions of this exposition we 
 would first suggest that if the only parties to be con 
 sidered were those immediately in interest, an inter 
 pretation of the significance of their acts and motives 
 would not be worth attempting. Mr. Roosevelt will 
 not be the last President of this republic, nor Mr. Wash 
 ington the last leader of his people. The Negroes now 
 in office will disappear and be forgotten. This genera 
 tion of white people will presently pass away. These 
 individuals are all mere figures on the stage. But 
 the essential elements with which we have tried to 
 deal are permanent and will endure. These are the 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 345 
 
 factors of race and of human nature. With these only 
 need we be concerned. 
 
 With these fixed elements before us we need be given 
 only the historic setting of any racial situation to pre 
 dicate its sequence. In our narrow view we imagine 
 these problems to be peculiarly our own. In fact 
 there is no novelty in the things which so disturb us 
 here. The social and official attitude of more than 
 one English administrator in British American islands 
 has in time past provoked as bitter criticism as was 
 aroused by Mr. Roosevelt s actions here. We need 
 not think that we are the only people who ever grew 
 excited over a dinner between an eminent Negro and 
 an eminent white man. Twelve years ago a luncheon 
 given Khama, the South African Chief, by the Duke 
 of Westminster in London, provoked the "annoyance 
 and disgust" to use Ambassador Bryce s phrase, of 
 the white people in his native country. And their 
 resentment was as difficult to understand in London 
 as was that of the South by the people in New York 
 or Boston. Good people deplore the lack of "sym 
 pathetic cooperation" between the best elements of 
 the races in the Southern states, and apparently fancy 
 themselves to be the discoverers of a unique manifes 
 tation of the "colour line." The same absence of 
 cooperation between the same elements is similarly 
 deplored in South Africa. The Southern white man 
 has many things to keep alive the feeling of outside 
 interference and control of which Booker T. Washington 
 appreciates the force. But only yesterday the action 
 
346 The American Race Problem 
 
 of the Colonial Secretary in London, in interfering in a 
 matter of local moment between the whites and Negroes 
 of Natal, provoked the deep resentment of the English 
 colonists. So much so, indeed, that some of the ablest 
 and soberest amongst them did not hesitate to suggest 
 a parallel between their possible course under further 
 irritation and that of the American colonists under the 
 policy of Lord North. And always there is in evidence 
 the same dominating motives behind the white man s 
 attitude apprehension of the effect upon the Negro, 
 coupled with a personal social aversion born of contact 
 with the masses of the race. 
 
 We shall have taken our first long step toward the 
 saner discussion and consideration of the problem only 
 when we have learned the simplest primal fact of racial 
 contact, that it is a question of race and not a question 
 of place. The situation is hopeless as long as sectional 
 ism determines our attitude toward it. The Northern 
 white man must learn that there is more in the attitude 
 of his Southern brother than the "senseless race pre 
 judice" of which we hear so much. We must finally 
 realise the latent force of the instinctive sense of racial 
 self-preservation which operates as an unconsciously 
 dominating impulse in higher racial types when in 
 the presence of large masses of a lower, but which 
 otherwise does not make itself felt. The Southern 
 white man must learn that this is all there is in his 
 own attitude, emphasised by the influences which 
 we have attempted to analyse. Also that a different 
 attitude on the part of people elsewhere possesses no 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 347 
 
 significance, other than as indicating merely an absence 
 of the conditions which dictate his own individual 
 course. The South should know that the North is 
 not, by any individual or group action, trying to de 
 range her social laws or customs. On each side of the 
 line we must grant a larger measure of uncriticised 
 individual conduct on the other. Each of us would 
 as well learn now as half a century hence, that in fact 
 if in the other s place we would do as the other does, 
 entirely regardless of what we now imagine we would do. 
 This is human nature. 
 
 The naked fact that certain acts of an individual, 
 who was for the moment President of the United 
 States, provoked the resentment of one section of his 
 countrymen and elicited the admiration and applause 
 of another, may be in itself the merest matter of cas 
 ual interest. It becomes clothed with deeper meaning 
 when we grasp the significance of the impulses beneath 
 the contrary emotions which the acts arouse. In 
 their final analysis these conflicting emotions possess 
 a significance which is racial in its human breadth and 
 meaning. If we are sufficiently familiar with the 
 broader aspects of racial problems to know that given 
 situations between two races produce practically uni 
 form results, without regard to the subsidiary question 
 of geographical situs, we can at once eliminate the 
 sectional factor from our present equation. If we are 
 ignorant of this fundamental consideration ourselves, 
 and decline to accept the findings of others, then we 
 shall probably becloud the issue and wholly mis- 
 
348 The American Race Problem 
 
 interpret the situation before us. In this larger aspect 
 of the case, Mr. McKinley and Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. 
 Washington disappear from view. They are unim 
 portant in themselves. And sectional lines have no 
 more significance, per se, than have these individuals. 
 Had the geographical positions of the people in the 
 sections been reversed, the world would have been 
 none the wiser. Their respective attitudes were, and 
 are, determined merely by the circumstances of their 
 respective environments. Racially they are funda 
 mentally alike, and the same conditions will make the 
 same appeal to each with certainty of the same 
 response. I have stated this elementary proposition 
 many times. Some day it will cease to be disputed. 
 Of all the inexcusable features of the American race 
 problem the most senseless is the sectionalism with 
 which it has become saturated through the petty 
 differences of environment produced by differences of 
 geographical conditions. 
 
 There should be some practical value in interpreting 
 the course of these events. Their history should at 
 least suggest that persons in authority would do well 
 to appreciate the difference between formulating poli 
 cies for fairly homogeneous peoples, and shaping a 
 course of practical conduct toward populations con 
 taining large masses of widely different racial types. 
 They should realise that there are two races in this 
 country, and that they are yet too far apart in history 
 and development to be treated in all things as one. 
 It would be wise to bear in mind, as Mr. Roosevelt has 
 
Mr. Roosevelt and the Negro 349 
 
 recently reminded us in another connection, "that 
 in the long run even the most uncomfortable truth 
 is a safer companion than the pleasantest falsehood." 
 There is one clear truth which stands out above the 
 beclouding mists and fogs of forty years of senseless 
 strife, and with the ringer of experience points the 
 way to safer paths. If this analysis shows anything 
 at all, it should enable us to see this truth, which is 
 that in many of its acuter phases the problem largely 
 rests with persons in high official place. It is entirely 
 with them to adopt the policy which shall either insure 
 enmity or make for good-will between the masses of 
 the races in the South. There is no abstract question 
 of right involved. It is solely one of wisdom or ex 
 pediency, as we prefer to call it. But whatever the 
 policy, it should be intelligently pursued. Official 
 conduct should not proceed upon absurdly false as 
 sumptions. It is one thing to bring a number of 
 individuals of a distinct American type into official 
 relationship with a political administration. It is 
 something quite different to insist, or imagine, that 
 in doing so we are offering a share in administrative 
 control to another and a different element of the popu 
 lation. 
 
 After all, ours is merely a segment in the world- wide 
 circle of problems of racial contact. It existed before 
 the present actors appeared upon the scene. It will 
 remain after they have left the stage. They cannot 
 remove it before they go, nor can they take it with 
 them when they leave. But they may do much to 
 
350 The American Race Problem 
 
 make it easier or more difficult for those who stand 
 nearest to it, for those of both races of whose daily 
 life it is a vital part.* 
 
 * The substance of this paper was embodied in an article submitted to several 
 magazines while the Crum and Indianola incidents were being generally dis 
 cussed throughout the country. The article was not found available. This paper 
 was written because of the writer s conviction that the history and course 
 of the events which it attempts to analyse possess a deeper and more permanent 
 significance than is commonly recognised. The now almost forgotten incidents 
 do not in themselves merit consideration. 
 
VIII 
 THE NEGRO IN POLITICS 
 
 THE experiment of Negro suffrage could not have 
 been tried under conditions better calculated 
 to produce disastrous results than under such as existed 
 in the South in 1867. No better means could have 
 been adopted for insuring such results than the mea 
 sures which accompanied the grant of the franchise 
 to the former slave. It was a curious intermixture of 
 ignorance, philanthropy, malice, quixotic political theory 
 and what not, a sort of nondescript "devil s broth," 
 out of which Negro suffrage was evolved after 1865. 
 It stands as the greatest self-confessed failure in Ameri 
 can political history. It is a debatable question upon 
 which party was inflicted the greater harm the 
 Southern white man or the Southern Negro. It is 
 occasionally said in defence that the fact of such failure 
 has not been established; that Negro suffrage was 
 never given a fair trial; that under different conditions 
 different results might follow. 
 
 We have but to turn to the debates over the XV. 
 Amendment resolution, and catch the spirit which 
 actuated so many of its supporters, to find the answer 
 to this suggestion. The moving impulse was an almost 
 simple, childish, a scarcely comprehensible, faith in the 
 
352 The American Race Problem 
 
 ability of the Negro to "take care of himself" if Con 
 gress would but throw about him "the protection of 
 the ballot." The very essence of the meaning which 
 lies beneath the surface of the failure of Negro suffrage 
 is found in its failure to accomplish the one, the solitary, 
 purpose which its modern defenders dare urge in its 
 behalf. It has been demonstrated beyond the shadow 
 of doubt that the ballot could not "protect" the Negro. 
 It is queer, this belief in the subtle efficacy of paper 
 laws, enacted in disregard of the sentiment and wishes 
 of those upon whom the} 7 are to operate. There is 
 something almost plaintive in Mr. Elaine s querulous 
 complaint against the South for not accepting Negro 
 suffrage with the quiet humility which should have 
 characterised the conduct of people who theoretically 
 occupied the position of suppliants for clemency from 
 a victorious opponent. He says that no one could 
 foresee such unreasonable and violent opposition to so 
 eimple an act of righteous justice. 
 
 But have we even now progressed very far beyond 
 this state of inability to recognise the force of human 
 nature? During the forty years since the initial grant 
 of Negro suffrage, in the military Reconstruction Act 
 of March 2, 1867, have we in truth learned so very 
 much about even the most elementary considerations 
 which underlie this aspect of our problem? The pre 
 diction prompted by the hard common sense of W. H. 
 Councill in 1881 has been fulfilled to its last letter. 
 The Southern white people have "come into power," 
 and have "taken from the Negro the ballot which he 
 
The Negro in Politics 353 
 
 continued to cast against them, right or wrong."* And 
 finally the Republican party in the South has sought 
 to "unload the Negro element." Only yesterday a 
 message was delivered by Mr. Taft to his party associ 
 ates in North Carolina, and through them to the South 
 at large. Its burden was a plea for Republican policies 
 in the Southern states, coupled with thinly veiled ridi 
 cule of the "Southern fear" of the Negro in politics. 
 The echoes of his speech had hardly died before the 
 convention to which he had spoken adopted a resolution 
 which practically recognised and approved the Demo 
 cratic constitutional provisions for restricting the 
 Negro vote. After more than a generation Southern 
 opposition to Negro suffrage had ceased to be a matter 
 of party affiliation. 
 
 And such opposition is no longer confined to Southern 
 people. We have but to follow the situations presented 
 at recurring elections in those Northern cities and 
 states in which the Negro is an important political 
 factor, and catch the utterances of men of all shades 
 of opinion, sometimes unguardedly, sometimes deliber 
 ately made, to realise the discontent which the Negro 
 voter breeds. He who will do this for a few years 
 and also secure the candid expressions of men in 
 public and private life, must be an optimist indeed 
 if he believes that outside of the South the Amer 
 ican people have become satisfied with the Negro 
 element in political life. How many states in the 
 North would vote for Negro suffrage to-day, if it 
 
 *See page 279 
 
354 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 were still a Southern experiment and did not exist 
 elsewhere ? 
 
 It is said that any discussion of Negro suffrage at 
 this late day, is purely academic that the principle 
 is permanently fixed in our political system. We are 
 not at all concerned with the accuracy or inaccuracy 
 of this proposition. We are not interested in Negro 
 suffrage per se, but rather in its elements in certain 
 facts which accompany it and characterise it and 
 differentiate it from the concrete act and expression 
 of self-governing capacity among other men. We 
 have so long talked about the Negro that we have 
 fixed him in our minds as the individual object upon 
 which centres an opposition which in fact is really 
 directed to the attributes and traits for which he stands. 
 It would be humanly impossible to perpetuate and 
 disseminate opposition to Negro suffrage, for example, 
 if Negro suffrage did not stand for something more 
 definitely objectionable to the Caucasian mind than a 
 more or less shadowed complexion. 
 
 In affirming the validity of the Mississippi consti 
 tution of 1890, the Supreme Court of the United States 
 adopted the language of the state court, and in effect 
 declared that while the constitution did not discrimi 
 nate against the Negro in specific terms, it swept the 
 field of expedients in legislating against his racial 
 characteristics. There is a great deal of nonsense 
 indulged in, North and South, about these Southern 
 constitutions. There is not one of them under which 
 the Negro is not disfranchised automatically. The 
 
The Negro in Politics 355 
 
 most effective bar to Negro suffrage ever devised is the 
 cumulative poll tax provision of Georgia. Yet Georgia s 
 is not numbered among the offending constitutions. 
 The tax payment requirements of these constitutions 
 are directed against two race characteristics lack 
 of thrift and absence of foresight and they operate 
 with telling effect. Couple with these the requirement 
 of registration, and we have practically all there is of 
 the really active features of those instruments. The 
 so-called "understanding clause ," for example, in the 
 constitution of Mississippi is a dead letter to all intents 
 and purposes. It is doubtful if it has been resorted 
 to, all told, one hundred times in sixteen years. 
 
 The political activity of the Negro masses, and we 
 are speaking of the masses, was almost solely a matter 
 of leadership. Without intensely active leaders, and 
 then only by resort to the spur of most vicious appeals, 
 the potential voting strength of the masses could never 
 have been polled. The first effect of the adoption of 
 any sort of suffrage qualification was upon the leaders 
 themselves, both white and mulatto. They imme 
 diately recognised as an inevitable consequence of even 
 the fairest application of any test, such a falling off 
 in the ranks of their cohorts as to leave them practically 
 nothing to lead. They were shorn of their power. 
 Othello s occupation was gone. The scattered remnant 
 of such as could qualify was not worth organising for 
 purposes of active contests in which the end henceforth 
 was known in advance. They deserted the now fruit 
 less field of state politics, and resigned themselves to 
 
356 The American Race Problem 
 
 attending national conventions and subsisting upon 
 crumbs from the Federal table. For this purpose only 
 the semblance of party organisation was necessary, 
 and this was maintained. It was this organisation 
 which Mr. Roosevelt upset with his novel "referee" 
 system. With these leaders there was no question of 
 principle involved. To their practical minds there 
 was no longer either reason or sense in attempting to 
 keep up sufficient interest among the masses to induce 
 such as could register to do so. The impetus of their 
 urging thus removed, their remaining followers became 
 as listless as the average "good citizen" or "business 
 man" in the face of an approaching election over a 
 contest for municipal reform. 
 
 All form of visible reward having disappeared, and 
 the leader s whip no longer used, the Negro voter prac 
 tically ceased to exist. He at least became numerically 
 a negligible quantity in the political life of which for 
 almost a generation he had played a serio-comic part. 
 There was no chicanery and no fraud. There was 
 never the least doubt of the effect of any sort of suffrage 
 test upon the Negro masses. And it is only the masses 
 who have been eliminated. I do not mean to say that 
 there are no individual instances of discrimination. 
 I do say that there are no more of these than may be 
 found throughout the country. The South is neither 
 better nor worse than any other section. I know of 
 individuals who have steadily refused to register, for 
 no other reason than that they wanted to nurse and 
 display a sentimental personal grievance. These men 
 
The Negro in Politics 357 
 
 should follow the example of more candid members 
 of the race. They should address their complaints 
 to the inherent lethargy of their people, rather than 
 to the acumen of the white man who has merely been 
 wise enough to profit by a racial characteristic of the 
 Negro masses. 
 
 No longer opposed at the polls the white man turned 
 his attention to the primary, and became as apathetic 
 at general elections as the few remaining qualified 
 Negroes.* The smallness of the consequent vote 
 needed an explanation away from home. It was 
 speedily forthcoming, in the form of absurd theories 
 of the substitution of modern fraud for Reconstruction 
 force, of the operation of "understanding clauses" in 
 lieu of the persuasion of more violent means. With 
 the falling off of Southern votes there was revived the 
 demand for the reduction of Southern representation. 
 Through it all there runs the same fanciful notion that 
 tens of thousands of qualified Negroes are illegally kept 
 from the polls. How queer are the operations of our 
 minds when we want to believe or disbelieve a given 
 thing. All of us know that one of the greatest diffi 
 culties encountered by the American politician, whether 
 ward boss or head of a national campaign, is to "get 
 
 * At the Democratic primary election in Mississippi in 1903, to nominate a 
 candidate for governor, with two men in the field 99,281 votes were cast: at 
 the regular election which followed, with no opposition candidate, but 32,191 
 Democrats went to the polls. The total registered vote in Mississippi is about 
 133,000. Of these about 17,000 are negroes. At the last national election but 
 53,376 votes were cast for the Democratic electors, and but 3,189 for the Repub 
 lican. The Populists, an absolutely negligible quantity in Mississippi, by 
 creating here and there a little interest in their ticket, polled nearly half as 
 many votes as the Republicans. 
 
358 The American Race Problem 
 
 out the vote." We like to hug the delusion that the 
 "sacred birthright" of the American citizen is a cher 
 ished possession which he likes to exercise on all proper 
 occasions. But this too is a conceit of fancy. The 
 real trouble is found in inducing the non-professional 
 voter to go to the polls in anything approaching his 
 proper strength. And with the imposition of even 
 the requirement of registration there is an invariable 
 falling off of votes. We know this, and accept it or 
 deplore it, or strive to overcome it, as our dispositions 
 and interests may determine. Only in the case of the 
 Negro do we attempt to keep up the fiction of an im 
 mense number of men devoid of political apathy, 
 eagerly anxious to vote, and only prevented by devious 
 means. 
 
 The simple truth is that Negro suffrage was the 
 most artificial creation ever known to our history. 
 The only natural thing about it was its death. It 
 could not be kept alive by normal means. Just as the 
 Reconstruction governments fell to pieces like card 
 houses as soon as the artificial prop of Federal power 
 was removed by Hayes, so Negro suffrage could not 
 survive the first legal test imposed upon it by its op 
 ponents. We may force the ballot upon whom we 
 please in this free country, but further than this we 
 cannot go. We cannot insure its intelligent use by 
 persons not intelligent ; we cannot insure its honest use 
 by persons without a sense of political morality ; we can 
 not insure its retention by those to whom we have given 
 it, if they were not ready to receive it, or if the grant 
 
The Negro in Politics 359 
 
 vvas unwisely bestowed. Any state in the Union might 
 give the ballot to children fifteen years of age, but no 
 state could guarantee its proper use in childish hands. 
 And the Negro in the mass is still a child, and for 
 some generations to come may so remain. One of 
 the shrewdest men identified with the race, and one 
 of the most outspoken, goes even further. He says^ 
 that the Negro is a "political baby." Those who 
 habitually think of Negro suffrage as a peculiarly 
 Southern affair, and declare that it is not a failure 
 because not fairly tried, might learn something from 
 this Afro-American editor and publicist, Mr. T. Thomas 
 Fortune. He- asks, what standing has the "Afro- 
 American vote" in the North and West? and thus 
 answers his own question: "It has no standing: it is 
 never consulted; it gets nothing but crumbs from party 
 success. A few offices of the lowest grade are here 
 and there given to it, for the most part such offices as 
 white partisans do not want. I say this with knowledge 
 that conditions are a shade better in Massachusetts, 
 Ohio, and Illinois, where frequently an elective position 
 in a black ward or district is conceded; but on the 
 whole the same outrageous condition of affairs prevails 
 in all of the states of the North and West. And the 
 Afro- American who points out this condition and pro 
 tests against it and condemns it as being idiotically 
 stupid if not criminal, is distrusted by his own people 
 and by the leaders of the Republican party, often being 
 branded as a traitor and ingrate. The Afro- American 
 people are like a giant in bulk and a child in strength; 
 
360 The American Race Problem 
 
 or they have the strength of a giant and use it as a 
 child. It amounts to the same thing. In the cities 
 of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, India 
 napolis, and Chicago the handful of Italians or other 
 foreign contingent have more weight in the councils 
 of the Republican party and get more substantial con- 
 ^sideration in the matter of party favours than the 
 Afro- Americans, without whose vote in most of those 
 cities the party would very generally be in a minority. 
 The Afro-Americans of the Northern and Western 
 states should put some common sense into their voting. 
 Surely their low, degraded political condition to-day 
 should convince them that they are a political giant 
 with the strength of a child, and that a race in that 
 condition will get nothing out of politics but sneers and 
 contempt. When a man is a man he should think 
 and act as a man in politics and everything else; as a 
 matter of fact the Afro-American people are the only 
 race element of the American citizenship which habitu 
 ally thinks and acts the baby in politics."* 
 
 From Professor Kelly Miller s relation of his obser 
 vations on a trip among his Southern brethren we 
 may secure valuable testimony as to conditions in an 
 other quarter. He says: "Only a few with whom 
 politics is a business seem to take interest in the sub 
 ject. This number is rapidly diminishing. There is 
 little or no political interest among the rank and file 
 of the race. Agitation of this question is almost like 
 
 * "The Afro-American Political Giant with the Strength of a Child," T 
 Thomas Fortune, Coloured American Magazine, Dec. 1905, pp. 678,679. See 
 also by the same author, "The Negro in Politics," New York, 1886. 
 
 ^^Giollfc 
 OF THE 
 
The Negro in Politics 361 
 
 driving spurs into a dead horse. In Texas, Arkansas, 
 and Tennessee every voter is ostensibly as free to 
 exercise his franchise as he is in New England. And 
 yet very few meet the paltry requirement of a poll tax. 
 In Alabama there are less than three thousand Negro 
 qualified voters. Even under the severities of the 
 revised constitutions and the unfairness of registration 
 offices there ought to be at least ten times as many 
 as are now on the list. Indifference more than any 
 other cause accounts for this condition. What is 
 the use? is the universal response to the inquiry con 
 cerning this political inactivity. It seems to me that 
 the coloured race in Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Kan 
 sas (Arkansas), where the state constitutions have not 
 been revised, is losing by default the right of which 
 they have been violently bereft in the more stringent 
 Southern states. I suppose that I must have asked 
 a hundred men in different sections if they were in the 
 habit of voting, and was compelled to take no for an 
 answer. Revised constitutions, white primaries and 
 the lily whites form the conventional excuse. A 
 Washington friend of mine who is a loud and persis 
 tent advocate of the ballot as the Negro s only salva 
 tion retains his legal residence in a Southern state 
 whose constitution has not been revised; and yet he has 
 not voted for fifteen years."* 
 
 If we may believe the evidence of these two eminent 
 and competent members of the race, Negro suffrage 
 is not only dead where it was a failure; it is a failure 
 
 * "A Circuit of the South," Kelly Miller, Voice of theNegro, Sept. 1906, p. 665. 
 
362 The American Race Problem 
 
 where it still survives. We might add the testimony 
 of a prominent Northern newspaper man as to the 
 attitude of the plantation Negro toward the question 
 of suffrage. From the observation of a number of 
 years we can confirm the following from Mr. Raymond 
 Patterson of the Chicago Tribune: "I could not dis 
 cover that the plantation Negroes with whom I talked 
 had the slightest desire to vote, and even the most 
 casual observation would convince one that if they 
 had the right of suffrage they would sell it to the highest 
 bidder without the slightest compunction, and the 
 white people in the vicinity understand this so well 
 that they are prepared, if the Federal Government or 
 other public opinion once more forces suffrage upon 
 the Negro, to buy it back again at the current market 
 rates and charge it up to the ordinary labour account 
 of the plantation."* 
 
 But it is a mistake to assume that the Negro in 
 politics is really dead. In many places he is very much 
 alive, and proves himself capable of creating all sorts 
 of troublesome situations for his Caucasian allies. At 
 a recent election in Chicago the Negroes demanded 
 representation on the city ticket. They were per 
 mitted to name one of the judges, and to the discom 
 fiture of the white party their candidate was elected. 
 At least it seemed so on the face of the returns, though 
 he ran some 30,000 votes behind the next lowest man 
 on the ticket. Just as he was receiving the congratu- 
 
 * "Paradise for the Negro," Raymond Patterson, On Conditions in Louisi 
 ana, Washington Post, July 19, 1903. 
 
The Negro in Politics 363 
 
 lations of "the race" throughout the country, the 
 Chicago Republicans found a way out of their predica 
 ment, and a white man was seated in his stead. Prob 
 ably it is such instances as these, in recent years too 
 common to excite comment, that cause Mr. Fortune 
 to feel as he does about the situation north of the line. 
 It is likewise a mistake to conclude that the Negro 
 is no longer a potential power for evil in Southern 
 politics. Just so long as human nature is what it is 
 will white men be found whose one controlling motive 
 in political affairs is the lowest form of selfish ambition. 
 The lust of power and the spoils of ofHce are still deter 
 mining forces in shaping the conduct of many men in 
 public life. To such as these the Negro vote offers 
 an attractive field for exploitation, and is taken ad 
 vantage of by politicians without regard to party. 
 The average Negro is a cheaper voter than the white 
 man. His vote may generally be counted on to go 
 en masse. He is more easily "handled" and intimi 
 dated, and less apt to "cause trouble." He is usually 
 without any sort of higher public opinion behind him, 
 to act as an impelling force to proper civic conduct. 
 He is generally a thorn in the flesh of those who seek 
 to break up corrupt municipal machines. Just as he 
 is thus used by white and mulatto politicians in Northern 
 cities, so has he been used time and again in Southern 
 states. His pliability makes him specially valuable 
 in controlling a balance of power, and his greatest 
 potential harm to the Southern white man and him 
 self by no means depends upon a Negro majority. 
 
364 The American Race Problem 
 
 To respectable people in the South the most offensive 
 use of the ballot ever made by the Negro, as likewise 
 the most vicious use ever made of the Negro by un 
 scrupulous white men, has been in deciding issues be 
 tween white men themselves.* And to do this a 
 majority is not necessary only capable and unscrup 
 ulous leadership and a willing and irresponsible tool. 
 
 The South has often been congratulated upon the 
 usually decent methods which obtain in her local poli 
 tics. But this section has also produced its share of 
 the most abject political depravity. The Southern 
 white man, who is necessarily acquainted with the 
 consequences of his conduct, but who in defiance of 
 such results seeks to fatten upon the inherent political 
 viciousness of the Negro masses, is much more vicious 
 and dangerous than the Negroes whom he leads. He 
 is usually cowardly as well. He generally manages 
 to escape the legitimate penalty of his acts, while the 
 Negro plays the part of the vicarious sufferer, as he has 
 since 1867 wherever he has entered the political field. 
 
 It is difficult to read with patience some of the utter 
 ances of Southern men, who have not the excuse of 
 ignorance, on the subject of the political supremacy 
 of the white man. In entire disregard of the elemen 
 tary facts and history of the operation of Negro suffrage 
 in the South, they tell how this or that state is now 
 
 * There recently came from Kentucky the report that 1,100 Negroes had 
 been registered as Democrats in a close precinct, and their certificates bought 
 at $2 each. It is said that these voters were used in the following Senatorial 
 race. Whether true or not in this instance, similar things have frequently 
 been done. 
 
The Negro in Politics 365 
 
 rid of all danger from the Negro in political life. It is 
 doubtful if there is a state in the South which would 
 not be largely controlled by Negro voters if the white 
 people in it were to divide among themselves. It has 
 not been eight years since the country was horrified 
 at the racial political outbreak in North Carolina. 
 The preceding census (1890) showed but 561,018 Negroes 
 in the state, as against 1,055,382 whites. The Negroes 
 were thus but 34.7 per cent, of the total population. 
 Out of ninety-seven counties in the state there were 
 only sixteen in which the Negro formed as much as 
 50 per cent, of the total population. Yet as a result 
 of a division among the white people, and a combina 
 tion of Populists, Republicans, and Negroes, the latter 
 gained partial control of the state, and a period of 
 corruption and riot ensued which became as intolerable 
 as anything during Reconstruction days. The cul 
 mination was a bloody conflict along racial lines, with 
 the usual inevitable result. The decent people of the 
 state gained control, and another amended constitution 
 was added to the honour roll of Southern efforts to 
 insure white supremacy without resort to violence or 
 fraud.* 
 
 I have sometimes alluded to the force of the motive 
 of apprehension as a controlling factor in determining 
 
 * For an excellent account of the political conditions which brought on this 
 conflict see Mr. Henry Litchfield West s "The Race War in North Carolina," 
 Forum, Jan. 1899. pp. 578, et seq., quoted from below. For a presentation 
 of the case by a prominent figure in the overthrow of Negro rule in Wilmington 
 see Colonel Alfred M. Waddell s account in the publications of the Montgomery 
 Conference on Race Problems in the South, 1900. See also A. J. McKelway 
 and Kelly Miller, Outlook, Dec. 31, 1898. These papers should be read by any 
 one seriously interested in the political aspect of the problem of race relations. 
 
366 The American Race Problem 
 
 the white man s attitude toward the Negro. He knows 
 the possibility for evil of the Negro in politics; and if 
 he is not an enthusiastic optimist he can see clearly 
 enough that while the Negro masses have been politi 
 cally eliminated in a temporary sense, their potential 
 power for evil has by no means disappeared. The 
 alluvial district of which the writer s county forms a 
 part in 1900 contained 218,392 Negroes and 40,502 
 white people. The number of Negro males twenty-one 
 years of age was 57,315, or 16,813 more than the total 
 white population. Of these 28,643 were literates, 
 and on payment of a poll tax could register and vote 
 under the Mississippi constitution. Thus the number 
 of potential Negro voters was equal to nearly 71 per 
 cent, of the combined white population, men, women, 
 and children, in an area of about 6,000 square miles. 
 There is no probability that the Negro will ever be 
 a controlling factor in the politics of this section. But 
 let a division arise among the white people, and there 
 is no more doubt that these Negroes would be regis 
 tered and voted, and would control by sheer force of 
 numbers, than there is that they will never care one 
 iota about voting if only let alone. There is also not 
 the slightest doubt that within a very short time the 
 Negro would again cease to be a political factor, and 
 conditions would resume their normal course, with 
 the added injection of a racial bitterness which just 
 now does not exist. The people who comprise the 
 intelligence and honesty of a community, who pay 
 its taxes and support its government and guarantee 
 
The Negro in Politics 367 
 
 it against internal disorders, will control its politics 
 and administer its affairs. And the question of mere 
 numerical majority will not even be considered in ar 
 riving at the result. 
 
 It may be replied that this proposition holds good 
 everywhere. In fact it is often said that inasmuch 
 as the intelligence of any country or section will control 
 its affairs, there is neither foundation nor reason for 
 the Southern apprehension of the Negro in politics. 
 The two propositions have a different meaning. We 
 may safely say that the honesty and intelligence of 
 New York may be depended upon to control its pol 
 itics in the long run. This is true only because the 
 "average" white voter is not venal, and because the 
 best men, in point of character and ability, will not 
 permit the rule of corruption beyond a certain point. 
 In the lace of intolerable conditions party lines in 
 variably disappear, and no corrupt combination of 
 political thieves has ever been able to more than tem 
 porarily defeat a combination of political honesty. 
 
 But it is idle to attempt to apply the same rule to 
 Southern conditions, and expect to obtain the same 
 end by the same means in the face of the situation 
 which exists by virtue of the political solidarity of the 
 Negro. When the respectable white men of a Southern 
 community, county, or state find themselves confronted 
 by a numerical preponderance of Negroes, upon whom 
 are they to call for assistance? They represent the 
 intelligence of their state; they pay its taxes and support 
 its institutions and government. They are opposed 
 
368 The American Race Problem 
 
 by a mass of Negroes who, with few exceptions, are 
 inherently ignorant, though they may read and write, 
 who own little property and pay little taxes, who are 
 utterly unfit for political control, and who are led by 
 unscrupulous white men equally as irresponsible and 
 much more vicious than themselves. 
 
 Here are the two elements in the body politic of the 
 South to-day, and yet men wonder why the South 
 does not divide on political issues. The "Solid South" 
 simply represents the permanent banding together of 
 its best elements for good government, just as such 
 combinations of the better elements in New York are 
 made temporarily necessary from time to time. .There 
 has not been an instance of local or state division in 
 the ranks of the respectable white people in the South 
 which has not been followed by disastrous results. 
 Booker Washington knows that the Negro will not 
 take the advice of his white neighbour in matters of 
 local political concern. Other Negro le aders know it, 
 and Northern white men like the late William H. Bald 
 win know it. The Southern white man knows it. He 
 knows more, for bitter experience has taught him that, 
 save with insignificant exceptions, the Negro will not 
 only vote solidly against him on matters of purely 
 local business concern, but that he will sell himself 
 body and soul to any political charlatan who will stoop 
 low enough to fill his ears with false promises and to 
 inspire him with racial hate. It is almost a Southern 
 axiom that a white man cannot remain respectable, 
 cannot retain his own self-respect, and at the same 
 
The Negro in Politics 369 
 
 time control the Negro vote. This does not mean, 
 and it must not be so understood, that no Southern 
 Negroes will vote for decent men or go with the respect 
 able element of white people on local political affairs. 
 It emphatically does mean that the number who will 
 do this are a negligible handful, who, furthermore, 
 incur the enmity and displeasure of the masses by such 
 exhibitions of "disloyalty." The greatest Bourbon 
 in America to-day is the Negro in politics, North or 
 South. 
 
 From 1867 to the overthrow of the carpetbag govern 
 ments in 1875-76, the Southern white man saw the 
 Negro go en masse against him, right or wrong, as 
 Councill puts it. In searching for means to save his 
 interests and his state from utter destruction, the 
 white man then tried the experiment of taking the 
 Negro into political partnership with himself. This 
 was the essence of the "fusion" system, under which 
 the Negro was given a place on local tickets. It meant 
 nothing more or less than the purchase of Negro sup 
 port, or Negro acquiescence, by giving to individual 
 mulattoes a local office here and there. The only 
 effect was to keep the Negro masses in a continuous 
 political turmoil, without the least resulting benefit 
 to themselves. There was perpetual strife among 
 their mulatto leaders as to which ones were to receive 
 the offices which the white man conceded as the price 
 of being permitted to control his domestic affairs. 
 The last remnant of "fusionism" disappeared with the 
 elimination of the Negro masses from politics by modern 
 
37 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 constitutional provisions. The qualified Negro voters 
 were reduced to an innocuous minority, and the neces 
 sity for purchasing the leaders no longer existing, the 
 latter ceased to figure in local affairs. 
 
 This has been the Southern white man s experience 
 with the Negro in politics. He has never been able, 
 save on rare occasions, to make any responsive appeal 
 to the Negro voter which was not addressed directly 
 to the cupidity of his leaders. Immediately after the 
 war a few of the old school Southern leaders believed 
 it possible for them to control and influence the Negro 
 voter toward safe participation in administering decent 
 government. But these were the very men who above 
 all others were proscribed by those in control of Federal 
 affairs. They, more than any other class in the South, 
 were felt to be unsafe custodians of the Negro s interests. 
 Despite all this these men made many earnest attempts 
 to influence the Negro for good. But their efforts 
 were defeated, or only in small measure were temporar 
 ily and occasionally successful. When men in another 
 political environment speak of appealing to the instinc 
 tive sense of right and better judgment inherent in 
 the body politic of the state, they aje discussing an 
 entirely different proposition from that which con 
 fronts the Southern white man. It is idle to talk of 
 appealing to something which does not exist in the Negro 
 masses. The capacity for self-government is a slow 
 growth at best. Under the artificial and abnormal con 
 ditions which have obtained since the Negro s emancipa 
 tion it promises in his case to be almost hopelessly so. 
 
The Negro in Politics 371 
 
 Only a few months ago Mr. Taft delivered an address 
 at Tuskegee Institute, in which he touched on the 
 Negro in politics. He gave the restrictive constitutions 
 of Southern states a quasi endorsement, but added a 
 note of encouragement to the effect that it was im 
 possible to frame a suffrage test which would be allowed 
 to stand by the supreme court which the Negro could 
 not ultimately meet. It is the usual comment of those 
 inclined to look with leniency upon the South s efforts 
 to legally eliminate the Negro masses from politics, 
 that all the North asks is that suffrage restrictions be 
 impartially applied. In Mr. Baldwin s words: "He 
 should be (disfranchised) if he is not properly qualified 
 to cast a vote; but his qualifications should be deter 
 mined in exactly the same manner as the qualifications 
 of the white man; and to this the Negro has no objec 
 tion."* 
 
 Here we have again the confusing of the concrete 
 Negro with his abstract attributes. Human law does 
 not, cannot, create the capacity for self-government, 
 the possession of which we seek to evidence by certain 
 tangible tests which we loosely call "qualifications." 
 The law cannot qualify a man to vote. It may require 
 an exhibit of certain crude evidences of qualification, 
 or it may dispense with these altogether. This problem 
 of framing a test for self-governing capacity is one of 
 the most serious which confronts a government such as 
 ours one in which so much depends upon the self- 
 governing individual. Its gravity increases or dimi- 
 
 * Second Capi n Springs Conference. 1899, p. 98. 
 
372 The American Race Problem 
 
 nishes with the degree of homogeneity in the mass of 
 the population. In the effort to secure a test which 
 shall be uniform we usually fall back on some form of 
 property or educational qualification. In view of the 
 necessarily limited and narrow application of the edu 
 cational qualification it is probable that the test of 
 property is really the more valuable of the two. From 
 the acquisition and possession of property, particularly 
 land or a home, we are usually safe in assuming certain 
 homely virtues, such as make for conservatism and 
 good citizenship. 
 
 But we attach too much significance to our so-called 
 educational qualifications. There is no American con 
 stitution which in fact requires a test of education. 
 At most they only require the ability to read and write. 
 This is a mere kindergarten examination, but it is 
 almost impracticable to provide, define, or apply any 
 thing more exacting. Yet there is no magic, no subtle 
 alchemy, arising from the ability to scrawl one s name, 
 or drone the pages of a book, capable of transmuting 
 barbarism into civilisation. Pen and ink and book, 
 powerful as they are, cannot transform the savage of 
 yesterday into the citizen of to-day. 
 
 The capacity for self-government is not a grant of 
 law, but a growth of the mind. It comes with the slow 
 processes of time, through the long groping after light 
 and strength which in spite of a thousand difficulties 
 and failures has given the higher branches of the white 
 race dominion over themselves, which is the essence 
 of a government of law and the foundation of the arti- 
 
The Negro in Politics 373 
 
 ficial self-governing superstructure. The so-called re 
 publican form of government in this country, and the 
 limited constitutional monarchy of Great Britain 
 represent the highest practical expression of the self- 
 governing idea. They would be impossible of main 
 tenance by an electorate whose sole qualifying capacity 
 was determinable by certain established formal tests. 
 A self-governing state is founded upon the slowly 
 developed capacity of its people for the form which 
 they themselves create, not upon any artificially deter 
 mined capacity which it imparts to its creators. Be 
 cause we do not think it wise to share this tediously 
 developed responsibility undiscriminatingly, we grad 
 ually evolve certain tests which we apply to those 
 who seek it. But we mistake the true import of such 
 measures of capacity if we attribute to them a signifi 
 cance which they do not really possess. A child of 
 ten may read more fluently than a man of fifty, or 
 the latter may not read at all. But the child s capacity 
 does not mean the possession of greater wisdom than 
 may have been acquired by the longer and larger ex 
 perience of the man. 
 
 In order to be of any real value such tests must pre 
 suppose the same general potential capacity and attri 
 butes among all to whom they are applied and whose 
 degree of development they are assumed to indicate. 
 Between the masses of the English-speaking white race 
 and those of the American Negro, no artificial test can 
 indicate the possession of the same measure of capacity 
 for self-government, It is idle to talk about "deter- 
 
374 The American Race Problem 
 
 mining in exactly the same manner the qualifications" 
 of two masses possessing such different racial histories 
 and backgrounds, as well as such widely different devel 
 opments, as those which characterise the white man 
 and the Negro. 
 
 It is a common charge against modern Southern 
 constitutions that they are so framed as to admit the 
 illiterate white man while excluding the illiterate Negro. 
 The Negro masses in fact do not have to be excluded. 
 They will disfranchise themselves, if left to their own 
 devices. But what if the charge were true? There 
 was no developed system of public schools in the South 
 before the war, and these states contained, and do 
 contain, a large number of illiterate white men. It 
 would be foolish to contend that all these are capable 
 of intelligent voting. It would be more absurd to 
 class them as "ignorant" because illiterate. It would 
 be stupid to attempt to institute a parallel between 
 their average of intelligence and capacity and that 
 of the Negro masses in the same technical classification. 
 The very fact that these men are white, aside from 
 their common race inheritance, tells strongly in favour 
 of potential intelligence. It guarantees association 
 and contact with others of the same race who have 
 enjoyed greater advantages, and from whom the less 
 fortunate absorb much that is even denied the so- 
 called educated Negro in the mass. We simply attempt 
 the unattainable when we try to devise a test which 
 will apply equally to the two races, as a mechanical 
 index to equal political instinct and capacity. 
 
The Negro in Politics 375 
 
 We talk loosely of the failure of Negro suffrage under 
 popular government, but how many stop to reason 
 from the fact to its cause? We are too content, in all 
 this race problem business of ours, to discuss and dis 
 pute over its elementary facts. We do not seem so 
 much inclined to work out the significance of the facts 
 themselves. We might learn much from a study of 
 African tribal polity. It is a mistake to assume that 
 the native Negro had no laws, and knew no govern 
 mental form. Both are part of his racial heritage. 
 But despite surface exceptions, African native polity 
 was at the farthest possible remove from the basis 
 of a self-governing concept. The only real force and 
 stability which such governments possessed was derived 
 from the opportunity afforded for the occasional acces 
 sion to power of a man of exceptional individual capacity. 
 The whole race history is opposed to the development 
 of the self-governing idea. The race instinctively 
 accommodates itself to a "strong" government, 
 and seems peculiarly fitted for accepting and adapting 
 itself to one in which an individual personal represen 
 tative stands for the governing authority. 
 
 Even the limited effort at equal suffrage under a rep 
 resentative form of government which Jamaica once 
 tried, proved a disastrous failure. The Jamaica Negro 
 was never better off, and he was never better satisfied, 
 than under the benevolent despotism of Sir John Peter 
 Grant, which followed the first experiment. I once 
 asked an educated, observant American Negro in 
 Bermuda what he regarded as the most important 
 
376 The American Race Problem 
 
 influence for good upon the life of the English Negro, 
 and upon race relations in the English islands. With 
 out a moment s hesitation he replied, "The Crown." 
 The visible, tangible representative of power makes a 
 distinct and responsive appeal to the Negro mind, 
 while the conception of his government as one lodged 
 in an individual personality is easily grasped, and is 
 invaluable as a controlling force. 
 
 Speaking of West Indian Negroes Mr. Colquhoun 
 says: "In the long reign of the late Queen Victoria 
 she became to them a sort of supernatural ruler, as 
 much part of their traditions as the hereditary heroes 
 and chiefs of other nations."* There was much that 
 gave rise to a similar mental attitude in the form of 
 government and administration of the Southern ante 
 bellum plantation system, and in it much that appealed 
 to the Negro s racial instincts and traits. The owner 
 was the immediate embodiment of authority in the 
 plantation world. He stood in loco parentis to all his 
 people, and became to their minds as much a tribal 
 chief and ruler as they and their ancestors had ever 
 known at home. There was no violent alteration of 
 the abstract governing idea or system involved in the 
 transition from the tribal to the plantation organisation. 
 The native mind accepted the change unconsciously 
 and hence without protest, and the Negro was adopted 
 without friction into his new environment. On some 
 plantations in both the South and the West Indies 
 the germs of self-governing capacity had an opportunity 
 
 * "The Africander Land," A. R. Colquhoun. 1906, p. 104. 
 
The Negro in Politics 377 
 
 to develop in the Negro, through the occasional institu 
 tion of plantation courts for adjusting grievances among 
 themselves. But these were only successful when the 
 planter or his representative acted as a party in power. 
 The order and general wellbeing among plantation 
 Negroes to-day is in fairly exact ratio to the degree of 
 personal authority and disciplinary control exercised 
 by the plantation management. And relations are 
 best where the system is most paternal in its features. 
 For a number of years before the Civil War Negroes 
 in Connecticut elected their "governor," who, 
 though of course utterly without official recognition, 
 at the same time furnished a visible object of authority 
 to his people. The best governed body of Negroes 
 in this hemisphere are the African, or black, "Caribs" 
 of some parts of the Caribbean coast, and their 
 titular, visible, and active head is a "king." 
 
 A racial characteristic which is so familiarly displayed 
 in the South as to have become commonplace, is the 
 Negro s inordinate love of parade and show, his con 
 suming passion for "finery and feathers." A com 
 petent authority declares that "at heart the Haitians 
 are royalists to-day; that is, they prefer the pomp and 
 ceremonials of courts to the plain simplicity of a republic. 
 They like show and glitter, frills and furbelows, gold 
 lace and epaulets, cocked hats and cock s feathers, 
 and it was a sad day for the masses when the grand 
 marshal, grand almoner, master of ceremonials, Knights 
 of Saint Henry, princes of the blood/ dukes, counts, 
 barons, chevaliers, etc., were abolished. But for their 
 
378 The American Race Problem 
 
 inclination to reduce everybody and everything to 
 the dead level of barbarism, they would take to a 
 reestablishment of royalty as easily as a duck to water."* 
 
 There is much more than an Englishman s precon 
 ceptions in the following words from Mr. Colquhoun: 
 "It must never be forgotten that the subject races, 
 whether in Africa or Asia, have the most deeply 
 rooted prejudice in favour of paternal rule, and have 
 never evolved a representative, much less a democratic, 
 theory of government. Just so far as democracy 
 attains its highest ideal in our eyes it becomes to them 
 formless and ineffective, "f 
 
 The most uncompromising advocate of "Negro 
 rights," and the harshest critic of the South, who has 
 held a West Indian post in recent years is Mr. Sydney 
 Olivier, whom we quote below. But even he admits 
 the difficulties of the racial political problem as pre 
 sented and developed under our form of government 
 by written constitution. He says that such difficulties 
 cannot be met under such a government as they have 
 been under a Crown Colony, as in Jamaica. 
 
 When English writers wish a text upon which to 
 frame a sermon on race relations under the beneficent 
 rule of their Government, they generally take Jamaica. 
 In other words, they select the colony in which the 
 incapacity of the Negro for self-government has been 
 frankly recognised and practically acted upon. But 
 they say little about the period of turbulence and un- 
 
 * "Our West Indian Neighbours." P. A. Ober. 1904, p. 171. 
 t "The Africander Land," 1906 p. 419. 
 
The Negro in Politics 
 
 379 
 
 rest through which Jamaica passed before the present 
 boasted state of idealism was attained. A local author 
 ity says of the present system of government that it 
 "is undoubtedly hybrid in character." "But," he 
 adds, "if all the circumstances of the case are taken 
 into account, it possibly suits the condition of the 
 colony as well as any other that could be devised."* 
 This government, however, is not one whit more 
 "hybrid" in character than is that of the District of 
 Columbia. And "the circumstances of the case," out 
 of which the condition of hybridity was evolved, were 
 in each instance the same the presence of a large 
 number of Negro voters, actual or potential. In each 
 case the entire population was deprived of the right of 
 self-government, rather than continue to face the 
 certainty of trouble arising from its attempted exercise 
 by a part of the population not fitted to enjoy it. The 
 truth of the matter is that the administering of a govern 
 ment for a mixed white and Negro population is a 
 much simpler matter for Great Britain than for Con 
 tinental United States. It is only in our insular depen 
 dencies that we are on a footing with the rest of the 
 world in governing for dependent races. There, thanks 
 to an opinion which Mr. Dooley declared "followed 
 the election returns," we are as free to experiment as 
 England is in the West Indies, or as we ourselves are 
 in our own national capital. And there is no reason 
 why we should not be equally as successful. It is 
 
 * Frank Cundall, Secretary, Jamaica Institute, in British Empire Series 
 Vol. 3, "British America," pp. 420, 421. 
 
380 The American Race Problem 
 
 only at home, where the necessity is greatest, that 
 we are encased within the steel framework of rigid 
 constitutional limitations. It is only here that we 
 are forbidden to act upon the evidence of history or 
 to profit by experience and common sense. Only 
 here do we have to observe the form of maintaining 
 the fiction that there are no differences between the 
 needs and capacities and limitations of different races 
 of men. The situation would be farcical if it did not 
 occasionally border upon the tragic in its results. 
 
 It is frequently declared that nothing better than the 
 present arrangement in this country has been suggested 
 by its critics that the system adopted in 1867-70 
 was the best that could have been devised. This is 
 superficial. This much only need be suggested in 
 reply: Even a purely negative policy would have 
 been better than the one adopted. Under the former, 
 with the political status of the Negro left with the 
 States, each would have been free to evolve an adjust 
 ment which would have been satisfactory to both races. 
 Beyond question this would not have been the same in 
 all the states. The perniciousness of the present system 
 is that it is ironclad. It leaves no room for local and 
 individual adjustment. Under the political status 
 quo ante bellum each state would have been at liberty 
 to experiment along its own lines, and, above all, every 
 state would have had the advantage of the practical 
 operation of the efforts of every other. And these 
 several efforts of necessity would have been in the 
 direction of devising means of admitting to the privi- 
 
The Negro in Politics 381 
 
 leges of the body politic such members of the other 
 race as might be qualified by education, property and 
 character. 
 
 Since the suffrage would not have been possessed by 
 any at the outset, this is the only course which any change 
 at all could have taken. On the other hand, all were 
 admitted to the suffrage at once, with the result that 
 the ingenuity of each state has been taxed in the op 
 posite direction that of eliminating the incompetent 
 mass. Instead of each state having the benefit of the 
 wisdom and experience of every other toward reaching 
 a satisfactory adjustment of their common difficulties, 
 each has looked to the other for suggestion as to the 
 mere getting rid of a common incubus. And a dozen 
 plans might have been evolved for guaranteeing both 
 supremacy to the white man and justice and fair play 
 to the Negro. The Jamaican and District of Columbia 
 systems do not exhaust the wisdom of the world in 
 devising schemes for the equitable government of mixed 
 populations. New Zealand has a better system than 
 either and one which operates without friction and 
 without complaint. There the native Maori is allowed 
 a fixed number of representatives in Parliament. There 
 are simply two constituencies, a white and a native, 
 neither allowed a voice in selecting the representatives 
 of the other. White control is guaranteed by making 
 the number of native representatives fixed and perma 
 nent, while white representation is based on population. 
 At the same time the Maori is guaranteed a permanent 
 voice in Parliament, with always an opportunity to 
 
382 The American Race Problem 
 
 make known his grievances, or otherwise make himself 
 heard. In some instances white constituencies have 
 returned Maori, or half caste, members. Numberless 
 modifications of the scheme are possible. 
 
 Of course it will at once be answered by the doctrin 
 aire that this would not be in accordance with the 
 "genius of our institutions," and so forth. The prac 
 tical man might ask in reply, how many partly Negro 
 constituencies North or South, are just now represented 
 by Negroes in Congress or state legislatures? And the 
 New Zealand solution, engrafted on our political system, 
 would not be one particle more hybrid or anomalous 
 than is the plan of government which we have evolved 
 for either Porto Rico, the District of Columbia or the 
 Philippines. While we are wrestling with our race 
 troubles in this country, and wondering why men will 
 stubbornly refuse to be guided by the golden rule in 
 everyday affairs, England will have adopted the New 
 Zealand system in South Africa long enough to have 
 forgotten that there ever was a political Negro problem 
 there. But let us return to the matter before us. 
 
 There is a marvellous degree of similarity running 
 through the history of Negro suffrage wherever it has 
 been tried in connection with a joint self-governing 
 system. The attitude of the white party to the system 
 has been the same the world over. The only exceptions 
 are those communities in which the Negro has been so 
 hopelessly outnumbered as to be politically a negligible 
 quantity. Elsewhere the white man either regards 
 the Negro as a political commodity too valuable to be 
 
The Negro in Politics 383 
 
 dispensed with, or considers him an element of evil 
 too dangerous to be tolerated. Everywhere there are 
 men who hold the former attitude. The South was 
 cursed with their nefarious activity during its Recon 
 struction period. Only because it is no longer possible 
 to keep the Negro masses in politics have these men 
 ceased to use them. Party lines have nothing to do 
 with it. The Negro vote is bought and sold in the 
 open markets of Delaware, Chicago, Indianapolis, 
 New York, Louisville, and St. Louis, by both political 
 parties. Even men who honestly deplore such condi 
 tions, and who on account of them would gladly elimi 
 nate the Negro from politics, justify themselves for 
 fighting the devil with fire." They say that as long 
 as the Negro vote is for sale they are compelled in self- 
 defense to purchase their share in its control. It is 
 easy to say that the fault lies more with the white man 
 who purchases than with the Negro who sells. This 
 does not touch the root of the evil. In the game of 
 party politics each side uses whatever advantage it 
 can command. The highest hope of a self-governing 
 state is in admitting to a share in its control only 
 those who individually hold their privilege as some 
 thing too high to be trafficked in. The individual 
 who is for sale is not a fit or safe depositary of 
 political power. At best we must always reckon on 
 a number of these in the white body politic but 
 when we have a racial mass of such individuals we 
 are afflicted with at least the germ of a potentially 
 dangerous disease. 
 
384 The American Race Problem 
 
 It is probably natural that the course and motives 
 of the Southern men who initiated the movement for 
 the destruction of this germ in the political life of the 
 South, through the legal disfranchisement of the Negro 
 masses, should have been misunderstood. Misunder 
 standings were for many years the normal relation 
 between the Northern and Southern states. It is 
 unfortunate, however, that the fiction should have 
 been perpetuated. The South did not disfranchise 
 this ignorant and helpless horde in order to get control 
 of political affairs. There was not a state in the South 
 which was not as absolutely and unconditionally in 
 the power of its white people in 1880 as it has been 
 since 1890. The states of Georgia, Arkansas, Florida, 
 Tennessee, and Texas have no such constitutions as 
 are foolishly and ignorantly denounced in Mississippi, 
 Louisiana, and South Carolina. Yet they are no less 
 firmly within white control. The repeal of every 
 amended constitution in the South would not change 
 the complexion of a single Southern delegation in 
 Congress, just as their adoption did not shift political 
 control in a single state. 
 
 The motives which actuated those who inaugurated 
 and executed the movement for an amended constitu 
 tion in Mississippi, which took the first step in 1890, 
 were higher than any mere question of party gain. 
 They were men who realised from bitter experience 
 the vital necessity for white control, but who deplored 
 with equal intensity the methods necessary to secure 
 and perpetuate it. Not since the foundation of this 
 
The Negro in Politics 385 
 
 Government was laid has there been any movement 
 in America which had its roots more deeply planted 
 in the highest conceptions of political morality. They 
 were sick at heart over the course of events which had 
 followed as the inevitable sequence of as cruel a situa 
 tion as ever confronted men with whom a high sense 
 of political honesty was a traditional habit of life and 
 a controlling principle of conduct. 
 
 When a Northern reporter went down to study the 
 conditions out of which grew the upheaval in North 
 Carolina in 1898, here is what he found at a political 
 meeting in Wilmington: "I had an opportunity to 
 observe that they were earnest, dignified, sober men, 
 heads of families, and owners of property, engaged 
 in the best mercantile and professional pursuits. All 
 shades of political belief were represented. Some of 
 the citizens had voted for Mr. McKinley, and others 
 for Mr. Bryan; some were Gold and some Silver 
 Democrats; some favoured protection, and others 
 advocated free trade ; but in the presence of what they 
 believed to be an overwhelming crisis, they brushed 
 aside the great principles that divide parties and 
 individuals, and stood together as one man. Their 
 language indicated the intensity of the situation, as they 
 viewed it."* 
 
 He again observes: "Ordinarily, social revolutions 
 in the United States are accomplished through a medium 
 of a change in political parties. In Wilmington pol- 
 
 * "The Race War in North Carolina," Henry Litchfield West, Forum, Jan. 
 1899, p. 579. 
 
386 The American Race Problem 
 
 itics played a most subordinate part. The first definite 
 movement toward the overthrow of Negro rule was 
 taken by the Chamber of Commerce, a non-partisan or 
 ganisation, which adopted resolutions declaring that the 
 situation was a menace to peace and order, and calling 
 upon every good citizen to exert his utmost influence 
 and personal effort to effect results which will restore 
 order, protect property, and give security to our lives 
 and homes. The President of the Chamber of Com 
 merce a New Englander and a Republican 
 promptly signed this declaration; and every firm con 
 nected with the organisation attached its signature 
 with equal alacrity. With this substantial inaugura 
 tion the movement for white supremacy progressed 
 rapidly. Party divisions disappeared; and the colour 
 line was the plain, recognised, and openly acknowledged 
 issue. Even the Republican postmaster of Wilmington, 
 a Northern man who had never voted the Democratic 
 ticket in his life, recognised this fact. I had thought 
 at first, he wrote to United States Senator Pritchard, 
 1 that it was the usual political cry and a fight for office ; 
 but I am now convinced that the feeling is much deeper 
 than this, as it pervades the whole community, and 
 there seems to be a settled determination on the part 
 of the property owners, business men, and taxpayers 
 to administer the city and county government. . . . 
 There was still, however, no disguising of the white 
 men s intentions. They believed that if they paid, 
 as they did, 97 per cent, of the taxes, and if they alone 
 had demonstrated their capacity for developing and 
 
The Negro in Politics 387 
 
 governing the city, they alone should rule; and this 
 point they were prepared to establish at any cost."* 
 
 If one will read Mr. West s account of this "Race 
 War in North Carolina" he will understand, perhaps, 
 why the respectable white people of the state deter 
 mined to remove by constitutional means, as far as 
 was in their power, the possibility of its recurrence. 
 He should also be able to grasp the more elementary 
 facts and impulses which underlie the actions of Southern 
 white men who have been confronted by the Negro 
 in politics. He might even realise how childish to 
 thoughtful Southern people seem the charges which 
 would indict them for having been actuated by base 
 and selfish political motives in seeking to eradicate 
 the disease which was eating at the very vitals of their 
 domestic life. 
 
 It is a far cry from the Southern states to the South 
 of Africa and the Englishman is not an American, 
 nor the Kaffir the son of a Congo slave. But the white 
 man remains a white man, and the Negro is a Negro 
 still, and politics is politics. A well-known English 
 observer thus discusses the situation in Cape Colony: 
 "Already the coloured man is a formidable force in 
 the game of party politics in one, and the oldest, South 
 African colony. The most deplorable feature of the 
 Cape elections which have just ended was the power 
 exercised by the native vote. . . . The gravity 
 of the situation is unfortunately not appreciated in 
 
 * "The Race War in North Carolina," Henry Litchfield West, Forum, Jan. 
 J.8Q9, PP- 582, 583, 
 
388 The American Race Problem 
 
 England, or, at all events, appreciated by only a very 
 few. Perhaps this is not surprising when one remem 
 bers that many South Africans, blinded by the political 
 expediency of the moment, fail completely to discern 
 the peril which is close upon them. Future calamity, 
 however stupendous, is to them as nothing compared 
 with present political gain, however mean. . . . 
 What if the native does form an extravagant estimate 
 of his own importance, and cultivate an unbounded 
 contempt for the white man? A seat has been won for 
 the party."* 
 
 There, just as here, we have the spectacle of the 
 political manipulation of the Negro voter, followed 
 by his casting off till another election comes round. 
 And anyone who has seen the Negro take part in a 
 close local contest between white candidates can 
 appreciate the force of the above suggestion of effect 
 upon the South African native mind. And in Cape 
 Colony the "Ethiopian Church" is as deep in politics 
 as the Negro churches were when the Negro was a factor 
 in Southern affairs. And also at the Cape there are 
 Negro political associations and newspapers, supported 
 by, and, as Mr. Jones remarks, "the henchmen of one 
 or other white political party." The parallel is almost 
 complete. 
 
 The report of the non-partisan Inter-Colonial Com 
 mission, made in 1905, while permeated with a spirit 
 of liberal justice to the natives, recognises the gravity 
 
 * "The Black Peril in South Africa," Roderick Jones, Nineteenth Century 
 and After, May, 1904. P 7*3- 
 
The Negro in Politics 389 
 
 of the situation created by their growing political 
 importance. To quote Mr. Jones s comment on the 
 report, a year after his former discussion: "They 
 dismiss the proposition that full and equal political 
 rights should be granted to all classes of men fulfilling 
 the necessary franchise qualifications, and observe 
 that in the present state of parties the native vote 
 has acquired an excessive importance/ The commis 
 sion also says "that in the near future native voters 
 in at least some of the constituencies will outnumber 
 the Europeans. Under such circumstances the voting 
 of the future may proceed upon race lines, and no one 
 acquainted with the conditions of life in South Africa 
 will hesitate to say that a conflict would then arise 
 fatal to the good relations which have upon the whole 
 hitherto existed between white and black in this 
 country."* 
 
 Here is a frank suggestion of the effect of a political 
 conflict upon race relations which American history 
 confirms in all its possibilities. There is also a bare 
 hint at a recognition of an almost inviolable law which 
 governs the white attitude toward the Negro in pol 
 itics. Where the Negro is in a hopeless minority his 
 vote is sought by white factions and is either pur 
 chased or secured by petty places, such, as Mr. Fortune 
 suggests, as the white politician does not want. As 
 long as he is numerically too weak, or the white vote 
 is not equally enough divided, to enable him to con- 
 
 * Quoted in "The Black Problem in South Africa," Roderick Jones, Nine 
 teenth Century and After, May, 1905, pp. 762, 763. 
 
390 The American Race Problem 
 
 stitute a real balance of power, he is tolerated or en 
 couraged, or both, by white politicians. As such play 
 thing of the white partisan he is almost as dangerous 
 an element, certainly as vicious and demoralising an 
 influence, as when he possesses greater numerical 
 strength. But your white politician of the average 
 type cares nothing for this. He is blind to everything 
 save personal advantage in America as in South Africa. 
 When, however, the Negro s numerical increase is 
 sufficient to create a direct or indirect menace to the 
 unquestioned political supremacy of the white man, 
 party lines disappear, and the colour line becomes the 
 controlling consideration with the rank and file. 
 
 The difference between the two situations suggested 
 here is illustrated by the difference between present 
 conditions in Cape Colony, with a limited number of 
 Negro voters, and the conditions which the commission 
 foresees when the native vote shall be sufficiently 
 strong to create a political colour line. It is likewise 
 illustrated in the difference between conditions in 
 Ohio, New York, Indiana, Illinois, or Pennsylvania, 
 and conditions in any one of the Southern states. If 
 the movement of Negroes toward the North assumes 
 sufficiently large proportions, the next two or three 
 decades or so will likely create some interesting political 
 history in this country, with the Negro a central figure. 
 Meanwhile we may look toward Africa. The Boer 
 leaders may have known nothing about the Negro in 
 American politics, but conditions nearer home were 
 sufficient to make them hold out for a stipulation in 
 
The Negro in Politics 391 
 
 the Vereeniging Peace Covenant which bound England 
 to refrain from broaching the question of native suffrage 
 until full autonomy should have been granted their 
 colonies. The dream of more than one South African 
 statesman has been and is of a confederacy somewhat 
 after the Australasian type. But Natal thus far stands 
 as immovable as the Mediterranean rock, in opposition 
 to a union which would be born with the insidious 
 affliction of Negro suffrage the heart-disease of self- 
 governing colonies and states. 
 
 The difference between the shadow and the sub 
 stance of self-governing capacity and right have not 
 anywhere been more clearly pointed out than in this 
 passage from the pen of an eminent New England 
 Senator, the late Orville H. Platt, of Connecticut: 
 To insure the success of free government certain 
 conditions seem indispensable. There must be a homo 
 geneous people possessed of a high degree of virtue 
 and intelligence. A sentimental longing for liberty 
 will not itself insure the maintenance of a republic. 
 Liberty is a word of quite elastic meaning. Licence 
 is not true liberty. It is orderly liberty only which 
 constitutes the sure basis of free government. That 
 government only is really free and independent where 
 liberty is restrained and buttressed by law, and where 
 the supposed rights of the individual are limited by 
 the rights of all. To establish such liberty there must 
 be an intelligent understanding of the social system 
 and a comprehension of the just principles upon which 
 true government must always rest. The consent of 
 
392 The American Race Problem 
 
 the governed must be an intelligent consent. Where 
 the capacity to consent does not exist, no government 
 can be permanently maintained upon such consent. 
 Where a majority of voters neither understand nor 
 respect the true principles of government, there may 
 be a republic in name, but in fact it will only be a dic 
 tatorship, in which the purpose and power of its 
 president control, rather than the consent of the 
 governed."* 
 
 We may set over against this utterance that of another 
 eminent American. At the twenty-fifth anniversary 
 celebration at Tuskegee in 1906, Booker T. Washington 
 expressed himself on an aspect of the problem of his 
 people of which he seldom speaks. A few months 
 later he repeated his remarks at the celebration of the 
 fiftieth anniversary of Wilberforce University. He 
 said on the latter occasion: "Let me repeat in sub 
 stance what I recently said in the heart of the South, 
 that in connection with our religious, educational, 
 and material growth we should not loose sight of the 
 fact that if this country is to continue to be a republic 
 its task will never be completed as long as seven or 
 eight millions of its people are in a large degree regarded 
 as aliens, and are without voice or interest in the wel 
 fare of the Government. Such a course will not merely 
 inflict great injustice upon these millions of people, 
 but the nation will pay the price of finding the genius 
 and form of its government changed, not perhaps in 
 
 * " America s Race Problems," Annals of the American Academy of Political 
 and Social Science, Vol. 18, No. i, July. .901, p. 148. 
 
The Negro in Politics 393 
 
 name, but certainly in reality, and because of this the 
 world will say that free government is a failure."* 
 
 Below the surface of the words of these two men there 
 lies the fundamental difference of the point of view 
 of respective racial self-interest. To the mind of Dr. 
 Washington this government will be "a republic only in 
 name" if a certain large mass of its population does 
 not share equally in its control. To the mind of Senator 
 Platt successful free government must be based upon 
 a homogeneous population, possessed of a "high degree 
 of virtue and intelligence," while without an under 
 standing of "the true principles of government" we 
 have "a republic only in name." Mr. Washington 
 sees some millions of Negro citizens "governed without 
 their consent," if we may so interpret his words. Mr. 
 Platt is looking only at those qualities the possession 
 of which must be a condition precedent to even "the 
 capacity to consent," if the government is to endure. 
 And to Senator Platt s utterances is added an additional 
 significance. He was addressing himself immediately 
 to the question of the possibility of maintaining a 
 self-governing republic, in fact as well as in form, in a 
 country wherein about one-third of the people were 
 of the race for which Mr. Washington is the usually 
 accredited American spokesman. The author of the 
 "Platt Amendment" was discussing the future of Cuba. 
 
 We have been taught in this republic, taught from 
 national infancy, to encougage similar forms of govern 
 ment always and everywhere. And it is apparently 
 
 * Coloured American Magazine, Aug. 1906, pp. 76, 77. 
 
394 The American Race Problem 
 
 hard for us to accept the seemingly bitter truth that 
 for some people other systems are better, and that 
 some people are not adapted to ours. Forty years 
 ago we began the experiment of forcing another race 
 into our political mould, apparently confident that a 
 constitutional straight-jacket could create a self- 
 governing man. We have been loath to admit our 
 failure, and we are reluctant to recognise the results 
 of even practical experience which elsewhere adds 
 weight to the evidence which we are so unwilling to 
 believe. Cuba is but another addition to the list of 
 failures recorded against the self-governing efforts of 
 the Negro in the United States, in Haiti, in Jamaica, 
 in Liberia, in South Africa. Yet, as long as there is 
 any possible or impossible alternative hypothesis upon 
 which to account for the poor fiasco which has so recently 
 made necessary our second occupation of the island, we 
 accept it and nurse it and in it try to find a prop to our 
 failing faith. 
 
 In 1898, and in the city of Boston, while the country 
 was ready to go into hysteria over "Cuba Libre," the 
 latest born of American republics, a cold-blooded, non- 
 sentimental student ventured a forecast which is worth 
 recalling. After a severe characterisation of the Negroes 
 of the island he said: " Such are the liberators of Cuba. 
 The Cuba Libre of the blacks would be a veritable hell 
 upon earth, a blot upon Christian civilisation. . . . 
 Knowing the island as I do, I fear that an independent 
 Cuba will be an impossibility. As an American colony 
 she will blossom and bring forth her increase. Then, 
 
The Negro in Politics 395 
 
 and then only, will the black plague of central and 
 eastern Cuba cease to be a nightmare. It is a question 
 of time. Cuba will be the brightest spot in the colonial 
 possessions of the United States."* 
 
 "We are in danger of becoming another Haiti if 
 left to ourselves," said a prominent Cuban tobacco 
 grower to William Inglis, after the recent revolution. 
 He added: "You have noticed among the soldiers 
 in the rebel army many Negroes with their front teeth 
 filed down to sharp points like saw teeth. This is a 
 form of personal decoration in vogue among the black 
 dandies of the Congo. There are in this island many 
 thousands of Negroes not one step higher in civilisation 
 than those you find in the African jungles. These 
 fellows take the field with any leader to whom they 
 are attached. They do not ask why they are taking 
 up arms, so long as they are following their chiefs, 
 living on the fat of the land and hoping for a life of ease 
 in office when the so-called war is ended. "f And 
 upon his own observation Mr. Inglis concurred. 
 
 The man most familiar with the West Indies and 
 the West Indian Negro, himself a native of Massa 
 chusetts, records this conviction: "There are those 
 who declare that English rule in the West Indies is 
 retardative, even retrogressive, as exemplified in the 
 Bahamas ; but when we reflect what a bulwark England 
 has provided against the ever-threatening flood of 
 
 *"Cuba: Past, Present and Future," Dr. Wolfred Nelson, F. R. G. S. 
 "Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science," 
 Boston, 1898, pp. 552, 553. 
 
 t "The Future of Cuba," North American Review, Nov. 16, 1906, p. 1039. 
 
396 The American Race Problem 
 
 black barbarians, we cannot but admit that she is 
 entitled to the gratitude of civilised humanity in general. 
 But for British officialism in the West Indies, with 
 its prestige of might behind it and visible cordons of 
 soldiers around it, there are many islands which would 
 soon resemble Haiti in other and blacker features than 
 complexion merely."* 
 
 And what of Haiti, as we pass along? The same 
 authority says: "What an outspoken editor of a local 
 paper, the Gazette du Peuple, wrote more than twenty 
 years ago applies to the condition of affairs in Haiti 
 to-day: For sixty-eight years, or from the date of 
 our national existence, what have we done? Nothing, 
 or almost nothing. All our constitutions are defective, 
 all our laws are incomplete, our customs badly adminis 
 tered, our navy is detestable, our police ill-organised, 
 our army in a pitiable state, our finances rotten to the 
 base, the legislative power is not understood and never 
 will be, the primary elections are neglected, and our 
 people do not feel their importance. Nearly all our 
 public edifices are in ruins; the public instruction is 
 almost entirely abandoned. "f 
 
 Recalling Mr. Roosevelt s appeal for a ratification 
 of the treaty with Santo Domingo, in order to "save" 
 that country from anarchy, we may ask ourselves, 
 what is to be our future part in the affairs of these 
 Dominican, Cuban, and Haitian cousins of our own 
 "brothers in black"? Will we recognise the truth, as 
 
 * "Our West Indian Neighbours," Frederick A. Ober. 1904, p. 7. 
 t "Idem " p. 163. 
 
The Negro in Politics 397 
 
 England long since recognised it? Or will we sacrifice 
 good government, good order, and good sense to the 
 fetich of racial equality? But that is another story. 
 
 A few years ago this writer suggested that it would 
 be wise for us frankly to take account of the ignored 
 mulatto factor in the American race problem. The 
 conviction has deepened that unless we do, there is 
 no shore to the sea upon which we shall drift in our 
 aimless and fruitless discussion of a .question as broad 
 as the English-speaking world. If we have reached 
 the conviction that there are in fact no fundamental 
 differences of race ; if we believe that there are no differ 
 entiating racial traits and tendencies in the life history 
 and heritage of the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the 
 Negro then of course we need not concern ourselves 
 about the byproducts resulting from a blending of 
 either of these with another. But if we believe that 
 each of these races, no matter how much like the others 
 along certain broad lines, possesses its own distinguishing 
 characteristics, then in any consideration of the problems 
 which arise from the contact of race with race we are 
 unwise to ignore the connecting link between the two. 
 
 It is very convenient for the Southern white man to 
 include everybody with a trace of Negro blood under 
 the general race designation. Nothing is more human 
 than that the Northern white man who happens to be 
 interested in the Negro should insist upon the privilege 
 of claiming for his protege* credit for any and everything 
 accomplished in the work of the world by men whom 
 
398 The American Race Problem 
 
 the South calls Negroes, no matter how straight the 
 hair or how fair the skin. Possibly it is natural that 
 the man of mixed blood who finds himself identified 
 with the Negro by the dominant element of both sections 
 of the country, should accept the classification 
 bitterly, sullenly or cheerfully, according to tempera 
 ment should accept it and make the best of it, for 
 either himself or the race to which he is assigned. 
 Certainly it is natural that the Negro masses, ever 
 ready to identify themselves, or be identified, with 
 people mentally or physically of a higher type, should 
 with few exceptions welcome the mulatto as an equal, 
 follow his leadership, and even resent the drawing of a 
 line between themselves and him. All this may be 
 natural, but the combined influence of Northern and 
 Southern white men, and of Negro and mulatto, can 
 no more perpetuate it than they could make perpetual 
 any other absurd and unscientific fiction. 
 
 The mulatto is not a Negro, and neither written 
 nor social law can make him one. By consent of all 
 parties, including himself, he may be called a Negro. 
 But we can no more make a Negro by such a process 
 than we can alter the life traits and nationality of a 
 Russian peasant by bestowing upon him an English 
 name. The essential fallacy which underlies this 
 classification will sooner or later make the latter im 
 possible to maintain. The South has certain more or 
 less definite convictions on the question of Negro 
 inferiority. If all mulattoes are Negroes there is 
 scarcely one such conviction which may not be rendered 
 
The Negro in Politics 399 
 
 wholly absurd by the achievements in science and art 
 and letters of persons of mixed blood. The North has 
 idealised the gentleness, docility, good nature, non- 
 resentment, affection, amiability, and so forth, of the 
 Negro character. The danger to this theory which 
 lies in the failure to differentiate the two types may be 
 read in the words of the best student we have of the 
 Jamaica "black," Mr. William Pringle Livingstone. 
 Strongly sympathising with the subject of his study, 
 he says: "The loose nomenclature which prevails 
 has frequently injured the reputation of the Negro; 
 he has been made responsible for faults of which he is 
 not guilty, and for movements and deeds in which he 
 has taken no part."* He deprecates this "habit of 
 the outside world," and approves the "right distinction, 
 made and adhered to by all concerned" in Jamaica. 
 There is no purpose here to do more than suggest a 
 line of thought on a subject which demands, and some 
 time must receive, the attention of students of the 
 race problem. Mr. Livingstone s observation brings 
 us to the point we had in view in touching the subject 
 at all in this connection. We have been discussing 
 the Negro as a political factor in self-governing com 
 munities. This writer frankly admits his conclusion 
 to be that without regard to the question of potential 
 self-governing capacity, the Negro as the world knows 
 him to-day, is politically a failure. If we wish to couch 
 it in other terms, we might say that as a race, excluding 
 
 *" Black Jamaica, A Study in Evolution," London, 1899, pp. 6, 7. The 
 allusion is evidently to the so-called "Gordon riots" of 1865, led by a mulatto 
 of that name. 
 
400 The American Race Problem 
 
 individual exceptions, he has not yet developed, in 
 his process of evolution, the instinct, or idea, or capacity 
 necessary to successful participation on equal terms 
 with the higher branches of the white race in a self- 
 governing system. It is idle to deal in superlatives, 
 and characterise racial traits and limitations as "per 
 petual," "unchangeable," and so forth. "Perpetual" 
 means a longer stretch of time than this writer cares 
 to deal with. I do not even pretend to say what the 
 Negro may or may not finally develop in the field of 
 self-governing capacity. I am concerned here only 
 with the practical facts of the immediate past and 
 present. This much, however, I am willing to venture: 
 If ever the Negro masses shall develop the necessary 
 ability, the capacity of intelligent consent, they will 
 enjoy their share in the government of the country of 
 which they may form a part; but as long as they are 
 content to remain, or do remain, "the driven cattle 
 of the political arena," to borrow a phrase from Mr. 
 Roosevelt s Harvard address, they will not be permitted 
 to share "equally" in the government of English- 
 speaking white men where their numbers are suffi 
 cient to menace white control. And I am not con 
 cerned to limit the proposition to any section or any 
 country.* 
 
 This view of Negro political capacity seems to be 
 shared by the pronounced "pro-Negro" English pub- 
 
 * It must be constantly borne in mind that this entire discussion deals with 
 the Negro masses, the childish millions of the race. There are many indi 
 viduals, of apparently unmixed blood, who constitute a safe, intelligent, 
 honest, respectable property-holding minority. 
 
The Negro in Politics 401 
 
 licist and administrator, Mr. Sydney Olivier. The 
 article from which we quote was commended in the 
 highest terms by various "race papers" in this country, 
 but no mention was made of the real heart of his dis 
 cussion. Mr. Olivier says, frankly enough: "The 
 recently emancipated slave is not qualified for political 
 self-government under electoral institutions. I go 
 further and say that the Jamaican Negro of to-day, 
 after two generations of emancipation, is not qualified 
 for self-government." To this he adds: "It is quite 
 possible to justify a political generalisation not as a 
 truth, but as a working formula that it is advisable 
 to restrict the franchise where the majority of the 
 population are Negro peasants. But it is not possible, 
 either as a working political formula, or as an anthropo 
 logical theorem, to justify a generalisation that there 
 is any political or human function for which coloured 
 persons are disqualified because of their African blood."* 
 
 Here we have a recognition of another political factor, 
 one neither white nor black. It comes to view in 
 drawing the line between "black" and "coloured," 
 as known to Jamaica between "Negro" and 
 "mulatto" as known to the United States. 
 
 There can no longer be a question as to the superior 
 intelligence of the mulatto over the Negro of his 
 higher average potential capacity. It is not clear, 
 however, that if clothed with authority, without the 
 steadying influence of general white control, he would 
 
 * "The White Man s Burden at Home," International Quarterly, April, 
 pp. ai, 22. 
 
402 The American Race Problem 
 
 use his power with wisdom. The capacity of a mulatto 
 to administer an executive office, in a department 
 under white supervision at its head, is one thing. The 
 ability of any group of mulattoes to govern a country 
 with a mulatto and Negro population is quite another. 
 The mulatto shares the inheritance of a double racial 
 ancestry, and just as he derives his superior mental 
 endowment from his white forebears, so does he in 
 herit their traits with their blood. The American 
 or Jamaican mulatto is not the mulatto of the Spanish 
 or French West Indies, or of Central America or Brazil. 
 Nor should the "coloured" type in British South Africa, 
 the descendants of English, Dutch, and Scotch paren 
 tage, be confused with the Portuguese half-caste of 
 Angola. 
 
 The infusion of Negro blood has played its part in 
 Central American "revolutions," and Spanish mulattoes 
 have furnished their share of the political and military 
 "leaders" of these affairs. The general condition of 
 Haiti may truthfully be described as more brutishly 
 degraded than that of Santo Domingo, but the political 
 stability of the yellow "republic" is no greater than 
 that of the black. Liberia is practically under the 
 absolute political control of its mulatto element, with 
 "Anglo Saxon" rather than Latin blood. It is a de 
 cadent state, it is true, but it has never been cursed 
 with the revolutionary turmoil which has characterised 
 Latin American peoples with an infusion of Negro 
 blood, or Dominican mulattoes with their infusion of 
 French and Spanish, 
 
The Negro in Politics 403 
 
 It would be merely speculative to say that the higher 
 types of American mulattoes would have developed 
 into a safe and conservative political element had 
 they not been so violently thrust into the position of 
 joint leaders with unscrupulous white men of an 
 ignorant, half -barbarian horde of superstitious and 
 emotional Negro children. This, however, was their 
 fate. They went up like the rocket, and came down 
 like the stick. A part, and an unfortuately prominent 
 part, of the saturnalia which has passed into history 
 as "Reconstruction," they have shared with the carpet 
 bagger and scalawag the odium which always attaches 
 to leadership under a corrupt and vicious regime. The 
 rehabilitation of their political reputation, or the 
 building of a new one, is a matter which rests almost 
 entirely in their own hands. They are largely the 
 architects of their own political fortunes. If they 
 insist upon continued political identification with 
 the Negro masses, merely for the sake of retaining a 
 constituency which they can control, that is their 
 concern, not ours. 
 
 To return to Mr. Olivier. As individuals we may 
 or may not fully accept either branch of his proposi 
 tion. But we would be wise to recognise the line which 
 he draws. He says that Negroes are accorded equal 
 opportunities and privileges with the coloured man, 
 but adds: "In practice it is the rule that the pure 
 Negro does not show the capacity and ambition of the 
 man of mixed race, and there are consequently few 
 persons of pure African extraction in positions of high 
 
404 The American Race Problem 
 
 consideration, authority or responsibility."* In other 
 words, the exceptional Negro is recognised as such, 
 while, with a common sense which we would do well 
 to practise ourselves, the rule is also recognised that 
 it is the man of colour, the mulatto, who really shares 
 in the administration of the government or fills private 
 positions demanding ability and character. We appoint 
 a host of mulattoes to office, with here and there a Negro, 
 and with a solemnity which would be amusing were its 
 results less serious, proclaim our purpose to be the 
 "rewarding" and "stimulating" of "worthy blacks." 
 North and South we have identified the mulatto and 
 the black man politically. We have forced the two 
 into political life on equal terms, and both on terms of 
 equality with the white man. Then when the com 
 bined forces of the two, the Negro masses almost in 
 variably led by the mulatto, have threatened the white 
 man s political supremacy, we have had riots and blood 
 shed and anarchy. And who has been the chief suf 
 ferer? The Negro, almost without exception, just 
 as it is the Negro who to-day suffers the results of 
 strained relations and racial ill feeling when a mulatto 
 is appointed to office over local protest. 
 
 But even Mr. Olivier fails to recognise the most 
 important result which accrues to Jamaica through 
 this drawing of an inter- racial colour line, with the 
 consequent fuller recognition of the mulatto by the 
 white man. Nor does any American writer with whom 
 
 * "The White Man s Burden at Home," International Quarterly, April, 1905, 
 p. 9- 
 
The Negro in Politics 405 
 
 I am familiar manage to reach the reason for the ab 
 sence of friction between the races in Jamaica, and 
 the absence of agitation by "the Negro." For one 
 thing, we have there only an insignificant handful 
 of white people, and they of the governing class. There 
 is practically an absence of a white proletariat. And 
 where this condition obtains, whether here and there 
 in the South, or in Jamaica, or elsewhere, there is almost 
 entire freedom from racial friction, save along the 
 one line of political contact. And the white people of 
 Jamaica and the authorities in England combined to 
 remove that ground of friction forty-two years ago. 
 Jamaica was reduced from a substantially self-govern 
 ing to a Crown Colony by the process, but the Negro 
 was eliminated from politics. 
 
 In the second place, whether we want to or not, 
 we are forced by the fact to recognise that the racial 
 agitation for "rights" of one kind or another, is not 
 the work of the Negro. Save in rare instances it is 
 the mulatto who is the heart and soul of these com 
 plaints. And in the Jamaican system the mulatto 
 is given no cause to complain, by being granted privi 
 leges which are as fully accorded in no place where he is 
 identified with the Negro. By also admitting the 
 few Negroes who prove their capacity, a line is drawn 
 between these two groups and the black mass while 
 in this country we insist upon a single inclusive classi 
 fication. 
 
 If Mr. Olivier had been as familiar with conditions 
 in Cape Colony as one should be who claims to study 
 
4 o6 The American Race Problem 
 
 the question broadly, he would have known that the 
 situation for which he blames the Southern people 
 is not peculiar to the South. I have a letter before 
 me from one of the leaders of "coloured," not "native," 
 thought in South Africa. The writer was educated 
 in England and has travelled in the Southern and 
 Northern states of America. He declares that "there 
 is not a state in the South of the Union in which condi 
 tions for the coloured man are half as hard, taken on a 
 whole, as here in my native country." Mr. Colquhoun, 
 out of his abundant experience, writes: "The bitter 
 note in the South African native press comes, as a 
 matter of fact, chiefly from a special class, those who 
 are neither white nor black."* Mr. Colquhoun thinks 
 these "half-castes" have no real grievance at the Cape, 
 as they are under no restrictions "save those imposed 
 by social custom." Apparently we cannot escape the 
 "social aspect" of the problem, either in America or 
 Africa. He tells the South African "coloured" man 
 that "if he wants to see a country where he may ride 
 in any part of the train or tram, provided he is well 
 conducted, walk where he pleases, fill any post save 
 the highest administrative ones, follow any trade or 
 profession and be treated with respect if he deserves 
 it, he must go, not to the Southern states where he has 
 the franchise, but to Jamaica where he has not, and 
 where he has actually been deprived of some of the 
 rights he once possessed, "f 
 
 * "The Africander Land," A. R. Colquhoun, 1906, p. 120. 
 p. 124. 
 
The Negro in Politics 407 
 
 This question of differentiating between the "native," 
 or Negro, and the " coloured," or mulatto class, is now 
 engaging the serious attention of commissioners and 
 individuals in South Africa, and it is altogether pos 
 sible that they may evolve some scheme after the 
 Jamaican plan. Our political system, and our sectional 
 and partisan manner of treating the subject, would 
 probably render impossible any such formal action in 
 America. If it came at all it would have to be as a 
 gradual process of evolution. And whether it ever 
 comes or not will depend largely upon the coloured 
 class themselves. Looking at the matter squarely 
 and candidly, in the light of the history of race relations 
 here and elsewhere, there is no escaping certain fairly 
 definite conclusions as to the course of such rela 
 tions. First, the white race bases its opinion of 
 all members of the Negro race upon its observation 
 of the types with which it is most familiar, which 
 accounts for the difference between Northern and 
 Southern opinion of "the Negro." The attributes 
 of the mass thus become identified with colour, and 
 are attached naturally to all individuals of that colour. 
 The white attitude toward individual members of the 
 race will in the main be determined by white attitude 
 toward the mass. 
 
 Second, the natural tendency is to associate the 
 disability of colour, under which the Negro universally 
 labours as a race, with all persons having any visible 
 admixture of Negro blood. This tendency operates 
 more or less strongly as the persons of mixed blood 
 
408 The American Race Problem 
 
 identify themselves in a greater or less degree with 
 Negroes of unmixed blood. Third, the pronounced 
 voluntary identification of themselves with Negroes is 
 largely sentimental on the part of most mulattoes who 
 do so. In many cases they are much more white than 
 Negro, and often belong in law to the former race. 
 Fourth, the white race will not discriminate between 
 the Negro and mulatto until they first discriminate 
 between themselves. Whether such inter-racial dis 
 crimination would be followed by similar white action 
 here as fully as in Jamaica, under our system at this 
 time, is problematical. That such an internal line is 
 developing there is abundant evidence; that it will 
 some time make itself felt, over the protests and efforts 
 of mulatto leaders, is not unlikely.* 
 
 The absence of divisional lines is characteristic of all 
 embryonic social organisations. As the organisation 
 develops, lines develop, and social groups, "sets" or 
 "circles" come into existence, each with its own fairly 
 distinct membership. As long as the number of higher 
 types of either Negroes or mulattoes might be insuffi- 
 
 * I have never discussed the matter, personally or by correspondence, with 
 any mulatto "leader" who was willing to admit that any such line was possible, 
 likely, or desirable. I have discussed it with few of the rank and file who did 
 not favour it, and frankly own the opposite view. The reasons in each case 
 are obvious. It should be remarked here that no absolutely exclusive line is 
 openly established in Jamaica. The coloured class is recognised as such, but 
 this does not mean that no black man is admitted to this class, on the one hand, 
 or that every mulatto is admitted, on the other. Those persons of mixed blood 
 whose habits, tastes, and acquirements identify them with Negroes, find their 
 1 evel with the masses of that race. The occasional individual, without apparent 
 admixture of white blood, whose education, habits and capacity tend to sepa 
 rate him from the blacks, finds his way into the mulatto class. As to the more 
 intimate social relations between "coloured" and "black" I am not prepared to 
 peak. 
 
The Negro in Politics 409 
 
 cient to form separate social organisations the line 
 of cleavage between the two would hardly become 
 apparent. With increasing development the possibility 
 of distinct cultural groups increases, and the movement 
 toward separate organisation along colour lines nor 
 mally follows. It came about in Haiti.* It is indis 
 putably existent in Liberia. Here and there it makes 
 itself felt in America, f 
 
 Whether such physical separation ever takes place 
 or not, we are foolish to ignore the existence of the 
 differences upon which it might be based. And no 
 where is this truer than in our treatment of the Negro 
 in politics. If we wish to appoint mulattoes to office 
 (and, barring an occasional apparent exception, they 
 are here, just as in Jamaica, the only ones who receive 
 positions of any importance), let us not do so under an 
 almost inexcusably ignorant misapprehension. We 
 have reached the point where we should know and 
 
 * Christophe was probably primarily responsible for the line between the 
 blacks and mulattoes. Even a strain of white blood has never been popular 
 in Haiti. Mr. Ober says that Toussaint 1 Ouverture was not held in as high 
 esteem as either Christophe or Dessalines, because "he was a coloured man 
 in whose veins ran the blood of the hated blanc." "Our West Indian Neigh 
 bours," p. 169. 
 
 t The colour line has been drawn occasionally in the selection of officers for 
 the most prominent coloured woman s organisation in this country. Not long 
 since the same thing came out in a "mass meeting" in Washington, to protest 
 against certain features of the public school management. According to a 
 local paper the origin of the trouble was a report that "a committee of mulat 
 toes" had called on the superintendent of schools "to ascertain if it were not 
 possible to draw a colour line in the coloured schools; that is to have the black 
 Negroes attend one class and the lighter coloured Negroes another." It was 
 charged that the black children "are coerced into attending the manual training 
 school, while the lighter coloured pupils are encouraged to attend the M Street 
 High School and fit themselves for teachers places." Washington Herald, 
 Jan. 31, 1907. I have attended services in a coloured church in Washington 
 in which not a Negro was present. The minister, choir and congregation were, 
 on the occasion in question, without exception mulattoes. 
 
410 The American Race Problem 
 
 realise that such appointments are devoid of the signi 
 ficance to the Negro which our cherished delusions 
 may honestly have attached to them. We like to 
 imagine that our democratic institutions possess the 
 subtle virtue of destroying not only class but racial 
 distinctions as well. In fact they have done, and can 
 do, neither. Human nature is older than the Consti 
 tution of the United States. It is also probably more 
 permanently established. 
 
 Men fall by nature, or at least naturally, into both 
 class and racial groups. The most our institutions 
 have been able thus far to do, is to make possible the 
 rise of individuals from their class or racial environment . 
 It is not likely that more than this can be done. Cer 
 tainly it is humanly impossible to abolish either class 
 or racial lines. In the case of the Negro masses a class 
 and a racial line run in concentric circles. There are 
 a few old English words at the use of which we need 
 lessly shy in this country. One of these is "peasant." 
 The Negro masses of America at present form a peasant 
 class, and we could much more truly help them by 
 frankly recognising the fact. Every race has its 
 peasant stage, and in his evolutionary processes the 
 Negro is no exception to the rule. It seems to me 
 to be the part of wisdom to recognise the existence of 
 this great class, numbering millions of people, to recog 
 nise it frankly as such, and to wisely study its neces 
 sities and honestly administer to its needs. It does 
 not need politics, and it does not need agitation. In 
 the words of Mr. Roosevelt, at Tuskegee, and of Booker 
 
The Negro in Politics 411 
 
 T. Washington everywhere, it does need the friendship 
 and cooperation of the Southern white men among 
 and with whom its life must be lived. It needs trained 
 and educated teachers; it needs education along moral 
 lines ; it needs an honest, moral and educated ministry ; 
 it needs protection, encouragement and advice from 
 the white man nearest at hand; and it needs to be let 
 alone.* Above all it needs to be dissociated in the 
 minds of politicians, doctrinaires, and practical men 
 from the higher mulatto class, which they constantly 
 but unconsciously have in mind in all their considera 
 tions and discussions of "the American Negro." 
 
 After all is said that can be said of abstract right and 
 duty, of justice and oppression, of constitutions and 
 laws, of Negroes and mulattoes and white men in pol 
 itics, to this complexion does it come at last: "The 
 suffrage never has been and is not to-day regulated 
 on any other principle than expediency." This is 
 the sane conclusion of a review of the history of American 
 suffrage by one of the foremost living American his 
 torians, Professor McMaster, of the University of 
 Pennsylvania. He was discussing the question of 
 
 * One of the most pernicious influences to-day operating upon the general 
 situation is the Northern mulatto agitator. He is generally utterly ignorant 
 of Southern conditions, and frequently equally so of the Southern Negro whom 
 he would keep in constant turmoil. In enumerating what he calls "the elements 
 of danger in the present situation," Booker T. Washington mentions first of 
 all the advice of extremists among Northern Negroes, with "little knowledge of 
 actual conditions in the South," "to resort to armed resistance or the use of 
 the torch in order to secure justice." He has spoken nothing truer than when 
 he said that such "incendiary utterances from black men in the North will 
 tend to add to the burdens of our people in the South rather than relieve them." 
 "Future of the American Negro," pp. 205, ao6. But evidently he was using 
 "Black" in its poetic sense. 
 
412 The American Race Problem 
 
 suffrage in relation to our colonial dependencies, and 
 his summary is applicable to the political problems 
 presented by all backward races, to the Negro equally 
 with the Filipino: "Congress is indeed morally bound 
 to give the very best government that circumstances 
 will permit; but it is also morally bound not to be 
 carried away by theories of human rights which even 
 the States themselves ignore. We have no such thing 
 as unrestricted universal suffrage. In the states east 
 of the Mississippi no woman may cast a ballot for 
 governor, for a congressman, or for Presidential electors. 
 Yet in each of them are numbers of women who own 
 property and pay taxes amounting sometimes to 
 thousands of dollars a year. What government derives 
 its just powers from their consent? Are they not 
 taxed without representation? Do they not obey 
 laws in the making of which they have no voice? All 
 this is utterly inconsistent with the broad doctrines 
 on which our republican form of government is founded. 
 The truth is, the suffrage never has been and is not 
 to-day regulated on any other principle than expe 
 diency. Nor is this to be regretted. No government 
 is worth a rush unless it is practical ; and to be practical 
 it must not be in advance of the intelligence and ca 
 pacity for self-government possessed by the people for 
 whose welfare it has been created. This has been 
 the characteristic of every government yet set up 
 in state or territory, and it is greatly to our credit; 
 and this is the course we must pursue in the treatment 
 of any people, whatever their stage of civilisation, 
 
The Negro in Politics 413 
 
 4 
 
 who may come to us with new acquisitions of territory."* 
 And he might have added, or who have themselves 
 been already " acquired." 
 
 And if it be asked, what is expedient or wise, and 
 who is to judge of its wisdom or expediency, we 
 need not go far for an answer. The judges will be those 
 who are able to enforce their decree, and to compel the 
 approving verdict of the world upon their course. 
 Forty-one years ago in Boston a farseeing man thus 
 foretold whose this voice would be if the then impending 
 conflict were forced upon the Negro and the white man 
 in the South: "It may be asked, why not demand 
 suffrage for coloured men, in season for their vote in the 
 business of reorganisation? My answer is I assume 
 that the coloured men are in favour of those measures 
 which the Union needs to have adopted. But it would 
 be idle to reorganise those states by the coloured vote. 
 If the popular vote of the white race is not to be had 
 in favour of the guarantees justly required, then I am 
 in favour of holding on just where we now are. I am 
 not in favour of a surrender of the present rights of the 
 Union to a struggle between a white minority aided 
 by the freedmen on the one hand, against a majority 
 of the white race on the other. I would not consent, 
 having rescued those states by arms from secession and 
 rebellion, to turn them over to anarchy and chaos. I 
 have, however, no doubt, none whatever, of our right 
 to stipulate for coloured suffrage. The question is 
 
 * Annexation and Universal Suffrage, "J. B. McMaster, Forum, December, 
 1898, p. 402. 
 
4H The American Race Problem 
 
 one of statesmanship, not a question of constitutional 
 limitation." And he had just uttered this prophetic 
 declaration: "When the day arrives, which must 
 surely come, when an amnesty, substantially universal, 
 shall be proclaimed, the leading minds of the South, 
 who by temporary policy and artificial rules had been, 
 for the while, disfranchised, will resume their influence 
 and their sway. The capacity of leadership is a gift, 
 not a device. They whose courage, talents and will 
 entitle them to lead, will lead. And these men, not 
 then estopped by their own consent or participation 
 in the business of reorganisation, may not be slow to 
 question the validity of great public transactions en 
 acted during their own disfranchisement. If it is asked, 
 in reply, What can they do? and What can come of 
 their discontent? I answer, that while I do not know 
 just what they can do, nor what may come of it, neither 
 do I know what they may not attempt, nor what they 
 may not accomplish. I only know that we ought to 
 demand, and to secure, the cooperation of the strongest 
 and ablest minds and the natural leaders of opinion 
 in the South. If we cannot gain their support of the 
 just measures needful for the work of safe reorganisation, 
 reorganisation will be delusive and full of danger."* 
 A generation later another Northern man moralised 
 in this wise upon one concrete instance of the "anarchy 
 and chaos" against which Governor Andrew had fore 
 warned triumphant partisanship s unlistening ear: 
 
 * Valedictory Address. Gov. John A. Andrew, to Massachusetts Legislature, 
 Jan. 4, 1866, Mass. Senate Doc. No. 2, pp. 18, 15, 16. 
 
The Negro in Politics 415 
 
 "No one who has witnessed the condition of affairs 
 in the South can believe that the Negro is, at the present 
 time, capable of governing. All his efforts in this 
 direction have been lamentable, direful failures. 
 On the other hand, no one acquainted with the spirit 
 and temper of the Southern people believes that the 
 Negro, whatever his future capacity may be, will be 
 allowed to govern the white race. These two assertions, 
 that the Negro cannot govern, and that the white men 
 will not let him govern, are axioms."* 
 
 Perhaps we may learn something from the conclu 
 sions of yet another Northern man, a citizen of the 
 great state of which Andrew was governor. He is a 
 historian of the modern school, and in closing the labour 
 of nineteen years he expresses this conviction: "No 
 large policy in our country has ever been so conspicuous 
 a failure as that of forcing universal Negro suffrage 
 upon the South. . . . From the Republican 
 policy came no real good to the Negroes. Most of them 
 developed no political capacity, and the few who 
 raised themselves above the mass did not reach a high 
 order of intelligence. At different periods two served 
 in the United States Senate, thirteen in the House; 
 they left no mark on the legislation of their time; none 
 of them, in comparison with their white associates, 
 attained the least distinction. When the Southern 
 states recovered home rule, Negroes were of course 
 no longer sent to Congress from the South but they 
 
 * "The Race War in North Carolina, " Henry Litchfield West, Forum, Jan, 
 1899, p. 590- 
 
4i6 The American Race Problem 
 
 have had a fair chance at the North where they obtained 
 the suffrage in every state within a few years after the 
 Civil War. Politically very active and numerous 
 enough in some of the Northern states to form a political 
 force, that has to be reckoned with, no one of them 
 (I believe) has ever been sent to Congress; few get 
 into legislature or city council. Very few if any are 
 elected to administrative offices of responsibility. 
 The Negro s political activity is rarely of a nature to 
 identify him with any movement on a high plane. 
 He takes no part in civil service or tariff reform; he 
 was not a factor in the contest for honest money; he 
 is seldom, if ever, heard in advocacy of pure municipal 
 government and for him good government associations 
 have no attraction. He is greedy for office and emolu 
 ment; it is for this reason that he arrogantly asserts 
 his right to recognition; and he has had remarkable 
 success in securing offices under Federal Government. 
 In a word, he has been politically a failure and he could 
 not have been otherwise. In spite of all the warnings 
 of science and political experience, he was started at the 
 top and, as is the fate of most such unfortunates, he fell 
 to the bottom. . . . His old masters, who under 
 stood him best and who, chastened by defeat and by 
 adversity, were really his best friends, were alienated. 
 He fell into the hands of rascals who through his vote 
 fattened on the spoils of office. He had a brief period 
 of mastery and indulgence during which his mental 
 and moral education was deplorable /and his worst 
 passions were catered to. Finally by force, by craft 
 
The Negro in Politics 417 
 
 and by law his old masters have deprived him of the 
 ballot, and, after a number of years of political power, 
 he has been set back to the point where he should have 
 started directly after emancipation. He is trying to 
 learn the lesson of life with the work made doubly hard 
 by the Saturnalia he has passed through."* 
 
 And from it all what lesson do we learn? Nowhere 
 in all our public life does partisan intent and thought 
 approach so dangerously near to criminal act as when 
 it seeks for selfish ends to keep alive the torch it lighted 
 from the flames of war. Responsibility goes with 
 power, and those in control of the Government to-day 
 are the same, as party goes, who placed the ballot in 
 the Negro s childish hand. When the South in despera 
 tion took it from him by art or force, she was denounced 
 as for a common crime. When her older, wiser men 
 devised a means by which the Negro s racial history 
 and traits could be invoked to his own and the white 
 man s good, still fault was found. The cry of fraud 
 was raised, and threats were made. Those who have 
 control of the machinery of government owe this much 
 to the country: They should either take action or let 
 the matter rest. Quadrennial threats are entirely 
 sufficient to keep the Negro vote in line, it is true. 
 The pitiful thing about that vote, as many of the ablest 
 of the race admit, is the ease with which it can be kept 
 in line by threats against the South or promises to itself. 
 
 * "History of the United States," James Ford Rhodes, Vol. 7, pp. 168, 169, 
 
418 The American Race Problem 
 
 But these platform threats only serve to provoke and 
 perpetuate a sectionalism which fattens politicians 
 throughout the country but injures the country itself. 
 
 And the country has a right to demand from politi 
 cians some definite action in the case. The threat 
 should be executed, or this should be said to the Negro: 
 You are an American citizen. As such you derive 
 your political privileges only from the state wherein 
 you reside. You have been the object of Congressional 
 solicitude for forty years, and it has profited you noth 
 ing. . Take the matter up yourselves with the white 
 people of your respective states, and see if you two 
 cannot come to terms at home. To the South should 
 be said: After more than a generation of worse than 
 fruitless strife, we propose to leave the matter of Negro 
 suffrage to you and the Negro. We shall look to you 
 two for at least better results than we have been able 
 thus far to secure without your aid. 
 
 It is of course too much to hope that local politicians 
 will cease to use the Negro vote, either as a tool in one 
 section or a scarehead in the other. But the great 
 body of American people have a right to expect some 
 thing more from men in control of national affairs. 
 A glance at the record shows that not one platform 
 has ever been framed by the party which has been 
 almost unbrokenly in power since the Negro was eman 
 cipated which has not contained its "Negro plank." 
 Almost invariably the other great party has answered 
 in kind. And in each case it is mere brutum fulmen 
 an opfra bouffe affair, with the Negro occupying the 
 
The Negro in Politics 419 
 
 centre of the serio comic stage. There is nothing 
 substantial in these periodic threats. 
 
 One of the most astute politicians this country has 
 produced, James A. Garfield, after as earnest delibera 
 tion and as thorough study as the question is ever 
 likely to receive, more than twenty-five years ago 
 openly abandoned the effort to reduce Southern repre 
 sentation, as an impracticable proposition. He found 
 that the framers of the XIV. Amendment had authorised 
 a line of action for the execution of which they had 
 palpably failed to provide the necessary machinery. 
 Yet we go ahead with our strife-breeding policy, and 
 every four years hoodwink the Negro and stir up the 
 South by a threat which cannot be enforced, and prob 
 ably is not intended to be. It is idle to talk about 
 the Negro having been "removed from politics" in the 
 South, as long as Northern state and national platforms 
 and politicians use him to furnish an exhaustless supply 
 of ammunition for consumption South of the line. 
 It is equally idle to talk of a division among Southern 
 white people as long as Republican presidents deliber 
 ately and tenaciously adhere to a policy which guar 
 antees a "solid South." 
 
 We need be neither radicals on the one hand nor 
 doctrinaires on the other in this matter. We need 
 only have the courage and wisdom to face the truth. 
 And it is as true to-day as when John A. Andrew talked 
 to his people, that any plan of action, any policy, any 
 line of conduct, which concerns the Southern Negro 
 and ignores, or cannot secure, the support and coopera- 
 
420 The American Race Problem 
 
 tion of the Southern white man, is "delusive and full 
 of danger." The question is to-day as truly one of 
 statesmanship, rather than constitutional limitation 
 or right, as it was when Governor Andrew so declared 
 it to be in 1866. The Southern white man, in the face 
 of handicaps and obstacles which might well have 
 palsied a less determined people, has demonstrated 
 his ability absolutely to control his domestic affairs, 
 regardless of the Negro within or the white man without. 
 It cannot be questioned that he will do so in the future, 
 as he has in the past. Whatever share in that control 
 the Negro masses may be permitted to have, can come 
 only as a grant from those who hold it within the hollow 
 of an iron hand.* 
 
 Every policy of this Government which has touched 
 the Negro s political life has been based upon the as 
 sumed opposition of the Southern people. And failure 
 
 * Like the preceding paper this discussion is immediately related to concrete 
 incidents. In another form it was submitted for magazine publication during 
 the national campaign of 1904. The Republican platform of 1900 denounced 
 as "revolutionary" the efforts of state governments "to avoid the purpose * 
 of the XV. Amendment. The Democratic platform was silent on the subject. 
 The Republican platform of 1904 declared in favour of Congressional action to 
 determine whether the franchise had been "unconstitutionally limited" by 
 any state, with a demand for a reduction of representation in Congress and 
 the electoral college if such limitation were found to exist. The Democratic 
 platform replied by "deprecating" such efforts "to kindle anew the embers of 
 racial and sectional strife." My interest in the action of each convention was 
 largely that of a student of the race problem, and I observed as closely as possible 
 the effect of the Republican declarations upon Southern white people and on 
 Negroes generally. The net result, absolutely the only result, was the contin 
 ued support of the Negro in doubtful States (which was certain in any event) , 
 and the furnishing of texts to Southern speakers. Seven years have elapsed 
 since 1900 and three since 1904, yet there has been no "investigation" and 
 no "reduction." But the Negro is pitifully gullible, and can be influenced as 
 easily by similar declarations in 1908 as he has been in the past. I believe 
 there are to-day many thousands of people in the Southern States who would 
 actually welcome any Congressional action in the matter, eyen to a reduction 
 
The Negro in Politics 421 
 
 is written large across the record. Why not raise the 
 matter out of the quagmire of present politics and 
 ancient sectionalism, and frankly leave it where it 
 belongs, and where the very logic of its inherent ele 
 ments inevitably must some day place it, with the 
 people of the South, both white and black? Why not 
 try the plan? Its execution would be extremely 
 simple. What the Negro needs just now is a political 
 "rest cure." His daily litany should include a prayer 
 to be let alone. 
 
 of representation, if only it would be final, and would put an end to the 
 periodic agitation of the subject. My own belief is that such action is wholly 
 impracticable, for the fundamental reason that it is impossible to devise any 
 means for determining the basis of reduction. There is simply no machinery 
 for ascertaining the number of voters who merely fail to go to the polls, and the 
 number who are "unconstitutionally prevented" from voting. This writer 
 is not a politician, and his interest in politics is wholly abstract. The conviction 
 is non-partisan and disinterested that the cessation of national political agitation 
 of the subject would inevitably be followed by similar cessation in the States, 
 from both of which the Negro masses would be the chief beneficiaries. 
 
PART FOUR 
 AN UNCONSIDERED ELEMENT 
 
 IX. THE MULATTO FACTOR IN THE RACE PROBLEM 
 
IX 
 
 THE MULATTO FACTOR IN THE RACE PROBLEM 
 
 IT IS a matter of regret that in organising the twelfth 
 census it was determined to attempt no separate 
 enumeration of the mulatto element of our population, 
 using the term in its popular sense, as denoting all 
 persons having any admixture of white and Negro 
 blood. It will not do to say that the failure to do this 
 will in any wise affect the solution of our race problem, 
 for to do so would be to regard it as admitting of a 
 sort of blackboard treatment, the only essentials to 
 success being an array of statistics and their proper 
 handling. But anyone who endeavours to go beyond 
 the superficialities of the problem to do something 
 more than academically consider, from his particular 
 standpoint, its external symptoms must feel that 
 such data would at least be of value, whatever ideas 
 he may entertain as to its ultimate solution. 
 
 Any consideration which fails to reckon this mulatto 
 element as an independent factor ignores what is pos 
 sibly the most important feature of the problem, and 
 is faulty in its premises, whatever the theoretical con 
 clusion arrived at. Yet we see this constantly done, 
 and of the hundreds of such discussions annually en- 
 
 * From the Atlantic Monthly, May, 1903. 
 
 425 
 
426 The American Race Problem 
 
 gaged in, it is safe to say that scarcely one is entirely 
 free from this blunder. There appears in them but a 
 single " problem," and every panacea proposed educa 
 tion, voting, industrial training, or what not is made 
 to fit the same Procrustean bed. It is a primal postulate 
 of these discussions that the Negro is an undeveloped 
 not an inferior race. They fail to realise that back 
 wardness and inferiority, as long as the backward 
 state exists, are for all practical purposes synony 
 mous terms. To this basic error may be attributed 
 much of the confusion which surrounds the entire 
 subject. 
 
 We have too long been guilty of the folly of trying 
 to legislate the Negro into a white man, and a pyramid 
 of failures has apparently not yet convinced us of the 
 futility of the undertaking. We have ignored the 
 scientific truth of the ethnic differences among the 
 human family, and have blindly disregarded the fact 
 that the Negro, in common with all other races, pos 
 sesses certain persistent, distinguishing characteristics. 
 Foolishly attempting to evade the stubborn fact that 
 the Negro in Africa is to-day just what we know him 
 to have been since he first appeared on that continent, 
 we have sought in slavery an excuse for the natural 
 and inevitable resemblance between the native and 
 transplanted branches of the family, and have pro 
 ceeded toward the American Negro as though heredity 
 could be overridden by constitutions and laws. Prob 
 ably nothing has contributed more toward the persis 
 tence of this effort at creating an artificial being than 
 
The Mulatto Factor 427 
 
 the absolute elimination of the mulatto equation from 
 all our considerations of the subject. 
 
 It is this that has enabled those who have so long 
 ignored the laws and operations of heredity to point, 
 in proof of the correctness of their theory of race- 
 problem treatment, to the achievements of men loosely 
 accredited to the Negro race. Unless through dis 
 cussion the American people be able to reach a common 
 ground, a century of polemical strife will accomplish 
 no tangible good; and I know of no surer means of 
 reaching a working agreement than by the frank 
 acknowledgment of the mulatto factor in the race 
 problem. I would not be guilty of complicating a 
 situation already sufficiently complex, through the 
 introduction of a new factor ; I rather hold to the hopeful 
 belief that the consideration of one which already 
 exists, though commonly ignored, may at least serve 
 to simplify discussion, even though it fail at once to 
 point a way out of existing difficulties. When we 
 recognise the very simple and very patent fact that 
 the intermixture of white and black races has given 
 us a racial type that is neither the one nor the other; 
 when we get far enough along to separate this type 
 from the Negro masses in our efforts at determining 
 what may be best for the latter; when the South is 
 willing to lay at the white man s door many of the 
 failings of this mulatto type and much of the meanness 
 which he too frequently exhibits, and Northern opinion 
 is sufficiently candid and honest to persist no longer 
 in ascribing all his virtues and accomplishments to the 
 
428 The American Race Problem 
 
 Negro, I think we shall have made a distinct gain in 
 race-problem discussion. 
 
 One of the greatest needs in the equipment of those 
 who discuss the Negro from a distance is a better knowl 
 edge of the real Negro, and nothing would so promote 
 this knowledge as a recognition of the fact that in credit 
 ing his race with the achievements of its mulatto element 
 they but becloud the question. How may we reason 
 ably hope to know what is best to be done for the 
 Negro until we first truly grasp the facts of his moral 
 and intellectual possibilities and limitations, as well 
 as needs? And how may we hope to do this under 
 our present method of treating the subject? 
 
 In reviewing the work of the most distinguished 
 writer accredited to the Negro race though he has 
 scarcely a visible trace of Negro blood in his veins 
 the foremost living American author has used this 
 language: "They [referring to the mulattoes] need 
 not be ashamed of the race from which they have 
 sprung, and whose exile they share; for in many of the 
 arts it has already shown, during a single generation 
 of freedom gifts which slavery apparently only ob 
 scured." This criticism develops the very foundation 
 of the theory upon which all such discussions are based, 
 and which we have referred to above that the Negro 
 is an undeveloped, not an inferior race that in all 
 essential particulars the white man and the black are 
 by nature equally endowed. Thus is placidly ignored 
 the truth that the Negro is one of the oldest races of 
 which we have any knowledge, and that its very failure 
 
The Mulatto Factor 429 
 
 to develop itself in its own habitat, while the Caucasian, 
 Mongolian, and others have gone forward, is in itself 
 sufficient proof of inferiority. Conveniently disregard 
 ing the fact of the persistence of a racial status fixed 
 several thousand years ago, they tell us that forty 
 years of freedom are not enough to develop "gifts 
 which slavery apparently only obscured." 
 
 The years, both of slavery and of freedom, passed 
 by the Negro on this continent constitute but an insig 
 nificant span in the life of that people; yet if we blot 
 out the achievements of the American Negro who has 
 passed through slavery, what has the race left to boast 
 of? And if we but go one step farther, and from the 
 achievements of the "American Negro" obliterate 
 all that the American mulatto has accomplished, what 
 ground indeed would be left to those whose sentiment 
 and sympathy have apparently rendered them so forget 
 ful of scientific truth? 
 
 In 1902 a movement was inaugurated in Congress 
 looking to the investigation of the suffrage laws of the 
 various states. No attempt was made to conceal the 
 real purpose of the movement and even though we go 
 so far as to credit the proponent of the measure with 
 honesty of opinion as to its necessity, what must be 
 thought of his wisdom, and of the point of view from 
 which he would have the so-called "investigation" 
 made, when he himself, in the face of the facts of history 
 and the experiences of recent years, calmly affirms that 
 "there is no doubt that the Negro is capable of un 
 limited development," and declares his belief in the 
 
430 The American Race Problem 
 
 virtue of "participation in politics" as a means of "up 
 lifting the race"? Yet such is our looseness of expres 
 sion in discussing this question, that to challenge either 
 the wisdom or correctness of such views is to hear, as their 
 sole support, a recital of the achievements of "famous 
 men of the Negro race," while, as a matter of fact, the 
 names brought forward are merely those of well-known 
 mulattoes from Murillo s favourite pupil, down to 
 Crispus Attucks, Benjamin Banneker, Douglass, Bruce, 
 Lynch, DuBois, Washington, Chesnutt, and others. 
 
 I am well acquainted with the exceptions that may 
 be urged here, but this is a plea for greater scientific 
 precision in laying the foundations of race-problem 
 study and treatment, and the student of Negro eth 
 nology knows that these exceptions are more apparent 
 than real. The traffic which furnished slaves to the 
 Americas and the West Indies was no respecter of 
 ethnic distinctions, and, while the great majority of 
 those brought over were pure Negroes, through it a 
 few of the higher types of Fulah and other stocks found 
 their way into foreign servitude, and with their blood 
 have occasionally transmitted some measure of their 
 ability. Othman dan Fodio, the poet chief of the Fulahs, 
 was no more a Negro than was Othello, nor was Abdul 
 Rahaman, the Moorish chief, who was a Mississippi 
 slave in the early part of the last century. Thus it 
 will not answer to cite such sporadic examples as the 
 revolutionary leadership of Toussaint L Ouverture,* 
 
 * ft is now stated by the best West Indian student we have, Mr. Ober, that 
 even Toussaint was a man of mixed blood. 
 
The Mulatto Factor 431 
 
 the political cunning of Elliott, or the ballads of 
 Dunbar. 
 
 Just as the crossing of the Spaniard upon the Indian 
 has given us the mestizo of Central America and Mexico, 
 so the blending of white and Negro blood has given us 
 a type which combines some of the racial characteris 
 tics good and bad of both its progenitors. But 
 in a sane treatment of the race question this hybrid 
 can no more be regarded as typical of the potentiality 
 of the Negro than can Porfirio Diaz be considered an 
 index to the "undeveloped ability" of the native 
 Mexican Indian whose blood he has in part inherited. 
 It would certainly seem to be the part of wisdom frankly 
 to recognise the Negro s own racial characteristics and 
 honestly study them. But this cannot be done so 
 long as in our consideration of the problem of what 
 is best to be done for him we continue to confuse the 
 great mass of American Negroes with the exceptional 
 mulatto types, and point to the accomplishments of 
 the latter as evidence in support of crass and precon 
 ceived notions as to the capacity of the former. 
 
 When free from white or mulatto influence, the Negro 
 masses are of a contented, happy disposition. They 
 are docile, tractable, and unambitious with but few 
 wants, and those easily satisfied. They incline to 
 idleness, and though having a tendency to the com 
 mission of petty crimes, are not malicious, and rarely 
 cherish hatred. They care nothing for "the sacred 
 right of suffrage," and, when left to their own incli 
 nations, will disfranchise themselves by the thousand 
 
432 The American Race Problem 
 
 rather than pay an annual poll-tax. They infinitely 
 prefer the freedom and privileges of a car of their own 
 to the restraint of one in which they would be com 
 pelled to mingle with white people. Surrounded by 
 larger possibilities for material betterment than have 
 ever been possessed by any land-tilling people in the 
 world, in the peaceful enjoyment of church and lodge, 
 they fret not themselves because of evil-doers, nor 
 trouble about "participation in politics," nor suffer 
 dreams of social equality to mar the peaceful tenor 
 of a care-free mind. 
 
 No truer utterance was ever made, nor one which 
 contains more of wise and helpful suggestiveness, if 
 but taken to heart, than the declaration of Major- 
 General N. P. Banks, to a Boston audience in 1864, 
 that "the people of the North are much more disturbed 
 and distressed at the condition of the Negro than he 
 is^ himself." This is the real Negro, the Negro of the 
 masses, not the artificial product of vicious advice or 
 ill-considered philanthropy. As such, he presents few, 
 if any, serious problems, and none which he may not 
 himself work out, if let alone and given time. But it 
 will be an individual rather than a race solution: the 
 industrious will, as children, acquire a common school 
 education, and as adults will own property; those 
 capable of higher things will find for themselves a field 
 for the exercise of their talents, just as they are doing 
 to-day ; the vicious and shiftless will be as are the vicious 
 and shiftless of other races. 
 
 If we will but study the true sources of the agitation 
 
The Mulatto Factor 433 
 
 over "Negro disf ranchisement, " "Negro cars," the 
 deprivation of "the Negro s rights," etc., it will be 
 found that in it all the Negro takes but an insignificant 
 if any part. The cry that goes up over "the lack of 
 opportunities under which the Negro labours," and 
 the "injustice of race distinctions," does not proceed 
 from the Negro. It is the voice of the mulatto, or that 
 of the white politician, that is heard. If the statutes 
 of those states which have been charged with discrimi 
 nating against the Negro were not in any wise enforce 
 able against the mulatto, I strongly suspect that Amer 
 ica s race problem would speedily resolve itself into 
 infinitely simpler proportions. 
 
 Through the medium of race papers and magazines, 
 the pulpit, industrial and political gatherings and 
 associations, the mulatto wields a tremendous influence 
 over the Negro. It is here that his importance as a 
 factor in whatever problems may rise from the Negro s 
 presence in this country becomes manifest, and the 
 working out of such problems may be advanced or 
 retarded, just as he wisely or unwisely plays the part 
 which fate or Providence has assigned him. The 
 Negro, like the white man, responds more readily to 
 bad influences than to good, and the example and 
 precepts of a hundred men like Washington may be 
 easily counteracted by the advice and influence of 
 men of whom the mulatto type unfortunately furnishes 
 too many examples. Booker Washington may in all 
 sincerity preach the gospel of labour; he may teach 
 his people, as a fundamental lesson, the cultivation 
 
434 The American Race Problem 
 
 of the friendship and esteem of the white man; he may 
 point out the truth that for the Negro the privilege 
 of earning a dollar is of much greater importance than 
 that of spending it at the white man s theatre or hotel; 
 yet all these lessons must fail of their fullest and best 
 results so long as the Negro s mind is being constantly 
 poisoned with the radical teachings and destructive 
 doctrines of the mulatto of the other school. 
 
 The most prominent mulatto editor of the country 
 is credited by the Washington Post with having de 
 clared that he was "tired hearing about good niggers, 
 that what he wanted was to see bad niggers, with guns 
 in their hands." One of the leading race papers in 
 the country, published at the national capital, in enum 
 erating certain things which it would like to see occur, 
 as being beneficial to the Negro, included "the death 
 of a few more men like Charles Dudley Warner," and 
 this merely because that good man and true friend of 
 the Negro had, shortly before his death, reached and 
 expressed conclusions concerning Negro higher educa 
 tion at variance with opinions he had formerly enter 
 tained. With Booker Washington crying peace from 
 the housetops, and the most widely read and influential 
 of race magazines silently furnishing to the private 
 precincts of the home and chimney corner stories re 
 volving around themes of race prejudice, and appealing 
 to passion and hate, together with articles which would 
 inculcate lessons dangerous to even a stronger people, 
 which voice is in the end likely to prove more potent 
 in its influence upon this childish race? 
 
The Mulatto Factor 435 
 
 In 1902 the country was shocked by the horrible 
 affair growing out of the murder of two New Orleans 
 policemen by Robert Charles while the bloody 
 affrays in Alabama and Georgia in which the Negroes 
 Henderson and Brewer, and several white men, lost 
 their lives may be easily recalled. At the time there 
 appeared in the most prominent coloured magazine in 
 the country a leading article demanding continued 
 race agitation, and in these words glorifying these 
 murderous criminals as martyred heroes, worthy of 
 emulation: " We have produced a Bob Brewer in 
 Georgia, a Robert Charles in Louisana, and a Will 
 Henderson in Alabama, and we have hopes of having 
 similar exhibitions of courage in all of the Southern 
 states." This same magazine printed a biographical 
 sketch of the editor whose inflammatory utterances 
 have been quoted above, which, in speaking of his 
 father, used this language: "Everybody in Jackson 
 County not only knew that he was a dead shot, but 
 that he would shoot. That is not a bad reputation 
 for an Afro-American to have in the South even at 
 this time." Such utterances might be indefinitely 
 multiplied, but I have mentioned enough to illustrate 
 the point I wish to emphasise the existence of a 
 distinct mulatto factor in our race problem, and the 
 fact that, while in some quarters its influence is being 
 directed as wisely as may be possible, there is in it 
 a large and powerful element that is wholly bad. 
 
 The varied tragedy of human life furnishes few more 
 pathetic spectacles than that of the educated mulatto 
 
436 The American Race Problem 
 
 who is honestly seeking the welfare of a race with which 
 a baleful commingling of blood has inexorably iden 
 tified him who is striving to uplift to his own level 
 a people between whose ideals and ambitions and 
 capabilities and his own a great gulf has been fixed 
 by nature s laws. Frequently inheriting from the su 
 perior race talents and aspirations the full play of 
 which is denied him by his kinship with the inferior 
 - through no fault of his own he is doomed to be an 
 anach*6nsrrr^in American political and social life. 
 A generous mind should not too sweepingly condemn 
 his occasional outbursts of bitterness, but rather wonder 
 that they are not more frequent than they are. Just 
 in proportion as their numbers diminish or increase, 
 and their great influence be potential for good or for 
 evil, will the problem of the future become the problem 
 of the colour line. But that of the present, whatever it 
 may be adjudged to be, is still the problem of the Negro. 
 While it so remains, let us treat it as such, by consider 
 ing it in its simplest terms; and in seeking the real 
 good of the real Negro let us invoke the aid of the best 
 and wisest of that class with which he has so long and 
 to so little purpose been confused. 
 
 THE MULATTO 
 
 In your issue of June 27* you print a communication 
 
 * An open letter to the Outlook, August 8, 1903. The appearance of the 
 preceding paper created considerable discussion, most of which wholly mis 
 construed the purpose and meaning of the writer. This open letter was written 
 in the hope of making clear the real intent and spirit behind the article. It is 
 reproduced here as a conclusion to a very elementary discussion of what this 
 writer believes to be a very important subject, that of the mulatto s part in the 
 race problem. 
 
The Mulatto Factor 437 
 
 from the Rev. Thomas Nelson Baker correcting a con 
 struction which an editorial of yours had placed upon 
 his reference to my article on the mulatto. I have 
 no quarrel with Mr. Baker s comments upon my utter 
 ances, and have no desire to consume your space and 
 tax the patience of your readers by indulging in an 
 idle controversy. But the conclusion indicated in this 
 communication demands, it seems to me, some reply. 
 
 All that I attempted to do in the article in question 
 "The Mulatto Factor in the Race Problem" was to 
 set forth briefly certain features of the "problem" 
 which it appears to me to be unwise to ignore in our 
 consideration of it. At most, I could make so short a 
 discussion merely suggestive, and no more than this 
 was contemplated by me. 
 
 I have no fault to find with those who take issue 
 with me, but I do object to having entirely incorrect 
 motives ascribed to me, and false conclusions drawn 
 from my words. The fact that this has been done by 
 so many of my critics to say nothing of one or two 
 unintentionally misleading "interviews" on the subject 
 warrants me in making this correction. 
 
 My position is simply that, in its mental and moral 
 equipment, if I may so express it, the Negro race is 
 the inferior of the white ; that most of the men who have 
 come to the front as " race leaders, " and who are pointed 
 to as the highest intellectual types of the race, are, 
 in fact, not really Negroes under any exact defini 
 tion of the word, as descriptive of a race; that these 
 mulattoes, from their position of leadership, wield a 
 
438 The American Race Problem 
 
 large influence over the more than nine millions of 
 our population classed as Negroes and that it be 
 hooves them to see to it that that influence should be 
 for good rather than for evil. 
 
 I do not mean to say that there are no pure Negroes 
 who have risen to eminence in this country, and I 
 would be the last to ignore such as have. I speak, 
 however, of the masses of the race when I ascribe 
 to it certain characteristics, just as I refer to the large 
 body of "race leaders" when I speak of them as mulat- 
 toes. This does not mean to say that there are not 
 many Negroes who have risen superior to the character 
 of the mass, any more than it means to say that every 
 man is fitted for high station in the race just because 
 he happens to be a mulatto. 
 
 Mr. Baker speaks of the "poor thinking" the white 
 man is capable of "when dominated by prejudices and 
 preconceived opinions." It is this, and the term 
 "negrophobist," used by some of my critics, to which 
 I take exception. The people of this country, North 
 and South, white and black, have misunderstood and 
 abused each other long enough over this "race question " 
 to have learned that nothing is to be gained by using 
 harsh terms and indulging in recrimination. Neither 
 section, neither race, can lay claim to the exclusive 
 possession of all the wisdom on the subject, nor justly 
 charge the other with all the prejudice and ignorance. 
 The situation demands a large measure of sympathy 
 and charity from all sides, and the according of honest 
 motives to honest thought, even though it lead to 
 
The Mulatto Factor 439 
 
 conclusions at variance with one s own. He who can 
 not criticise without the questioning of motive who 
 cannot differ without indulging in reproach or abuse 
 cannot justly claim much of that kindly feeling which 
 should characterise any discussion of the race question 
 to give it one of its highest elements of value. 
 
FIVE 
 
 PAPERS BY WALTER F. WILLCOX 
 
 I. NEGRO CRIMINALITY 
 II. CENSUS STATISTICS OF THE NEGRO 
 
 III THE PROBABLE INCREASE OF THE NEGRO RACE 
 IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
I 
 
 NEGRO CRIMINALITY* 
 
 THE number of prisoners in the United States 
 was reported at the last census, showing those 
 of African descent and those of pure white blood. In 
 the Southern states there were six white prisoners to 
 every ten thousand whites and twenty-nine Negro 
 prisoners to every ten thousand Negroes, f This seems 
 to indicate that the liability of an American Negro to 
 commit crime is several times as great as the liability 
 
 * An address delivered before the American Social Science Association at 
 Saratoga, September 6, 1899, preceded in its printed form by the following 
 note : The right of one born and reared almost within sight of Bunker Hill to 
 speak on the Negro question may perhaps be challenged. Yet one who knows 
 the passions aroused by the Civil War only through hearsay, and the Negroes 
 mainly through type and as a college teacher, gains a remoteness and per 
 spective that should help him to be fair-minded, clear-sighted and outspoken. 
 In some quarters, too, a Northern student may get credit for these qualities 
 more easily than a Southerner or a man of affairs, and contribute his mite to the 
 formation of public opinion. 
 
 In preparing my manuscript for the printer, I have made full citation of 
 authorities, being willing to risk the appearance of pedantry, if thereby I might 
 aid anyone to find the main sources of my information. I have been greatly 
 aided by correspondents, especially in the South, all of whom have answered the 
 inquiries of a stranger with the utmost courtesy; and I gladly take this oppor 
 tunity to express my grateful thanks to Mr. Leroy Daniel, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, 
 Mrs. T. M. Greene, Dr. George H. Hepworth, Ex-Governor W. J. Northen, 
 Mayor G. L. Simpson, and Booker T. Washington. 
 
 This address was delivered before the results of the Census of 1900 and of the 
 enumeration of Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents taken in 1904 were avail 
 able and no changes in its text have been made for the present volume. Some 
 indication of the manner in which the argument might be modified by a consid 
 eration of later figures will be found in an article in the forthcoming issue of the 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica on "Negroes in the United States." 
 
 t Eleventh Census, "Crime, Pauperism, and Benevolence," I., p. 125 and 
 II., P.3. 
 
 443 
 
444 The American Race Problem 
 
 of a white. But those who are unwilling to admit this 
 inference sometimes urge that the judicial system of 
 the South is almost entirely in the hands of the whites, 
 and that it is not administered with impartiality to the 
 two races. They claim that a Negro is convicted, on 
 the average, upon less evidence than is required to con 
 vict a member of the dominant race; that, if found 
 guilty, he is less likely to escape prison by paying a fine; 
 and that, if both are imprisoned, the Negro is likely to 
 receive a longer sentence for a like offense. To meet 
 these objections to the entire satisfaction of the person 
 raising them would probably be difficult or impossible, 
 and so, for the sake of my argument, let me for the 
 moment admit their validity. If one thinks they 
 furnish an adequate explanation of the large number 
 of Negro prisoners in the South, he may be asked whether 
 they lie also in the North. Does it take less evidence 
 to convict a Negro here, or is a Negro s sentence for the 
 same offense likely to be longer? Such a claim has 
 never to my knowledge been raised. Yet in the 
 Northern states, in 1890, there were twelve white 
 prisoners to every ten thousand whites, and sixty-nine 
 Negro prisoners to every ten thousand Negroes. In 
 our own state of New York the Negroes, in proportion 
 to their numbers, contributed over five times as many 
 as the whites to the prison population. These facts 
 furnish some statistical basis and warrant for the popular 
 opinion, never seriously contested, that under present 
 conditions in this country a member of the African race, 
 other things equal, is much more likely to fall into 
 
Negro Criminality 445 
 
 crime than a member of the white race. This is the 
 unanimous opinion of the Southern whites, and is con 
 ceded by representative Negroes. Thus, among the 
 resolutions adopted by the Negro Conference at Hamp 
 ton, Va., in July, 1898, was the admission that "the 
 criminal record of the coloured race in all parts of the 
 country is alarming in its proportions."* 
 
 The Negro prisoners in the Southern states to ten 
 thousand Negroes increased between 1880 and 1890 
 29 per cent., while the white prisoners to ten thousand 
 whites increased only 8 per cent.f Here, again, to the 
 obvious inference that crime is increasing among the 
 Negroes much faster than among the whites, the same 
 objection is sometimes raised, namely, that prejudice 
 against that race is so influential in the South as to 
 invalidate the argument. The same appeal as before 
 to the figures for the North and West constitutes a 
 convincing reply to any such contention. In the states 
 where slavery was never established, the white prisoners 
 increased 7 per cent, faster than the white popula 
 tion, while the Negro prisoners increased no less than 
 39 per cent, faster than the Negro population. Thus 
 the increase of Negro criminality, so far as it is reflected 
 in the number of prisoners, exceeded the increase of 
 white criminality more in the North than it did in the 
 South. To bring the facts home, I may add that for 
 New York State in 1880 there were sixteen white pris 
 oners to every ten thousand white population; and in 
 
 * Hampton Negro Conference. No. 2, p. n. 
 
 t Compare preceding citation from the Eleventh Census with the Tenth Census. 
 XXL, p. 479- 
 
446 The American Race Problem 
 
 1890 the proportion has risen to eighteen. But the 
 Negro prisoners of the state in 1880 were seventy-seven, 
 and in 1890 one hundred to every ten thousand Negroes. 
 These figures serve to show both the higher rate and 
 the more rapid increase of Negro criminality, and in 
 both respects New York is a fair type of the conditions 
 elsewhere in the country. In these figures one finds 
 again some statistical basis for the well-nigh universal 
 opinion that crime among the American Negroes is 
 increasing with alarming rapidity.* In further support 
 of this conclusion, I may quote the concession of the 
 Negro who is perhaps doing as much as any member 
 of his race to throw light upon its present condition. 
 Professor DuBois, of Atlanta University, in a recent 
 address before the Negro Academy, said: "The Negro 
 Academy ought to sound a note of warning that would 
 echo in every black cabin in the land. Unless we 
 conquer our present vices, they will conquer us. We 
 are diseased, we are developing criminal tendencies, 
 and an alarmingly large percentage of our men and 
 women are sexually impure, "f 
 
 Let us grant, then, that there is a large amount and 
 
 * The serious difficulties in the way of comparing the criminal tendencies of 
 different classes by inferences drawn from the statistics of prisoners are ably 
 stated by R. P. Falkner, "Crime and the Census" (in "Annals American Aca 
 demy," January, 1897). I do not believe that his objections vitiate my inferences 
 in the guarded way in which they have been stated. While the statistics of 
 prisoners in one way which he has pointed out exaggerate the criminal tendencies 
 of Negroes, yet a comparison between the prisoners and persons of all ages 
 tends to understate the true criminality of a race, a disproportionate number 
 of which are children, and so under the criminal age. These two obstacles to 
 accuracy in quantitative statements of the amount or increase of crime thus 
 tend to neutralise each other. 
 
 t W. E. B. DuBois, "The Conservation of Races," p. 14 (in American Negro 
 Academy, Occasional Papers, No. 2). 
 
Negro Criminality 447 
 
 a rapid increase of Negro crime in the United States. 
 This gives rise to a serious practical problem How 
 may this amount be reduced or at least the increase 
 checked? The answer to that largely depends upon 
 the answer to a more theoretical question, which will 
 define my theme this morning What are the causes 
 of Negro crime? If those causes can be detected and 
 removed or counteracting causes set at work, the 
 practical problem will have been advanced toward 
 solution. 
 
 The criminal is one who refuses to obey the laws 
 of the community in which he lives. Such obedience 
 to the law in the face of temptation is not an instinct 
 or birthright, but a product of training, and in the 
 great majority of instances that training is obtained 
 in the family. The primary cause of crime, therefore, 
 is defective family life and training. Hence crime is 
 most common during the years just after a child has 
 passed out of the control of the family, and while he is 
 finding himself ill-adapted by his past training to the 
 new sphere of life. In proportion to population of 
 the same age, the prisoners between twenty and thirty 
 are much more numerous than those of any earlier or 
 later age period;* and, if the date of committing the 
 first crime could be ascertained and that is the 
 important time the juvenile character of our criminal 
 population would appear yet more clearly. This youth- 
 fulness in comparison with the population outside is 
 characteristic of all classes of prisoners, but preemi- 
 
 * Eleventh Census, "Crime, Pauperism, and Benevolence," I., p. 163 
 
448 The American Race Problem 
 
 nently of the Negroes* a fact which tends in a measure 
 to confirm the frequent statement that Negro criminals 
 spring especially from the rising generation. If that 
 be so, a further increase of Negro criminality in the 
 future is probable, and this probability renders the 
 situation still more serious. 
 
 Under the slavery regime the Negro had a feeble 
 family life, much of the responsibility for the proper 
 rearing of the family falling upon the master. The 
 emancipated slaves have not been able in a single 
 generation of freedom to develop or to imitate that 
 family life which it has cost the whites many centuries 
 to acquire. The difficulty is the more serious because 
 to-day the conditions of civilised life do not foster the 
 family virtues as they have done in the past. The 
 white race is living on its inherited capital of family 
 organisation and responsibilities; the Negroes have no 
 such capital, but must acquire it, and that speedily, 
 if the race is to survive. 
 
 What is the most effective safeguard against crime 
 that the family furnishes the son or daughter? Not 
 education, not even direct moral or religious training. 
 The Negro and the injudicious among his friends too 
 often look on education and religion as fetiches, that 
 is, something external, the possession of which guar 
 antees the possessor a charmed and happy life here or 
 hereafter. In distinction from these, the most effective 
 safeguard against crime which parents can offer to their 
 children is the desire and ability to support one s self 
 
 * Idem, I., p. 167. 
 
Negro Criminality 449 
 
 by legitimate industry. A formal education is sub 
 sidiary to this; it is important mainly because it in 
 creases the avenues through which self-support is 
 possible. If ever it serves to decrease the desire for 
 self-support, it is to that extent baneful. If ever it 
 decreases the recognised avenues for self-support by 
 arousing the belief that certain lines of legitimate 
 industry are degrading and therefore inadmissible, 
 it is to that extent baneful. This may give a stand 
 point from which to judge the difficult question of 
 Negro education. If the Negro family on the average 
 is far less effective than the white, the education pro 
 vided for Negro children should aim frankly to supple 
 ment the shortcomings of their family life and reduce 
 their temptations to crime by increasing their desire 
 and ability to live by legitimate industry. Probably 
 the best means by which to reach and reenforce the 
 family life of the Negroes is a school system which 
 frankly sets this up as its aim. 
 
 A closely related series of causes for Negro crime 
 may be grouped as industrial. Under the compulsory 
 cooperation of slavery, little competition between the 
 two races was possible. Manual labour in many pur 
 suits, notably those of agriculture, was deemed by the 
 whites servile and degrading. Since the war this 
 motive for the white man to avoid field-work or other 
 forms of manual labour has diminished in importance, 
 and he has gradually entered upon tasks which before 
 the war were closed to him by the pressure of social 
 sentiment. In ceasing to be master he has become 
 
450 The American Race Problem 
 
 competitor, and to the pressure of this competition 
 not a little Negro crime must be attributed. 
 
 Hence it is no digression to invite your attention 
 to some evidence of the increasing competition 
 between the two races. The staple crops upon which 
 the Negroes were occupied before the war were 
 probably cotton, tobacco, sugar, and rice. In 1860 
 the great mass of the work in the cotton fields was done 
 by Negro labour. White labour was used, to be sure, in 
 Texas, but at that time the whole cotton crop of Texas 
 was less than one-twelfth of the country s product.* 
 It would probably be a conservative statement to say 
 that at least four-fifths of the cotton was then grown 
 by the Negroes. The only official estimate for any 
 date since that time is that of the statistician to the 
 Department of Agriculture in 1876.! He concluded 
 that about three-fifths of our cotton was raised in that 
 year by Negroes. At the present time probably not 
 one-half is thus grown. In 1859 Texas produced one- 
 twelfth, in 1897-98 one fourth, { of the cotton of the 
 United States; and, as in that state white labour is 
 usually employed in the cotton fields, the advance of 
 Texas means the advance of white agricultural labour. 
 
 Similar changes have been going on in the tobacco 
 crop. In 1859, 28 per cent, of it was grown in Virginia 
 and mainly, it seems, by Negro labour. In 1899 less than 
 10 per cent, of our crop was grown in that state, and the 
 Virginia crop of that year was less than two-fifths of 
 
 * Eleventh Census, Abstract, pp. 122-125. 
 
 t Department of Agriculture, Report, 1876, p. 136. 
 
 J Department of Agriculture, Year Book, 1898, p. 683. 
 
Negro Criminality 451 
 
 what it had been thirty years before. In 1889 Ken 
 tucky produced over 45 per cent, of the tobacco of the 
 country, while ten years earlier it produced only 36 per 
 cent. American tobacco growing evidently is tending 
 to centre in Kentucky, and yet it is the only Southern 
 state in which the number of Negroes decreased during 
 the last decade. In over half its counties and in the 
 state as a whole, the Negro population decreased while 
 the white increased between 1880 and 1890.* It seems 
 that tobacco growing, like cotton growing, is passing 
 more and more into the hands of the whites. Some 
 light upon this change may be derived from a passage 
 in the last Annual Report of the Secretary of Agricul 
 ture: "The tobacco business has become very highly 
 specialized. Each market has its own requirements, 
 each class of users has its own particular style, and each 
 season brings some change of style which must be met 
 by the tobacco grower. There is a great deal of compe 
 tition in our own country, and very serious competition 
 from abroad. ... To meet this competition, it 
 is absolutely necessary that our farmers should have 
 at their disposal a thorough knowledge of their own 
 conditions, and of the conditions of the soil, climate, 
 methods, and labour conditions of competing districts, "f 
 Of the cane sugar crop of the United States in 1889, 
 over 97 per cent, came from Louisiana; and the increase 
 of yield in the preceding decade was almost confined to 
 that state, where the acreage under cane increased 7 
 
 * Eleventh Census, Abstract, p. 40, and Population, I., 412, ff. 
 t Department of Agriculture, Year Book, 1898, p. 42, ff. 
 
452 The American Race Problem 
 
 per cent, and the yield 42 per cent.* Apparently, the 
 increase of yield in the last ten years, notwithstanding 
 the losses resulting from recent Federal legislation, has 
 been quite as rapid. In a paper read in 1898 before the 
 Louisiana Agricultural Society the statement was made 
 that this rapid increase in the production of cane sugar 
 was " due especially to the establishment of large central 
 factories, "f The machinery in these factories is man 
 aged, I am informed, almost entirely by white men. 
 
 With regard to the rice crop of the country, in 1879, 
 less than one-fourth of the acreage was in Louisiana ; in 
 1889 over one-half was there. J During the last decade 
 the acreage outside Louisiana decreased 42 per 
 cent., while that within the State more than doubled. 
 In this, as in other staple agricultural industries, there 
 has been a marked tendency toward concentration; 
 and the centre of production has passed away from 
 South Carolina, which in 1849 produced three-fourths 
 of our crop, but in 1889 less than one-fourth. This 
 transfer of the rice growing industry is largely due to 
 the superior efficiency of white labour. A pamphlet dis 
 tributed at the Louisiana Building during the World s 
 Fair in 1893 and thus given apparently official indorse 
 ment, says: "Not long since the Carolinas raised the 
 rice of the United States, and the delta of the Mississippi 
 the rice of Louisiana, all done by coloured labour. The 
 immigration agent of the Southern Pacific Railroad 
 
 * Eleventh Census, Abstract, pp. 126-128. 
 
 t State Agricultural Society. Proceedings, Twelfth Session, p. 117 (in 
 Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture, Biennial Report, 1898). 
 t Eleventh Census, Abstract, pp. 130-133. 
 
Negro Criminality 453 
 
 Company induced the men of the Northwest to come 
 into southwestern Louisiana, bringing their improved 
 farm machinery. They supplanted the hook and sickle 
 then in use by twine-binding harvesters, of which many 
 hundred are now employed in the Louisiana rice fields; 
 and this machinery is handled by white men."* Cor 
 roborative evidence is found in a recent paper read 
 before the Louisiana Agricultural Society, which states 
 that there are now in the rice fields of Louisiana nearly 
 five thousand selfbinding harvesters with steam threshers 
 by the hundred, and that artificial irrigation employing 
 steam pumps has been introduced on a large scale. f 
 
 From all the evidence obtainable it seems clear that 
 Southern agriculture is becoming increasingly diversi 
 fied, and is demanding and receiving a constantly 
 increasing amount of industry, energy and intelligence 
 characteristics which the whites more generally possess 
 or more readily develop. 
 
 Some evidence upon the lack of industry of Negro 
 farmers in the black belt of Alabama may be derived 
 from a recent Bulletin of the United States Department 
 of Agriculture dealing with their food. Eighteen fam 
 ilies near Tuskegee, Alabama, were selected as typical 
 and studied by officials of the department in coopera 
 tion with representatives of the Tuskegee Normal 
 Institute. The agent of the Department reported: 
 "The Negro farmer generally works about seven and a 
 half months during the year. . . . The rest of the 
 
 * Southwest Louisiana on the Line of the Southern Pacific Company, pp. 45, ff. 
 t State Agricultural Society. Proceedings, Twelfth Session, p. 39 (in Louisi 
 ana Commissioner of Agriculture, Biennial Report, 1898). 
 
454 The American Race Problem 
 
 time is devoted to visiting, social life, revivals, or other 
 religious exercises, and to absolute idleness. Few farmers 
 work on Saturday even during the busy season of 
 cotton-picking. * 
 
 The same study gives evidence of the poor food supply 
 of the Negro farmers. In the diet of the average Negro 
 family the amount of protein that is, of the material 
 needed to form blood, muscle and bone, and to make up 
 for the wear and tear of the bodily machine was from 
 one-third to three-fourths that which has been found in 
 the diet of well-fed American whites, and "no larger 
 than has been found in the diet of the very poor factory 
 operatives and labourers in Germany and the labourers 
 and beggars in Italy. "f 
 
 In agricultural pursuits the competition between 
 whites and blacks can be traced more clearly than else 
 where, because in that field we have fuller information. 
 Still there is some evidence, derived mainly from state 
 ments of educated Negroes, that in other occupations, 
 also, this competition is seriously felt. 
 
 Thus Professor Hugh M. Browne, of Washington, 
 said, in a speech, delivered in 1894, to a Negro audience: 
 "White men are bringing science and art into menial 
 occupations and lifting them beyond our reach. In my 
 boyhood the household servants were coloured, but now 
 in the establishments of the four hundred one finds 
 trained white servants. Then the walls and ceilings 
 were whitewashed each spring by coloured men; now 
 
 * Department of Agriculture, Office of Experiment Stations, Bulletin 38. 
 "Dietary Studies with Reference to the Food of the Negro in Alabama," p. 18. 
 t Idem, p. 68. 
 
Negro Criminality 455 
 
 they are decorated by skilled white artisans. Then the 
 carpets were beaten by coloured men; now this is done 
 by a white man, managing a steam carpet-cleaning 
 works. Then laundry work was done by Negroes ; now 
 they are with difficulty able to manage the new labour- 
 saving machinery."* 
 
 Similar testimony comes from another Negro, Mr. 
 Fortune, editor of an influential Negro paper. He said 
 in 1897: "When I left Florida for Washington twenty 
 years ago, every brakeman, every engineer and almost 
 every man working on the railroad was a black man. 
 To-day a black man can hardly get a job at any avoca 
 tion. This is because the fathers did not educate their 
 children along the lines in which they were working, 
 and, as a consequence, the race is losing its grip on the 
 industries that are the bone and sinew of life."f At the 
 same conference Mr. Fitch, the field missionary of 
 Hampton Normal Institute, reported that he found 
 the old men everywhere working at the trades they 
 learned in slavery, but nowhere did he find young men 
 learning these trades. J Similarly, Principal Frissell, 
 in the opening address, said: "There is great danger 
 that the coloured people will be pushed out of the occu 
 pations that were once theirs, because white tradesmen 
 are coming to fill their places. "^[ This competition 
 between the races is accentuated by the trade-union 
 policy of exclusion, which often denies Negroes the 
 
 * Reported in A. M. E. Zion Church Quarterly for April, 1894. 
 
 t Southern Workman and Hampton School Record, September, 1897, p. 179. 
 
 J Idem, p. 1 68. 
 
 U Idem, p. 167 
 
456 The American Race Problem 
 
 right of membership in labour organisations, and then 
 opposes the employment of non-unionists, the net result 
 of which is to antagonise the entry or continuance of 
 Negroes in the field of skilled labour.* 
 
 Every improvement in agriculture or industry any 
 where tending to lower the price of a staple product is 
 a spur to former producers. They must meet the situa 
 tion by economies of production or economies of con 
 sumption, by improving their own methods or by living 
 on a smaller return. Those who are sanguine of the 
 future of the Negro in the United States usually rest 
 their hopes upon the evidence of Negro progress since 
 emancipation, measured against some assumed absolute 
 standard. They point to a decreasing illiteracy, to 
 accumulations of. property, to a decreasing death rate, 
 etc. But the test which the race has to face is the test 
 of relative efficiency. If they are to hold their own in 
 this country, they must improve as fast as the whites, 
 and the progress of the Southern whites since emerging 
 from the dark shadows of slavery, the war and Recon 
 struction is one of the marvels of present history. 
 
 * The preliminary report of the Third Hampton Conference offers confirma 
 tory evidence on this point. The Committee on Business and Labour 
 reported on the condition of Negro skilled labour in certain large cities. 
 Of Richmond, Va., they say: "Perhaps two thousand are employed in the 
 iron works. This branch of business was at one time controlled almost 
 entirely by coloured men, but now they are employed chiefly as common 
 labourers, with only here and there a master mechanic." The general 
 trend of the report is summed up as follows: "The trade-unions along 
 the border line of slavery have generally pursued a policy of exclusiveness on 
 account of colour, and refused to include the coloured craftsmen in their scheme 
 of organisation. ... In the North coloured men, when competent, are 
 generally received into local unions and treated fairly. In the South they 
 work side by side, when not organised. When organisation takes place, the 
 coloured workman as a rule is excluded." Southern Workman, September 
 1899, pp. 333, ff. Meagre evidence from other sources does not confirm the 
 above statement so far as it applies to the attitude of Northern trade-unions. 
 
Negro Criminality 457 
 
 Partly under the stress of this competition to which 
 the Negroes are being subjected, partly as a natural re 
 sult of their emancipation, they are gradually drawing 
 apart into social classes. The successful families refuse 
 to associate with those who morally and industrially 
 are stationary or retrogressive. Dr. DuBois has 
 recently made a valuable report on the members of his 
 race living at a small county seat in the Virginia tobacco 
 district. About 260 Negro families were studied, of 
 which 40 belonged to the higher class, 170 to the middle, 
 and perhaps 50 to the lower. He describes the members 
 of the lower class as "below the line of ordinary respect 
 ability, living in loose sexual relationship, responsible 
 for most of the illegitimate children, and furnishing a 
 half-dozen street walkers and numerous gamblers and 
 rowdies. They are not particularly vicious and quarrel 
 some, but rather shiftless and debauched. Laziness 
 and promiscuous sexual intercourse are their besetting 
 sins."* In other words, this class lacks the family 
 virtues and the industrial virtues which have made the 
 white man what he is. It may be styled potentially 
 criminal. A class of such people is found, to be sure, in 
 every civilised country, but in our Southern states the 
 proportion of this potentially criminal class is abnor 
 mally and dangerously large. About one-fifth of the 
 Negro families or over one-tenth of the total population 
 in Farmville are assigned by Professor DuBois to this 
 group. This growing social stratification of the Negroes 
 
 *"The Negroes of Farmville, Va.." p. 37 (in Department of Labour Bulletin, 
 January, 1898). 
 
458 The American Race Problem 
 
 makes all efforts to judge them as a race rather than by 
 classes, localities, or even individuals, increasingly un 
 just and irritating to them. 
 
 The strenuous and increasing industrial competition 
 between the two races often results in local displacement 
 of coloured labor. The Negro cotton grower, unable to 
 live on the decreasing return from his land, gives place to 
 another tenant, white or black, and the former family 
 drifts away. The current of Negroes to the cities is some 
 what greater than that of whites and seems to consist of 
 two classes, those who have earned a promotion to city 
 life by their success in the country or small town, and 
 those who have failed in country life and flow cityward 
 to live on their neighbours or by their wits. Neighbours 
 and pickings are more numerous in an urban community. 
 This Negro driftwood is likely to feel sore toward the 
 whites. The latter are held responsible for the organi 
 sation of society, and their fault it is if the Negro can 
 find in it no place for himself. They cared for him in 
 slavery, and either their old masters or their new eman 
 cipators are bound to furnish him a chance for a liveli 
 hood. He is a voiceless Socialist. Hence this driftwood 
 belongs to the potentially criminal class. 
 
 A third group of causes leading to a large amount and 
 rapid increase of Negro crime may be embraced under 
 the loose term race friction. All witnesses agree that 
 since emancipation the two races have separated more 
 and more in life and thought. Ex-Governor Northen, 
 in an address at Boston in 1899, seems to attribute this to 
 the national policy toward the South during the Recon- 
 
Negro Criminality 459 
 
 struction period.* We may agree with him in part and 
 still believe, as I do, that the industrial competition just 
 sketched was probably inevitable, and is another im 
 portant factor in drawing the races apart. But, what 
 ever be the explanation, the fact is undeniable. Under 
 the slavery system the main motives in governing the 
 Negroes were personal loyalty and force, and the em 
 phasis upon one or the other varied with the character of 
 the work and of the owner or overseer. As the races have 
 drawn apart, this feeling of personal loyalty has become 
 feeble, and many of the whites have felt that the only 
 alternative mode of governing the increasing number of 
 criminals was force, and that the more speedily and surely 
 force could be applied the greater its deterrent influence. 
 But, as the Negroes have separated from the whites, 
 they have drawn or been crowded together, and have 
 come to feel a race unity and race pride, and are develop 
 ing a race public opinion which may prove of great 
 importance in controlling the Negro criminal class. The 
 existence of this Negro public opinion, as distinct from 
 that of the whites, is hardly recognised with sufficient 
 clearness by the dominant race, and to illustrate it the 
 argument must be amplified. This can best be done by 
 the aid of a typical instance, and I have selected for the 
 purpose the series -of events at Palmetto, Ga., in the 
 first four months of 1899, culminating in the death of 
 Sam Hose.f 
 
 *"The Negro at the South," W. J. Northen, p. 7. 
 
 t My information has been gleaned from a file of the Atlanta Daily Consti 
 tution, the only Atlanta daily paper of which the current issues are accessible 
 in the Library of Congress, and from correspondents both white and coloured, 
 in the North and in the South. 
 
460 The American Race Problem 
 
 Palmetto is a town of perhaps six hundred people in 
 a county which contains no place of much greater size. 
 About two-thirds of the county s population are Negro. 
 In the early morning of Tuesday, January 24, 1899, a 
 fire broke out in the centre of the town, destroying the 
 hotel, two stores and a storehouse, and seriously threat 
 ening half the town. Some citizens moved out their 
 goods, through fear that the fire would spread, and in 
 this way they, too, suffered losses. There was little 
 insurance on the property destroyed, and the contem 
 porary newspaper account * throws no light upon the 
 place of origin or the cause of the fire. On the following 
 Saturday morning, not long after midnight, a second fire 
 occurred, by which twelve property-holders suffered 
 serious losses. These fires together destroyed nearly all 
 of the two business blocks in the town. The second was 
 clearly incendiary, for in another block a fire was found 
 the same night kindled against the outside of a store. 
 The Atlanta Constitution of March i yth says )* that two 
 other fires occurred in the same town during February, 
 but I have found no contemporary mention of them in 
 the columns of that journal, and am uncertain whether 
 the statement is correct. A reward was offered for the 
 detection of the incendiaries, but for some weeks all 
 efforts to ferret them out were fruitless. 
 
 About the middle of March evidence was obtained 
 implicating nine Negroes. An editor of an Atlanta daily 
 paper, who made a special investigation of the facts 
 
 * Atlanta Constitution, Jan. 25, 1899, p. 3, col. 5., 
 t Idem, Jan. 29, 1899, p. 4, col. 4. 
 
Negro Criminality 461 
 
 after the terrible climax, has written me that the evi 
 dence against the Negroes consisted in a conversation 
 overheard by a reputable white citizen while in hiding 
 under the house of a Negro, and in a confession of the 
 ringleader. The Negroes were arrested, placed under a 
 guard of six white men, and confined for the night of 
 March i5th in a warehouse at Palmetto to await trial 
 the next morning. A Negro at Atlanta, who also had 
 made a special effort to get at the facts, reported to me 
 that the nine had been examined, released for lack of 
 evidence, and subsequently rearrested. I find no con 
 firmatory evidence of this, and it seems almost certainly 
 incorrect. At the same time I am confident that my 
 informant, who is an impartial aud judicious man, 
 believed it. In that case the two stories illustrate the 
 conflicting accounts accepted even by conservative 
 members of the two races. 
 
 Soon after midnight a masked mob of perhaps fifteen 
 men* pushed open the door of the warehouse, ordered 
 the guards to throw up their hands, and fired two 
 volleys into the nine Negroes, killing four, seriously 
 wounding two, slightly wounding two, and leaving one 
 unharmed. Although the Governor of Georgia offered 
 the largest reward allowed by law, $500, for the arrest 
 of the first member of the mob and $100 for that of each 
 additional member, no one of the criminals was detected. 
 They were said to have come from a distance, but the 
 evidence warrants the conclusion that they probably 
 came from Palmetto or its immediate vicinity. For the 
 
 * Idem, March 17, 1899, p. i, col. i 
 
462 The American Race Problem 
 
 indignation over the fires was most intense in that com 
 munity, and, furthermore, the confession of the Negro 
 leader, apparently the immediate cause of the lynching, 
 was made so shortly before, that the news of it could 
 hardly have spread very far through the scattered 
 population of that region.* As the motives to 
 disclaim responsibility for the action of the mob were 
 obvious and strong, the local statements denying com 
 plicity can hardly be given great weight. If this view of 
 the probabilities be accepted, it throws light upon the 
 action or inaction of the guards. The Negro interpre 
 tation of their conduct is that they were dummies, aware 
 that the lynching party was coming, and sympathising 
 with its action. The whites do not admit this, and yet 
 even they, if the Atlanta Constitution may be deemed 
 their spokesman, felt the guards conduct to be suspi 
 cious. Note the questions asked editorially by that 
 paper: "What was the guard there for? Were the 
 guardsmen asleep while on duty ? What became of their 
 guns while the assailants were shooting down their pris 
 oners? These are questions which should be answered, 
 though it is hard to conceive what answer can be given. "f 
 Whether any members of the mob of lynchers were 
 recognised by the Negroes who survived, it seems 
 impossible to tell. According to newspaper accounts 
 the mask was torn from the face of one, and the leader 
 spoke in giving orders to his followers. Undoubtedly, 
 
 * " It is practically certain now that the news of the confession, which spread 
 quickly throughout the town, brought on the mob yesterday morning." 
 Idem, p. 2, col. 2. 
 
 t Idem, March 18, 1899, p. 4, col. 2. 
 
Negro Criminality 463 
 
 however, many Negroes believed, rightly or wrongly, that 
 members of the squad had been recognised. 
 
 Four weeks later, in the immediate vicinity of Pal 
 metto, Alfred Cranford was killed by a Negro, Sam Hose, 
 and ten days after Hose was put to death by a white 
 mob. So far, and only so far, all accounts agree, but 
 two widely different stories of the accompanying events 
 have been printed, one coming from the whites, the 
 other from the Negroes. I may review and criticise 
 the two narratives in detail. For the Negro version the 
 sources are the report of a detective sent by Northern 
 Negroes to investigate the facts. This was printed both 
 in the New York Age of June 22nd and in briefer form 
 as a letter by Mr. Fortune, the editor of the Age, in the 
 New York Sun of June 2oth. In regard to the events 
 prior to the killing of Cranford, these accounts say that 
 "one or two barns or houses had been burned" at Pal 
 metto, and that the nine coloured men arrested "were 
 not men of bad character, but quite the reverse." The 
 incorrectness of the former statement has already been 
 shown ; that the latter is equally inaccurate appears from 
 the county records of Campbell County, which show 
 that four of the nine had been indicted, the leader five 
 times, another for burglary, and two for misdemeanours.* 
 The Negro story also states that Cranford was killed in 
 the yard, and not in the house. To get light upon this 
 radical difference in the two accounts, I wrote to the 
 Atlanta editor, already mentioned, asking these ques 
 tions: "Was the body of Alfred Cranford found in the 
 
 * Idem, March 18, 1899, p. 2. col. 3. 
 
464 The American Race Problem 
 
 supper room or in the yard?" He answered, "In the 
 supper room." "Do you know this fact of your own 
 knowledge or by testimony of others?" To this his 
 reply was, "Blood showed position ; eye-witnesses testified 
 as to place." In addition to these errors of statement 
 the Negro version reads like a plea, and not an impartial 
 balancing of evidence, and puts aside as untrustworthy 
 the sworn testimony of Mrs. Cranford. 
 
 For these reasons, and others I need not stay to 
 mention, I am compelled to reject what at the first I 
 was disposed to accept this account of the events. 
 Still, in some respects I cannot but believe that it sug 
 gests the probable facts. The version of the whites 
 usually implies that lust was the main motive for the 
 crimes of Sam Hose, and omits as irrelevant all reference 
 to prior events at Palmetto, a view which seems to me 
 untenable. The lynching of the Negroes charged with 
 arson and the crimes of Sam Hose were, perhaps, the most 
 serious results of race friction that have appeared in 
 Georgia of recent years. Assume that the first in no 
 wise caused the second. In that case the chances against 
 both occurring in the same small town and within four 
 weeks of each other would be indefinitely small. I am 
 compelled, therefore, to believe that the close proximity 
 in space and time is evidence that the second was caused 
 in part by the first. That is, the furious wrath kindled 
 among the Negroes of Palmetto by the lynchers was 
 probably a potent influence upon the criminal nature of 
 Sam Hose in bringing about his deed. The criminal 
 nature and the special incentive reenforced each other 
 
Negro Criminality 465 
 
 and the result was a crime at which Georgia and the 
 country stood aghast. The Negro version, as set forth 
 by a correspondent, says that Cranford was conspicuous 
 in that region as "a nigger-hater," and was probably the 
 leader of the party of lynchers four weeks before. 
 Whether that be true or not, it seems likely that the 
 dominant motive for the murder and rape was revenge. 
 On this theory the stoical silence with which Hose bore 
 his tortures, and the evident pride of the Negroes in that 
 silence, receive new meaning. It was the- weapon 
 whereby, even in death, they felt that he triumphed over 
 their enemies and his. 
 
 In the fate of Sam Hose as an individual, I have little 
 interest. I believe the tortures he inflicted upon Mrs. 
 Cranford by the murder of her husband, and in the hours 
 that followed, were more terrible than those he suffered at 
 the stake. But the point I would urge is that the illegal 
 execution of Negroes by lynching, even when torture is 
 added, has an inciting rather than a deterring influence 
 upon the large number of potential criminals. I believe 
 that the lynching of Negroes at Palmetto tended to create 
 the animosity out of which the crimes of Hose sprang, 
 that the tortures and death of Hose tended to create 
 the feeling out of which the crimes at Bainbridge, Darien, 
 and elsewhere sprang. Along such a road one can see 
 no end but a precipice. 
 
 During the Middle Ages such terrible events as have 
 occurred sporadically at the South of recent years were 
 frequent expressions of religious hatred. With the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century, religious animosities 
 
466 The American Race Problem 
 
 receded into the background, and race animosities, 
 resulting from the interpenetration of higher and lower 
 races, came into prominence. The hatred between 
 Catholic and Protestant in Europe appeared in the 
 colonies as hatred between whites, reds, and blacks. 
 Powerful as these modern race passions are in the south 
 ern United States, they are, perhaps, stronger in the 
 Southern Philippines, where religious hatred and race 
 hatred, the medieval and the modern hate par excel 
 lence, concur and reenforce each other. One may per 
 haps forecast the future increase of race hatred between 
 the lower classes of the two races in the South, if the 
 trend be not changed, by reflection upon the attitude 
 of certain Mohammedan Malays toward Christian 
 Caucasians in the Philippine Islands as described by 
 Professor Worcester. 
 
 " Finally, there was a rumour that a band of juramen- 
 tados was about to attack the place. Now a juramen- 
 tado is a most unpleasant sort of individual to encounter. 
 The Moros believe that one who takes the life of a Chris 
 tian thereby increases his chance of a good time in the 
 world to come. The more Christians killed, the brighter 
 the prospect for the future, and, if one is only fortunate 
 enough to be himself killed while slaughtering the 
 enemies of the faithful, he is at once transported to the 
 seventh heaven. 
 
 "From time to time it happens that one of them 
 wearies of this life, and, desiring to take the shortest 
 road to glory, he bathes in a sacred spring, shaves off his 
 eyebrows, dresses in white, and presents himself to a 
 
Negro Criminality 467 
 
 pandita to take a solemn oath (juramentar) to die killing 
 Christians. He then hides a kris or barong about his 
 person or in something that he carries, and seeks the 
 nearest town. If he can gain admission, he snatches 
 his weapon from its concealment and runs amuck, slay 
 ing every living being in his path, until he is finally 
 himself dispatched. So long as the breath of life remains 
 in him, he fights on. 
 
 "Eye-witnesses have repeatedly informed me that 
 they have seen juramentados seize the barrel of a rifle, 
 on being bayoneted, and drive the steel into themselves 
 further, in order to bring the soldier at the other end of 
 the piece within striking distance and cut him down. 
 
 "The number of lives taken by one of these mad 
 fanatics is sometimes almost incredible, but he is even 
 tually killed himself, and his relatives have a celebration 
 when the news of his death reaches them. They always 
 insist that, just as night is coming on they see him riding 
 by on a white horse, bound for the abode of the blessed."* 
 
 The white Caucasians of the Philippines regard a 
 juramentado as a peculiarly fiendish criminal; many of 
 the brown Malays regard him as a saint and emulate his 
 deeds. The white Caucasians of Georgia regard Sam 
 Hose as a peculiarly fiendish criminal ; many of the black 
 Africans, I fear, regard him as an innocent man and a 
 martyr. As this point is of much importance for my 
 argument, and will not meet ready acceptance among 
 those who, like myself, are convinced of his guilt, I offer 
 all the evidence on both sides that I have secured. 
 
 * Worcester, "The Philippine Islands," pp. 175, ff. 
 
468 The American Race Problem 
 
 I have talked with two Negroes of national reputation 
 and of the highest standing among the best members of 
 both races. Each doubted that Sam Hose was guilty 
 of rape, and yet neither was willing to express that doubt 
 over his own name. A well-known representative of a 
 Northern paper went South to report upon the facts, 
 and during his investigation had a meeting with a dozen 
 or more representative Negroes of Atlanta, to get their 
 point of view. Both by him and by another of those 
 present I am assured that none of the Negroes at the con 
 ference was convinced of the guilt of Sam Hose. To 
 this evidence should be added that of the detective 
 employed by the Negroes, and probably reflecting their 
 beliefs. On the other side the only important testimony 
 that has reached me is contained in a letter from ex-Gov 
 ernor Atkinson, written shortly before his death: " I have 
 delayed answering your inquiry, in order that I might 
 talk with some of the white and coloured people from 
 that section of the country in a confidential way. . . 
 The investigation made by me satisfies me that there 
 is no reason for the doubt expressed by you in your letter. 
 The Negroes with whom I have talked would have had 
 no hesitancy in giving me the information asked for, as 
 in each case I assured them that their names would not 
 be used and that I did not wish their personal opinion, 
 but wished to know what the other Negroes thought. 
 One of my informants was a Negro client of mine, who 
 is a well-to-do man living in that neighbourhood, knows 
 the opinion of the coloured people, and I know would 
 not hesitate to have told me that the Negroes doubted 
 
Negro Criminality 469 
 
 Hose s guilt if such doubt had existed." Even this 
 evidence, strong as it is, does not outweigh in my mind 
 that on the other side These Negroes may have been 
 unwilling to speak the truth even to Governor Atkinson 
 upon a matter on which feeling was so tense or they 
 may have been representative of the class of Negroes in 
 close touch with the whites and more ready than others 
 to derive their beliefs from that source, or it may be that 
 in the Negro community where the Cranfords and Sam 
 Hose were known belief in his guilt is more prevalent 
 than elsewhere. On the whole, therefore, I conclude that 
 a large proportion of the Negroes of Georgia do not share 
 the belief of their white neighbours about the guilt of 
 Sam Hose. 
 
 In a recent appeal to the people of Georgia the Gover 
 nor said: "Lynch law does not stop arson or murder 
 or robbery or rape;" and the Atlanta Constitution said 
 editorially: "The punishment of the criminals who are 
 overtaken, no matter how swift or how bloody, seems 
 to have no effect whatever on the criminal class among 
 the Negroes. They seem to go as cheerfully about their 
 crimes as if they were candidates for a martyr s crown; 
 they murder, ravish, and rob with all the zeal and fervour 
 of religious fanatics." These opinions testify to a grow 
 ing disbelief among whites in the efficacy of lynch law as 
 a deterrent. As force is failing, some other means must 
 be enlisted in defence of civilisation. In slavery days 
 such crimes were almost unknown, and mainly because 
 of the loyalty of the slaves to their owners. Any effort 
 on the part of members of either race to break down 
 
470 The American Race Problem 
 
 those barriers between them, which have been reared 
 under Reconstruction and race competition, and to restore 
 the former relations must be of service. But, if this 
 divergent trend of the two races continues, the only 
 effective means of governing the criminal Negro is 
 through the cooperation of the better elements of his 
 own race. Negro criminals have little regard for the 
 condemnation of whites, whom they have learned to 
 hate. Their feeling toward the better class of coloured 
 men cannot be of the same sort. The Atlanta Consti 
 tution recently appealed to the Negroes as follows: 
 "The honest, industrious, and self-respecting Negroes 
 . . . should take some measure calculated to deter the 
 criminals of their colour from their horrible work. . . . 
 The Negroes would have little trouble in reaching the 
 ears of the criminals. . . . The Negroes alone can 
 put an end to a condition of affairs that is growing worse 
 every day." I believe this to the full, but I also believe 
 that the whites cannot win this cooperation from the 
 Negroes unless they are prepared to give a quid pro quo. 
 After the killing of Sam Hose, the Governor of Georgia 
 is reported to have said: "The Negroes of the commun 
 ity lost the best opportunity they will ever have to 
 elevate themselves in the estimation of their white 
 neighbours. Had they helped to bring Hose to justice, 
 it would have helped the cause in the eyes of the people. 
 . . . The good and law-abiding Negroes must aid in 
 bringing criminals to justice, whether they be white or 
 black." If Governor Candler was correctly reported 
 and weighed his words, he clearly implied a belief that 
 
Negro Criminality 471 
 
 Hose was brought to justice when he was illegally put 
 to death. Killing by a mob for any offence, however 
 hateful, is regarded even by conservative and order- 
 loving Negroes as an injustice, and, where there is a 
 tacit understanding in the community, as there was 
 during the pursuit of Hose, that the criminal if caught 
 will be lynched, nothing more than quiescence can be 
 secured from the Negroes. If my conclusion is correct, 
 the Southern whites must choose in such cases between 
 gratifying a strong and natural desire for immediate 
 retaliation, and coolly selecting the course which is best 
 adapted to prevent such crimes in the future. I believe 
 that ex-Governor Atkinson, in dissuading the mob from 
 burning Hose at the stake and urging them to let the law 
 take its course, was choosing the wise way of preventing 
 such crimes in the future, was the real defender of South 
 ern homes and Southern women. 
 
 Now it seems clear that the guilt of Sam Hose was 
 established by more convincing evidence than is secured 
 in nine cases out of ten, perhaps in ninety-nine out of 
 one hundred, in which a lynching occurs. If this evi 
 dence has failed to convince a large proportion of 
 Southern Negroes, including probably nearly all those of 
 criminal tendencies, then in other cases, where the 
 evidence is less conclusive, they must be less convinced. 
 What the facts are is of less importance than what they 
 are believed to be, for belief, not fact, is the motive by 
 which men are swayed. 
 
 To make my conclusions upon this subject clearer, I 
 may briefly state certain views with which I cannot agree; 
 
472 The American Race Problem 
 
 1. I cannot accept a large proportion of the accounts 
 printed in Northern papers, describing the relations of 
 the two races in the South. One of the virtues of civili 
 sation imperfectly developed in the Negro race is 
 veracity, and accounts coming from them must be 
 tested carefully before acceptance. Where nothing is 
 known regarding the trustworthiness of the witnesses or 
 the inherent probability of the statements, the presump 
 tion is in favour of the white man s testimony. Hence 
 those newspapers which apparently make the contrary 
 presumption are often misled. One instance which 
 came under my own observation may serve for a hun 
 dred. A lynching occurred in 1899 at Alexandria, Va., 
 within five miles of the national capital. A Washington 
 correspondent of the Boston Transcript described the 
 facts, and said that the Negro boy was guilty of nothing 
 more than insulting a child. The Springfield Republican 
 reprinted the letter, and in editorial comment said that 
 the boy s only crime was his colour. I went at once to 
 the mayor of Alexandria, and learned from him that at 
 a hearing over which he presided the eight-year-old girl 
 testified that the Negro had been guilty of indecent 
 familiarities upon her by force. Probably any Southern 
 jury, on hearing the child s testimony, would have found 
 the Negro guilty of an attempt to commit rape. Yet 
 representative Northern newspapers in reliance upon 
 their sources of information have seriously misrepre 
 sented the facts. 
 
 2. On the other hand, I cannot admit that all or most 
 of the alienation between the races is due to the grave 
 
Negro Criminality 473 
 
 mistakes of the Reconstruction period or to the present 
 policy of Northern papers. Race antagonism appears in 
 other parts of the country, and in other countries, where 
 this cause does not exist. To ascribe race friction at the 
 South, as certain Southern writers and speakers do, 
 solely or mainly to the past or present policy of the 
 Government toward the Southern states or to the tone of 
 Northern papers, and then to say almost in the same 
 breath that race friction and lynching are found in the 
 North, is clearly inconsistent. The friction between 
 the races was probably an inevitable result of emancipa 
 tion, although hastened and intensified by the blun 
 ders of Reconstruction. 
 
 3. It seems improbable that the policy of enlisting 
 Negroes as Federal soldiers has had a decided effect in 
 increasing Negro crime. Certainly, the evidence offered 
 in favour of this claim is by no means sufficient to estab 
 lish the conclusion. 
 
 4. A restricted suffrage in the Southern states will 
 probably not avail materially to improve the conditions. 
 Negro crime is apparently about as frequent and heinous 
 in the District of Columbia, where for a generation the 
 race has had no political privileges, as it is in the states 
 of the far South. 
 
 5. Education, in the ordinary sense of that term, will 
 not materially improve the situation. An education 
 which will aid the Negro in securing self-support is of 
 primary importance. 
 
 6. No Federal legislation, such as that demanded by 
 certain Negroes against lynching or that demanded by 
 
474 The American Race Problem 
 
 certain of both races making large appropriations for 
 deportation of the Negroes, seems likely to be enacted 
 or offers a real and adequate solution of the problem. 
 
 Positively, I may sum up my conclusions as follows: 
 
 A large and increasing amount of Negro crime is mani 
 fested all over the country. 
 
 This raises a problem pressing with especial weight 
 upon the states where Negroes are numerous. 
 
 The causes may be grouped as defective family life, 
 defective industrial equipment and ability in compari 
 son with their competitors, increasing race solidarity 
 among the Negroes, and increasing alienation from the 
 whites. 
 
 Southern whites often exaggerate the agency of North 
 ern whites or Northern Negroes in causing the present 
 condition, and thus minimise their own responsibility. 
 
 Northern whites often ignore the burden which South 
 ern whites and the better class of Negroes are carrying 
 and the degree to which the Federal policy since the war 
 has contributed to increase race friction and Negro crime. 
 Hence they are often ignorant and unjust in their 
 criticisms. 
 
 These misunderstandings are the strongest basis for 
 the continuance and possible increase of sectional antag 
 onism between North and South. 
 
 Lynching is harmful mainly because it prevents the 
 rise of a public opinion based on a careful sifting of the 
 facts. Where practised under any provocation, how 
 ever great, by members of one race upon those of another, 
 it fosters the development of separate public opinions, 
 
Negro Criminality 475 
 
 one for each race, and hence tends to make cooperation 
 of the two in one government impossible. 
 
 There has probably never been a more complete dem 
 ocracy than in the New England towns. Modern gov 
 ernments tend toward a more democratic form, and 
 at the North the belief is very deep seated that the prog 
 ress of humanity is dependent upon the maintenance 
 and progress of democratic government. Now demo 
 cratic government is essentially a government by 
 organised legal public opinion. Any attempt to intro 
 duce government by disorganised public opinion secures 
 at best the will of only a fraction of the public. Hence a 
 believer in democracy is bound to be an opponent of 
 lynch law, and the strength of the opposition in the 
 North to lynch law is due, not as is sometimes said to 
 hatred of the South, but rather to a love for democracy. 
 
 The greatest problem which modern democracy has to 
 face is perhaps this: Can the democratic forms developed 
 among a homogeneous people with unifying traditions, 
 like the people of England, Old and New, be extended to 
 people widely different in race, religion, and ethical and 
 social code? Can English forms of government ulti 
 mately apply to India and Egypt and South Africa? 
 Can American forms be extended to the two races at the 
 South or in the Philippines? Either the public opinion 
 of one race must dominate, as that of the whites has done 
 in India and the South, or the two races must cooperate 
 so far as to develop a common public opinion. The lat 
 ter is the only true democracy. 
 
II 
 
 CENSUS STATISTICS OF THE NEGRO * 
 
 THERE is no leading country in which the relations 
 of widely different races are so important as in 
 the United States. As a natural result of this, there is 
 no country in which statistical investigation of race 
 questions is so highly developed, or in which the records 
 cover so long a time. In Europe it is not customary to 
 recognise or emphasise the race classification of the popu 
 lation in statistical returns. In India the race classifi 
 cation while recognised is subsidiary to that of religion 
 and of language. In American countries to the south 
 of the United States, where race relations are as complex 
 and as diverse as they are with us, the statistical method 
 is imperfectly developed or of recent introduction. The 
 main sources of statistical information, therefore, regard 
 ing race relations are the figures for the United States 
 and those for several of the West Indian Islands. 
 
 Since the Civil War the statistical study of certain 
 aspects of race questions in the United States has been 
 entered upon by different governmental agencies. The 
 Department of Agriculture has made investigations of 
 the diet and food supply of Negroes and of whites with 
 especial reference to the bodily heat and the energy it 
 
 * Yale Review, November, 1 904. 
 
 476 
 
Census Statistics of the Negro 
 
 477 
 
 can produce. The Department of Labour has made a 
 number of suggestive reports upon the condition of 
 Negro communities in certain typical localities. Various 
 municipal health reports throw light upon the vital 
 statistics of the two races. The Bureau of Education 
 has gathered much information regarding the educa 
 tional development of Negroes and whites. But no 
 one of these and perhaps not all of them combined have 
 furnished or are furnishing at the present time as much 
 information regarding the statistics of race in the United 
 States as the Census Bureau.* It is of the highest impor 
 tance that the information thus gathered should be care 
 fully and intelligently interpreted and its lessons cor 
 rectly read. The object of this paper is to state certain 
 conclusions to which I have been brought by my statis 
 tical studies of the subject and especially of the recent 
 census figures. 
 
 The population of the United States is divided by the 
 census returns into four classes, the native white of 
 native parents, the native white of foreign born parents, 
 that is, the children of immigrants, the immigrant or 
 foreign born white class, and the other races than the 
 white, sometimes called collectively the coloured, perhaps 
 more accurately described as the "non-Caucasians." 
 The most accurate description of them is to enumerate 
 the great races to which they belong, namely, the 
 Negro, Indian, and Mongolian. Of this fourth group, 
 the non-Caucasians, more than nineteen-twentieths 
 
 * See especially Census Bulletin 8, entitled "Negroes in the United States," 
 Washington, 1904. 
 
478 The American Race Problem 
 
 are Negroes and therefore when statements are made, 
 as I shall be compelled sometimes to make them, not for 
 the Negroes but for the non-Caucasians, it will be under 
 stood that nineteen-twentieths of these are Negroes and 
 what is true, therefore, of the non-Caucasians is probably 
 tine of the Negroes. These four classes correspond 
 roughly to four grades of economic well-being the 
 native white of native parents at the top, the Negroes, 
 Indians, and Mongolians at the bottom. Now it is a 
 general fact that the lower the scale of economic well- 
 being the less accurate on the average will be the answers 
 to questions put them. A measure of this can be 
 derived from the answers to the age question. It can 
 be easily proved that the errors in reporting ages among 
 the immigrant white are about twice as numerous as 
 among the native white and among the non-Caucasians 
 about twice as numerous as among the immigrant white. 
 Where age is stated erroneously it is usually stated at a 
 round number as a multiple of 5. The excess in the 
 reported number at these multiples of five over the esti 
 mated true number is thus a measure of the accuracy of 
 the figures. This excess in 1 900 among persons between 
 twenty-eight and sixty-two years of age inclusive for 
 the native whites was 12.4 per cent, of the total estimated 
 number at multiples of 5, for the foreign born white 29.8, 
 and for the Negro 81.2 per cent. What is true of the 
 inaccuracies in the field of age statistics is probably true 
 of other sorts of inaccuracies. A larger proportion of 
 the Negro population than of the white is homeless and 
 therefore likely to be omitted by enumerators instructed 
 
Census Statistics of the Negro 479 
 
 to visit every home in the country. In Maryland a 
 careful recount of nearly 63,000 people was had a few 
 months after the census day in the effort to detect 
 suspected fraud. The recount showed that in the 
 original count the omissions among Negroes had been 
 3.7 per cent, and among whites 1.3 per cent. These 
 omissions were probably greater than in the general 
 population, but it is not unlikely that the per cent, of 
 omissions among Negroes is twice as great as the per 
 cent, among whites. 
 
 There is no race question upon which we have so great 
 a lack of scientific information at the present time as 
 that of the degree of direct intermixture of the two 
 races. Public opinion at the South seems to be almost 
 unanimous in its belief that, since the Civil War and 
 emancipation, intermixture of the two races has de 
 creased and that the mulatto population at the present 
 time is largely the offspring of mulattoes alone or of 
 mulattoes and Negroes, and that there has been relatively 
 little new infusion of white blood. But no statistical 
 basis for this opinion exists, and general observation on 
 a question so difficult and delicate must be regarded as 
 a very slippery foundation for the belief. Questions on 
 this point were introduced into the censuses of 1850, 
 1860, 1870, 1880, and 1890, and the results were tabulated 
 and published for each of these censuses except 1880. 
 Prior to 1890 the question was asked in substantially 
 the same terms, that is, simply the number of mulattoes. 
 In 1890, unfortunately, it was sought to amplify the 
 question and Congress required the Census Office to 
 
480 The American Race Problem 
 
 report the number of mulattoes, quadroons, and octo 
 roons. Such precision in this field is unobtainable 
 and, in natural reaction against the misleading results 
 obtained in 1890, the office in 1900 omitted the question 
 entirely. I cannot feel that this was wise. The results 
 obtained in 1850, 1860 and 1870 for the whole United 
 States showed substantial agreement, the per cent, of 
 mulattoes among the total Negroes having been reported 
 as in 1850, 11.2; in 1860, 13.2; in 1870, 12.0. These 
 figures cannot be accepted as showing an increase in the 
 proportion of mulattoes down to the Civil War and a 
 slight decrease after that time, much less can the 
 slightly larger proportion of mulattoes reported in 1890 
 (15.2 per cent.) with a different form of question be 
 regarded as any evidence of an increase of race mixture 
 since emancipation, but the general conclusion that 
 between one-eighth and one-ninth of the Negro popula 
 tion at about the time of the Civil War was mulatto 
 may be regarded as probable. 
 
 I believe that, if the question should be repeated in 
 1910 in substantially the same terms as those employed 
 in 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880, the results would be likely 
 to indicate far more accurately than general observation 
 can do whether the proportion of mulattoes among the 
 Negroes has increased or decreased since emancipation. 
 To establish this, one need not believe that the reported 
 percentages at former censuses were correct. All that 
 would be necessary for such a result would be that the 
 question put in substantially the same terms at inter 
 vals during half a century would secure answers which 
 
Census Statistics of the Negro 481 
 
 if not entirely accurate would at least err in the same 
 direction and by about the same relative amount. 
 
 At the present time there are about nine and one- 
 fifth million Negroes under the United States flag, includ 
 ing those in Porto Rico, Alaska, and Hawaii, as well as 
 the Negroes of continental United States. This does 
 not include the Negritoes, much less the Malays, of the 
 Philippine Islands. In continental United States, 
 excluding Alaska and our insular accessions, there are 
 about eight and five-sixths million Negroes. Nearly 
 nine-tenths of them (89.7 per cent.) live in the Southern 
 states, that is, the states south of Mason and Dixon s 
 line, the Ohio River and the parallel of the southern 
 boundary of Missouri. The per cent, living in the 
 Southern states, however, is very slowly decreasing. In 
 1860, 92.2 per cent, were living there; in 1880, 90.5 per 
 cent.; in 1900, 89.7 per cent., or in other words, in 1860, 
 78 Negroes among each 1,000 in the country were living 
 outside of the South, in 1900, 103 in each 1,000. Appar 
 ently there was a considerable change in the distribution 
 of the Negroes as a result of the upheaval in the Civil 
 War. Then followed a period of relative quiescence, 
 but in the last decade of the century there was an 
 increase in the northward current of Negro migration, 
 especially to northern cities. That the Negro popula 
 tion in our large cities is increasing with greater rapidity 
 than the white population appears clearly when the totals 
 of the two races are obtained for the thirty-eight cities, 
 each of which had at least 100,000 inhabitants in 1900. 
 The increase of Negroes in these cities, 1890 to 1900, was 
 
482 The American Race Problem 
 
 38.0 per cent., and that of whites 32.7 per cent., and 
 in the five Southern cities of this class, Baltimore, 
 Washington, Louisville, Memphis, and New Orleans, the 
 increase of whites was 20.8, and of Negroes 25.8 per cent. 
 Washington was the only Southern city of this class in 
 which the Negro population did not increase, 1890 to 
 1900, with greater rapidity than the white. This rapid 
 increase of the Negro population in the larger cities of 
 the country is the more significant, because thirty-three 
 of these thirty-eight cities lie in the north and west and 
 therefore increase of their Negro population usually 
 results from long-distance migration, and because also 
 the Negro population of smaller cities and of country 
 districts has been increasing as a rule less rapidly than 
 the white population. 
 
 There is no traceable tendency to a separation between 
 Negroes and whites in the South whereby the Negro 
 population is becoming more predominant in the rural 
 districts and the white population in the cities. Per 
 haps the best evidence on this point is that derived from 
 the 242 cities in the South Atlantic and South Central 
 states, which had at least 2,500 inhabitants both in 1890 
 and in 1900, and for which, therefore, the race composi 
 tion of the population was separately returned. The 
 Negro population of these 242 places increased between 
 1890 and 1900 by 21.7 per cent., the white population by 
 26.5 per cent. The Negro population of the rest of the 
 Southern states outside these 242 places increased 16.4 
 per cent., while the white population outside these 242 
 places increased 25.0 per cent. The figures show the 
 
Census Statistics of the Negro 483 
 
 remarkable fact, which so far as I know is unparalleled, 
 that the growth of white population in the South has 
 been almost as rapid in the country districts as in the 
 cities. Whether this means that the white population 
 is betaking itself more to agriculture, it would be diffi 
 cult to decide from the figures. The Negro population is 
 increasing in Southern cities about one-third faster than 
 in country districts. Or, the facts may be stated per 
 haps more intelligibly in this way. In the 242 Southern 
 cities for which the race figures are distinguished both 
 for 1890 and for 1900, there were in 1890, 464 Negroes to 
 1,000 whites; in 1900 there were 447, a decrease of 17. 
 Meantime, in the country districts there were in 1890, 
 522 Negroes to 1,000 whites, and in 1900 there were 486, 
 a decrease of 36. These figures show that the decrease 
 in the proportion of Negroes relative to whites in the 
 Southern states in the last decade has been twice as 
 rapid in the country districts as in the cities. 
 
 In studying the increase of the Negro population it 
 must be borne in mind that the figures of 1870 are 
 admitted to be seriously inaccurate. There are some 
 reasons also for doubting the accuracy of the census of 
 the Negroes in 1890. In order to avoid using these 
 erroneous or questionable figures and also in order to 
 base the computation on long periods of time, the in 
 crease has been computed for each of the five twenty- 
 year periods of the nineteenth century. As the Negro 
 problem is preeminently one of interest to the South it 
 seems fairer to compare the growth of the two races in 
 that region. Such a comparison shows that the Negro 
 
484 The American Race Problem 
 
 population of the South increased most rapidly during 
 the first twenty years of the nineteenth century and 
 that its rate of increase steadily declined to the end of the 
 century. The rate of increase of Southern whites was 
 highest not from 1800 to 1820, but 1840 to 1860. Per 
 haps the results may be stated in a way to make them 
 most easily intelligible by treating the rate of increase of 
 whites in the Southern states in the given twenty-year 
 period as 100 and comparing with it the rate of increase 
 of Southern Negroes during the same period of time. 
 Following this method, the increase of the Southern 
 Negroes, 1800 to 1820, was to that of Southern whites 
 as 125 to 100, that from 1820 to 1840 was no, that from 
 1840 to 1860 was 87, that from 1860 to 1880 was 90, and 
 that from 1880 to 1900 was 57. These figures show that 
 since 1840 the increase of Southern Negroes has been less 
 rapid than that of Southern whites, and that the increase 
 from 1860 to 1880 was relatively more rapid than in the 
 preceding or the following twenty-year period, suggest 
 ing that the period of war and of Reconstruction affected 
 the increase of the white race more than that of the 
 Negroes. At the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 the Southern Negroes were increasing much faster than 
 the Southern whites. At the end of it they were increas 
 ing only about three-fifths as fast. 
 
 But to complete the presentation of the results 
 reached by the Census Bureau on this point, it should be 
 added that if the results for the last twenty-year period 
 be analysed by decade s a different conclusion is indi 
 cated. Comparison of the rates of growth of Southern 
 
Census Statistics of the Negro 485 
 
 Negroes and Southern whites for those two decades 
 shows that the rate of increase for Southern Negroes, 1880 
 to 1890, was to that of Southern whites as 55 is to 100, 
 while in the decade from 1890 to 1 900 it was as 68 to 100. 
 I confess myself skeptical of the accuracy of these 
 figures. It is difficult for me to accept results which 
 show on their face that the rate of increase of Southern 
 whites east of the Mississippi River was less, 1890 to 
 1900, than it was 1880 to 1890, the rate falling from 19.1 
 to 18.7, while that for Southern Negroes in the same area 
 was much greater in the second decade, the rate rising 
 from 10.6 to 15.7. At the same time I see nothing better 
 at present than to mark these figures as questionable 
 and to suspend judgment until the results for 1910 are 
 published. It may be that the increase among the 
 Negroes has been affected by the marked prosperity of 
 the South in recent years and has been affected more 
 conspicuously than the figures for the whites. 
 
 With reference to sex, it may be noted that there is 
 an excess of females among the Negro population of the 
 United States, while this is not true either of the Indians 
 or of the native whites. Strangely enough, this excess 
 of females is found even at the very earliest ages. It is 
 a general rule that the number of male children born 
 exceeds the number of female. Among 100 children 
 born, on the average about 51 are male and 49 female. 
 The scanty records of births in cities where the Negroes 
 constitute a considerable element of the population 
 show that in this respect the Negroes conform to the rule. 
 Yet Negro children even at the very earliest ages, as 
 
486 The American Race Problem 
 
 enumerated by the census, show an excess of females 
 over males. This is true of Negro children under one 
 month, and of each of the four other subdivisions of age 
 under one year. Indeed, it is true for every year of age 
 up to nine. It may be noted that this anomaly appears 
 for the first time in the figures for 1 900. Whether it is 
 due to the fact that that census first made the distinction 
 between Negro population and the total coloured, includ 
 ing the Indians and Mongolians, I am unable to say. 
 
 In the city population of the United States as a rule, 
 females outnumber the males. This generalisation holds 
 true of the great majority of cities east of the Mississippi 
 River. It is more true of the Negroes than it is of the 
 whites. In the Southern cities and towns having at 
 least 2,500 inhabitants in 1900, there were 9 more Negro 
 females than males in each 100 of Negro population. 
 Among children the two sexes were approximately 
 equal in numbers, so that if the figures allowed us to 
 exclude the children the preponderance of females would 
 be still greater. The cause is doubtless to be found in 
 large measure in the greater demand and greater oppor 
 tunity for female labour in cities. 
 
 At the present time rather more than half of the 
 Negroes over ten years of age are able to write. The 
 per cent, of illiteracy has decreased rapidly in the last 
 ten years. In 1890 it was 57.1, while in 1900 it was 45.5. 
 This rapid decrease in Negro illiteracy has gone on par 
 allel with the rapid decrease of illiteracy among whites. 
 At the present time the Negroes as a race show about 
 seven times the proportion of illiterates that the whites 
 
Census Statistics of the Negro 487 
 
 do and about four times the proportion of illiterates 
 found among Southern whites, and these ratios between 
 the two races have not materially changed since 1890. 
 Illiteracy is much more prevalent in the country dis 
 tricts than it is in the cities. About half of the Negroes 
 living outside cities having at least 25,000 inhabitants 
 are illiterate, while in these cities less than one-third are 
 illiterate. The rapid development of the educational 
 system among Negroes in the South has left clear traces 
 upon the proportion of illiterates in the several age 
 classes. The highest proportion of illiterates is found 
 among Negroes at least sixty-five years of age, the lowest 
 among Negroes ten to fourteen years of age. The differ 
 ence between these two age limits is rather greater than 
 the difference between city and country Negroes, the 
 illiteracy of all Negroes over sixty-five being rather 
 greater than that of Negroes in country districts, and 
 the illiteracy of Negroes between ten and fourteen years 
 of age being rather less than that of all Negroes living 
 in cities having at least 25,000 inhabitants. If the per 
 cent, of illiteracy among Negroes should continue to 
 dwindle in the future as rapidly as it did, 1890 to 1900, 
 an improbable contingency, Negro illiteracy would dis 
 appear by 1940. 
 
 No noteworthy results appear from the statistics of 
 marital condition among the Negroes. They correspond 
 closely with the statistics for Southern whites, the main 
 differences being that the race has a very much larger 
 proportion of widowed and divorced persons and that in 
 the last ten years there has been a decline in the proper- 
 
488 The American Race Problem 
 
 tion of adult Negroes who were married, while among 
 Southern whites there has been an increase in the pro 
 portion who were married. Both races show a decided 
 increase in early marriages, this being true for the 
 country as a whole and probably the result of the high 
 prosperity which prevailed immediately before 1900. 
 
 Perhaps the most important suggestions derived from 
 the analysis of the figures for the Twelfth Census are 
 found in the statistics of occupations. The detailed 
 results of these must be regarded as open to some ques 
 tion since the classification of occupations is perhaps as 
 difficult a problem as any with which the Census Bureau 
 has to grapple, and it is possible that the figures for 1890 
 and 1900 may not be strictly comparable in all cases. 
 Still certain salient results appear to be established. 
 
 Among all the Negroes at least ten years of age about 
 five-eighths, 62.2 per cent., are engaged in money-getting 
 or gainful occupations. The corresponding proportion 
 among Southern whites is less than one-half (46.9 per 
 cent.). The difference between the two races is almost 
 entirely explained by the greater prevalence of money- 
 getting occupations among female Negroes, 41.3 per 
 cent, of the Negro females and only n.8 per cent, of the 
 Southern white females reporting a gainful occupation. 
 This fact accounts for about three-fourths of the entire 
 difference between the Negroes and the Southern whites. 
 An explanation of the remaining fourth is found in the 
 fact that Negro boys go to work earlier and Negro men 
 retire later than white men. In general it may be said 
 that the lower the earning capacity of a productive class 
 
Census Statistics of the Negro 489 
 
 the greater the quantity of labour required for its sup 
 port; the greater the prevalence, therefore, of female 
 labour, of child labour, and of the labour of old men. 
 Part of this greater prevalence of child labour and old 
 man labour is due to the fact that the Negroes are pre 
 dominantly engaged in agriculture and that this industry 
 affords greater opportunities than most others for the 
 work of children and old men. Yet this fact only 
 partly accounts for the difference. 
 
 The most important specific occupations for the 
 Negroes are those of agricultural labourers, farmers, 
 planters and overseers, and labourers not specified. 
 These three classes are probably more numerous than 
 the total number of persons engaged in agriculture, for 
 the number of labourers not specified who were engaged 
 in other occupations than agriculture is probably 
 greater than the number of persons engaged in agricul 
 ture and not enrolled in any one of these three occupa 
 tions. The total number of Southern Negroes, with the 
 few Indians and Mongolians engaged in this line of 
 industry increased between 1890 and 1900 by 30.4 per 
 cent., the Southern whites in the same occupations 
 increasing in the same period by 43.5 per cent. As a 
 result the non-Caucasians constituted in 1890 44.4 per 
 cent, of the population in these classes, while in 1900 
 they constituted 42.0 per cent. These three classes 
 together include two-thirds of all the Negro bread 
 winners. In a number of specific occupations involving 
 some degree of skill, the non-Caucasians in the South 
 constituted a somewhat smaller proportion of the total 
 
The American Race Problem 
 
 number of labourers in the South in 1 900 than they did 
 in 1890. This statement holds true for launderers and 
 laundresses, carpenters, barbers, tobacco and cigar fac 
 tory operatives, and engineers and firemen (not loco 
 motive). In some other leading occupations the 
 Negroes were more numerously represented in 1 900 than 
 in 1890. These include in the professional classes, 
 teachers and clergymen, and in the skilled labour 
 classes, miners and quarrymen and iron and steel 
 workers. 
 
 While the future of the Negro race in the United 
 States seems to be essentially an industrial and economic 
 question, turning upon their efficiency in comparison 
 with classes of the population who compete with them in 
 their staple occupations, the net results of these various 
 and complex industrial changes can perhaps best be 
 measured by the vital statistics of the race. The Census 
 Bureau has no direct information regarding births or 
 marriages. Its information regarding deaths is con 
 fined to the Negro population living in the registration 
 area and amounting to between one-seventh and one- 
 eighth (13.4 per cent.) of the entire Negro population of 
 the country, over 93 per cent, of it living in cities. The 
 death-rate of Negroes in the registration area in 1900 
 was reported as 30.2 per thousand, that of the whites in 
 the same area being 17.3. But of the Negroes in this 
 area the majority were female and the female is the 
 healthier sex. They were also predominantly adult and 
 the adult years are the healthier ages. To allow for 
 these differences a computation has been made to ascer- 
 
Census Statistics of the Negro 
 
 491 
 
 tain what the death-rate for the Negroes for the whole 
 country would be, if the death-rate observed in the 
 registration area for each sex and each age had been 
 true of the Negroes of that sex and age in the country 
 as a whole. On this basis the estimated Negro death- 
 rate of the United States as a whole is 34.2 instead of 
 30.2 per thousand, or just about double that of 
 the whites. 
 
 In 1890 the death-rate of the Negroes in the registra 
 tion area as distinguished from the Indians and Mongo 
 lians was not computed. That of the three races 
 combined, nineteen-twentieths being Negroes, was in 
 1890 29.9, and in 1900, 29.6 per thousand, a decrease 
 of three deaths per ten thousand. In the same 
 area the death-rate of whites in 1890 was 19.1 and 
 in 1900, 17.3, a decrease of 18 per ten thousand. It 
 is uncertain how far these figures may be accepted 
 as indicative of the actual changes. They are sub 
 mitted not as entirely trustworthy, but as the best 
 information available. 
 
 Indirect evidence of the birth-rate among the Negroes 
 may be obtained by computing the number of children 
 under five years of age to each 1,000 women fifteen 
 to forty-four. These computations show a very marked 
 decline between 1880 and 1900 in the proportion of 
 Negro children, but show that the proportion of 
 children at the present time is greater for Negroes 
 than for whites. 
 
 But when the country is considered in sections, separ 
 ating the population of the South from that of the 
 
492 The American Race Problem 
 
 North, different results appear. Negroes, as a whole, 
 have a larger proportion of living children than whites, 
 but paradoxical as it may seem, it is also true that 
 Southern Negroes have at present a smaller proportion 
 of living children than Southern whites, and Northern 
 Negroes have a smaller proportion of living children 
 than Northern whites. In other words, the difference in 
 the proportion of children stated in the preceding para 
 graph, is fundamentally a geographical or sectional 
 difference and not a racial one. Negroes have a high 
 proportion of children not because they are Negroes, but 
 because nine-tenths of them live in the South and show 
 the effect of influences which establish a high birth-rate 
 there. The South at the present time is increasing in 
 population faster than the North, with all its immigra 
 tion, largely because 1,000 white women at the North, 
 fifteen to forty-four years of age, could show at the cen 
 sus only 470 children under five years of age, while at the 
 South 1,000 Negro women of those ages could show 621 
 children, and 1,000 white women 633 children. In the 
 Southern states prior to the Civil War the proportion of 
 children under five years of age to 1,000 women of child- 
 bearing age was about the same for the two races. 
 The immediate result of the Civil War, emancipation 
 and Reconstruction, was to decrease slightly the number 
 of white children and increase the number of Negro 
 children, so that in 1880 for 1,000 women of the specified 
 race and of child-bearing age, there were in the South 
 82 more Negro than white children. In 1890 the differ 
 ence in favour of the Negro race had sunk to 17, and in 
 
Census Statistics of the Negro 493 
 
 1 900 it had disappeared and been replaced by an excess 
 of 12 white children. 
 
 The American Negro, after the turmoil of Civil War 
 and Reconstruction, found himself thrown on his own 
 resources as he had never been before. This occurred 
 at the beginning of a period of rapid, almost revolu 
 tionary, industrial change in the South, a change which 
 did not at first affect seriously the staple crops upon 
 which most of the Negro s labour as a slave had been 
 spent, but which apparently is beginning to affect even 
 those. In seeking other avenues of self-support than 
 agriculture and domestic service, he is seriously handi 
 capped by unfamiliarity with such work, a lack of native 
 aptitude for it, so it is alleged, absence of the capital 
 often requisite, and a preference on the part of most of 
 the whites, even when other things are equal, as they 
 seldom are, to employ members of their own race. In 
 the industrial competition thus begun the Negro seems 
 during the last decade to have slightly lost ground in 
 most of those higher occupations in which the services 
 are rendered largely to whites. He has gained in the 
 two so-called learned professions of teachers and clergy 
 men. He has gained in the two skilled occupations of 
 miner or quarryman and iron or steel worker. He has 
 gained in the occupations, somewhat ill-defined so far as 
 the degree of skill required is indicated, of sawing-mill or 
 planing-mill employee, and nurse or midwife. He has 
 gained in the class of servants and waiters. On the 
 other side of the balance sheet he has lost ground in the 
 
494 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 South as a whole in the following skilled occupations: 
 carpenter, barber, tobacco and cigar factory operative, 
 fisherman, engineer or fireman (not locomotive) and 
 probably blacksmith. He has lost ground also in the 
 following industries in which the degree of skill implied 
 seems somewhat uncertain: laundry work, hackman 
 or teamster, steam railroad employee, housekeeper or 
 steward. The balance seems not favorable. It sug 
 gests that in the competition with white labour to which 
 the Negro is being subjected he has not quite held 
 his own. 
 
 These figures of occupations seem to me to furnish 
 the best statistical clue yet obtained for an understand 
 ing of the industrial and social changes affecting this 
 question in the South. My interpretation of their mean 
 ing might be criticised on the ground that when the 
 Negroes are increasing more slowly than the whites, as 
 they are at present in the South, it should not be 
 expected that they would increase as fast as whites in 
 the skilled occupations. This objection seems to me to 
 invert the true order of causation, to put the cart before 
 the horse. Should we not rather say that Southern 
 Negroes are increasing at the present time only two- 
 thirds as fast as Southern whites, while from 1800 to 1840 
 they increased faster and from 1840 to 1880 nearly as 
 fast, because they are not succeeding in entering new 
 occupations or prospering as well in their old as the com 
 peting race is doing? 
 
 If this view of the process is correct, then one may add 
 in closing that, as these occupation figures throw much 
 
Census Statistics of the Negro 495 
 
 light upon the causes, so the figures of an almost station 
 ary death-rate for Negroes compared with a rapidly 
 decreasing death-rate for whites, and an apparently 
 declining birth-rate for Negroes compared with an 
 actually increasing birth-rate for Southern whites, are 
 the best statistical keys to its effects. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE PROBABLE INCREASE OF THE NEGRO RACE IN THE 
 UNITED STATES * 
 
 IN THE century-long problem of the adjustment of 
 relations between whites and Negroes in the United 
 States the probabilities regarding the increase of each 
 race constitute an important element. Those relations 
 are influenced in manifold ways by the numerical propor 
 tion of the races in the country as a whole, and in its vari 
 ous divisions. Consequently the question of the relative 
 growth of the two races in the near future is one of much 
 importance. The factors controlling it are not well 
 enough known to make any accurate forecast possible, 
 yet perhaps we are now in a position to anticipate the 
 course of events in this field during the century just 
 beginning, with closer truth than has yet been done. 
 
 A starting-point may be found in certain opinions that 
 have been expressed and controverted since the Civil 
 War. In articles published in 1883 and 1884, and based 
 mainly upon the census figures for 1870 and i88o,"j" 
 Professor E. W. Gilliam estimated the probable Negro 
 population of the Southern states alone in 1980 at 
 192,000,000 (or about 200,000,000 in the entire country). 
 
 * This paper gives the substance of a lecture delivered at Harvard University 
 in April, 1905. From the Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1905. 
 
 t Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XXII, pp. 433-444, and North American 
 Rtview, Vol. CXXXIX, pp. 417-430. 
 
 496 
 
The Probable Increase 497 
 
 He estimated the probable number of whites in the 
 country in 1985 at 336,000,000. In other words, he 
 predicted that before the end of the twentieth century 
 the Negro race would amount to three-eighths of the 
 total population of the United States. The errors in the 
 bases on which this conclusion was rested, and the 
 fallacies in the arguments by which it was supported, 
 have been effectively exposed * and do not need to be 
 restated. 
 
 In a book published in 1899 Mr. Booker T. Washing 
 ton wrote: "I think I am pretty safe in predicting that 
 the census to be taken in 1900 will show that there are 
 not far from ten millions of people of African descent in 
 the United States, "f The number reported by the 
 Twelfth Census fell short of this predicted number by 
 more than 1,150,000, and, even if those enumerated by 
 the War Department in Porto Rico and Cuba are 
 included, a total of only about 9,700,000 is reached. Mr. 
 Washington added: "It is my opinion that the rate of 
 increase in the future will be still greater than it has 
 been from the close of the War of the Rebellion up to the 
 present time." J The evidence against this opinion will 
 be presented later. Neither in that book nor, so far as I 
 know, elsewhere, does he attempt an estimate for the 
 remoter future. 
 
 In a book published in 1 904 Mr. Thomas Nelson Page 
 wrote: "Unless conditions change, it is possible that 
 
 * Notably by Henry Gannett, in Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XXVII. pp. 
 145-150. 
 
 t "The Future of the American Negro," p. 5. 
 J Idem, pp. 6, 7. 
 
498 The American Race Problem 
 
 before the end of the century there may be between 
 sixty and eighty millions of Negroes in this country." * 
 And a little further on he adds: " It is true that prognos 
 tications of increase in a population often fail, but judg 
 ing the future by the past and taking into account known 
 racial characteristics, it would appear that the number 
 thus prophesied will, in all human probability, exist in 
 the United States by the end of the century." f 
 
 The foregoing are all the estimates regarding the prob 
 able future increase of the Negro race in the United 
 States which I have met with in my reading. Unsatis 
 factory as the evidence is, it points to a conclusion 
 widely different from any of these. Disregarding the 
 figures for Porto Rico, Hawaii, and Alaska, the table on 
 the next page shows the Negro population of the United 
 States at each of the twelve censuses, and the amount, 
 rate and of increase by ten and twenty year periods. 
 
 This table shows that during the nineteenth century 
 ttie Negroes of the United States increased, as a rule, by 
 greater and greater amounts, but at a less and less rate. 
 If attention is confined to the five twenty-year periods 
 of the century, this rule is without a single exception. 
 But, among the decennial increases, that from 1830 to 
 1840 was less than that from 1820 to 1830, which was 
 probably due to the emigration of many slaveholders 
 with their slaves from the United States to Texas 
 between 1830 and 1840. That from 1860 to 1870 was 
 not much above half that from 1850 to 1860, for which 
 
 * "The Negro: The Southerner s Problem," p. a88, 
 t Idem, p. 289, 
 
The Probable Increase 
 
 499 
 
 TABLE I. Negro population and amount and rate of 
 increase for Continental United States by ten and 
 twenty year periods: 1790 to 1900.* (Unit = 
 10,000.) 
 
 Date of Census. 
 
 Negro pop 
 ulation. 
 
 Increase during 
 preceding 
 
 Per cent, of increase 
 during preceding 
 
 10 years. 
 
 20 years. 
 
 10 years. 
 
 20 years. 
 
 76.8 
 62.2 
 54-6 
 48.2 
 34-2 
 
 
 76 
 zoo 
 
 138 
 
 177 
 233 
 a8 7 
 364 
 444 
 488 
 658 
 748 
 883 
 
 24 
 38 
 39 
 56 
 54 
 77 
 80 
 44 
 170 
 90 
 135 
 
 77 
 no 
 157 
 214 
 225 
 
 32-3 
 37-5 
 28.6 
 31-4 
 23-4 
 26.6 
 
 22.1 
 9-9 
 34-9 
 13-5 
 
 18.0 
 
 1800 . . . 
 
 1810. 
 
 1820 
 
 1830 
 
 1840 
 
 1850 
 
 1860 
 
 1870 
 
 1880 
 
 1890. 
 
 I goo 
 
 the Civil War and the serious omissions at the census of 
 1870 must be held jointly responsible; and that from 
 1880 to 1890 was only about half the apparent increase 
 from 1870 to 1880. I am inclined to the opinion that 
 the census of 1890, like that of 1870 but to a much less 
 degree, suffered from omissions in the South and espe 
 cially among the Negroes. To give the reasons at length 
 would require a separate article. The most important 
 ones are suggested by the series in the foregoing table, 
 and are strengthened when the increase of Negroes is 
 compared with that of Southern whites and the rates of 
 
 * The exact census figures on which the per cents, are based and some minor 
 explanations, unimportant for present purposes, will be found in Twelfth Census 
 "Supplementary Analysis and Derivative Tables," p. 293, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
500 The American Race Problem 
 
 increase for the two races in city and country are sep 
 arately computed. 
 
 For present purposes I have sought to correct Table I. 
 by inserting estimates in place of the census figures of 
 1870 and 1890. For 1870 I have taken the geometric 
 mean of the figures for 1860 and 1880. Normally, but 
 for the Civil War, the rate of increase in the later decade 
 would probably have been less than in the earlier. I 
 assume, therefore, that the effect of the war was to con 
 centrate all the slight reduction in the rate of increase 
 which occurred between 1860 and 1880, as compared 
 with the rate between 1850 and 1860, in the decade 1860 
 to 1870, and make the rates in the decades 1860 to 1870 
 and 1870 to 1880 the same. This assumption raises the 
 true number of Negroes in the United States in 1870 
 from 4,880,000 to 5,405,000, and makes the omissions 
 of Negroes in that census 525,000. I believe the true 
 number of Negroes in 1870 was in the neighbourhood of 
 5,400,000, and probably less rather than greater. If the 
 same method of estimation be employed to determine 
 the probable Negro population of the United States in 
 1890, the result is 7,622,000 instead of 7,480,000, indi 
 cating the omission of 142,000 Negroes by the Eleventh 
 Census. But I see no reason, except the census figures, 
 for believing that the rate of increase of the Negroes, 
 which fell almost steadily between 1800 and 1890, was as 
 high between 1890 and 1900 as in the preceding decade. 
 If any assumption at all is admissible, I believe it should 
 be the assumption of a decreasing rate and a constant 
 amount of increase; or, in other words, that the true 
 
The Probable Increase 
 
 figures of 1880, 1890, and 1900 constitute an arithmetical 
 rather than a geometrical progression. On this assump 
 tion the number of Negroes in the United States in 1890 
 was 7,705,000 instead of 7,480,000, and the omissions of 
 Negroes at the eleventh census were 225,000. At any 
 rate, these assumptions are plausible, and furnish a more 
 uniform series than the unadjusted figures of the census 
 upon which to attempt a forecast of the future. 
 The revised table is as follows : 
 
 TABLE II. Negro population and amount and rate of 
 increase for Continental United States by ten and 
 twenty year periods: 1790/0 1900 (Adjusted -figures 
 indicated by asterisks , unit i= 10,000.) 
 
 Date of Census. 
 
 Negro 
 Pop 
 ulation. 
 
 Increase during 
 preceding 
 
 Per cent, of increase 
 during preceding 
 
 10 years. 
 
 20 years. 
 
 10 years. 
 
 20 years. 
 
 
 76 
 too 
 
 138 
 
 177 
 233 
 
 287 
 364 
 
 444 
 54i* 
 658 
 770* 
 883 
 
 24 
 
 38 
 39 
 56 
 54 
 77 
 80 
 97* 
 117* 
 
 112* 
 
 H3* 
 
 77 
 no 
 157 
 214 
 225 
 
 32.3 
 37-5 
 28.6 
 31-4 
 23-4 
 26.6 
 
 22. I 
 
 21.7* 
 21.7* 
 17.0* 
 
 14.7* 
 
 76.8 
 
 62.2 
 54-6 
 48. a 
 34-2 
 
 
 1810 
 
 1820 
 
 1830 
 
 1840 
 
 1850 
 
 1860 
 
 1870 
 
 1880 
 
 
 
 
 The last columns of Tables I. and II. show that the 
 rate of increase of Negroes declined throughout the 
 nineteenth century, that between 1880 and 1900 it was 
 less than half of what it was between 1800 and 1820 
 
502 The American Race Problem 
 
 and less than two-thirds of what it was between 1840 
 and 1860. It shows, therefore, that, if the future may 
 be judged by the past, there is no warrant for the 
 opinion of Mr. Washington, "that the rate of increase in 
 the future will be still greater than it has been." 
 
 The estimate of Mr. Page, that the year 2000 A.D. "will 
 in all human probability" see from 60,000,000 to 
 80,000,000 Negroes living in the United States, appears 
 to be reached by projecting into the future the rate of 
 increase which prevailed between 1860 and 1880. If 
 that rate were to persist throughout the twentieth cen 
 tury, there would be 63,000,000 Negroes in the United 
 States in 2000 A. D. If the rate shown by Table I. for 
 the decade 1890 to 1900 should persist, there would be 
 46,000,000 Negroes in the United States in 2000 A.D. 
 If the rate shown by both tables for the twenty years, 
 1880 to 1900, should persist, there would be 38,000,000 
 Negroes in the United States in 2000 A.D. If the rate 
 shown by Table II. for 1890 to 1900 should persist, there 
 would be about 35,000,000 Negroes in the United States 
 in 2000 A.D. And, finally, if the rate shown in Table I. 
 for 1880 to 1890 should persist, there would then be 
 about 31,500,000 Negroes. 
 
 If it were admissible to assume that any rate of in 
 crease would persist through the twentieth century, it 
 would be best to accept that for the twenty years between 
 1880 and 1900, because it is based on the longer period 
 and involves no correction of census figures. But the 
 history of the nineteenth century and what is known 
 about the increase of population concur in testifying 
 
The Probable Increase 503 
 
 that the rate of increase is likely to dwindle, and that 
 38,000,000 Negroes in Continental United States in 2000 
 A.D. is much too large an estimate. Emancipation 
 wrought so radical a change in the economic condition 
 of the Negro race that its increase before 1860 affords 
 almost no clue to its probable increase in the future. 
 The period since 1860 is too short, and the returns are 
 affected by too large errors, admitted or suspected, to 
 furnish much basis for a forecast. Yet, if we take as our 
 base the rate of increase 1880 to 1900 -namely, 34.2 
 per cent. and assume that in each score of years during 
 the twentieth century the increase of the Negroes will 
 be less by 4 per cent, than in the preceding score of 
 years and this slackening is only about one-third of 
 that which has taken place since 1860 among the 
 Negroes, and one-half of that among the whites the per 
 cents, of increase during the century just beginning will 
 be as follows: 
 
 1900-1920 ......... 30.2 
 
 1920-1940 ......... 26.2 
 
 1940-1960 . . . . . . . . .22.2 
 
 1960-1980 ......... 18.2 
 
 1980-2000 ......... 14.2 
 
 The Negro population at the end of the present cen 
 tury will then be less than 24,000,000. On the whole, I 
 am disposed to believe that this assumption is as favour 
 able to the Negro race as the facts warrant, that 
 25,000,000 is the maximum limit of the probable Negro 
 population of this country a century hence, and that 
 it may fall several millions short of that figure. 
 
 Whether this opinion for it is hardly more than 
 
504 The American Race Problem 
 
 that does or does not find acceptance, there is no ques 
 tioning the testimony of the figures that the rate of 
 increase of Negroes declined steadily throughout the 
 nineteenth century, and, if we reject or disregard the 
 census figures of 1870 and 1890, at no time so rapidly as 
 between 1860 and 1900. This is made most obvious, 
 perhaps, by comparing the rate of increase at each 
 twenty-year period subsequent to 1820 with that of the 
 preceding period treated as 100 per cent. The rate of 
 increase 1820 to 1840 was 81.0 per cent, of that 1800 to 
 1820; the rate of increase 1840 to 1860 was 87.8 per cent, 
 of that 1820 to 1840; the rate of increase 1860 to 1880 
 was 88.3 per cent, of that 1840 to 1860; but the rate of 
 increase 1880 to 1900 was only 71.0 per cent, of that 1860 
 to 1880. 
 
 The rapid decline of white increase has been men 
 tioned, and it might be thought that in this checking of 
 Negro increase we have to do, not with a racial problem 
 but with a general problem of American population. 
 This is a superficial view. It is true that the whites in 
 the country as a whole, in spite of the swarms of immi 
 grants who come to swell their numbers, are increasing 
 at a slackening rate. But nearly nine-tenths of the 
 Negroes live in the Southern states, a region to which 
 a small and dwindling proportion of our foreign-born 
 population goes, and yet in the South the white popu 
 lation is growing with augmented rapidity. The 
 evidence for this surprising fact has been presented in 
 the "Supplementary Analysis" of the Twelfth Census* 
 
 * See p. 203. 
 
The Probable Increase 505 
 
 published in 1 906, and need not be repeated. Suffice it to 
 say that, if each of the two races in the South should con 
 tinue throughout the present century to increase at the 
 rate that characterised it between 1880 and 1900, there 
 would be in the South in 2000 A.D. about 33,000,000 
 Negroes and 155,000,000 whites, and the Negroes would 
 constitute 17.6 per cent, of the population of the South 
 ern states, in which they now constitute 32.4 per cent. 
 Doubtless each of the above figures is much too large; 
 but, if the checking of growth which will appear in each 
 race shall affect them in such a way as to keep the ratio 
 of their increase what it has been for twenty years 
 and I think this also is an assumption as favourable to 
 the Negro as the facts will warrant then the ratio 
 of the above figures will be correct, and we may expect 
 that the Negroes, who in 1800 were 35.0 per cent, of the 
 population of the Southern states, who in 1840, when 
 they were relatively most numerous, were 38.0 per cent., 
 and who in 1900 had receded to 32.4 per cent., will 
 continue to recede, and in 2000 A.D. are likely to be not 
 more than 17.6 per cent, of the Southern population. 
 
 Whether these forecasts have any value depends 
 mainly upon whether the causes of the different rates 
 of growth of the two races at the South can be ascer 
 tained, and a judgment formed upon the question 
 whether those causes are likely to persist and whether 
 counteracting influences are likely to arise. This raises 
 the question, what are the causes of the slackening rate 
 of growth among Southern Negroes? That race, unlike 
 the whites, receives practically no reinforcement from 
 
506 The American Race Problem 
 
 immigration. Only about 20,000 foreign-born Negroes 
 were enumerated in 1900, or about i in 500 of the Negro 
 population of the United States. For this reason the 
 increase of Negroes must be controlled by the balance 
 of births and deaths. 
 
 Regarding the birth-rate of the Southern Negroes 
 we have no direct information. In default of that the 
 best available substitute is to compute the number of 
 children under five years of age to each 1,000 women of 
 child-bearing age, namely, fifteen to forty-nine or fifteen 
 to forty -four years of age. I reject the figures of the 
 censuses of 1870 and 1890, both because of the acknowl 
 edged errors in the former and the suspected ones in the 
 latter, and because in 1890 the form of the age question 
 was different from that employed at other censuses. 
 For the sake of comparison the figures for Southern 
 whites also are introduced: 
 
 TABLE III. Children under 5 years of age to 1,000 
 women, 15 to 49 years of age, in the South Atlantic 
 and South Central States. 
 
 Date of census Non-Caucasians* Whites 
 
 1850 705 695 
 
 1860 688 682 
 
 1880 737 656 
 
 1900 577 58i 
 
 These figures show that before the war the proportion 
 
 * "Non-Caucasians" is preferred to the ambiguous "coloured," which means 
 sometimes Negroes, sometimes Negroes, Indians, and Mongolians, and some 
 times mulattoes. In every case in which non-Caucasian is used Negro might 
 be substituted for it without material inaccuracy, and for this reason I have 
 occasionally, for the sake of variety or simplicity, used Negro when non-Cau 
 casian would be more exact. 
 
The Probable Increase 507 
 
 of children to potential mothers was almost the 
 same among Southern Negroes and Southern whites. 
 They show that the proportion among Negroes was 
 higher in 1880 than in 1850 or 1860, suggesting that the 
 Negro birth-rate immediately after emancipation and 
 the reestablishment of orderly government was higher 
 than toward the end of the slavery regime. They 
 indicate, also, a notable and surprising fall in the birth 
 rate between 1880 and 1900. During the same period 
 the proportion of children among Southern whites 
 fell steadily but more slowly, the total decline for 
 the fifty-year period being 128 children for 1,000 non- 
 Caucasian women and 114 children for 1,000 white 
 women. As a result the proportion of white children 
 in the South in 1900, for the first time, was greater 
 than the proportion of Negro children. Still more 
 remarkable is the fact that during the last twenty 
 years of the nineteenth century the decline in the pro 
 portion of Southern Negro children was 160 and that 
 in the proportion of Southern white children only 75. 
 The following table shows the states in which the pro 
 portion of children is highest or lowest, and those in 
 which the decline has been greatest. For the sake of 
 comparison the figures for whites are added.* It will 
 be noticed that the child-bearing age in this table has 
 been defined a little more exactly than was possible 
 from the census data of 1850 and 1860, as 15 to 44 
 years of age. 
 
 * Fuller figures on the subject will be found in the " Supplementary 
 Analysis" of the Twelfth Census, pp. 241, 424,427-429. 
 
508 The American Race Problem 
 
 TABLE IV. Children under five years of age to 1,000 
 women, 15 to 44 years of age, by race for the South 
 Atlantic and South Central States: 1880 and 1900. 
 
 Division. 
 
 Non- 
 Caucasians. 
 
 Whites. 
 
 Decrease in 
 twenty years for 
 
 
 1880. 
 
 1900. 
 
 1880. 
 
 666 
 623 
 5i6 
 539 
 420 
 657 
 757 
 7i3 
 703 
 7U 
 721 
 7i8 
 749 
 712 
 681 
 721 
 734 
 747 
 813 
 680 
 845 
 ? 
 ? 
 853 
 
 1900. 
 
 Non- 
 Cauca 
 sians. 
 
 Whites 
 
 South Atlantic . 
 
 787 
 695 
 632 
 614 
 428 
 762 
 699 
 833 
 838 
 867 
 818 
 752 
 799 
 785 
 664 
 770 
 792 
 843 
 824 
 773 
 863 
 ? 
 ? 
 869 
 
 630 
 525 
 499 
 483 
 254 
 594 
 514 
 674 
 674 
 712 
 663 
 599 
 612 
 598 
 454 
 S44 
 624 
 652 
 633 
 620 
 611 
 782 
 631 
 642 
 
 595 
 542 
 446 
 461 
 302 
 591 
 649 
 653 
 677 
 630 
 642 
 639 
 659 
 630 
 601 
 615 
 680 
 675 
 692 
 652 
 689 
 73i 
 716 
 698 
 
 157 
 170 
 133 
 131 
 174 
 168 
 185 
 159 
 164 
 155 
 155 
 153 
 187 
 187 
 
 210 
 226 
 
 168 
 191 
 191 
 153 
 252 
 
 227 
 
 7i 
 81 
 70 
 78 
 118 
 66 
 108 
 60 
 26 
 84 
 79 
 79 
 90 
 82 
 80 
 106 
 54 
 72 
 
 121 
 
 28 
 156 
 
 155 
 
 Northern South Atlantic 
 Delaware 
 
 Maryland. . . . 
 
 District of Columbia. . . 
 Virginia 
 West Virginia 
 
 Southern South Atlantic 
 
 South Carolina 
 Georgia 
 
 Florida 
 
 South Central 
 
 Eastern South Central. . . 
 Kentucky 
 
 Tennessee 
 
 Alabama 
 
 Mississippi 
 Western South Central . . 
 Louisiana 
 
 
 Indian Territory 
 
 Oklahoma 
 
 Texas . . 
 
 
 Table IV. shows that in every Southern state the 
 decline in the proportion of Negro children between 
 1880 and 1900 was much greater than the decline in 
 the proportion of white children, and that with both 
 races the proportion was smallest in the border states, 
 and reached a very marked minimum in the District 
 of Columbia. The last fact suggests that the proportion 
 
The Probable Increase 
 
 509 
 
 of Negro children may be very small in other cities. 
 We have figures on this only for 1890 and 1900. They 
 show that in the entire country, outside the large cities, 
 the proportion of Negro children to 1,000 women fell 
 from 672 in 1890 to 651 in 1900, or 21. But the pro 
 portion in the cities was 305 in 1890 and 260 in 1900, 
 a decrease of 45. These figures show that the propor 
 tion of Negro children in cities is about two-fifths of 
 the proportion in country districts, and has decreased 
 in cities with more than twice the rapidity with which 
 it has decreased in country districts. The following 
 figures compare the proportion and decrease of Negro 
 children in Southern cities and country districts with 
 the proportion and decrease of white children: 
 
 TABLE V. Children under five years of age to 1,000 
 women, 15 to 44 years of age. For the South Atlantic 
 and South Central States: 1890 and 1900. 
 
 Division. 
 
 In cities of 25,000. 
 
 In rest of area. 
 
 Non- 
 Caucasian. 
 
 White. 
 
 Non- 
 Caucasian. 
 
 White. 
 
 1890. 
 
 1900. 
 
 1890. 
 
 1900. 
 
 1890. 
 
 1900. 
 
 1890. 
 
 1900. 
 
 641 
 693 
 
 South Atlantic 
 South Central 
 
 3ii 
 33i 
 
 269 
 274 
 
 385 
 402 
 
 365 
 384 
 
 685 
 690 
 
 687 
 653 
 
 627 
 693 
 
 Negro children are much less numerous than white 
 children in the cities of both divisions. They are less 
 numerous in the country districts of the South Central 
 division, but more numerous in the country districts 
 of the South Atlantic. In the large cities of the South 
 
510 The American Race Problem 
 
 Atlantic division the decrease of Negro children, 1890 
 to 1900, was 42 per 1,000 women, that of white children 
 only 20. In the large cities of the South Central division 
 the decrease of Negro children was 57 per 1,000 women, 
 that of white children only 18. Outside of these cities 
 in the South Central division the decrease of Negro 
 children was 37 to 1,000 women, and of white children 
 only i. Outside of those cities in the South Atlantic 
 division the increase of Negro children was 2 to 1,000 
 women, and of white children the increase was 14. The 
 growth of cities in the South and the effect of city life 
 upon the birth-rate are thus proved to be potent in 
 fluences, but not the only influences, producing the 
 rapid decrease of the Negro birth-rate. 
 
 Immigration of whites into the South might tend to 
 maintain the birth-rate and the rate of increase of 
 whites, and thus account for the growing disparity 
 between the figures for the two races. This immigration 
 is of two sorts, immigration of foreign-born whites 
 and immigration of whites born in other parts of the 
 United States. The number of foreign-born whites 
 in the Southern states, excluding Oklahoma and Indian 
 Territory, was 516,000 in 1890 and 542,000 in 1900, an 
 increase of only 5.0 per cent., while the increase in the 
 country as a whole was 12.0 per cent. Of the total white 
 population of the Southern states in 1890 3.9 per cent, 
 and in 1900 3.4 per cent, were of foreign birth. Im 
 migration of foreign-born whites cannot be a very 
 potent influence in maintaining the birth-rate or the 
 rate of increase of Southern whites. 
 
The Probable Increase 511 
 
 The immigration of foreign-born whites to the 
 Southern states is not offset by an appreciable amount 
 of emigration of white natives of the South to foreign 
 countries. But on the part of native whites the currents 
 of migration between the Southern states and the rest 
 of the country flow in both directions, and it is necessary 
 to consider the net result or balance. In doing so it 
 is best to exclude Oklahoma and Indian Territory 
 from the Southern states. In 1890 there were 1,038,000 
 white natives of the Southern states (excluding Okla 
 homa and Indian Territory) living in other parts of 
 the country: in 1900 the number had risen to 1,116,000. 
 To offset this current there were, in 1890, 582,000 white 
 natives of the North and West living in the South (still 
 excluding Oklahoma and Indian Territory), and in 
 1900 there were 725,000. The native white population 
 of the Southern states has suffered a net loss by inter 
 change with other parts of the country, but that loss 
 is a decreasing one. In 1890 it was 456,000 and in 
 1900 it was 391,000. 
 
 As the Negroes in the South receive very few recruits 
 from foreign countries, so, also, they receive very few 
 recruits from the North and West. In studying these 
 currents of migration it is necessary to include with 
 the Negroes the native Indians and Mongolians, these 
 classes not having been distinguished from the Negroes 
 for the birthplace tables at the census of 1890. They 
 were so few relatively as not to distort the figures. In 
 1890 there were 241,000 non-Caucasian natives of the 
 South living in the North and West, in 1900 there were 
 
512 The American Race Problem 
 
 349,000. In 1890 there were 22,400 non-Caucasian 
 natives of the North and West living in the South, in 
 1900 there were 26,500. In 1890 the net loss of Southern 
 Negroes by emigration to other parts of the country was 
 218,000, in 1900 it was 323,000. During the decade 1890 
 to 1900 the net loss of Southern native whites by emi 
 gration to other parts of the country decreased 65,000, 
 and the net loss of Southern Negroes increased 105,000. 
 The net loss of Southern native whites by emigration 
 to each 10,000 native whites residing in the South was 
 365 in 1890 and 255 in 1900. Corresponding figures 
 for the non-Caucasians in the South were 324 in 1890 
 and 410 in 1900. The relative loss of the Negroes 
 in 1890 was less than that of the whites, but in 1900 
 it was greater by three-fifths. 
 
 The evidence thus far has indicated two of the in 
 fluences at work in reducing the proportion of children, 
 and probably the birth-rate, of Southern Negroes much 
 more rapidly than of Southern whites. The first is 
 the growth of cities, especially of Southern cities, and 
 the powerful and increasing influence they exercise 
 upon their residents, especially their Negro residents, 
 in depressing the birth-rate. The second is the decreas 
 ing net loss of Southern whites and the increasing net 
 loss of Southern Negroes by the currents of migration 
 between the South and the North and West. So far 
 as one can judge, both of these influences are likely 
 to persist, and even to become more potent. Indeed, 
 they bid fair to be reinforced by a third, which has 
 not yet produced a noteworthy effect upon the popula- 
 
The Probable Increase 513 
 
 tion of the South the increased influx into the South 
 of white immigrants from Europe, especially from 
 Southern Europe. The evidence in hand, therefore, 
 meagre as it is, points to a continuance of a proportion 
 of children among Southern Negroes smaller than among 
 Southern whites a relation which was first mani 
 fested in 1 900 and probably to an increasing difference 
 in this respect between the two races. 
 
 The increase of Negro population in the United 
 States is the result, as already stated, of the balance 
 between births and deaths. It has been shown that 
 the proportion of Negro children is rapidly decreasing. 
 But, if the proportion of them who die or, in other 
 words, the death-rate is decreasing as fast or faster, 
 the rate of increase might continue at its present height 
 or even rise. It is important, therefore, to ascertain 
 how the death-rate of the Negroes is changing. This 
 rate is known only for the registration area, as it is 
 called; that is, for those states and cities in which the 
 local death records are believed to be accurate enough 
 to deserve consideration. Probably some omissions 
 of deaths occur in nearly all parts of the registration 
 area. Probably these omissions are more numerous 
 in the South than in the North, and in any given place 
 perhaps more numerous among the Negroes than among 
 the whites. Still, these figures for deaths in the regis 
 tration area are the best we have. They are based 
 upon a large non-Caucasian population, 950,000 in 
 1890 and 1,250,000 in 1900; and the evidence they 
 present, although not beyond challenge, is very weighty. 
 
514 The American Race Problem 
 
 Among 1,000 non-Caucasians in the registration area 
 in 1890 there were 29.9 deaths and in 1900 29.6 deaths. 
 These figures point to a very high death-rate and to a 
 very slight decrease between 1890 and 1900. 
 
 The largest body of statistics with which I am fami 
 liar, at all comparable with these figures, but indicating 
 the conditions of the Negroes at various times and 
 places before the war, may be found in the volume 
 on mortality in the Eighth Census of the United States.* 
 The statistics thus collected are for the eleven cities 
 of Boston, New Bedford, Providence, New York, 
 Buffalo, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Charles 
 ton, New Orleans, and Memphis, and for various 
 dates between 1818 and 1863, with the exception 
 of Boston, the figures for which include also the 
 period from 1725 to 1774. Returns from these cities 
 ought to be fairly comparable with those for the regis 
 tration area of 1890 and 1900, which also was largely 
 Northern and urban. The comparison is indicated 
 in Table VI on the following page. 
 
 Probably these figures warrant the inferences that 
 the death-rate of each race has greatly decreased in 
 the United States in fifty years, and that the decrease 
 
 * See page 280 of that volume. These figures were originally compiled for 
 the American Freedmen s Inquiry Commission, and the results were first pub 
 lished in the report of that commission to the Secretary of War (3 8th Congress, 
 First Session, Senate Executive Documents No. 53, p. 105.) The statistical 
 work of that commission was "greatly aided by Dr. Edward Jarvis of Boston," 
 one of the most careful and competent students of vital statistics we have ever 
 had in the United States. He "kindly opened to the commission the treasure of 
 his valuable statistical library" and "personally superintended some of the 
 researches." The figures were republished two years later with some additions 
 in the census volume. It is from this latter source that the first line of Table 
 VI has been prepared. 
 
The Probable Increase 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 | 
 
 O 
 
 CQ 
 
 6 
 
 ^O H 
 
 fO 
 
 | | 
 
 t^. ON 
 
 C* M 
 
 M 
 
 H 
 
 Q J5 tf is 
 ^r r\ CU 
 
 t 
 
 Is 
 
 
 CD 
 
 c* 
 
 
 O ro 
 
 o 
 
 oj 
 
 oo \o 
 
 Tj- 
 
 3 
 
 o" ^ 
 
 tO 
 
 
 
 q ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 OT 
 
 M 
 
 
 03 
 3 
 
 P 5 d 
 
 t^. o\ 
 oo J^ 
 
 Ox 
 
 c ^ 
 
 M" oo" 
 
 ^ 
 
 " 
 
 M N 
 
 fO 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 5 
 
 \O vo 
 
 to 
 
 *s 
 
 O 
 
 to 
 
 J^* 
 
 O^ !> 
 
 to 
 
 c ^ 
 
 oo" oo" 
 
 f^ 
 
 .2 
 
 ro H 
 
 cs 
 
 03 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 & 
 
 d 
 o a 
 
 ON to 
 00 fT> 
 t^. O\ 
 
 M 10 
 
 o\ 
 >o 
 
 M 
 
 to 
 
 |l 
 
 
 
 <N 
 M 
 
 2 
 
 to 
 
 3*W> 
 
 O 00 
 
 O 
 
 rt 
 p 
 
 2 S M ^? 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 j 
 
 8 o 
 
 a 
 .2 
 
 rt 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 -t-> oj 
 
 tij 
 
 J3 rt 
 
 (3 
 
 > 
 
 .S g 
 
 
 PH 
 
 l5 
 
 | 
 
 5 
 
 j3 
 
 JH 
 
 4J j3 O ^ 
 
 il 
 
 1 
 
 Sg ^ 1 
 wo wo 
 
 |J 
 
516 The American Race Problem 
 
 for the Negroes has been much less rapid, both abso 
 lutely and relatively to the initial amount, than the de 
 crease for the whites. The death-rate indicated for Negroes 
 in 1900 is more than five-sixths (84.6 per cent.) of what 
 it was at the earlier period. That for whites is less 
 than two-thirds (64.1 per cent.) of what it was at the 
 same period. At the earliest date the death-rate of 
 Negroes exceeded that of whites by 29.8 per cent 
 of the lower rate, in 1890 it exceeded the death-rate 
 of whites by 56.5 per cent., and in 1900 by 71.5 per cent. 
 Before the war the difference between the death-rates 
 of Negroes and whites was 8.0, in 1900 it was 12.3. 
 Clearly in this field the benefits of progress are accruing 
 more to the white than to the Negro race, and the 
 difference between the two races is growing. 
 
 In order to get more specific information, the popula 
 tion of each race must be divided into sex and age 
 classes, as in Table VII on page 517. 
 
 From the figures in this table the death-rates of the 
 non-Caucasians in the registration area by age and sex 
 may be computed for 1890 and 1900, and the change 
 for the decade estimated. The results are given in 
 Table VIII on the same page, into which the death-rates 
 of whites have been introduced for comparison. 
 
 Table VIII indicates that there was a decline 
 in the mortality of Negro infants between 1890 and 
 1900, a decline, however, less than half that in the 
 mortality of white infants. There was likewise a decline 
 in the death-rate of Negro children five to fourteen 
 years of age, which was about half the decline in the 
 
The Probable Increase 
 
 517 
 
 11 
 
 I 8" 
 
 I, 
 
 ir 
 
 
 
 
 t^ to IO O to 
 
 
 
 Qj 
 
 CM 00 t^ O CO 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 t^ O O 00 ON 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 tO H VO CM H 
 
 
 O 
 
 fa 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 <u 
 
 CO O co t^-00 
 
 H M Tj- O M 
 
 OT 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 P 
 
 
 0) 
 
 CO * ON ON ^i" 
 
 
 
 *a5 
 
 O ON CM t>* to 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 l^ rf H" M~ 
 
 
 
 0) 
 
 
 
 
 
 fa 
 
 
 
 oo 
 
 
 f-N, CM M H ^t 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 O CO t H t^. 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 IOOO OO CM CM 
 
 
 
 JU 
 
 1 
 
 O OO to CM ON 
 ONOO M CO ON 
 ON ON T}- ON CM 
 
 
 
 
 o o t^-oo M 
 
 
 
 
 PH 
 
 M CO 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 00 NO t^ O ON 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 M t > * O t^- M 
 
 
 
 B <1> 
 
 ^- Tf t^ IH rf 
 
 
 
 cj 
 
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 ^j 
 
 to ON toOO H 
 
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 CO 
 
 PH 
 
 
 
 rj- T^- QN to to 
 
 Q 
 
 
 r **j 
 
 CO ON Tt- O -<t 
 
 ^ 
 
 
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 g 
 
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 o 
 
 fa 
 
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 00 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 CM ON ON -^ CO 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 M 00 ON CN 00 
 
 
 
 rSH 
 
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 3 
 
 CM" NO" ^f ON O~ 
 
 TtOO NO to H 
 
 
 
 
 CM 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 to 
 
 
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 fe ^ ^NO 
 
 
 
 
 ^711 + 
 
 & 1 to to to 
 
 t~) 10 M tONO 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 pq 
 
 
 
 
 T^ 
 
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 s-~* 
 
 asians 
 
 1 
 
 fr H M O NO 
 
 ,11 + 
 
 
 
 CJ 
 
 
 ^ CM O ^tOO 
 
 
 c ^~^ 
 
 cJ 
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 rt- H M O ON 
 
 
 ^ennial i 
 [ecrease 
 
 i-Cau- 
 isians. 
 
 Female 
 
 00 O O to P< 
 
 1 I+++ 
 
 
 S ,, 
 
 U 
 
 
 O O *O CO V O 
 
 
 W o 
 
 ^ 
 
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 r\+++ 
 
 O 
 
 
 
 
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 a 
 
 
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 O 
 
 o 
 
 m 
 
 
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 00 
 
 M 
 
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 to t-t t^ 
 
 00 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 CM CM ON 10 -<t 
 
 Q 
 
 
 8 
 
 H 
 
 ^ tOO CO O 
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 : 
 
 
 c3 
 
 
 
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 OO to ON CO O 
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 < 
 
 Q 
 
 
 
 
 W CM CM NO CO 
 
 ^ 
 
 | 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
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 M 
 
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 M M M CO O 
 
 ^ 
 
 casians 
 
 0) 
 
 
 
 ON 
 00 
 
 00 O to ONOO 
 
 M M M CM ON 
 
 M 
 
 
 oS 
 
 
 
 <N CM CO NO 00 
 
 
 O 
 
 g 
 
 O 
 
 ON 
 
 M 
 
 t- ONOO 00 ON 
 CM HI CO M 
 
 
 
 S 
 
 o 
 
 O> 
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 M 
 
 CM CS CO CO CM 
 
 O O OO t^OO 
 CO H H CO M 
 
 M M 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 to 
 
 fc 7*"*? , 
 711 + 
 
 * \ lOtOlO 
 
518 The American Race Problem 
 
 death-rate among white children. But at the ages of 
 early adult life, fifteen to forty-four the Negro death- 
 rate increased and the white decreased; and at the 
 ages of forty-five to sixty-four the Negro death-rate 
 increased, while that for white males fell and for white 
 females was unchanged. At ages above sixty-five 
 the death-rates of each race increased. 
 
 The slight improvement in the death-rate of Negroes 
 of all ages, between 1890 and 1900, is thus seen to be 
 due to a decided fall in the rate for children and. youth, 
 largely counterbalanced by an increase in the death- 
 rate of adult and aged Negroes. Apparently the death- 
 rates of the two races, at ages between fifteen and sixty- 
 four, are changing in opposite directions, those for 
 whites decreasing and those for Negroes increasing. 
 The only way of escaping this inference is to claim 
 either that the records of deaths among Negroes in 1900 
 were kept so much more accurately than in 1890 
 as to convert a real decrease among adults into an 
 apparent increase which seems improbable or to 
 claim that no inference can be drawn from figures 
 relating to the registration area, 92 per cent, of the 
 Negro population of which lives in cities, to the Kfegro 
 population of the entire country. The last objection 
 is weighty. The only answer to it is that w T e have no 
 other evidence; that these figures, while not conclusive, 
 are indicative, and probably do show the present 
 tendency in a large and increasing fraction of the race. 
 The evidence, then, indicates a high but rapidly decreas 
 ing birth-rate among Southern Negroes as a whole, 
 
The Probable Increase 519 
 
 a very low and rapidly decreasing birth-rate among 
 urban Negroes in all parts of the country, a high and 
 very slowly decreasing death-rate for urban Negroes, 
 and an increase in the death-rates of urban Negroes 
 at ages above fifteen years. 
 
 Owing to the courtesy of the Census Office in furnish 
 ing me with certain figures not contained in the pub 
 lished volumes of the Twelfth Census, I am able to add 
 to the preceding data indicating the absolute and 
 relative decrease of the Negro death-rate, the following 
 table, comparing the death-rates of white and Negro in 
 1900 at twenty-four age periods. To facilitate that 
 comparison a column is added showing the ratio of the 
 non-Caucasian death-rate to the white. 
 
 Table IX. on page 520 shows that in the registration 
 area in 1900 the death-rate of Negroes was greater 
 than that of whites at each age below eighty. The 
 lower death-rate of Negroes above eighty years of age 
 indicated by the table is probably due to the large 
 number of elderly Negroes who overstate their age to 
 the census enumerators. These errors are undoubtedly 
 more common in the returns of age for the living popula 
 tion than in the returns of age for decedents. Because 
 of them little confidence can be placed in the death- 
 rates at very high ages. At practically all ages under 
 thirty the death-rate of Negroes is between twice and 
 three times as great as that of whites; at ages between 
 thirty and sixty-five the death-rate of Negroes is less 
 than twice, but more than one and one-half times as 
 great as that of whites. The difference between the 
 
520 The American Race Problem 
 
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The Probable Increase 521 
 
 races seems to reach its maximum at the healthiest 
 period of life, ten to twenty years of age, when the Negro 
 death-rate is about three times that of the whites, and 
 to decrease from that age with advancing years. 
 
 The fundamental explanation of the falling birth-rate 
 and almost stationary death-rate, seems to me to lie 
 in a growing competition between Negroes and whites, 
 and a decrease in the relative efficiency of Negroes 
 compared with whites a decrease which is by no 
 means incompatible with an increase in their efficiency 
 when compared with their own standards under slavery 
 or in the early years after emancipation. If such a 
 competition has been in progress, some reflection of it 
 should be found in the statistics of occupations.* In 
 those statistics the non-Caucasians were first distin 
 guished in 1890, so that comparisons can be made 
 only for the last decade of the nineteenth century. 
 By confining the figures to the South more satisfactory 
 results are reached, both because that region contains 
 few Indians and Mongolians, and because, if figures 
 for the whole country are used, geographical differences 
 between North and South might be mistaken for racial 
 ones. 
 
 There are certain occupations in which the Southern 
 Negroes have increased proportionately to the whites. 
 Among them we may distinguish several classes. 
 
 First are those which make heavy demands upon the 
 muscular system. Workmen in such occupations in- 
 
 * For detailed figures and a fuller analysis see " Supplementary Analysis " 
 of the Twelfth Census, pp. 225-237 and Census Bulletin 8, "Negroes in the 
 United States," pp. 52-64 and 164-187. 
 
522 The American Race Problem 
 
 elude miners and quarry men, 29.7 per cent, of whom 
 in the South in 1890, and 31.5 per cent, in 1900, were 
 Negroes; saw-mill and planing-mill employees, 41.6 per 
 cent, of whom in 1890, and 46.1 per cent, in 1900, were 
 Negroes; and iron and steel workers, 23.2 per cent, of 
 whom in 1890, and 31.0 per cent, in 1900, were Negroes. 
 
 A second class includes those occupations requiring 
 little skill, and in many cases followed only in an ir 
 regular or casual way. Such occupations are those of 
 servants and waiters, 74.3 per cent, of whom in 1890, 
 and 77.6 per cent, in 1900, were Negroes. 
 
 A third class is one in which the service is rendered 
 almost entirely to members of the Negro race. Ex 
 amples of these are teachers, 18.3 per cent. Negro in 
 1890 and 19.2 per cent, in 1900; and clergymen, 36.5 
 per cent. Negro in 1890 and 37.5 per cent, in 1900. 
 The supply of Negro clergymen relative to the Negro 
 population of the South is now greater and increasing 
 more rapidly than the supply of white clergymen. 
 There is a noteworthy difference in this respect between 
 the United States and Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philip 
 pine Islands. Cuba and Porto Rico have about the 
 same proportion of Negroes as our Southern states, 
 but in the two islands in 1899 only six Negro clergymen 
 were reported, or one in seventy, while in the Southern 
 United States more than one clergyman in three is a 
 Negro. In this regard the Philippine Islands occupy 
 an intermediate position. With more than 99 per 
 cent, of the population Malay, less than three-fifths of 
 the clergymen in the islands belong to that race. 
 
The Probable Increase 523 
 
 Those occupations in which the Negroes have lost 
 ground at the South since 1890 may likewise be grouped 
 into classes. 
 
 One class includes occupations in which persons work 
 without close and constant supervision. This is true 
 of draymen, hackmen, and teamsters, of whom 50.8 
 per cent, in 1890 and 47.1 per cent, in 1900 were 
 Negroes. 
 
 Another class includes occupations in which the 
 amount of skill is not indicated by the group name. 
 Here would fall: launderers and laundresses, 93.5 per 
 cent. Negroes in 1890 and 91.5 per cent, in 1900; steam 
 railroad employees, 39.5 per cent. Negroes in 1890 and 
 37.6 per cent, in 1900; housekeepers and stewards, 32.4 
 per cent. Negroes in 1890 and 23.2 per cent, in 1900; 
 engineers and firemen, 20.9 per cent. Negroes in 1890 
 and 20.7 per cent, in 1900. 
 
 There is also a class of handicrafts which require 
 skill and capital, in which the Southern Negroes lost 
 ground. Such handicraftsmen include: carpenters, 17.8 
 per cent. Negroes in 1890 and 16.2 per cent, in 1900; 
 blacksmiths, 23.4 per cent. Negroes in 1890 and 18.2 
 per cent, in 1900; barbers, 60.4 per cent. Negroes in 
 1890 and 49.4 per cent, in 1900; fishermen and oyster- 
 men, 38.1 per cent. Negroes in 1890 and 31.9 per cent, 
 in 1900; tobacco and cigar factory operatives, 49.1 
 per cent. Negroes in 1890 and 44.6 per cent, in 1900. 
 
 The preceding figures seem to show that the Negro 
 race at the South, in its competition with the whites, 
 lost ground between 1890 and 1900 in the majority of 
 
524 The American Race Problem 
 
 skilled occupations which can be distinguished by aid 
 of the census figures. 
 
 Confirmatory evidence may be derived from the 
 figures for cotton-mill operatives. There is no line of 
 expansion in the South more important than the growth 
 of cotton mills. We are told in the special report on 
 that industry that its growth in the South is the one 
 great fact in the history of cotton manufacturing between 
 1890 and 1900. The number of spindles in the cotton 
 manufacturing States of the South North Carolina, 
 South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama more than trebled 
 in that decade. But this invasion of the Negroes home 
 by cotton manufacturing has furnished little occupation 
 to the Negro. In 1900 the number of cotton- mill 
 operatives reported in the country was 246,000, about 
 one-third of them in the cotton mills of the South; 
 but only a paltry 1,400 were Negroes. Cotton manufac 
 turing is by far the most important industry in Georgia. 
 The capital invested in it is double that in any other 
 manufacturing industry of the state. There are more 
 than 1,000,000 Negroes in Georgia, yet only 417 are 
 reported as cotton-mill operatives. Doubtless some 
 overflow of the general prosperity has reached the 
 Georgia Negroes, but it is only the crumbs that fall 
 from the rich man s table. 
 
 A similar movement, beneficial to the South as a 
 whole but benefiting in the first instance the whites 
 and only indirectly and remotely the Negroes, may be 
 traced in Southern agriculture. The evidence is not 
 so broad, the statistical induction is less complete; 
 
The Probable Increase 525 
 
 but as corroborative testimony certain aspects of it 
 deserves attention.* 
 
 The acreage sown to rice in the United States more 
 than doubled between 1890 and 1900. Most of this 
 increase has been in Louisiana, which produces about 
 three-fifths of the American crop. The crop of Louisiana 
 is produced mainly in three parishes which contain 
 about two-fifths of the country s acreage and produce 
 more than two-fifths of its yield of rice. The acreage 
 of rice in those three parishes multiplied more than 
 five times between 1890 and 1900. With the develop 
 ment of this great new industry the population of these 
 parishes has made a long stride forward, increasing 
 57 per cent., or at more than twice the rate of the state 
 as a whole. But the proportion of Negroes in those 
 parishes is only about two-fifths of the average in the 
 state, and, while the Negro population has increased 
 in the ten years by 6,800, the white population has 
 increased by more than 20,000. The increase of the 
 whites in those three parishes consequent upon the 
 prosperity of the rice industry goes far toward explain 
 ing the decrease in the proportion of Negroes in the 
 entire State of Louisiana from 50 per cent, in 1890 to 
 47.1 per cent, in 1900. 
 
 Factors in this development have been : the discovery 
 of abundant supplies of oil in the vicinity furnishing 
 needed power; the construction of expensive irrigation 
 works; the introduction of varieties of rice from which 
 water can be drawn away toward the end of the season, 
 
 * For other evidence on this point see pages 450-454 of this volume. 
 
526 The American Race Problem 
 
 leaving a firm soil at harvest time; the introduction of 
 modern agricultural machinery, the gang-plough, the 
 horse-drill, the twine-binder, and the steam-thresher. 
 "One harvesting machine," we are told, "operated by 
 one man and five mules, does in one day what formerly 
 required a whole family and hired help to do in a 
 season."* White men have come in to manage this 
 machinery, to carry on agriculture by improved methods. 
 They have come from the North; the increase of the 
 natives of the north central states in Louisiana in the 
 last ten years has been marked. But, doubtless, the 
 most important increase has been among the white 
 natives of that region, who have availed themselves 
 eagerly of the new avenues to prosperity. 
 
 It seems inevitable that changes having a similar 
 effect upon the competition of the two races should 
 go on in cotton growing. I may refer briefly to one 
 that is a serious problem now in Texas and a serious 
 menace to the rest of the cotton-growing area of the 
 country, the insect pest known as the cotton boll weevil. 
 
 This pest first appeared in Texas in 1892 and in Louisi 
 ana in 1903, so that it required about eleven years to 
 cross the largest state and the greatest cotton-growing 
 state in the Union. On the average it extends its 
 field of activity from fifty to sixty miles in each season. 
 The work of the United States Department of Agri 
 culture has not resulted in devising any means of pre 
 venting or materially retarding its progress, and the 
 department expert reported in 1903 that "the steady 
 
 * Twelfth Census, Vol. IX., p, 568. 
 
The Probable Increase 527 
 
 extension of the territory affected by the weevil. . . . 
 has convinced all observers that it will eventually be 
 distributed all over the cotton belt."* The amount of 
 loss already incurred and likely to result from this 
 scourge is entirely uncertain. The census figures for 
 total yield of cotton in 1899 and of the yield per acre 
 do not indicate that the position of Texas as the banner 
 cotton state is endangered. In 1889 she produced less 
 than one-fifth, and in 1899 more than one-fourth of 
 the cotton of the country. The only evidence I have 
 derived from the figures in support of the claim that 
 widespread injury has been done is that the yield of 
 cotton per acre in Texas very slightly decreased from 
 1889 to 1899, while in the rest of the cotton states the 
 average yield per acre was noticeably greater in 1899 
 than in 1889. 
 
 But in any case this pest has rendered cotton a more 
 difficult and uncertain crop. The methods recom 
 mended for minimising the loss are early planting, 
 use of early maturing varieties of seed, and chopping 
 and burning the plants as soon as the weevils have 
 prevented the maturing of more cotton. Energy, 
 ingenuity, and perseverance in surmounting new 
 difficulties are far more characteristic of whites than 
 of Negroes. It is well known that a large part of the 
 field work in the cultivation of Texas cotton is done 
 by whites. It seems probable that, when the boll 
 weevil reaches the cotton-growing district of the lower 
 Mississippi, as it is almost certain to do in the next 
 
 * Department of Agriculture, Year Book, 1903, p. an. 
 
528 The American Race Problem 
 
 ten years, and finds a region where practically all the 
 cotton growing is done by Negro labour, it will bear 
 more hardly upon the yield in that district than it has 
 borne upon the yield in Texas, and that the new pest will 
 contribute in some measure either to decrease the import 
 ance of that area as a cotton centre or else to decrease 
 the dominance of Negro labour in the cotton fields there. 
 A movement to displace Negro labour by immigrant 
 Italian labour in Mississippi and Louisiana has already 
 passed the incipient stages. I may quote a few sentences 
 from a recent article* by a cotton planter of that section 
 describing clearly the difference between the two sorts 
 of labour as he knows them. After asserting that the 
 number of Italians engaged in cotton growing along 
 the lower Mississippi, while not large, "is constantly 
 increasing," that the Italian can "produce more cotton 
 on a given acreage than the Negro," and "gather a 
 greater percentage of it without outside assistance," 
 and that he "works more constantly than the Negro, 
 and, after one or two years experience, cultivates more 
 intelligently," the writer continues: "From the garden 
 spot which the Negro allows to grow up in weeds, the 
 Italian will supply his family from early spring until 
 late fall, and also market enough largely to carry him 
 through the winter. I have seen the ceilings of their 
 houses literally covered with strings of dried butter 
 beans, pepper, okra, and other garden products, while 
 the walls would be hung with corn, sun-cured in the 
 roasting ea stage. In the rear of a well-kept house 
 
 * "The Italian Cotton Grower" in S. Atl. Quart., vol. IV (1905) pages, 45-46 
 
The Probable Increase 529 
 
 would be erected a wood-shed, and in it would be seen 
 enough firewood sawed and ready for use to run the 
 family through the winter months. ... I have 
 seen them make more cotton per acre than the Negro 
 on the adjoining cut, gather it from two to four weeks 
 earlier, and then put in the extra time earning money 
 by picking in the Negro s field. . . . Handi 
 capped as they are at first by ignorance of the language 
 and ignorance of the cultivation of the plant they raise, 
 still they are becoming property owners, tax-payers, 
 and citizens." 
 
 What is true of the Italian immigrant must be still 
 more true of the native American from the North and 
 West, the increase of whom in the South has already 
 been mentioned. 
 
 The conclusion to which I am brought is that relatively 
 to the whites in the South, if not absolutely as measured 
 by any conceivable standard, the Negro as a race is 
 losing ground, is being confined more and more to the 
 inferior and less remunerative occupations, and is not 
 sharing proportionately to his numbers in the prosperity 
 of the country as a whole or of the section in which he 
 mainly lives. 
 
 How far this is due to racial characteristics, disabling 
 him from effective competition with the rival and domi 
 nant race, and how far it is due to economic discrimina 
 tion against members of the race, the evidence does not 
 indicate. That both of these factors now cooperate 
 in the result seems clear. That the economic discrimi 
 nation has developed and is maintained, not only for 
 
53 
 
 The American Race Problem 
 
 economic reasons, but also in part and perhaps mainly 
 for social and political reasons, seems equally incontest 
 able. How much of it shall be assigned to one and 
 how much to the other influence could be measured 
 only if either occurred without the other. 
 
 No reason appears for expecting that the tendencies 
 which I have sought in this article to demonstrate and 
 to explain will soon cease to be controlling. They 
 have set in recently, to be sure, but they seem to be 
 increasing in scope and intensity, and to be likely to 
 continue so to increase. Should they do so, the differ 
 ences in the rates of growth of the two races at the 
 South are likely to become wider, and the increase of 
 Negroes, both absolute and relative, to be slower than 
 any of the foregoing estimates has assumed. 
 
 LIST OF OTHER WRITINGS OF WALTER F. WILLCOX ON THE 
 
 NEGRO 
 
 "Migration of Negroes" (Review) in American 
 Statistical Association Publications, Vol. V. (1897), pp. 
 
 37 1 . 37 2 - 
 
 "Race," in Census of Porto Rico (1899), PP- 55"^2. 
 
 An address before the First Annual Conference of the 
 Southern Society for the Promotion of the Study of 
 Race Conditions and Problems in the South. Mont 
 gomery, Ala., May, 1900, pages 152-156. 
 
 Preface to "The Negro in Africa and America," by 
 J. A. Tillinghast in American Economic Association 
 Publications, Vol. III. (1902), No. 2. 
 
The Probable Increase 531 
 
 "Negro Population," Bureau of the Census, Bulletin 
 8 (1904), pages n-68. 
 
 "Negroes of Columbia, Mo.," by W. W. Elwang 
 (Review), American Statistical Association Quarterly 
 Publications, Vol. IX, (1904), p. 132. 
 
 "Negro Education not a Source of Crime," Leslie s 
 Weekly, March 17, 1904. 
 
 "Economic Position of the American Negro," Ameri 
 can Economic Association Publications, Vol. VI. (1905), 
 p. 216 
 
 "The Colour Line," by W. B. Smith (Review), 
 Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XX. (1905), p. 321. 
 
 "Race" and "Negroes" in Bureau of the Census, 
 "Supplementary Analysis und Derivative Tables" 
 (1906), pp. 175-275. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abdul Rahaman, slave, but 
 not Negro, 430 
 
 Abolition of slavery, and 
 reconstruction, Jamaica 
 and United States, 338 
 
 Absorption of races, 233; 
 in Central America, 26,27; 
 political and social, 26. (See 
 also Admixture, Amalgama 
 tion, Assimilation, Inter 
 marriage, Miscegenation) 
 
 Accommodations, public, 
 
 Negro and, 330. (See also 
 Separate cars, Separate 
 schools) 
 
 Acreage of cotton, working 
 hand, Italian and Negro, 
 Sunny Side, 182, 183, 196 
 
 Acton, J. E. E. D. (Lord), 
 dictum of, H. 0. Lea on, 
 
 7> 9 
 
 Adaptability of the Negro, 
 234, 235, 236; to Southern 
 climate, 173 
 
 Administration, capacity of 
 mulatto for, 402. (See 
 also Self-government) 
 
 Admixture of races, Eliot, 
 of Harvard on, 61 ; French 
 and Spanish, compared with 
 Anglo-Saxon, 402. (See also 
 Absorption, Amalgamation, 
 Assimilation, Intermarriage, 
 Miscegenation) 
 
 Africa, inferiority of Negroes 
 of, 428, 429; partition of, 
 55; race solidarity in, H. A. 
 Wilson on, 239; tribal polity 
 of, 375; tribal polity com 
 pared with plantation gov 
 ernment, 376; "Africa for 
 Africans," 331 
 
 African Society of London, 42 
 
 Afro-American vote, T. T. 
 Fortune on, 359, 360; Kelly 
 Miller on, 361 
 
 Age, accuracy of answers to 
 questions regarding, 478 
 
 Agitators, mulatto, influence of, 
 434; Negro,inthe North, 411 
 
 Agriculture, cultivation in, 
 Negro and Italian care in, 
 192, 196; Italian and intens 
 ive, 185, 186; Negroes in, 47, 
 177, 489, 524, 525; machin 
 ery and the Negro farm 
 hand, 526; Booker T. 
 Washington on Negro 
 opportunity in, 171. (See 
 also Cotton, Gardening, Rice, 
 Tobacco) 
 
 "Agriculture in Delaware," 90 
 
 Alabama, mulatto and Negro 
 population, 41 ; percentage 
 of Negro population, 44, 45 
 
 Alexandria, Va., lynching at, 
 1899, 472. 
 
 Allen, Sarah A, on McKinley 
 and the Negro, 288 
 
 Amalgamation, racial, 26, 27; 
 Massachusetts, 1843, 6o > 6l 
 in West, 65. (See also Ab 
 sorption, Assimilation, Inter 
 marriage, Miscegenation) 
 
 Ambition, Negro, no 
 
 Andrew, John A. (Governor of 
 Massachusetts) on Negro 
 suffrage, 413, 414; on non- 
 slaveholding whites, 260; 
 on Reconstruction policy, 
 414; on slavery, 260 
 
 Anglo-Saxons, attitude to 
 ward Negro race, 6, 55, 56; 
 E. A. Ross on, 241. 
 
 535 
 
536 The American Race Problem 
 
 Antipathy, racial, definition 
 of, 212 
 
 Arkansas, Italian experiment 
 in, 1 80; mulatto and Negro 
 population, 41 
 
 Arson, Negroes and, 459-62,464 
 
 Assimilation, of races, in the 
 United States, 56. (See also 
 Absorption, Admixture, 
 Intermarriage, Miscegena 
 tion) 
 
 Association of ideas, and 
 relations between white and 
 Negro races, 266 et seq. 
 
 Atkinson Edward, on Negro 
 wealth, 150 
 
 Atkinson (Ex-governor of 
 Georgia), on guilt of Sam 
 Hose, 468, 469 
 
 Atlanta Exposition, Negro 
 recognition at, 308 
 
 Attitude, race, 221-6, 234; 
 effect of numbers on, 13, 
 14, 26, 29, 32, 35, 40, 53-5, 
 217, 390; Southern, to 
 Negro, 25; white, to native 
 Hawaiian, 54; necessity of 
 uncompromising, E. A. Ross 
 on, 241 
 
 Attucks, Crispus, a mulatto, 
 43 
 
 Baker, T. Nelson, on mulatto 
 factor, 437 
 
 Baldwin, W. H., on Negro 
 suffrage, 277; on social 
 equality, 316, 317; on suf 
 frage restrictions, 371 
 
 Ballot, non-exercise of right 
 to, 361; right of, against 
 proper use of, 358. (See also 
 Suffrage) 
 
 Baltimore, industrial ostra 
 cism in, 170 
 
 Bamboula, 16 
 
 Banks, N. P., on Northern 
 solicitude for the Negro, 43 2 
 
 Banneker, Benjamin, a 
 mulatto, 430 
 
 Bantu stock, imported in 
 slave trade, 430 
 
 Barbadoes, Negro population 
 compared with Mississippi^ 
 
 Barbers, Negroes as, decline 
 of, 523; efficiency as com 
 pared with white, 168; 
 lessening number of, in 
 Chicago, New York, 155,157 
 
 Barney, Nathaniel, on separate 
 coaches, 67 
 
 Bee, Washington, on Washing 
 ton-Roosevelt Dinner, 318, 
 
 3 J 9 
 
 "Benders," 114 
 
 Bequests, from white ances 
 tors to Negroes, 153 
 
 Berbers and Negroes, race 
 prejudice between, 230 
 
 Birth-rate, Negro, 491; Negro 
 and white, 1850-1900, 506 
 et seq. 
 
 "Black and Tan" Legisla 
 tures, work of, 263, 264 
 
 "Black belt," 82 
 
 "Black codes" (ante-bellum) 
 severity of, proportionate to 
 Negro population, 217. (See 
 also Freedmen s statutes) 
 
 Blacksmiths, Negro, decline 
 of, 523 
 
 Blaine, James G., on South and 
 Negro suffrage, 352; on 
 Southern attitude to freed- 
 men, 20; on Southern, 
 freedmen s statutes, 12 
 
 Boers and native suffrage, 390 
 391; and rights of Negroes, 2 7 
 
 Bonding of free Negroes and 
 mulattoes, Massachusetts, 
 1788-1834, 58 
 
 Bootblacks, Negro, sup 
 planted by Greeks, in 
 Chicago, 157; in New York, 
 154; in Topeka, Kansas, 159; 
 
 Boston, Mass., economic de 
 cline of Negro in, 159; hotel 
 accommodations for Negroes 
 in, 317; race prejudice in 
 schools of, 2 1 1 ; race rela 
 tions in, Augusta P. Eaton 
 on, 236; white women and 
 intermarriage, 62 
 
Index 
 
 537 
 
 Boston Reform League on race 
 prejudice in domestic ser 
 vice, 161 
 
 Brewer, Bob, Negro murderer, 
 
 435 
 
 Brown, John, 8 
 
 Browne, Hugh M., on indus 
 trial decline of the Negro, 
 454, 455 
 
 Bruce, Senator B. K., a 
 mulatto, 430 
 
 Bruce, Philip Alexander, on 
 plantation system, 89 
 
 Bruce, R. 0., 88 
 
 Bryce, James, on colour line 
 in South Africa, 166; on 
 Jamaica, 37; on Khama 
 and social equality in South 
 Africa, 345; on segre 
 gation in South Africa, 24; 
 on self-governing colonies, 
 
 38,39 
 
 Butlers, Negro, decline of, 
 in Boston, 161 
 
 Cabins, 98 
 
 California, Japanese exclusion, 
 
 7 
 
 Callis, H. J., on Negro church 
 in Boston, 160 
 
 Candler, Allen (Governor), on 
 lynch law, 469, 470 
 
 Cape Colony , Ethiopian 
 Church in, 388; half castes 
 of, A. R. Colquhoun on, 
 406; Negro in politics, 387, 
 388; political rights, 27; suf 
 frage, 34, 35; Natives, con 
 ditions compared with that 
 of Negroes in South, 406; 
 their population compared 
 with that of Mississippi, 
 46 
 
 "Caribs," government of the, 
 277 
 
 Carolina rice-crop, 14 
 
 Carpenters, industrial decline 
 of Negroes as, 523 
 
 Carpet-bagger, 261 
 
 Oars, discrimination on, 330; 
 riding in, Negroes and, 
 no. (See also Separate cars) 
 
 Cash advancement to Negro 
 hands on Dunleith Planta 
 tion, 148 
 
 Caterers, Negro, 155 
 
 Catholicism and race control, 
 230, 231, 325; and race pre 
 judice 230-31; and French 
 invasion of the Indians, 
 267 
 
 Census and the Negro, 476, 
 et seq. 
 
 Central America, Negro influ 
 ence in revolutions of, 402; 
 political and social absorp 
 tion of the Negro, 26, 27 
 
 Character, Negro, 145, 147. 
 (See also Negro, character 
 istics of) 
 
 Charles, Robert, Negro mur 
 derer, 435 
 
 Charleston County, S. 0., 
 Negro population, 44 
 
 Ohesnutt, Charles W., 206; a 
 mulatto, 430; on mulattoes, 
 428 
 
 Chicago, industrial decline of 
 Negro in, 157; election of 
 Negro judge, 362 
 
 Children, statistics of, Negro 
 and white under five, 1850 
 1900, 506 
 
 Chinese, exclusion of, 8; race 
 friction, 219, decline of due 
 to decline of population, 
 218; racial superiority of, 
 214 
 
 "Christmas money," 139, 148 
 
 Circus, 1 10 
 
 Cities, Negro population in, 
 481, 482 
 
 Civil equality, 28, 330 
 
 Civil Rights Act, in District of 
 Columbia, etc., 310 
 
 Civil service, Roosevelt and 
 Negroes in, 311, 312 
 
 Oivil Service Commission, 
 report on coloured race in 
 Federal service, 312 (note) 
 
The American Race Problem 
 
 Civil War, compared with 
 foreign wars, 340; verdict 
 of, and the South, 297 
 
 Clemens, Samuel L., 295 
 
 Clergymen, Negro, in United 
 States, Cuba, Porto Rico, 
 and Philippines, 522 
 
 Climate, Southern Negro 
 adaptability to, 173 
 
 Coachmen, efficiency of white 
 versus Negro, 167 
 
 Coleridge-Taylor, 206 
 
 Colonies, American, govern 
 ment of, 379, 380; J. B. 
 McMaster on 412, 413 
 
 Colonisation of the American 
 Negro, Jefferson on, 233 
 
 Colorado, Negro suffrage in, 3 1 
 
 Colour line, abolition of, Du 
 Boison, 241 ; general drawing 
 of, in South, 165; in South, 
 Councill and DuBois on, 
 262, 263; inter-racial, in 
 America, 408, in Jamaica, 
 404, in South Africa, 407; 
 Reconstruction and, 259 
 
 Colour prejudice, 20, 22 
 
 Coloured American Magazine, 
 on Orum appointment, 302, 
 
 33 
 
 Colquhoun, Archibald R., on 
 Ethiopian movement, 331; 
 on capacity for self-govern 
 ment in races of Africa and 
 Asia, 378; on half-castes of 
 Cape Colony, 406; on West 
 Indian Negroes, 376 
 
 Columbia, the United States 
 and white domination in, 55 
 
 Competition between the 
 races, 450; effect on Negro 
 death rate, 521; effect on 
 Negroes, 149 et seq., on 
 social relations, 88 
 
 Congress, investigation of suf 
 frage laws by, 429; Negroes 
 in, 415; Southern repre 
 sentation in, 419, 421 (note) 
 
 Connecticut, Negro governor, 
 in Civil War, 377; Negro 
 suffrage, 31 
 
 Consent of the governed, O. H. 
 Platt on intelligent, 392; 
 J. B. McMaster on women 
 and, 412 
 
 Constitutions, Southern, and 
 disfranchisement of the 
 Negro, 384; and the illiter 
 ate white, 374 
 
 Contact, personal, with Negro, 
 effect of slavery on, 225; 
 law of 2 1 7-9, Northern white 
 man and, 223 224; ultimate 
 effect of, 78 
 
 Convict system, 96 
 
 Corbin, Austin, and the Ital 
 ians in Arkansas, 180 
 
 Corn mill, 117 
 
 Cost of living, Italian versus 
 Negroes, 184 et seq. 
 
 Cotton, acreage production, 
 138; boll weevil, and ne 
 cessity for intelligent white 
 labour, 526, 527; crop in 
 Yazoo Mississippi Delta, 
 84; Italians and, 179, 180; 
 industry, 47 ; mill-operators, 
 decline of Negro, 524; 
 pickers, scarcity of, 103, 
 104; value, Dunleith Plan 
 tation, 148; white and 
 Negro labour in, 450; yield, 
 Yazoo - Mississippi Delta, 
 114 
 
 Councill, W. H., on colour 
 line, 262; on evils of Negro 
 solidarity, 279; on relation 
 of master and slave, 256; on 
 white supremacy and Negro 
 suffrage, 352 
 
 Country, Negro population in, 
 481, 482 
 
 Cranford, Alfred, killed by 
 Sam Hose, a Negro, 463 
 
 Credit system, 101 
 
 Crime, Negro, 443, et seq.; 
 lynching, and decrease in, 
 473; Massachusetts and, 
 57, 58 
 
 Crittenden & Co., O. B., suc 
 cessors to Sunny Side 
 Company, 181 
 
Index 
 
 539 
 
 Crop lien system, 101, 102, 
 103, 136 
 
 Cropper system, 99 
 
 Crum appointment, 246 et 
 seq.; 302, 303 
 
 Cuba, capacity for self- 
 government, Wolfred Nel 
 son on, 394 395, W. Inglison, 
 395; domination of white 
 race in, 55; Negro clergy 
 men in, 522; Negro popu 
 lation, compared with 
 Mississippi, 47 ; Platt 
 Amendment, 393 
 
 Cultivation, care in, Italian 
 versus Negro, 192, 196. (See 
 also Agriculture) 
 
 Cundall, Frank, on Jamaican 
 form of government, 379 
 
 Cutler, James Elbert, 47; on 
 lynch law, 74 
 
 Daniels, John, on economic 
 condition of Negroes in 
 Boston, 1 60 
 
 Death-rate, Negro, 490, 491; 
 before and after civil 
 war, 513-21 
 
 DeBerry, W. N., at Spring 
 field, Mass, 161: on indus 
 trial race prejudice, 19 
 
 Delta. See Yazoo-Mississippi 
 Delta 
 
 Democracy and lynching, 475 
 
 Deportation as a means of 
 lessening Negro crime, 474 
 
 DeTocqueville on results 
 of emancipation, 232 
 
 Dining cars, displacement of 
 Negroes as waiters on, 
 
 159 
 
 Discrimination against Negro, 
 59; before the war, 227; 
 complaints of, from mulat- 
 toes rather than Negroes, 
 433; economic, 14, 161, 
 529, 530; in Massachusetts, 
 57, 58; by New Bedford 
 Traction R. R., 67; North 
 and South, 13, 14; suffrage, 
 and, 356 
 
 Disfranchisement of the 
 Negro, 371, 384-7; in the 
 South, 354, 355, 361; ne 
 cessity for, 417 
 
 District of Columbia, civil 
 rights in, 310; government 
 f 379 3 82 ; Negro in, 38; 
 political equality in, 227 
 
 Distribution of Negro popu 
 lation, effects of, on race 
 relations, 13, 14, 26, 29, 
 3 2 35 4o, 53-5, 217, 
 39 
 
 Domestic service, decline of 
 Negro in, Boston, Chicago, 
 the South, 158-61 
 
 "Door of Hope," 286, 287; 
 Negro closing, against him 
 self, 202; Theodore Roose 
 velt and, 246, 286 
 
 Douglass, Frederick, a 
 mulatto, 430 ; on dependence 
 of South on Negro labour, 
 172; on Kansas exodus, 172; 
 on Negro achievement, 150 
 
 Drainage, 117 
 
 Duane, James, and the Ethi 
 opian movement, 323 (note) 
 
 DuBois, W. E. B., 206; a 
 mulatto, 430 ; on colour line, 
 262, 263 ; on general equality 
 of races, 240, 241 ; on Negro 
 crime, 446; on Negro 
 immorality, 205; on Negro 
 wealth, 150; on Negroes 
 of Farmville, Va., 457; 
 on Northern slave trade, 
 14; on race contact, 326; 
 on relation of master and 
 slave, 256; on Southern 
 people, 75 
 
 Dumas, Alex., a mulatto, 41 
 
 Dunbar, Paul L., 206; on 
 kindliness between races, 
 258; on Reconstructions, 
 Negro, 283 
 
 Dunleith Plantation, experi 
 ment on, 197, 198; statis 
 tics, 1899-1903, 148 
 
540 The American Race Problem 
 
 Dunning, W. A., 47; on 
 Negro suffrage in Recon 
 struction, 271; on relation 
 between master and freed- 
 men, in Reconstruction,^ 09 
 
 Eaton, Augusta P., on race 
 relations in Boston, 236 
 
 Education, industrial, 89; 
 Negro, and decrease of 
 crime, failure of, 473, effect 
 on desire for self-support, 
 449, as suffrage qualifica 
 tion, 372 
 
 Efficiency of the Negro, 
 compared with Italians, 173 
 et seq., at Sunny Side, 183, 
 184; relative, 456; decline in 
 relative 521; in Mississippi, 
 J. 0. Hardy on, 177 et seq., 
 in South, 174 et seq. 
 
 Elevation of the black race, 
 office holding and, 306, 307 
 
 Eliot, Charles W. (President 
 Harvard), on admixture of 
 the races, 61 ; on separate 
 schools, 68 
 
 Emancipation, Jefferson on, 
 233 ; Lincoln on, 8,33; Freed- 
 men s statutes of, attitude 
 of North to, n, 12; race 
 friction and, 472, 473; race 
 problems and, 253, 254; 
 restrictive legislation of, 
 10 
 
 Emigration to North, Negro, 
 512; B. T. Washington on, 
 
 53 
 
 Enlistment of Negroes, in 
 North, 29 
 
 Environment, influence of, on 
 race attitude, 6, 15, 43, 44, 
 81,390. (See also Numbers) 
 
 Equality, economic, 201 ; in 
 the South, 228; Lincoln on, 
 20; industrial, see Industrial 
 equality; political, see Po 
 litical equality; racial, 214; 
 fetish of, 397; social, see 
 Social equality 
 
 Ethiopian movement in South 
 Africa, 323 (note), 388; A. 
 R. Colquhoun on, 331 
 
 Exclusion, Negro, in Massa 
 chusetts, 1812, 58 
 
 Excursions, Negroes and, no 
 
 Expediency, J. B. McMaster 
 on principle of, in suffrage 
 laws of United States, 412, 
 
 413 
 
 Expense account, Negro versus 
 Italian, 184 et seq. 
 
 Family life among Negroes, 
 448 ; relation of, to obedi 
 ence to laws, 447. (See also 
 Home life) 
 
 Farm, U. S. Census definition 
 of, 90 
 
 Farming, Negro, see Agri 
 culture 
 
 Farmville, Va., W. E. B. Du 
 Bois on Negroes of, 457 
 
 Females, Negro, excess of, 
 485 ; in city population, 486; 
 in occupations, 488 
 
 Fertility of soil versus white 
 .management, Mississippi, 
 178 
 
 Fertilizers in Delta, 113 
 
 Fifteenth Amendment, 30, 283 
 (note) 
 
 Financial returns, security of, 
 Italians versus Negroes, 192 
 
 Firmin, A., on Roosevelt, 321 
 
 Fitch (of Hampton Normal 
 Institute), on industrial de 
 cline of the Negro, 455 
 
 Florida, percentage of Negro 
 population, 49 
 
 Food, Negro, character of, 454 
 
 Fort, J. H., 129 (note), 182 
 (note) 
 
 Fortune, T. T., on condition 
 of Negro in the South, 203, 
 204; on industrial decline 
 of Negro, 43-5 ; on standing 
 of the Afro-American vote, 
 
 359 
 
 France and Indians, E. E. 
 Hale on, 266, 267 
 
Index 
 
 54i 
 
 Free Negroes, 29; in 1860, 151 ; 
 in Illinois, Indiana, Oregon, 
 Ohio, 57; attitude of Massa 
 chusetts toward, in 1821, 
 
 57, 58 
 
 Freedman s Bureau, 271 
 Freedmen and former masters, 
 
 276 
 
 Freedmen s statutes, 10, 
 1 1 ; James G. Elaine on, 
 1 2 ; James Ford Rhodes on, 
 12; Mississippi 34, 35. (See 
 also Black codes) 
 Friction, see Race friction 
 Frissell, H. B. (Principal of 
 Hampton Institute) , on in 
 dustrial decline of the 
 Negro, 455 
 Fulah stock, in slave trade, 
 
 43 
 
 "Fusion" system, 369 
 
 Future of the Negro, 203, 204; 
 and immigration, 172; in 
 the South, 171, 172 
 
 Gambling, Negro propensity 
 
 for, 107 
 Gardening, Negro and Italian, 
 
 *95> X 97 
 
 Garfield, James A., on reduc 
 tion of Southern represen 
 tation, 419 
 
 Georgia, cumulative poll tax 
 and Negro disfranchisement, 
 355; mulattoes in, 41; 
 Negroes in cotton mills of, 
 524; Negro suffrage in, 35; 
 proportion of Negro popu 
 lation, 44, 45, 49; Legisla 
 ture, censure of McKinley, 
 283, 293 294, eulogy of 
 McKinley s fraternal senti 
 ments, 297 
 
 Gilliam, E. W., estimate of 
 Negro population in 1980, 
 
 49 6 , 497 
 
 Gordon riots, 1865, 399 
 (note) 
 
 Government, adaptation to 
 people and races to be 
 governed, 348, 375, 376, 394; 
 
 and consent of the governed, 
 O. H. Platt on, 392; Jam 
 aica form, Cundall on, 379; 
 mulatto capacity for, 401 ; 
 Negro and responsible form 
 of, 37; without representa 
 tion, B. T. Washington on, 
 
 ^ 392, 393 T 
 
 Grant, J. P., despotism of, 
 in Jamaica, 375 
 
 Great Britain and the race 
 problem, 382, 396, 397 
 
 Greenville, Miss., Negro popu 
 lation 1900, 50, 51 
 
 Grimke, Archibald W., on 
 race prejudice in Boston, 
 167 
 
 Grimke, Rev. Francis J., 16 
 
 Grosvenor, C. H., on McKinley 
 and the Negro, 282, 293 
 
 Haiti, inter-racial colour line 
 in, 409; Negro dominion in, 
 332; its accomplishments, 
 396; Negro race in, 27, 
 political instability of, 402, 
 revolution in, 269, popula 
 tion, Negro, compared with 
 Mississippi, 47, white expul 
 sion by, 267 
 
 Hale, Edward E., on French- 
 Indian warfare, 266, 267 
 
 Half-castes, in Cape Colony, 
 406; Portugese, 406. (See 
 also Mulattoes) 
 
 Hammond, M. B., 47 
 
 Hampton Negro Conference, 
 on Negro crime, 445 
 
 Handicrafts, decline of Negro 
 in, 523 
 
 Hardy, J. O., on economic con 
 ditions in Mississippi, 177 
 178 
 
 Hart, A. B., on Negro suffrage 
 in Reconstruction, 270 
 
 Hawaiian Islands, decline of 
 race friction proportionate 
 to decline of native popu 
 lation, 54; overthrow of 
 native Negro government, 
 54 
 
542 The American Race Problem 
 
 Hayes, R. B., and death 
 of Reconstruction govern 
 ments, 358 
 
 Henderson, Will, Negro 
 murderer, 435 
 
 Hinds County, Miss., economic 
 efficiency of Negro in, 178 
 
 Hindu, and racial superiority, 
 214 
 
 Hoch (Governor of Kansas), on 
 separate schools, 70 
 
 Hoffman s "Race Traits and 
 Tendencies of the American 
 Negro," 62 
 
 Hogansville, Ga., Negro post 
 master at, 283, 294 
 
 Home life of Negro, 146, 207, 
 448. (See also Family life) 
 
 Hose, Sam, lynching of, 463 ; 
 opinions as to guilt 01,468,469 
 
 Hotels, Boston, accommoda 
 tions for Negroes in, 317 
 
 Houses, Negro, in Delta, 98, 1 1 8 
 
 Howells, W. D., 42 ; on Charles 
 W. Chesnutt, 428; on New 
 England discrimination, 67 
 
 Hyde, W. DeW., on Recon 
 struction, 265 
 
 Illinois, exclusion of free 
 Negroes, 32; exclusion of 
 Negroes, 33; proportionate 
 Negro, population, 49; suf 
 frage in, 33 
 
 Illiteracy, advantage of white 
 race inheritance in, 374; 
 decrease in, among Negroes, 
 486, 487 
 
 Immigration, assisted by 
 Italian cotton growers, 
 192; and economic future 
 of the Negro, 172; into 
 South, 510, 511; Italian, at 
 Sunny Side, 194; Western 
 states, prohibition of Negro, 
 in, 32 
 
 Immorality of the Negro, 205 
 et seq. , DuBois on, 205 
 
 Improvidence of the Negro, 205 
 
 Incendiarism, Negroes, and 
 Palmetto, Ga., 460-2 
 
 Indiana, prohibition of free 
 Negroes, 32 
 
 Indianola post office, 247 
 <?/ seq., 309 
 
 Indians, decline of race friction 
 with, due to decline in 
 proportionate population, 
 54, 56; attitude of white 
 races to, 56 
 
 Indolence, Negro, 145 
 
 Industrial equality, 201; and 
 social equality, 329, 330; 
 in the South, 228; Lincoln 
 on, 20; in Yazoo-Mississippi 
 Delta, 88 
 
 Inferiority of Negro race, 426, 
 428, 429 
 
 Inglis, W., on capacity of Cuba 
 for self-government, 395 
 
 Initiative, white versus Negro 
 in, 179 
 
 Instability of Negro, 202 
 
 Inter-Colonial Commission, re 
 port, 1905, 388, 389 
 
 Intermarriage, between white 
 and Negroes and mulattoes, 
 inWest, 65 ; in Massachusetts, 
 60, 61, with white women, 
 1843, 6o > 61. (See also 
 Absorption, Amalgamation, 
 Miscegenation) 
 
 Iron works, Negro employees 
 in, 456 (note) 
 
 Issaquena County, Miss., per 
 centage of Negro popu 
 lation, 85 
 
 Italians, care in cultivation, 
 192, 196; characteristics of, 
 0. Scott on, 194, 195; com 
 pared with Negroes in 
 cotton fields, 182, 528, 529; 
 as cotton-growers, 179, at 
 Sunny Side, 182; economic 
 efficiency compared with 
 that of Negroes, 155, 156, 
 157, 174 et seq.; in South, 
 174; experiment in Arkansas, 
 1 80; in Mississippi, 174; 
 Willcox on Italians and 
 the sugar-cane crops, 173 
 
Index 
 
 543 
 
 Jamaica, and South Africa, 
 Colquhoun on contrasting 
 conditions, 406 ; charter, 
 surrender of, a generation 
 after emancipation, 37; 
 government of, restrictive 
 form of, 375 ; F. Cundall on, 
 379; inter-racial colour line, 
 404; race problem, absence 
 of, 3 5 ; conditions favorable 
 for harmonious race rela 
 tions, 3 78,3 7 9;mulattoes and 
 Negroes in, W. P. Living 
 stone on, 399; mulattoes in, 
 401 ; Negro and politics in, 
 227, 405; population com 
 pared with Negro popula 
 tion of Mississippi, 47; 
 suffrage in, 35 
 
 Janitors, Negroes as, decline 
 of, in Chicago, New York, 
 
 T 55 157 
 
 Japanese, assertiveness of, and 
 race friction, 219; exclusion 
 of, 7 ; racial superiority of, 
 214; San Francisco schools, 
 334; in Korea, 8 
 
 Japanese-Russian War, effect 
 of yellow victory on Negro 
 races, 239, 240 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, on coloni 
 sation of American Negroes, 
 233; on emancipation, 233 
 
 Jenifer, G. D., on relation of 
 master and slave, 257, 258 
 
 Jockeys, coloured, displace 
 ment of, 1 68 
 
 Jones, Roderick, on Negro in 
 Cape Colony politics, 388; 
 on white supremacy in Cape 
 Colony, 36 
 
 Jones County, Miss., economic 
 efficiency of Negro in, 177 
 
 "Juramentados," in Philip 
 pines, 466, 467 
 
 Juxtaposition of the races, 
 see Contact 
 
 Kansas, exodus, Fred. Doug 
 lass on, 172; white com 
 petition, 159 
 
 Kansas City, Kans., separate 
 
 schools, 69 
 Kealing, H. T., on Negro 
 
 character, 189, 190; on 
 
 Negro wealth, 150 
 Kelsey, Carl, 47; on Negro s 
 
 garden, 195; on Northern 
 
 view of Negro, 7 1 ; on white 
 
 managers, 179 
 Kentucky, mulattoes and 
 
 Negroes, proportion of, in, 
 
 41; purchase of Negro 
 
 votes, 364 (note); separate 
 
 coaches, 66 
 
 Khama, 24; and social equal 
 ity in South Africa, 345 
 Kidd, B., on race superiority, 
 
 206, 207 
 
 Kimberley mines, 145 
 Kindliness, B. T. Washington 
 
 on, 251; P. L. Dunbar on, 
 
 258 
 Kingsley, Mary, on Negro 
 
 capacity, 42 
 Koran and indifference to 
 
 race in religion, 325 
 Korea, Japanese in, 8 
 
 Labouchere, Henry, on segre 
 gation, 24 
 Labour, scarcity of Negro, as 
 
 cotton pickers, 103, 125; 
 
 white versus Negro, in 
 
 various crops, 450-3; 
 
 unions and contracting in 
 
 the South, 169 
 Lamar, on Reconstruction and 
 
 Negro suffrage, 272 
 Land-owners, Negro, 113, 143 
 Latins and Anglo-Saxons, as 
 
 related to the mulatto, 402 ; 
 
 and race prejudice, 230 
 Lea, H. 0., on Lord Acton s 
 
 standard of conduct, 7, 9 
 Lecky, W. E. H., on prosperity 
 
 of nations, 207 
 Lee, Robert E., as a traitor, 
 
 Leupp, F. E., B. T. Washing 
 ton at White House, 244 
 (note) 
 
544 The American Race Problem 
 
 Liberia, inter-racial colour line 
 in, 409, mulatto governor 
 in, 402; the Negro in, 
 27 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, on eman 
 cipation, 8, ii ; on emi 
 gration of Negro to North, 
 33; on Negro equality, 20 
 233; on race differences, 
 
 .233 
 
 Lincoln-Johnson Reconstruc 
 tion plan and Negro suf 
 frage, 278 
 
 Lint cotton per acre, Dunleith, 
 148; per hand, at Sunny 
 Side, 183 et seq. , per acre, 
 at Sunny Side, 183 et 
 seq. 
 
 Livingstone, W. P., on 
 American and West Indian 
 Negro, 338 (note); on 
 Jamaican "black," 399 
 
 Local conditions and the race 
 problem, see Environment 
 
 Louisiana, farm machinery 
 in, 525, 526; free mulatto 
 class, 339; Italian immigra 
 tion into, 1731 Mulattoes 
 and Negroes in, 41 ; Negro 
 adaptability to climate of, F. 
 Douglass on, 173 ; population, 
 increase of white, 525, 526; 
 proportion of Negro, 49; 
 rice crops and increase of 
 white population, 525, 526 
 
 L Ouverture, Toussaint, prob 
 ably a mulatto, 409 (note), 
 
 43 
 
 Lowndes County, Miss., eco 
 nomic efficiency of Negro 
 in, 177 
 
 Loyalty of the South, 298 
 
 Lyman, Theo., Jr., on pro 
 posed exclusion of Negroes 
 from Massachusetts, 57 
 
 Lynch, John R., a mulatto, 
 
 43 
 
 Lynch law, Governor A. 
 Candler of Georgia on, 
 469 470; J. E. Cutler on, 
 74 
 
 Lynching, 47, 92, 93; Democ 
 racy and, 475; at Palmetto, 
 Ga., 4615; as prevent 
 ing development of public 
 opinion common to both 
 races, 474; legislation 
 versus, and decrease of 
 crime, 473 
 
 Machinery, farm, and decline 
 of the Negro in agriculture, 
 526 , and the Negro labourer 
 in Louisiana, 453 
 
 McKinley, William, and the 
 Negro, 276 et seq.; tact 
 and diplomacy of, 285, 
 286 
 
 McMaster, J. B. , on expediency 
 as the principle of suffrage, 
 411; on government of 
 American colonies, 412,413; 
 on necessity for practical 
 suffrage laws, 411-4 
 
 Maine, mulatto and Negro 
 population, 41 
 
 Majorities and race control, 367 
 
 Managers, white, 178 et seq. , 
 plantation, 91, 92 
 
 Manual labour, social senti 
 ment toward, 449, 450 
 
 Maoris, decline of race friction 
 due to decline in population, 
 and white control in New 
 Zealand, 381, 382 
 
 Marion, Mass., and white 
 labour, 7 
 
 Marriage, statistics of Negro, 
 487; Negro regard for, 
 108 
 
 Massachusetts, and the slave 
 trade, 14; and proposed 
 exclusion of free Negroes 
 and mulattoes, 1821, 57, 
 bonding of, 1788-1834, 58; 
 mulatto and Negro popula 
 tion, 41 ; proportion of 
 Negro population, 49; rela 
 tive numbers and race 
 relations in, 57; white 
 women and intermarriage 
 in, 62. 
 
Index 
 
 545 
 
 Masters and slaves, relations 
 between, 326; and former 
 slaves, reconstruction as 
 engendering animosity be 
 tween, 276 
 
 May, Samuel, on separate 
 coaches, 67 
 
 Mazimba and the Ethiopian 
 movement, 323 
 
 Menial labour, Negro, in 
 Baltimore, Washington, 170 
 
 Mestizo, 431 
 
 Metayers, Italian, 99; J. S. Mill 
 on, 174, 194 
 
 Mexico, political and social 
 absorption of Negro in, 26, 27 
 
 Michigan, mulatto and Negro 
 population, 41; percentage 
 of Negro population, 49 
 
 Middle Ages, race hatred in, 
 465-6 
 
 Migration, Negro habit of, 
 109, 145 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, on Italian 
 me tayer, 123, 174, 194 
 
 Miller, Kelly, on lack of Negro 
 interest in politics, 360, 361; 
 on social equality of races, 
 
 23 3 2 5 
 Minnesota, Negro suffrage in, 
 
 3 1 
 
 Miscegenation, 61. (See also 
 Absorption, Amalgamation, 
 Assimilation, Intermarri 
 age) 
 
 Mississippi, alluvial district, 
 population of, 1900, 366; 
 climate of, F. Douglass on 
 Negro adaptability to, 173; 
 Constitution of 1890, condi 
 tions antecedent to, 384, 
 385, discriminations against 
 Negro in, 354; equality, 
 legal, 73; farms in, 90, 91; 
 fertility of soil and white 
 managers, 178; Freedmen 
 Statutes, attitude of North 
 to 34, 35; population, 
 compared with South Africa 
 and West Indies, 46, 47, 
 Negro, 1900, 50, proportion 
 
 of Negro to white, 44, 45, 46, 
 49, 52, mulatto and Negro, 
 41 ; proportion of population 
 applied to other localities, 
 51, 85; suffrage in, 366, 
 polled and registered vote, 
 357 (note) ;Yazoo- Mississippi 
 Delta, 83 et seq. 
 
 Mixed population and classi 
 fication of mulattoes with 
 Negroes, 399; government 
 for, 39 
 
 Mohammedanism and race 
 control, 325 
 
 Mokane and the Ethiopian 
 movement, 323 (note) 
 
 Money, advancement of, Dun- 
 leith, 148 
 
 Mongolians, attitude of white 
 races to, 55 
 
 Monroe doctrine, 8 
 
 Moors, not Negroes, 430 
 
 Morals, Negro, 107, 205; stan 
 dards of, local adaptation of, 
 7 ; illustrations of, 7-9 
 
 Morocco, Sultan of, his Negro 
 blood and Berber prejudice, 
 230 
 
 Motives, assigning of, 322 
 
 Mulattoes, 21, 27; as agitators, 
 434; T. Nelson Baker on, 
 437; capacity of, 404; factor 
 in race problem, 397 et seq., 
 425 et seq. ; free in Louisiana, 
 339; in Jamaica, 399, 401, 
 intelligence of, 401 ; Jamai 
 can and American, 402 ; 
 Liberia, governing class in, 
 402; Latins and Anglo- 
 Saxons and, 40 2; leaders of 
 Negroes, 291 ; Massachusetts 
 and the, in 1821, 47; North 
 ern, 40; office holders, 305, 
 369; proportion to Negroes, 
 41 et seq., 397; Reconstruc 
 tion, 255, political oppor 
 tunity of, in, 403 ; and social 
 equality, 288; statistics of, 
 479 et seq.; Spanish and 
 American, 402. (See also 
 Half Castes) 
 
54 6 The American Race Problem 
 
 Murders, Negro, glorification 
 of, 43 5; statistics of, Miss., 107; 
 Texas, 66; Kansas City, 69 
 
 Murillo s pupil a mulatto, 
 430 
 
 Nast, Thomas, on Southern 
 people during Reconstruc 
 tion, 265 
 
 Natal, native problem in, 323 
 (note); opposition to Negro 
 suffrage in a South African 
 Confederation, 391 ; popula 
 tion compared with that 
 of Mississippi, 46; resent 
 ment against Great Brit 
 ain in local difficulties, 364; 
 rights of Negroes in, 27 
 National Negro Business 
 
 League, 153 
 
 Negro, achievements, of 151; 
 and the Berber, 230; 
 antiquity of race, 428; as 
 federal soldier and increase 
 of crime, 473; as a peasant 
 class, 410; as a labourer, 
 work per annum, 453; as 
 soldier, 29;as voter, 356,357, 
 362,363 ; birth rate, 491, 506, 
 
 Capacity of, 41 ; Mary 
 Kingsley on,42 ; Oliver on,403 
 
 Characteristics of, 100, 
 102, 108, 109, 145, 147, 184, 
 188, 192, 205, 355, 359; 
 ambition, no; gambling, 
 107; improvidence , 205, 
 indolence, 145, initiative, 
 179, instability, 202 
 
 Classes of, 40, 335; 
 DuBois on, 457; higher 
 classes and effect on crime, 
 469, 470; their relation to 
 the whites, 292; 
 
 Economic future of, in 
 South, 198, 199 
 
 Education and, 324 
 
 Ethnic history of, 426 
 
 Food of, 454 
 
 Free, 29 
 
 Immorality of, 205 
 
 In Africa, 331, 332, 428, 
 
 429; identity of American 
 with, 428, 429; opposition to 
 suffrage, 390, 391; in South 
 African politics, 387, 388; 
 venality of Negro voter in 
 South Africa, 388 
 
 In business, Wanamaker, 
 on, 153 
 
 In Cuba, personal decor 
 ation, 395 
 
 In North Carolina, census 
 1890, 365; Negro rule, 365 
 
 In office, attitude of North 
 to, 249, Chicago, 362; in 
 North, 304; (note); 416 
 Roosevelt and, 279 el seq. 
 
 In politics, 35 1 el seq.; 
 Dunbar on, 284; elimination 
 of, in Jamaica 405, in Bos 
 ton, 159 el seq.; in the 
 minority, the politician s 
 tool, 389, 390; Jamaica, 
 District of Columbia and 
 New Zealand, 381, 382; 
 scorn of white man s advice 
 in, 368; South African, 
 387, 388; W. Taft on, 353, 
 
 37 In the North, B. T. Wash 
 ington on, 20 1 
 
 In the South, economic fu 
 ture of , in, 18-20, 198, 199; 
 F. Douglass on Negro as 
 economic author of pros 
 perity, 173; responsible 
 tor the Solid South, 278 
 
 In West Indies, F. A. Ober 
 on, 395, 396; characteristics 
 of , 3 7 6 ; failure of self-govern 
 ment in, 394 
 
 Incapacity for self-govern 
 ment, 399-401; in West 
 Indies, 394 
 
 Industrial decline of, 
 453-6, 493.494, ; H.M. Brown 
 on, 454, Fitch on 455; 
 H. B. Frissell on, 455; 
 T. T. Fortune on, 455; 
 W. F. Willcox on, in the 
 South, 171, industrial de 
 cline of , in Boston, 159 el 
 
Index 
 
 547 
 
 Negro Continued 
 
 seq. in Chicago, 157; in 
 New York City, 154, 155; 
 in the South, 171 
 
 Industrial monopoly of, 
 in 1865, 151 
 
 Industrial opportunity, 2 1 
 
 Industrial ostracism, of 
 
 Springfield, Mass., 162; 
 
 threatened in South, 169, 170 
 
 Industrial service from, 
 
 demand for better, in South, 
 
 166 
 
 Jamaican, 338; classes of, 
 339; capacity for self- 
 government, 401; and the 
 mulatto, 399; politically, 
 381, 3 82 
 
 Leaders among, 355 
 Love for royalty, 375-8 
 McKinley and, 242,^ seq. 
 and Mulatto, classification 
 of mulattoes as Negroes, 398 ; 
 northern identification of, 
 398, 404; mulatto achieve 
 ment credited to Negro, 
 427, 428; mulattoes, as 
 leaders among, 291; and 
 mulattoes in the South, 
 
 397 
 
 Point of view of, 15 et seq. 
 
 Political relations of, types, 
 26-8 
 
 Population, Negro dis 
 tricts, 16; distribution of, 
 in United States, 481; 
 in Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, 
 84; outside the South, 238; 
 probable increase in, 18; 
 urban, 238, 458 
 
 Proportionate population 
 and suffrage, 30, 31 
 
 Race solidarity of, 459- 
 65; attitude toward the 
 white race, 300, 301 ; W. H. 
 Councill on evils of, 279; 
 
 Reconstruction and, 261, 
 26 2; type, 283,284; Lincoln- 
 Johnson plan, 278 
 
 Representation at Atlanta 
 Exposition, 308 
 
 Republican Party and, 
 the Negro plank," 418 
 
 Roosevelt and, 242 et seq., 
 276 et seq. 
 
 Social equality, attitude of, 
 toward, 221, 226, 234, 237 
 
 Statistics of, 47 
 
 Suffrage, failure of, 
 J. F. Rhodes on, 415, 416, a 
 non-party opposition to, 
 353; and Lincoln- Johnson 
 Reconstruction plan, 278; 
 opposition to, in South 
 Africa, 390, 391 ; and reduc 
 tion in Southern vote, 357 
 
 Teuton and Latin races 
 and, 326 
 
 Italian and, 174 et seq. 
 
 Voter, character of, 362, 
 363; in relation to suffrage 
 tests, 356, 357; venality of, 
 383, in South Africa, 388 
 
 Wealth, Edward Atkinson 
 andW. E. B. Du Bois on, 1 50. 
 (See also under names of 
 states and cities) 
 Nell, W. 0., 211 
 Nelson, Wolford, on capacity 
 of Cuba for self-government, 
 
 394, 395 
 
 Nevada, conditions of admis 
 sion to Union, 8 
 
 New Bedford Traction R. R., 
 Negro exclusion from cars 
 of, 67 
 
 New England, political equality 
 in, 227; population, pro 
 portionate 48; estimate on 
 basis of Mississippi Negro, 
 proportion, 51 
 
 New Jersey, percentage of 
 Negro population, 44 
 
 New Orleans, tragedy of 1902, 
 
 435 
 New York, "San Juan Hill," 
 
 48; Negro quarters, 156 
 New York Age, on industrial 
 
 decline of Negro in New 
 
 York City, 154, 155 
 New York State, estimate of 
 
 Negro population on basis 
 
54 8 The American Race Problem 
 
 of Mississippi proportion, 
 5 1 ; percentage of popu 
 lation, Negro, 44, 48, 49 
 
 New York Union League Club, 
 and coloured servants, 159 
 
 New York World on Negro 
 wealth, 150 
 
 New Zealand, race relations in, 
 411; method for South 
 Africa, 382 
 
 North, attitude of, toward 
 Negro crime, 472; Negro in, 
 economic condition of, 201, 
 economic future of, 172, 
 economic opportunity in, 
 17 et seq. ; Negro agitators in, 
 411; Negro immigration from 
 South into, 512 ; Negro type 
 in, 40; and Negro policy, 
 46; Negro viewed by, as 
 "Dark skinned white man," 
 Kelsey on, 71; unfounded 
 solicitude of, for Negro s 
 condition, N. P. Banks on, 
 43 2 ; and Washington dinner 
 at White house, 246 
 
 North Carolina, Constitution of 
 1898, conditions antece 
 dent to, 385; race war in, 
 365 
 
 Northen, W. J., on causes of 
 race friction, 458, 459 
 
 Northern industrial ostracism, 
 Springfield, Mass., 162, 163 
 
 Noxubee County, Miss., eco 
 nomic efficiency of Negro 
 in, 178 
 
 Numbers (or numerical pro 
 portions) of races, effect on 
 race relations, 13, 14, 26, 
 2 9> 3 2 > 35 4o, 53-5, 217, 
 366, 390; DuBois, on, 14; 
 B. T. Washington, 53; their 
 relation to control in politics 
 367; in New Zealand, 381, 
 382 
 
 Ober, F. A., on Haitian Negroes, 
 377; on West Indian Negro, 
 
 395, 39.6 
 Occupations, colour line in, 
 
 1 66; Negroes in, statistics of, 
 488, 489; skilled, 522, 523, 
 (See also specific occupations 
 e. g., Barbers) 
 
 Office holding, 112; question 
 able benefit to black race, 
 
 35> 3o 6 
 
 Ohio, percentage of Negro 
 population in, 49; prohibi 
 tion of free Negroes, 32 
 
 Oklahoma, mulatto and 
 Negro population, 41 
 
 Olivier, Sydney, on capacity of 
 pure Negro, 403 ; on capacity 
 for self-government, 401 ; on 
 mulattoes, 401; on "Negro 
 rights," 378 
 
 Opportunity, class and racial, 
 and the law, 410; industrial, 
 21 
 
 Oregon, prohibition of free 
 Negroes, 32 
 
 Ostracism, industrial, Spring 
 field, Mass., 162 ; threatened 
 in South, 169, 170; social, 
 as a Southern weapon, 275 
 
 Otman dan Fodio, not a Negro, 
 
 43 
 
 Outlook, on Negro in office, 280 
 "Overcrop," 116 
 Overseers, see Managers 
 Oyster shuckers, 180 
 
 Page, Thomas Nelson, on 
 probable increase in Negro 
 population, 498 
 Palaver, Negro love for, 287 
 Palmetto, Georgia, race friction 
 
 at, 459-65 
 
 Panama, Republic of, 8 
 Party versus corruption, 367 
 Patterson, Raymond, on Negro 
 
 suffrage, 362 
 
 "Peasant" class, Negro as, 410 
 Pennsylvania, Negro popula 
 tion, percentage of, 44, 49, 
 estimate on basis of Missis 
 sippi proportion, 51; Negro 
 suffrage, 64; suffrage article 
 in constitution, 30 
 Peonage, 72 
 
Inde: 
 
 549 
 
 Perry County, Miss., economic 
 efficiency of Negro in, 178 
 
 Philadelphia, exclusion of 
 Negroes from cars in, 67; 
 Wanamaker on Negro busi 
 ness men in, 153 
 
 Philippine Islands, govern 
 ment of, 382; Negro clergy 
 men in, 5 2 2 ; race problem in, 
 214, 250, 466, 467 
 
 Pickens, William, 328 
 
 Plantation, duties of, owners, 
 91, 92; government of, 
 similarity of African tribal 
 polity, 376; system, Bruce 
 on, 89 ; statistics of , 1 28 et seq. 
 
 Platt Amendment, 8, 393 
 
 Platt, Orville H., on conditions 
 necessary for self-govern 
 ment, 391 
 
 Point of view, Negro, 15; 
 North and South, 347 
 
 Political equality, 261, 333; 
 ante-bellum discrimination, 
 227; impracticable test of, 
 B. T. Washington on, 307; 
 in the South, proper source 
 of, 3 09, 310; in South Africa, 
 Inter-Colonial Commission 
 report on, 389; and race 
 intermixture, 376 
 
 Politics, in the race question, 
 in North Carolina, non- 
 partisanship of, 385, 386 
 
 Negro in, 351 etseq; Dun- 
 bar on, 284; as the politi 
 cian s tool, 389, 390; char 
 acter of his participation in, 
 416; in South Africa, 387, 
 388 ; status in North, 31, 32; 
 in Reconstruction, 261, 262; 
 elimination of, in Jamaica, 
 405; his scorn of white 
 man s advice in, 368; 
 Jamaica, District of Colum 
 bia, and New Zealand, 381, 
 382 
 
 Polity, African tribal, 376 
 
 Poor white" in Yazoo- 
 Mississippi Delta, 87 
 
 Population, census omissions, 
 
 479; increase in, due to 
 agriculture, 525, 526; rela 
 tion to race friction, 32, 57, 
 218, 390; mixed, and classi 
 fication of mulattoes with 
 Negroes, 399 
 Negro, 31, 481, in 1900, 
 
 50, increase in, 17901900, 
 499501, 18601900, 152, 
 probable increase, 496 ^ 5^7. ; 
 distribution of, 40 et seq., 
 44, proportionate and Negro 
 suffrage, 30, 31, proportion 
 ate to white, 57, 177, 481-4, 
 estimates of, 51, and 
 rape, 94, agricultural, 177, 
 centre of, 43, North Caro 
 lina, 365; distribution of, 
 on Mississippi proportion, 
 
 51, Massachusetts, increase, 
 18101820, 59, 60, rural and 
 urban, 53 
 
 White, increase of, due to 
 extension of agriculture, 
 
 5 2 5> 5 26 
 
 Porto Rico, government of, 
 382; Negro clergymen in, 
 522; Negro population com 
 pared with that of Missis 
 sippi, 47 
 
 Prejudice, industrial, 182, 201; 
 absence of in South, 168. 
 (See also Race prejudice) 
 
 Presidents of the United States 
 and the Southern people, 
 295, 296 
 
 Primaries in South and reduc 
 tion in Southern vote, 357 
 
 Prisoners, Mississippi, 106; 
 Negro, in North, 444, in 
 United States, 443, 445 
 
 Professions, Negro in, increase 
 of, 493, 522 
 
 Property, ownership of, rela 
 tion to Government, 386, 
 387; Negro ownership of, 
 
 112, 152 
 
 Prosperity of nations, W. E. 
 H. Leckyon, 207 
 
 Protestantism and race re 
 lations, 230. 231, 325 
 
550 The American Race Problem 
 
 Psychology and race relations, 
 
 266 et seq 
 Puck on Roosevelt and the 
 
 Negro, 289 
 
 Qualifications, suffrage, Negro 
 and white, 374 
 
 Race, antipathy, 212 
 
 Attitude, 221-6, 234, An 
 glo-Saxon, 6, 55, 56, 331, 336, 
 effect of numbers on, 13, 14, 
 26, 29,32,35,40,53,55,217, 
 366, 390, E. A. Ross on 
 necessity of uncompromis 
 ing, 241, Southern, to Negro, 
 25, white to native Hawaian 
 
 54 
 
 Assimilation, 56; classifi 
 cation, 215, 216; contact, 
 law of, 6, 33, 97; conscious 
 ness, 240, 331, 33 2; control, 
 55 et seq., abstractions 
 versus conditions in, 74 
 et seq., Catholicism and, in 
 Mississippi, 366; differences, 
 Lincoln on, 233 
 
 Friction, 70, 211 et seq., 
 226, 325, 355, 458, 459 472, 
 473, and the Chinese, 8, 218, 
 219, in Middle Ages, 465, 466, 
 Reconstruction and, 472, 
 473; Government and race, 
 349? 375, 37 6 , in South 
 Africa, 389, 401 
 
 Intermixture, see Absorp 
 tion, Amalgamation, Assimi 
 lation, Intermarriage, Mis 
 cegenation 
 
 Prejudice, 26, Anglo- 
 Saxons and Latins and, 402, 
 Arabs and, 230, and Japanese 
 exclusion, 7, in Boston, 161, 
 211, in industry, 19, and 
 intermarriage, 63, and race 
 preservation, 69, and slavery, 
 N. S. Shaler on, 221, in 
 Springfield. Mass., 161, in 
 the South, B. T. Washington 
 on, 165, and suffrage, 29 
 
 Preservation, 69, 346, in 
 
 South. 165, 166; proportion, 
 effect on race prejudice, 48 
 
 Relations, Jamaica, 378, 
 New Zealand, 381, 382, 
 problems of, 493, Protes 
 tantism and, 230, 231, 325, 
 B. T. Washington on kind 
 liness in, 251, variety of, 252, 
 respect, 95; solidarity, Ne 
 gro, 239, 459; superiority, 
 necessity of, 96, B. Kidd on 
 causes of, 206, 207; race 
 war, North Carolina, 356; 
 problem of, obliteration not 
 solution, 336; sectional 
 influences and, 3, 4, coun 
 tries where it obtains, 9, 10 
 
 Railroads and Negro labour 
 in Delta, 87 
 
 Rand, gold mines, 145 
 
 Rape, 92, 93, 94, 95; Missis 
 sippi, 86, 97, 98; Alexan 
 dria, Va., 472; absence of, 
 in Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, 
 86, 96, 97 
 
 Reconstruction, 47; character 
 of, 265; effects of, 264, 265, 
 276; experiences in, 268; 
 Hayes and, 358; Northern, 
 on friction due to, 458, 459; 
 Rights of South in, J. A. 
 Andrews on, 414; Negro 
 suffrage and, W. A. Dunning 
 and Lamar on, 272; Negro, 
 in politics of, 261, 262, 369; 
 Jamaica, absence of, 338; 
 and the Negro, 249 et seq., 
 261, 262, 276, 278, 369; 
 Revels, H. R., on, 278; and 
 the Referee System, 343 
 
 Reed, T. B., on Roosevelt, 287 
 
 "Referee system," 242 note, 
 309, 314, 340 ct seq. t 356 
 
 Registration, 355, 358 
 
 Regulation of slaves, see 
 Slavery 
 
 Religion, Negro enthusiasm 
 for, i 6 
 
 Removals, farm, 133 
 
 Renting system, 99, 100, 115, 
 129, 136, 137 
 
Index 
 
 Representation in Congress, 
 Southern, proposed reduc 
 tion, 419, 421 (note) 
 
 Republican Party, and the 
 Negro, 353, 365, 418; in Colo 
 rado, Connecticut, Minnesota 
 and Wisconsin, 3 1 ; in North 
 Carolina, 365; and Negro 
 suffrage, 31 
 
 Revels, H. R., on effect of 
 Reconstruction on the 
 Negro, 278 
 
 Revolution, loyalists and 
 traitors of, 341 
 
 Rewards, political, and Negro 
 leaders, 355, 356 
 
 Rhode Island, percentage of 
 Negro population, 45 
 
 Rhodes, J. F., on Elaine s 
 account of Freedmen s 
 Statutes, 12; on failure of 
 Negro suffrage, 415, 416 
 
 Rice, Louisiana, decrease in 
 Negro population in rice 
 districts, 525,526; white and 
 Negro labour in, 452 
 
 "Rights," Negro, 310 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, and the 
 Negro, 242 et seq., 276 
 et seq., 286, 310, 311, 411; 
 his diplomacy in the South, 
 286; T. B. Reed on, 287; 
 and San Domingo, 396; 
 and social equality, 245; 
 R. H. Terrell on, 311 
 
 Ross, Edward A., on Anglo- 
 Saxons and the Negro, 241 
 
 Royalty, Negro love for, 375-8, 
 
 395. 396 
 
 Russo-Japanese war, effect of 
 yellow victory on Negro 
 races, 239, 240 
 
 "San Juan Hill" district, 
 New York, 48 
 
 Santo Domingo, Negro domi 
 nation in, 27, 332; Negro 
 population compared with 
 that of Mississippi, 47 ; 
 Roosevelt and treaty with, 
 39 6 
 
 Saturday holiday, 454 
 
 Scalawags, 342 
 
 Schurz, Carl, on wealth of 
 Negroes, 156 
 
 Scott, C., on Italian cotton 
 growers, 194 
 
 Scottron, S. R., on economic 
 statistics of the Negro, 154 
 
 Secession,, right of, 341 
 
 Sectionalism and race relations 
 3, 4, 10, 347, 348, 418; in 
 South and Natal, 346 
 
 Segregation of the Races, 5, 
 63, 64, 66, 67, 233, 237; in 
 South Africa, 24 
 
 Self- government , conditions 
 necessary for, 412; O. H. 
 Platt on, 391; Negro capa 
 city for, 36 37 370,372,373, 
 399, 400, H. L. West on, 
 415, S. Olivier on, 401, in 
 Africa and Asia, 375, A. 
 H. Colquhoun on, 378, in 
 Jamaica, 375; Plantation 
 self-government, 377; in 
 Cuba, W. Nelson, W. Inglis 
 on, 394, 395 ; J. B. McMaster 
 on, 411, 414. (See also 
 Administration) 
 
 Separate cars, 64, 217, 337 
 (note) ; in Kentucky and 
 Texas, 65, 66; Samuel May 
 and N. Barney on, 67 
 
 Separate schools, 68 et seq., 
 217; in Boston, 211; Presi 
 dent Eliot on, 68; in Kansas 
 City, 8 ; in San Francisco, 334 
 
 Separation of the races, hard 
 ships of, on higher class of 
 Negroes, 67, 337 
 
 Servants, household, decline 
 of Negroes as, 158 
 
 Sex, excess of Negro females, 
 485 
 
 Sexual relations, Negro, 108 
 
 Shaler, N. S., on amicable race 
 relations, 221 
 
 Share system, 126, 136, 137 
 
 Shootings, Negro, in Texas, 66 
 
 Slaughter, Linda Warfel, on 
 Southern education, 275 
 
552 The American Race Problem 
 
 Slave trade, Anglo-Saxon race 
 and, 55; DuBois on the 
 North and, 14 
 
 Slavery and race friction, 
 220, 230; Shaler on, 221; 
 economic conditions and, 
 14; and relations of master 
 and slave, 253, 254, 255, 
 J. A. Andrews on, 260, 
 W. H. Councill on, 256, 
 DuBois on, G. D. Jenifer on, 
 257, 258, J. H. Smyth on, 
 256, "Traveller" in New 
 York Evening Post on, 259; 
 statutes of, 10 
 
 Smyth, J. H., on relations of 
 master and slave, 257 
 
 Social equality, 22, 229, 313 
 et seq., 333; and the lower 
 Negro classes, 335; and the 
 mulatto, 238; among strata 
 of Negroes, 457; claims to, 
 and race friction, 219, 220, 
 in Central America, 27; 
 in Mexico, 27, in South 
 Africa, 24, 25, 345, 406, 
 in South America, 27; 
 Japanese and, 334; Khama 
 and, 345; DuBois on, 326, 
 327; Lincoln on, 233; W. 
 Pickens on, 328; Kelly Mil 
 ler on, 230, 325; Roosevelt 
 and, 245; regulations of, 25; 
 social separation of Missis 
 sippi, 86; 
 
 South, birth rate and immigra 
 tion, 510, 511; statistics of, 
 508, 509; economic opportu 
 nity in, 164, 199; lawless 
 conditions of, B. T., Wash 
 ington on, 73 ; loyalty of, 298 ; 
 Negro in, Birth rate of, 
 508, 509, 510, 511; charities 
 for, 327, DuBois on, 75; 
 condition of, compared with 
 Gape Colony, 406, F. 
 Douglas on, 172, T. T. 
 Fortune on, 171; Future of, 
 171; Danger of control by, 
 365; Disfranchisement of, 
 354, 355; immigration and, 
 
 200; in local politics, 364; 
 mulattoes and, 397; rights 
 of, 301, 420; Roosevelt and, 
 242 et seq.; solidarity of, 
 367; and suffrage, 363 
 
 Referee system and, 340 
 et seq.; scalawag in, 343; 
 Roosevelt in, 299; planta 
 tion system and African 
 tribal polity, 376; Solid 
 South, 265, 266, 278, 308, 
 368, 369, 419, reasons for, 
 278, 308, 368, Negro respon 
 sibility for, 278 ; Washington 
 dinner and, 320; Teachers 
 of Negro schools in, 272, 274 
 
 South Africa, and "Africa for 
 Africans," 240, 331; Bryce 
 on colour line in, 166; 
 Negro in, in politics, 387, 
 388, population of, com 
 pared with that of Missis 
 sippi, 46, suffrage of, and 
 proposed South African 
 Confederation, 390, 391; 
 New Zealand method for, 
 382; Jamaica and, con 
 trasting conditions of 
 Negroes in, Colquhoun on, 
 406; "a white man s coun 
 try," 229; racial discrimina 
 tion in, 24 
 
 South America, political and 
 social absorption in, 26, 27 
 
 South Carolina, mulatto and 
 Negro population, 41 ; per 
 centage of Negroes, 49 
 
 Southern constitutions, and 
 disfranchisement, 361, 384; 
 and restriction of Southern 
 representation in Congress, 
 357, 421 (note), J. A. Gar- 
 field on, 419 
 
 Spanish-American war, Mc- 
 Kinley s Southern appoint 
 ments in, 296 
 
 Springfield, Mass., race preju 
 dice in, 19, 161 
 
 Squads, Negro and Italian at 
 Sunny Side, comparison of, 
 185, 186 
 
Index 
 
 553 
 
 "Square deal," 286 
 
 Stock, Sunny Side, ownership 
 
 of, by Negroes and Italians, 
 
 191 
 Stone, A. L., on Northern 
 
 education of the South, 
 
 273. 2 74 
 
 Stone and Fort, 117, 124, 128 
 Suffrage, Congressional inves 
 tigation of laws of, 429; 
 exercise of right, neglect of, 
 
 358; 
 
 Negro, 351, indifference 
 of, to, 237; proportionate 
 population, and 30, 31; Re 
 construction and, 253, 270; 
 relation of, to crime, 473; 
 restriction of, 353, 380, 381; 
 W. H. Baldwin on, 277; A. 
 B. Hart on, 270; J. B. 
 McMaster on, 411-4 B. T. 
 Washington on, 277; 
 J. A. Andrews on, 413, 414; 
 Republican party and, 31; 
 in British West Indies, 
 27; in Cape Colony; 27, 
 34, 35; in Colorado, 31; 
 in Connecticut 31; in Illi 
 nois, 33; in Jamaica, 35; in 
 Minnesota, 3 1 ; in Wiscon 
 sin, 31 ; 
 
 Qualifications for 372; re 
 strictions on, 28, 29, 30, 412; 
 tests for, 37 1 ; a state s right, 
 418; in Pennsylvania, 30, 
 34; woman s, 412- 
 
 Sugar cane, white and Negro 
 labour in crop, 451, 452; 
 Italians in Louisiana, 173 
 
 Sunny Side Company, 180, 181 
 
 Supervision of mulatto ad 
 ministration, necessity of, 
 402 
 
 Supplies, advancing, to Negro 
 sharehands, 118 
 
 Swedes, as janitors, 157 
 
 Taft, William, on Negro in 
 politics, 353, 371; at Tuske- 
 gee, 371 
 
 Taylor, R. S., on Delta, 83 
 
 Teachers of Negro schools, 
 Southern attitude toward, 
 272-4 
 
 Teeth, filing of, Cuban 
 soldiers and, 395 
 
 Tenantry, Italian and perma 
 nency, 192, 193; Negro and 
 permanency, 127, 130 
 
 Tennessee, mulattoes and 
 Negroes in, 41 
 
 Terrell, R. H., on Roosevelt, 
 
 3 11 
 Texas, mulattoes and Negroes 
 
 in, 41; Negroes in 1900, 65 
 Thriftlessness, Negro, 100, 102 
 Tobacco, decline of Negro 
 
 operatives in, 523; white 
 
 and Negro labour in, 450, 
 
 45 1 
 Tontitown, Italian settlement 
 
 at, 181 
 Trade unions and the Negro, 
 
 166, 168, 455, 45 6 
 Transvaal, Negro population 
 
 of, compared with that of 
 
 Mississippi, 46 
 Travel, Negro love for, no 
 Tribe, polity of African, 
 
 compared with plantation 
 
 government, 376 
 Trinidad, Negro population of, 
 
 compared with that of 
 
 Mississippi, 47 
 Tuskegee, 328; Taft at, 371 
 Twain, Mark, see Clemens, 
 
 S. L. 
 2,000 A. D., Forecast of Negro 
 
 population in, 505 
 Types of Negroes, 40 
 
 "Understanding clause," 355, 
 
 Union County, Miss. , economic 
 efficiency of Negro in, 178 
 
 United States, percentage of 
 Negro population, 49 
 
 Unreliability, Negro, 109, 192, 
 199, 200 
 
 Urban population, Negro, 
 B. T. Washington on, 146, 
 147; in North, 52, 53 
 
554 The American Race Problem 
 
 Value of products per acre, 
 Italian and Negro labour, 
 Sunny Side, 183 
 
 Venality of Negro vote, 362, 
 368 
 
 Veneeriging Peace Coven 
 ant" and native suffrage, 
 South Africa, 391 
 
 Waddell, A. M., on Negro vote 
 in North Carolina, 365 
 (note) 
 
 Wages, Mississippi Delta, 112 
 Waiters, Negro, decline of, 
 
 J S9 
 
 Wanamaker, John, on Negro 
 business men, 153 
 
 Warner, 0. D., Negro comment 
 on death of, 434 
 
 Washington, Booker T., a 
 mulatto, 430; estimate of 
 Negro population in 1900, 
 497; on future of American 
 Negro, 204, 411; on govern 
 ment without representa 
 tion, 392, 393; on industrial 
 education, 89; on industrial 
 prejudice, 168, in the South, 
 165; on lawless conditions 
 in the South, 73 et seq. ; on 
 mulatto agitators, 434; on 
 needs of the Negro race, 411; 
 on Negro Federal appoint 
 ments, 307; on Negro 
 immorality, 251; on Negro 
 industrial opportunity in 
 the North, 17, 19, 163, 164; 
 on Negro migration 146, to 
 North, 53; on Negro rights, 
 251; on Negro suffrage, 
 277; on race relations, 299, 
 300 
 
 Washington- Roosevelt dinner, 
 243 et seq., 295, 314, 315, 
 318, et seq. 
 
 Washington, D. 0., industrial 
 ostracism in, 170; inter 
 racial colour line, 409 (note) 
 
 Washington County, Miss., 
 Negro population of, 44, 
 48, 5 
 
 Washtenaw County, Mich., 
 estimate of Negro population 
 on Mississippi proportion, 52 
 
 Wealth, Negro, 150; distribu 
 tion of, 135 
 
 Weeks ville, changing popula 
 tion of, 155 
 
 West, H. L., on Negro 
 capacity for self-govern 
 ment, 415; on race war in 
 North Carolina, 365 (note), 
 385* 386 
 
 West Indies, mulattoes of, 402 ; 
 Negroes in, Colquhoun on, 
 376,F. A. Ober on, 395,396; 
 Negro political rights in, 27 ; 
 Negro population compared 
 with that of Mississippi, 47 
 
 West Virginia, erection of 
 state, 8 
 
 Western states, discrimina 
 tion in, 32; proportion of 
 Negro population, 48 
 
 White House, see Washing 
 ton-Roosevelt dinner 
 
 White labourers, absence of in 
 Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, 87, 
 88 
 
 White manipulation of Negro 
 in politics, 368; in South 
 Africa, 387, 388 
 
 White race, superiority of, 
 207, 208 
 
 White supremacy, North 
 Carolina, 3857; and Negro 
 suffrage, 352; in Cape 
 Colony, 36 
 
 Willcox, Walter F., 47; on 
 industrial decline of Negro in 
 South, 171; on Negro wealth, 
 150; writings of, 530, 531 
 
 Williams, D. H., 206 
 
 Williams, Fannie Barrier, on 
 industrial decline of Negro 
 in Chicago, 157 
 
 Wilmington, N. 0., necessity 
 for white control, 385 
 
 Wilson, H. A., on race solidari 
 ty in Africa, 239 
 
 Winston, G. T., on Southern 
 race conditions, 93 
 
Index 
 
 555 
 
 Wisconsin, Negro suffrage in, 
 3 T ; percentage of Negro 
 population, 45 
 
 Women, in fields, Italian 
 versus the Negro, 186, 187; 
 Negro, decline of, as house 
 hold servants, 158, 159; 
 suffrage in United States, 
 412; white, and inter 
 marriage (Mass.), 62 
 
 Woodworth, Frank G., on 
 separate car law, 337 
 
 Worcester, Dean, on race 
 hatred in the Philippines, 
 466, 467 
 
 Work, and race respect, 88, 
 97 ; Negro disinclination to, 
 199 
 
 W T u Ting Fang, 25 
 
 Yale university, Negro at, 23 
 
 Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, 82 
 et seq. ; absence of rape in, 86 ; 
 importance of, in future of 
 Negro, 84 ; its fertility, 
 Richard S. Taylor on, 83; 
 percentage of Negro popu 
 lation, 85; railroads and 
 increase of Negro population 
 in, 87 
 
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