i ?".&; 
 
 ., : ~ r 
 
 To all good men and women of every race 
 throughout the world, in the past, the present, and 
 in the future, this effort is 
 
 DEDICATED 
 AND SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MY WIFE, 
 
 CHARLOTTE JOSEPHINE BROADHART POWHATAN 
 TAYLOR, 
 
 and my boy, 
 
 GESAR ANDREW AUGUSTUS POWHATAN 
 TAYLOR, JR. 
 
 G O 
 THOU 
 
 Annihilate wrong 
 
 Wherever found 
 Blaze a path ; illumine 
 
 The way to freedom, 
 And crown at last 
 
 The Brotherhood of Man 
 With the Fatherhood of God. 
 
 Ceesar Andrew Augustus P. Taylor. 
 
 4.2O487
 
 NOT HEATHENS? 
 
 WHAT 
 
 SHOULD You 
 EXPECT OF THEM? 
 
 NOT HEATHENS! 
 They say they are not. 
 Observe them as I shall throw the light upon them. 
 
 NOT HEATHENS! 
 
 What should you expect of them ? 
 
 See them in this, and my larger book to follow this.
 
 AUTHOR'S FOREWORD. 
 
 The manuscript comprising this book was written 
 and intended to be published in 1910, since which 
 time many things political have happened; notably: 
 the complete rout and disintegration of the "Gang" 
 Republican ( ?) machine in Philadelphia, Pa, 
 through the triumphant election of Rudolph Blanken- 
 burg as Mayor, along with practically every candi- 
 date slated by the Keystone or Reform Party. 
 
 Second. The disruption of the Republican party 
 throughout the nation, culminating in the birth of a 
 new National Political organization; the Washing- 
 ton or Progressive Party at Chicago, 111., during the 
 week of August 5th, 1912. 
 
 Third. A political revolution throughout the na- 
 tion which in a day changed completely the political 
 complexion of the National Government through the 
 election of Woodrow Wilson, a Democratic candi- 
 date to the Presidency, along with a Democratic ma- 
 jority in both the United States Senate and House of 
 Representatives. Throughout all this political up- 
 heaval the Negro has been a tremendous factor, play- 
 ing a conspicuous part. In this connection I as an 
 individual played my part. 
 
 I have just been amused by looking over the daily 
 and weekly papers, religious and secular, as pub- 
 lished in Philadelphia by the white and colored race 
 during the last Mayoralty campaign, and then as 
 now, they, one and all, predicted in glowing head- 
 lines accompanied with photo cuts and column write- 
 ups, the sweeping victories of every candidate but 
 the one who actually won, and that was Rudolph
 
 11 
 
 Blankenburg, who upset all calculations and sur- 
 prised them all by making a "Clean Sweep" in his 
 election to the mayorality which was foreseen, and 
 predicted in the April, 1910, issue of Taylor's Maga- 
 zine. Why was I able to do this? Because I wear 
 no man's collar, politically, and am not subsidized with 
 a dollar itching palm. I saw what was best for the 
 people's interest, and though but a poor man I spent 
 my own money in pushing Taylor's Magazine 
 through every news-stand in the populous part of the 
 city, and by sandwich sign advertisement employing 
 twelve men at one dollar ($1.00) and board per day. 
 
 Through this medium I created the Anti-Contrac- 
 tor Boss Mayoralty issue, culminating in the fulfill- 
 ment of my prediction against the combined subsi- 
 dized white and Negro secular and so-called relig- 
 ious press of the city. I have played the game of 
 politics for more than twenty-five years; associated 
 with many of the ablest white and Negro politicians 
 of this country, and in that municipal contest I felt 
 to know that I was "in right" for what was all the 
 people's best interest. Opposing "Gang" Republican 
 ( ?) political corruption in Philadelphia, I in co- 
 operation with other men, issued a call which on Au- 
 gust the 2ist, 1912, resulted in the formation of the 
 Union Protective Association, with branch organi- 
 zations throughout the forty-seven wards in the city, 
 and a Central Representative Committee. 
 
 I was made chairman of the Keystone Party or- 
 ganization in the Fifteenth Division of the 7th Ward, 
 and later chairman of the Washington or Progressive 
 Party organization in the same division : 
 
 Entering the fight for Roosevelt and Johnson and 
 the Progressive platform, as against corrupt Republi- 
 can ( ?) machine politics, in the last presidential cam- 
 paign, I was elected chairman of the Resolutions 
 Committee for the Citizen's Mass Meeting and Rally
 
 Foreword iii 
 
 held at Musical Fund Hall, Wednesday evening, Sep- 
 tember 4th, 1912. 
 
 As chairman of that committee, I framed a set of 
 resolutions intended to be read at the mass meet- 
 ing, but by others on the committee who were more 
 politic than patriotic I was compelled to compromise 
 by having incorporated only a part of my just and 
 truthful arraignment of the impotent "Gang" Repub- 
 lican party. 
 
 Hence, I give here in full the resolutions as drawn 
 by me: 
 
 Resolutions 
 
 Whereas, The Negroes in the United States of 
 America are native citizens who have never as a 
 race, by word or act, proved other than the Nation's 
 and the general government's most patriotic and 
 loyal defenders ; in spite of the sad fact that foreign 
 aliens and others who resort to dynamite, the torch, 
 the dagger, to anarchistic speech and in other ways 
 disturb and threaten the peace and quietness of the 
 state and nation and the stability of the government, 
 are preferred always before them, and 
 
 Whereas, We view with just alarm increasing race 
 prejudice in the Northern states; through the preach- 
 ments of Tillman, Vardaman, Tom Dixon, Hoke 
 Smith of Georgia, Blease of South Carolina, and 
 others like them, influencing Northern public opinion 
 through the press, from Chautauqua lecture plat- 
 forms, and even by demagogic harangues in the 
 United States Senate and House of Representatives 
 against the race; unchallenged by the Republican 
 party which the Negroes have loyally and unflinch- 
 ingly supported with their ballot at every election, 
 local and national for near half a century, this, in 
 spite of the fact that the Republican party in control 
 of both the legislative and executive branches of the
 
 iv Foreword 
 
 general government during all these years, with but 
 a single intermittence, have been apathetic and indif- 
 ferent while southern Democratic legislatures have 
 steadily, through the enactment of "grandfather" 
 clauses, and other legislative jugglery, disfranchised 
 and segregated the Negro citizenry until their position 
 in the Southern states is a political nonentity and a 
 farce in a boasted free Republic. Despite the fur- 
 ther fact that the United States Constitution with its 
 several amendments afford means for redress and 
 make it mandatory upon the United States Congress 
 that redress should be had and relief afforded the 
 Negroes from legislative, political oppression in the 
 southern half of the States, and 
 
 Whereas, It is plainly evident to all fair minded 
 and impartial men and women of whatever race or 
 party that the Negro vote has been jockeyed with and 
 used by the Republican party of the nation in a way 
 to conserve the political interest of white men, most 
 invariably to the Negro's detriment, and without a 
 care as to the moral, industrial and political effect 
 upon the Negro's status as an American citizen, and 
 Whereas, This apathy on the part of the Republi- 
 can party (the Negro's mentor and looked-to Moses) 
 and its utter indifference as to the ungraciously flag- 
 rant injustice meted out to them by the nation consti- 
 tutes a grievance painful in the extreme to contem- 
 plate, and 
 
 Whereas, The once great Republican party of the 
 nation has now become so commercialized and dollar 
 itching in its palm (so to speak) that it has coquetted 
 and flirted with Bourbon democrats in legislative 
 financial deals, exploiting the municipalities, the states 
 and the nation, that honor, principle and general 
 humane interest is lost sight of where personal and 
 corporate interest intervenes until it is difficult to 
 distinguish a member of the Republican party from
 
 Foreword v 
 
 one of the Democratic party, excepting by name, and 
 Whereas, In the great state of Pennsylvania under 
 dominant control of the Republican party, with its 
 boasted high ideals and morals, the mob spirit resul- 
 tant from influence of Southern teachings, "Judge 
 Lynch," with all its defiance of law and judicial pro- 
 cedure dares to lift its head; while at Harrisburg 
 sits a supposed Republican Governor, who in news- 
 paper mouthings makes a fuss like a "tempest in a 
 teapot," and yet, he and his "Gang" sponsors do 
 not exert their prerogative to compel a change of 
 venue in order to secure the conviction by an impar- 
 tial court in another county of the state of the self- 
 confessed murderers of Jack Walker at Coatesville, 
 Pa., and yet, all the "Gang" Republican political ma- 
 chinery is industriously at work finding one "Gang" 
 made judge after another in different parts of the 
 state to delay the serving prison sentences of election 
 crooks as fast as an honest jury convicts and an hon- 
 est Judge is found to sentence them. We deplore 
 crime, whether the criminal be Jack Walker, the ne- 
 gro, or the white election crooks, but law to be re- 
 spected should be administered without favor or par- 
 tiality ; and 
 
 Whereas, In the legislative district embracing the 
 7th Ward in the First Congressional District, and in 
 the First Senatorial District in the City of Phila- 
 delphia, the Negro vote numerically is such that no 
 candidate can be elected from either without receiv- 
 ing that vote, and 
 
 Whereas, There has been recently erected in South 
 Philadelphia (the Vare "bossed" section of the city) 
 a public place of amusement known as Point Breeze 
 Park or The Areodome, the management of which 
 amusement draws the "color line," and in every way 
 endeavors to impress upon Negro visitors to said 
 park that their presence is undesirable. This we view
 
 vi Foreword 
 
 as prejudicial and stultifying to the Negro's man- 
 hood and good citizenship; as tending to impress 
 upon him as a race and upon others that he is infe- 
 rior to all other races; even to aliens, to cats and 
 dogs, to which no objection is made ; and 
 
 Whereas, In this, the Washington party movement 
 opportunity is afforded to cast our lot with citizens 
 of other races in rebuking with our ballots the mani- 
 fest injustice and flagrant abuses of which we justly 
 complain, and to do this without registering a vote 
 for either the corrupt Republican or Democratic 
 parties ; though we recognize and appreciate the fact 
 that there are many good and noble white men and 
 women who are friends to the Negro race, and who 
 yet feel that good will result from the ascendancy 
 to power of one or the other of the two old parties - 
 according to which one they may be adherents. Not- 
 withstanding this, we feel to see not alone ours, but 
 the interest of all the people best conserved by fol- 
 lowing the matchless leadership of the scholar, dip- 
 lomat, soldier-patriot and statesman, Theodore 
 Roosevelt, and the Washington party as pre-empted 
 in this state and elsewhere as the Progressive or Bull 
 Moose Party: 
 
 Therefore Resolved, That as citizens and voters 
 here assembled, we endorse and ratify the nomination 
 of Theodore Roosevelt, and Hiram W. Johnson, as 
 nominated by the Progressive National Convention 
 as held at Chicago, 111., during the week of August 
 5th, this 1912. 
 
 Resolved, Further, that we pledge our influence 
 and votes to no candidate for office from either the 
 Legislative District embracing the 7th Ward, the 
 First Congressional District and the First Senatorial 
 District without a pledge from said candidates that it 
 will be their aim among other things to strive hon- 
 estly to secure and demand for the Negro as a part
 
 Foreword vii 
 
 of the great American citizenry just and equitable 
 treatment in the full enjoyment of their civil, politi- 
 cal and industrial rights even as accorded all other 
 American citizens. 
 
 Resolved, Further, that a committee of five be ap- 
 pointed by the Chairman to wait upon the candidate 
 or candidates appealing for votes from either the 
 First Senatorial District, the First Congressional Dis- 
 trict and the Legislative District, embracing the 7th 
 Ward, and acquaint them with this our determina- 
 tion: That the Negro in this country is a factor po- 
 litically and otherwise cannot be denied. In the last 
 Gubernatorial campaign in Pennsylvania, Harry W. 
 Bass, a Negro (the first in the history of the state) 
 was nominated on the Republican ticket, and elected 
 from the Sixth Legislative District. This was done 
 to save the Gubernatorial ticket from opposition 
 threatened by the large Negro vote of the state on 
 account of the attitude of Tener, the Gubernatorial 
 candidate, toward a large and influential Negro ben- 
 evolent and fraternal organization. And again, in 
 the late state and national contest the Republican ma- 
 chine intending to nominate a white man to succeed 
 Bass, they hesitated in face of the rapidly growing 
 sentiment for the Progressive Party and renominated 
 Harry W. Bass ; hoping thereby to aid in saving the 
 electoral vote of the state for Taft and Sherman, 
 the Presidential candidates. Bass was re-elected, but 
 the state's electoral vote was lost to Taft and Sher- 
 man, being polled for Roosevelt and Johnson. This 
 was one time that the "Gang" Republicans jockeying 
 with the Negro vote failed to "pan out." 
 
 Thomas J. Ryan, the man who set up Point Breeze 
 Park, and permitted the management to foster a 
 damnable race prejudice, was slain by his own soul's
 
 viii Foreword 
 
 conflict. He committed suicide, thus emphasizing 
 the existence of a retributive nemesis even as seen in 
 the case of the late Jeff Davis of Arkansas whose 
 brain exploded within, he dying of apoplexy ; and of 
 Henry W. Grady, who died suddenly in midst of his 
 efforts to win the North to the adoption of a commer- 
 cial and industrial policy where greed subordinated 
 the nation's attitude of justice and fair play toward 
 the Negro. Gorman, of Maryland, halted by death 
 as he strove to re-enslave the Negro by efforts of dis- 
 franchisement. Rutherford B. Hayes, cut off from 
 earth as he betrayed the Constitutional guarantees of 
 the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to 
 America's 15,000,000 black souls. James A. Garfield, 
 providentially stricken by an inspired mad man as he 
 began to square the policies of the government along 
 lines where human interest is lost sight of as corpo- 
 rate interest intervenes and so they go. 
 
 Four years ago, with a united Republican party, 
 the Taft administration went into office weak, vaccil- 
 ating and blundering on the Negro, i.e., national prob- 
 lem. Its last fatal blunder and crowning act of racial 
 injustice was allowing itself to be made the tool of a 
 gang of scoundrels not to prosecute, but persecute, 
 Jack Johnson, the world's fistic champion, charging 
 him with crimes of which there is not a white man 
 who ever made money out of the prize fighter's ring, 
 but what they did not engage in the same ; they have 
 all finally opened up a saloon and engaged in the so- 
 called "White Slave" traffic, and no one has ever 
 raised a howl until it was found impossible to bring 
 forward a "White Hope" to beat the "nigger." The 
 poor old Republican party it is dead. Even as the 
 Panama Canal will prove the nation's undoing. As 
 for myself, I set at defiance any law of man which 
 intervenes between me and the enjoyment of any
 
 Foreword ix 
 
 right not denied to other men. I teach my boy the 
 same. 
 
 The States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey have, 
 through their legislatures made appropriations in aid 
 of the Semi-Centennial Emancipation Proclamation 
 Celebration in September, 1913. This, and all simi- 
 lar celebrations for the years yet to come, should 
 appeal not alone to the Negroes, but to all the world, 
 and especially to all Americans. Emancipation not 
 only freed the Negro from physical bondage, but it 
 in great measure freed the white race from industrial 
 slavery and conditions worse; an intellectual, moral 
 and social thraldom, which at once prevented a full 
 development of all the white race along lines of in- 
 tellectual, moral and social progress. The after effects 
 of black slavery was emphasized by John Temple 
 Graves nineteen years ago thus: "Let me assume 
 without argument, that no thinking man of to-day 
 questions the existence of a race problem a vital 
 and present and pressing problem, which challenges 
 at once the humanity, the pride, the integrity and 
 safety of the Republic. It is the bar to fraternity 
 and to the unity of national sentiment. It is the ob- 
 struction in the way of foreign immigration and capi- 
 tal. It throttles liberty of sentiment and suffrage 
 in the South. It poisons the Southern ballot. It de- 
 moralizes justice in the Southern courts. It steadily 
 threatens the peace and safety of society. It impedes 
 the progress and full development of a race." On 
 the first Sunday in this January, 1913, Dr. Stephen 
 S. Wise, Rabbi of the Free Synagogue, New York 
 City, speaking from his pulpit on "Abolition and Fifty 
 Years After," said: 
 
 "Emancipation came as a war measure, and rightly 
 so a measure of war upon slavery. Pity did not 
 free the Negro, but war did. Pity and charity will 
 not solve the Negro problem of to-day. It is upon
 
 x Foreword 
 
 the higher grounds of justice and democracy that 
 the question must be met. We face to-day, as a na- 
 tion, not a negro question, but the American ques- 
 tion. It is and always has been the test touchstone 
 of American life, testing the very foundations of the 
 Republic. If we fail here we fail everywhere. The 
 question is not one of racial equality, but of social 
 justice, of true democracy, of genuine Americanism." 
 
 For these reasons and they are vital, I look for- 
 ward to the future, when the celebration of the 
 Emancipation Proclamation will not be considered 
 wholly a Negro affair, but an affair of the nation and 
 of the world. 
 
 Twenty years ago Frederick Douglass, taking for 
 his subject "Lessons of the Hour" among other 
 things, said: "There is one thing, however, in which 
 I think we must all agree at the start. It is that 
 this so-called, but miscalled, Negro problem is one of 
 the most important and urgent subjects that can now 
 engage public attention. Its solution is, and ought to 
 be, the serious business of the best American wisdom 
 and statesmanship. For it involves the honor or dis- 
 honor, the glory or shame, the happiness or 
 misery, of the whole American people. It not 
 only touches the good name and fame of the 
 Republic, but its highest moral welfare and its per- 
 manent safety. The evil with which it confronts us 
 is coupled with a peril at once great and increasing, 
 and one which should be removed, if it can be, with- 
 out delay." "But even the Southern whites have an 
 interest in this question. Woe to the South when it 
 no longer has the strong arm of the Negro to till its 
 soil," and "woe to the nation when it shall employ the 
 sword to drive the Negro from his native land." Such 
 a crime against justice, such a crime against grati- 
 tude, should it ever be attempted, would certainly 
 bring a national punishment which would cause the
 
 Foreword xi 
 
 earth to shudder. It would bring a stain upon the 
 nation's honor like the blood on Lady Macbeth's 
 hand. The waters of all the oceans would not suffice 
 to wash out the infamy. But the nation will commit 
 no such crime. But in regard to this point of our 
 future, my mind is easy. We are here and here to 
 stay. It is well for us and well for the American 
 people to rest upon this as final." "Could I be heard 
 by this great nation, I would call to mind the sublime 
 and glorious truths with which at its birth, it saluted 
 and startled a listening world. Its voice, then, was 
 as the trump of an archangel, summoning hoary 
 forms of oppression and time-honored tyranny, to 
 judgment. 
 
 Crowned heads heard it and shrieked. Toiling 
 millions heard it and clapped their hands for joy. It 
 announced the advent of a nation, based upon human 
 brotherhood and the self-evident truths of liberty and 
 equality. Its mission was the redemption of the 
 world from the bondage of ages. Apply these sub- 
 lime and glorious truths to the situation now be- 
 fore you. Put away your race prejudice. Banish 
 the idea that one class must rule over another. Rec- 
 ognize the fact that the rights of the humblest citi- 
 zens are as worthy of protection as those of the high- 
 est, and your problem will be solved; and whatever 
 may be in store for you in the future, whether 
 prosperity or adversity ; whether you have foes with- 
 out or foes within, whether there shall be peace or 
 war, based upon the eternal principles of truth, jus- 
 tice and humanity, with no class having cause for 
 complaint or grievance, your Republic will stand and 
 flourish forever." I look forward to the day when 
 men in the positions of Samuel Gompers, John 
 Mitchell, Wm. Morrison, Eugene V. Debbs, John 
 Burns of England, and others who lead the host of 
 labor will join with their millions of followers in
 
 xii Foreword 
 
 celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation in em- 
 phasis that America is in truth and not in theory the 
 "'Land of the free and the home of the brave," for 
 well has Terrance V. Powderly said: "Labor cannot 
 solve its problems without considering the black 
 man a brother and a factor. Their interest indus- 
 trially are the same." The celebration at Philadelphia, 
 the home of "Liberty Bell" and the house of Betsey 
 Ross) this coming September should not be the Ne- 
 groes' affair only, but it is the white man's affair 
 equally, if not more so, and should be an occasion 
 and an opportunity for American patriotism and 
 sublime oratory by white and black champions of 
 human liberty.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In this, my crowning effort, my mission is one of 
 peace ; yet I shall wield a sword with edge so keen as 
 to cut clean between the marrow and the bone. 
 
 In this effort effect shall follow cause pain may 
 be inflicted, but ease will come to an aching world. 
 Yea, joy shall supplant sorrow, and the bowed head 
 shall be lifted in praise to the Geni of Good to all the 
 World. 
 
 The hydra-head of hate, malice, envy, jealousy, 
 prejudice and proscription, shall be exposed and 
 crushed, and all mankind made to feel and proclaim 
 that: "Children are we all of one Great Father; in 
 whatever clime his providence hath cast the seed of 
 life, He, the all-seeing Father, regards nations, hues, 
 and dialects alike/' that "Laws of changeless justice 
 binds oppressor with oppressed, and close as sin and 
 suffering joined we march to fate abreast," That 
 "Fleecy locks and black complexions cannot forfeit 
 nature's claims, that skins may differ but affection 
 dwells in white and black the same." 
 
 Irrefutably I affirm that this work shall be done. 
 
 Where I leave off another will begin. What I 
 have begun another will finish." 
 
 "So BE IT." 
 
 The principles actuating this book are preor- 
 dained and inspired, hence like the rubber ball, their 
 elastic properties are such that the harder you throw 
 them down the higher will they bound. 
 
 Attempt to combat them, and you and your issue 
 will be buried in anathmatic oblivion. Espouse the 
 cause of right and justice, and through ignominy and
 
 xiv Introduction 
 
 seeming defeat your name will shine on through the 
 darkness of conflict. Yea, your personality will stride 
 down the ages, on up throughout eternity, shedding 
 a glorious effulgence; illumining the path of your 
 posterity even as the Christ, as John Brown, the mar- 
 tyr; as Wm. Wilberforce, Robert Emmet, Daniel 
 O'Connel; as the immortal Lincoln, Grant Lovejoy, 
 Stephens, Jas. B. Julian, Lucretia Mott, Harriet 
 Beecher Stowe, Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell Phil- 
 lips, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, 
 Tousant LeOverture, Grover Cleveland, Antonia 
 Maseo, Andrew Carnegie, Miss Anna P. Jeanes, Gen- 
 erals O. O. Howard, Clinton B. Fisk and Benj. F. 
 Butler, Sarah Mapps Douglass, Carolina Phelps 
 Stokes, Hannah Pierce Cox, John Cox, Mrs. Thomas 
 Garrett, Thomas Garrett, Elijah Pennypacker, Dr. 
 Fussell, Wm. Still, Chas. Sumner, Carl Schurz, Jus- 
 tice Harlan, Mother; Cathern Drexal, George Pea- 
 body, John Fox Slater, Daniel Hand, Dr. Booker T. 
 Washington, Thomas B. Reed, James G. Blaine, ; 
 Senators Joseph Benson, Foraker and Henry W. 
 Blair, Mr. Shaw, George L. Stearns, Thaddeus Stev- 
 ens, Capt. John Edwin Cook, W. F. S. Cook, and the 
 militant host of other patriots, philanthropists and 
 statesmen, the long roll of whom I am pained be- 
 cause space will not permit to enroll them here il- 
 lustrious men and women distinguished from the 
 demagogue, the public sycophant and blatant mounte- 
 bank. 
 
 In the preparation of this book a work is fore- 
 shadowed, the stupendousness of which I fully real- 
 ize, but am equally conscious that one with Right- 
 GODusness is a power irresistible, while many with- 
 out righteousness is as nothing. 
 
 In this my fight is Universal hence, questions 
 International, Industrial, Sociological, Political and 
 Economical I intend to discuss with all the force p|
 
 Introduction XV5 
 
 unrestrained logic and humane reasoning in meta- 
 phor inspired and emphasized by centuries of prepar- 
 edness. 
 
 In this and its continuance to follow the voice 
 from the Tomb shall speak. 
 
 The world shall hear the spoken defiance of a soul 
 to the oppressor. All demagogic scoundrels shall be 
 made to tremble at the awakening of long shackled 
 millions. 
 
 The elements, both animate and inanimate, shall 
 stand aghast at the new conflict waged, and all celes- 
 tial and terrestrial beings shall sound the vault of 
 creation with praise for the victory of righteousness 
 against injustice throughout the Universe. 
 
 CAESAR ANDREW AUGUSTUS P. TAYLOR. 
 December, 1909,
 
 THE CONFLICT 
 
 AND 
 
 COMMINGLING OF THE RACES 
 
 NOT HEATHENS, 
 WHAT SHOULD YOU EXPECT OF THEM? 
 
 Sunday, February 23rd, 1902, there appeared in 
 the "New York American and Journal" a full page 
 write-up captioned, "What Happened to Pretty Miss 
 Jewell Who Married King Lobengula the Savage." 
 Said "write-up" was profusely illustrated, showing 
 purported incidents in the married life of this couple 
 after the nuptials at the altar. The various illustra- 
 tions were underprinted : First, "The Wedding;" 
 second, "Lobengula Feasts on the Floor;" third, 
 "Throws Assegais at His Wife;" fourth, "At Last 
 Beats Her with a Huge Knobkerry ;" fifth, the cen- 
 tral illustration shows what pretends to be King 
 Lobengula the savage in raiment with assegais in 
 hand emerging from a tangled jungle with vision 
 bent upon Miss Jewell, who is pictured full length 
 as a modern English beauty, looking the perfection 
 of modesty, innocence and virtue, with back turned, 
 seemingly unaware of her approaching captor. Com- 
 pleting the illustrations, there is in the lower left 
 hand corner of the page a group of five photos of 
 half nude, thick lipped, kerchief head covered black 
 savage looking persons with huge rings hanging in 
 
 I
 
 Cije Conflict 
 
 their ears. This photo group is underprinted, "A 
 Few of King Lobengula's Hundred Wives in 
 Africa." The writer of this so much per line paid 
 for malignant travesty on a race of people, prefaces 
 or introduces his story thus: 
 
 "No occurrence excited more curiosity in England 
 or more disgust among right minded people than the 
 marriage of Miss Jewell, a pretty English girl, with 
 the savage King Lobengula, the dethroned monarch 
 of Matabeleland, in South Africa. This marriage 
 has ended in misery, as might have been expected. 
 The young wife has brought suit for divorce in 
 London against her royal savage. She makes as- 
 tonishing allegations of cruelty and misconduct. Al- 
 though Lobengula was married in a frock coat and 
 silk hat, he relapsed immediately afterwards into 
 utter savagery. Dressed only in a few feathers, he 
 feasted on raw meat on the floor. He bit his wife, 
 threw assegais at her and beat her with a knob- 
 kerry." 
 
 Lobengula was driven in 1893 from his king- 
 dom after getting into a war with the English settlers 
 in Rhodesia. 
 
 Miss Jewell, whose father was a mining magnate, 
 first met him at Bloemfontein, in the Orange Free 
 State. In 1899 ne came to London as part of a 
 show called "Savage South Africa." They were then 
 married. In the body of the story the writer goes 
 on to say: "This is the climax to one of the most 
 astonishing and painful stories of modern life. Miss 
 Jewell was the daughter of an English mine owner, 
 who had large interests in Mexico and South Africa. 
 She was not only handsome, but cultivated and 
 seemingly refined. In spite of all protest she mar- 
 ried him. His face is quite good looking for a 
 Negro, and one would hardly think it concealed so 
 
 2
 
 CJje Conflict 
 
 much savagery. The present divorce case reveals 
 that Lobengula behaved in the worst possible way 
 that could be expected of a savage king. Immedi- 
 ately after their marriage, King Lobengula began 
 to show his true colors. Grown tired of biting and 
 beating his wife, he used to amuse himself by throw- 
 ing assegais at her. When he was in bad temper 
 he would run a spear through her shoulder or some 
 other place." 
 
 Thus with Billingsgate vituperation and high col- 
 ored misrepresentation the writer with his poison 
 brewing imagination goes on caricaturing and hold- 
 ing up to ridicule King Lobengula, and ascribing to 
 him and his South African subjects all manner of 
 barbaric atrocities. He tells of some peculiar insti- 
 tution of Matabeleland known as the Milmo, a high 
 priest believed by the natives to be immortal and 
 who could not possibly be killed, and that finally one, 
 Major F. R. Burnham, an American who afterwards 
 served with Lord Roberts in the Boer War, crawled 
 on his hands and knees into the cave of the Milmo 
 and shot him as if he were a trapped animal, thus 
 ending his influence over the Matabeles, and, inci- 
 dentally paving the way for the successful over- 
 throw of Lobengula's power and his capture by the 
 English. 
 
 He states when Miss Jewell brought her suit for 
 divorce in London from Lobengula, that Sir Fran- 
 cis Jeune, the Divorce Court Judge, on hearing her 
 story, asked Queen Lobengula, "Isn't this rather 
 what you might have expected?" "I don't know 
 what you mean," replied the Queen, indignantly. 
 "You knew he was a savage, didn't you?" asked 
 the Judge. "I loved him," said the petitioner, pa- 
 thetically. 
 
 For the purpose of this book it is not necessary 
 3
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 that I shall further dignify the writer of this by 
 quoting his scurrilous attack upon African nobility 
 (for Lobengula is a king of royal line with all 
 kingly prerogatives, despite certain white persons 
 imbued with American race prejudice who try to 
 influence the world against everything pertaining to 
 Negro blood, brain and character) . My purpose is 
 to show the bias of the average newspapers and 
 other publications conducted by white men in the 
 United States of America when purveying news or 
 treating upon any subject where the Negro race is 
 concerned. Certain white publishers make a bid 
 for any write-up which caricatures the Negro race, 
 or distorts, twists, misrepresents, misquotes or mag- 
 nifies into grotesqueness the least happening or inci- 
 dent concerning this people and at times it appears 
 that there is a concerted movement among a scoun- 
 drelly pessimistic class of news writers to purvey 
 through public print an avalanche of imaginary filth 
 and mud about Negroes and other peoples of color. 
 Hence, many lies have been written as to Chinese rat 
 eating, the Yellow peril, the cocky Jap and rice eat- 
 ers of Nippon, the deceptive and begging Hindoo, 
 the big burly black brutes yea, about the unwashed, 
 uncivilized, bloodthirsty heathens in all the world, 
 and, lately, in a current magazine, an American 
 white writer has an article in which she awakes 
 from a new nightmare and conjures up another 
 ghost, "The Mulatto Negro, the Yellow Peril of 
 the North." 
 
 Referring to the so-called "Yellow Peril" and the 
 "Negro Peril" of the South, she writes: "Few have 
 seemed to realize that to the Caucasian dwellers in 
 the Northern half of this country there is a deeper 
 and graver racial menace than either of these two, 
 
 4
 
 Cfce conflict 
 
 in that it involves the most horrible possibilities of 
 both." 
 
 The writer then quotes President Elliot of Har- 
 vard University in a speech before the Lincoln Din- 
 ner Club delivered some months before her writing: 
 "Northern opinion and Southern opinion are identi- 
 cal with regard to shielding the two races from ad- 
 mixture one with the other. We frankly recognize 
 that the feeling of Northern whites against personal 
 contact with the Negro is even stronger than that of 
 Southern whites." Then she proceeds forthwith to 
 take issue with his declaration, and seeking to sus- 
 tain her contention, cites Maine and Delaware, Ore- 
 gon, Idaho, Nebraska, and Indiana as the only 
 Northeastern and Northwestern States in which 
 marriage between whites and blacks is prohibited 
 by statutory law. Then she refers to statistical 
 tables on page 16 of Census Bulletin No. 8, as giv- 
 ing the percentage of mulattoes in total Negro popu- 
 lation for the various States and groups of States 
 in 1890, 1870, 1860 and 1850, and asserts that: 
 "The figures warrant the belief that between one- 
 ninth and one-sixth of the negro population of con- 
 tinental United States have been regarded by four 
 groups of enumerators as bearing evidences of an 
 admixture of white blood. The figures also indicate 
 that this admixture was found by the enumerators 
 to be most prevalent in sections where the population 
 cf negroes to whites is smallest, and least prevalent 
 where the proportion is largest." 
 
 She finds that Maine, whose Negro population in 
 1890 was one-fifth of one per cent, of the total, 
 shows 59.4 of the Negroes to be mulattoes. Right 
 here let me remark for obvious reasons that Maine 
 is one of the States she has already cited where mar- 
 
 5
 
 Cjje Conflict 
 
 riage between races is by law prohibited by all 
 means let us not lose sight of Maine. 
 
 She continues: "Allowing for all possible errors 
 and inaccuracies in this mongrel enumeration, we 
 cannot escape the plain statistical fact, that as one 
 passes from the great cotton growing States between 
 South Carolina and Texas toward the North there 
 is a marked increase of racial fusion. The pre- 
 sumption that this is due solely or chiefly to immi- 
 gration from the South is precluded by noting the 
 same ratio between the figures for the two sections 
 in 1850-60, when the only immigrants of this color 
 from the South were the runaway slaves. A com- 
 parison of Northern and Southern cities for the 
 earlier periods tells the same story." 
 
 Thus far with all her array of figures she proves 
 nothing as refers to the States and cities North 
 compared with the same South as to the percentage 
 of mulattoes to the whole Negro population in any 
 city or State North or South excepting it be in 
 Maine, and, remember, that Maine is one of the 
 Northern States in which, like at the South, mar- 
 riage between the races is prohibited, and yet there 
 in 1890 the Negro population was one-fifth of one 
 per cent, of the total, and yet 57.4 of these Negroes 
 were mulattoes. Again, I say, note this. But, she 
 continues: "If we hold that the only sin in the com- 
 mingling of these is the sin of illegality, perhaps the 
 chief onus of miscegenation still rests upon the 
 South; but if it be conceded that any such amalga- 
 mation is in itself a crime, the South stands ap- 
 proved as the champion of Anglo-Saxon purity, not 
 only for exhibiting the smallest percentage of ad- 
 mixture in the midst of the greatest opportunity for 
 it, but also for entering her protest uniformly 
 against it on her statute books. In this view of it 
 
 6
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 also it seems a poor defence to say that the strong 
 Caucasian instinct of the North is sufficient protec- 
 tion against miscegenation, and that it is useless to 
 legislate against an evil which does not exist. Un- 
 less the census statistics lie, the evil does exist, and 
 in much greater proportion than in the South." 
 
 Thus, of the nine sections into which her labored 
 article is divided she concludes the first, and proves 
 nothing, for she does not prove that these growing 
 additions to her "Mulatto Peril" ( ?) were not begot- 
 ten at the South, though the census enumerators may 
 have found their ratio to the whole Negro population 
 greatest in the states and cities North as compared 
 with the states and cities South, and to her asser- 
 tion that "the greatest opportunity for miscegenation 
 exists at the South," all must agree with her that it 
 does for the white libertine and despoiler of Negro 
 female virtue, but it does not exist for a Negro man, 
 because that very "protest uniformly against it on 
 the South's statute books is vengefully exerted 
 against the Negro man where a white woman is con- 
 cerned excepting when the mob gets on the job in ad- 
 vance. Then there is nothing for this aforesaid pro- 
 testing uniform statute to do but contemplate the fin- 
 ished work of the South's "best citizens." Even as 
 Southern writers and preachers in the past sought 
 to twist the Bible into indorsing their despicable 
 traffic in human flesh and blood, this writer now as- 
 serts the census statistics lie "if they do not prove 
 that miscegenation is greater at the North than at the 
 South, while it is a truth that there is not now and 
 never was as many white fathers of illegitimate 
 children by Negro women at the North as there has 
 been and is now at the South. In the attitude of that 
 class of white men who despoil the Indian and the 
 
 7
 
 f) e Conflict 
 
 Negro is seen the truth that they hate with fear most 
 those whom they have wronged most. 
 
 An incident I know of in a southern city was a 
 Negro girl in the employment of a white family to 
 whom her parents had belonged in slavery. The 
 girl's name was Maggie. She one day brought to her 
 work with her an infant very light of complexion. 
 The white mistress and daughters of the family gath- 
 ered around and made much over the cooing babe, 
 and asked Maggie who was its father. Maggie, 
 thinking no harm, not realizing what would be the 
 final consequence, replied: "Mr. Wilbur is its father." 
 Now, Wilbur was the son of that mistress and the 
 brother of those fair Anglo-Saxon, blue-blooded, 
 rosy cheeked, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired daughters of 
 Southern aristocracy. They all stood aghast and in 
 chorus exclaimed: "Oh, Maggie!", and yet they 
 smiled sweetly upon the innocent babe in its black 
 mother's arms. The subject was dismissed; poor 
 Maggie thought no more about it. But one dark, 
 stormy, muddy night, when lightning was flashing 
 and thunder roaring aloud, a knock came upon the 
 little cabin door down the lane where Maggie lived 
 with her poor decrepit old mother and father. Hear- 
 ing the knock the old mother hobbled to the door, 
 lifted the bolt and poked her head out of the door 
 ajar. With a sickening thud and crashing bones the 
 old lady fell to the floor a brick bat intended for 
 Maggie thrown from the darkness had mashed in 
 the old woman's face. Thus Wilbur, after seducing 
 the girl, attempted to murder her for admitting that 
 he was the father of her child. There is not alone 
 this particular Wilbur; there are many others south 
 of Mason and Dixon's line. 
 
 Hence : 
 
 8
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 THE NEGRO WOMAN IN THE NATION'S 
 PROBLEM. 
 
 Much has been written, much has been spoken, and 
 much has been resolved for the solution of the prob- 
 lems which perplexes the Negro race, but the one 
 thing needful is yet to be done by the women of the 
 race ; then will speedily come the solution. This must 
 be admitted on every hand when you consider first, 
 that the strength of a race consists in the virtue and 
 integrity of its women; second, the entire Negro 
 race is compromised and weakened by and through 
 the attitude of certain white men toward Negro wom- 
 en; hence the question? Why do white men as 
 legislators at the South enact Jim Crow laws, inflict- 
 ing discriminating outrages upon the Negro race ; de- 
 grading both their men and women, and ever intent 
 upon seeking clandestine alliances under cover of 
 night with the women? These same white men in- 
 troduce and enact Jim Crow laws in the legislatures 
 by day, and at night they are out in the byways and 
 lanes inquiring and looking for a "pretty yaller girl". 
 Oh, Heaven! witness the unholy alliances of concu- 
 binage by white men with Negro mistresses. It is 
 these men that say there are no Negro ladies. They 
 say it when they cause to be written over the doors 
 of southern railroad depot waiting rooms signs 
 reading thus : "Ladies' Waiting Room" and "Colored 
 Waiting Room." Now, be it known that the "col- 
 ored waiting room" indicates the waiting room set 
 apart for all Negroes, where cats, dogs, white men 
 drunken, cigar smoking, tobacco using white men 
 and every other vile abomination is privileged to en- 
 ter and tarry. This, "The Colored Waiting Room," 
 while the "Ladies' Waiting Room" is sacred to white 
 men and white women only be the white women 
 
 9
 
 Cbe Conflict 
 
 ever so vile in character and person, the "Ladies' 
 Waiting Room" is free to them, while the colored 
 woman, no matter how refined and virtuous, is not 
 allowed to enter it. 
 
 Thus, it is not the white woman, but the white 
 men who declare that there are no Negro ladies. Oh ! 
 monstrosity of wickedness done by the son of a gun 
 who is eternally and forever looking for "a pretty 
 yaller gal." How long, oh, how long, will colored 
 women quietly tolerate these beastly proceedings, 
 which pins upon them the scarlet letter; and weak- 
 ening the men of their race? How, oh, how long, 
 will noble white women allow these proceedings to 
 continue, which deprive their marriagable daughters 
 of honorable husbands in that certain white men 
 prefer Negro mistresses? Negro women have for 
 many years worn the scarlet letter, and by their 
 silence, yea angel-like silence he who should have 
 stood in the criminal dock has posed in society as 
 a paragon of virtue, but now, even as Hester Prynne 
 and little Pearl dramatically set forth in Nathaniel 
 Hawthorn's "Scarlet Letter," the other and more 
 guilty culprit must come up on the scaffold. 
 
 White men, if you have any sense of honor, if you 
 respect the wives, daughters and mothers of your 
 own race, be just, be charitable toward the offspring 
 of your unholy lust and clandestine alliances. If you 
 will not be just and consistent, then "shinny on your 
 own side." It is intended to inaugurate a new cru- 
 sade; yea, though the Heavens fall, I mean it, and 
 call upon Negro woman everywhere to assist, for in 
 this I see the solution of the problem : Who else will 
 assist men or women? Let me hear from you 
 through some concerted action. Again, I quote the 
 article "The Mulatto Negro a Yellow Peril." Be- 
 ginning the second section, she says : 
 
 10
 
 C ft e conU iet 
 
 "The question naturally arises, 'If such large per- 
 centage of admixture stands against the North with 
 few Negroes, what might it be with more? And 
 more Negroes is the proposition which confronts the 
 North to-day; as an eminent and radical change in 
 the South's industrial system may ultimately deliver 
 into Northern hands both the Negro and his problem. 
 Every breeze from the South blows tidings of this 
 change. Mr. William Garrett Brown of Harvard 
 University observed it going forward through two 
 movements of population exodus and immigration: 
 'There is/ he wrote, 'a steady and widespread move- 
 ment of Negroes from the countrysides into the 
 towns, and out of the state into the North; and 
 there is a moderate but fairly steady, and apparently, 
 increasing inflow of whites. All over the South com- 
 plaint is heard that the Negro as a laborer, particu- 
 larly as a farm hand, is deteriorating. It becomes 
 harder and harder to bind him to the soil or to long 
 terms of service in any line, and he is likely to 
 leave when the" farmer needs him most.' " 
 
 All over the South, too, as it happens coincident 
 with this, there is a great industrial renaissance; a 
 full awakening, for the first time in her history, to 
 the complete realization of the hidden potentialities 
 in her vast and comparatively untouched resources. 
 This industrial giant has risen from the lethargy 
 which two centuries of slavery imposed, and shaking 
 off the transient effects of defeat and misrule, he 
 will brook no obstacle and no delay in his high re- 
 solve to cause the South to blossom with new wealth 
 and power. There is work to be done in this vast 
 undertaking; the Negro refuses to do it. Very well. 
 Then he must make room for someone who will. 
 At the convention of the "Southern Industrial Par- 
 liament" held in Washington last May, the chief sub- 
 
 II
 
 C i) e Conflict 
 
 ject for discussion was the immigration of farm la- 
 bor. The burden of their cry was "the harvest is 
 plenteous, the laborers are few. The Negro as an in- 
 dustrial factor is a failure ; he is not dependable ; we 
 must have something else." 
 
 "The vital point in all this for the North is that the 
 South is getting something else. Italian labor is no 
 longer an experiment in the South. Since the first 
 colony at "Sunny side Plantation" in Arkansas twelve 
 years ago at first a failure, afterward a signal suc- 
 cess these people have proven more industrious and 
 more thrifty than the Negroes. This is illustrated by 
 the saying "If an Italian earn a dollar and a quarter 
 a day he will live on the twenty-five cents and save 
 the dollar ; but if a Negro earn a dollar and a quarter, 
 he will spend a dollar and a half." At least one 
 great railroad system of the South has begun to use 
 Italians instead of Negroes for track work; but the 
 most deeply significant fact is their appearance in the 
 sugar, rice and cotton fields. 
 
 Better still, the Negro's industrial short-comings 
 are bringing to the front the native white rural and 
 mountain population "the South's great unutilized 
 industrial reserves." The whites are gaining in the 
 shops and mills; they are to be found working 
 side by side with the Negroes in the tobacco factories, 
 and they have a monopoly in the cotton mills, where 
 the Negroes are not found at all. The silk mills near 
 Norfolk, Va., employ girls exclusively. "In parts 
 of Virginia and the Carolinas whence the Negroes 
 are migrating northward so steadily," says an eye- 
 witness, "white men are doing more and more of 
 the work that was formerly left to Negroes. Large 
 planters and landowners in those quarters now 
 make it a rule to have neither Negro tenants nor Ne- 
 gro laborers, aiming specially against sudden depar- 
 
 12
 
 Cibe Conflict 
 
 tures. Once free of their long dependence on the 
 African, these people will hardly go back to it of their 
 own accord." 
 
 Aiming at greater efficiency for this white labor 
 is the movement recently inaugurated in Washing- 
 ton entitled, "The Southern Industrial Education 
 League" for the establishment of more and better 
 training schools in the South for the poor white 
 children. Mr. Brown deposes in this connection: 
 "The white man whom the Negro has to fear is no 
 longer the man who would force him to work, it is 
 the white man who would take his work away from 
 him. The immediate danger to the Negro is from 
 rivalry rather than oppression." 
 
 Thus far the writer argues entertainingly, but she 
 does not wipe out the fact that for two hundred and 
 forty-seven years the Negroes poured out their toil, 
 their sweat and their blood, as a foundation upon 
 which the greatness of not alone the South but the 
 Union is erected. For two hundred and forty-seven 
 years they toiled as instruments of utilization in the 
 hands of Anglo-Saxons developing this country and 
 producing its ponderous wealth, and after a fearful 
 conflict of blood and carnage and a stupendous price 
 in lives and material wealth, the Negro's freedom re- 
 sulted. From the surrender at Appomattox down to 
 now, the white men of the South have striven by 
 every device to defeat the benefits of emancipation. 
 Yea, within the breast of many a one who cannot 
 bear to see the hated nigger prospering, this form of 
 prayer may be: 
 
 "Oh, Lord! do keep the nigger back, 
 
 Let darkness be his shroud. 
 He is tripping close upon our track, 
 He is ranting long and loud. 
 13
 
 Cfce Conflict 
 
 We have sent some educated farmers to legis- 
 lative halls 
 To make some laws that when enforced would 
 
 make the nigger fall. 
 We have stolen his vote, we have clipped his 
 
 rights, 
 But he rises over all." 
 
 Of all the causes which conspire to blind the judg- 
 ment and mislead the mind it is selfishness and pre- 
 judice, the never failing vice of fools. Surely self- 
 interest attained cannot comprehend the magnitude 
 of the wrongs inflicted upon the many. Zealous in 
 endeavor to deal injustice dwarfs one's conception 
 of what constitutes justice. Hence, the prejudiced 
 nigger-hating whites cannot be fair judges or sound 
 thinkers to be trusted. Whatever they write, say or 
 do is to be viewed, and rightly so, with suspicion 
 and caution. The world and the ages will so rate 
 them throughout all time. 
 
 Here I shall let the tomb speak in the person of 
 Frederick Douglass, who in an able contribution en- 
 titled "Lessons of the Hour," appearing in July, 
 1894, in the "A. M. E. Review," he spoke thus : 
 
 "The righteous judgment of mankind will say, if 
 the American people could endure the Negro's pres- 
 ence while a slave they certainly can and ought to 
 endure his presence as a free man. If they could 
 tolerate him when he was a heathen, they might bear 
 with him now that he is a Christian. If they could 
 bear with him when ignorant and degraded, they 
 should bear with him now that he is a gentleman 
 and a scholar. But even the Southern whites have 
 an interest in the question. Woe to the South when 
 it no longer has the strong arm of the Negro to till 
 its soil, and woe to the nation when it shall employ 
 
 14
 
 C i) e Conflict 
 
 the sword to drive the Negro from his native land. 
 
 "Such a crime against justice, such a crime against 
 gratitude, should it ever be attempted, would cer- 
 tainly bring a national punishment which would cause 
 the earth to shudder. It would bring a stain upon 
 the nation's honor like the blood on Lady Macbeth's 
 hand. The waters of all the oceans would not suf- 
 fice to wash out the infamy. But the nation will com- 
 mit no such crime. But in regard to this point of 
 our future, my mind is easy. We are here and here 
 to stay. It is well for us, and well for American 
 people, to rest upon this as final. Another mode of 
 impeaching the wisdom of emancipation, and the one 
 which seems to give special pleasure to our enemies, 
 is, as they say, that the condition of the colored peo- 
 ple of the South has been made worse by emancipa- 
 tion. The champions of this idea are the men who 
 glory in the good old times, when the slaves were 
 under the lash and were bought and sold in the mar- 
 ket with horses, sheep and swine. It is another way 
 of saying that slavery is better than freedom ; that 
 darkness is better than light, and that wrong is 
 better than right; that hell is better than heaven. 
 It is the American method of reasoning in all mat- 
 ters concerning the Negro. It inverts everything, 
 turns truth upside down and puts the case of the 
 unfortunate Negro inside out and wrong end fore- 
 most every time. There is, however, nearly always 
 some truth on their side of error, and it is so in 
 this case. 
 
 When these false reasoners assert that the con- 
 dition of the emancipated slave is wretched and de- 
 plorable, they partly tell the truth, and I agree with 
 them. I even concur with them in the statement 
 that the Negro is physically, in certain localities, in 
 a worse condition to-day than in the time of slavery, 
 
 IS
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 but I part with these gentlemen when they ascribe 
 this condition to emancipation. To my mind, the 
 blame does not rest upon emancipation, but the de- 
 feat of emancipation. It is not the work of the 
 spirit of liberty, but the work of the spirit of bond- 
 age. It comes of the determination of slavery to 
 perpetuate itself, if not under one form, then under 
 another. It is due to the folly of endeavoring to 
 put the new wine of liberty in the old bottles ol 
 slavery. I co cede the evil, but deny the alleged 
 cause. The landowners of the South want the labor 
 of the Negro on the hardest terms possible. They 
 once had it for nothing. They now want it for next 
 to nothing. To accomplish this, they have contrived 
 three ways The first is, to rent their land to the 
 Negro at an exorbitant price per annum and com- 
 pel him to mortgage his crop in advance to pay the 
 rent. The laws under which this is done are en- 
 tirely to the interest of the landlord. He has a first 
 claim upon everything produced on the land. The 
 Negro can have nothing, can keep nothing, can sell 
 nothing, without the consent of the landlord. As the 
 Negro is at the start poor and empty-handed, he has 
 to draw on the landlord for meat and bread to feed 
 himself and family while his crop is growing. The 
 landlord keeps books, the Negro does not, hence, no 
 matter how hard he may work or how saving he 
 may be, he is, in most cases, brought in debt at the 
 end of the year, and once in debt he is fastened to 
 the land as by hooks of steel. If he attempts to leave 
 he may be arrested under the order of the law. 
 
 Another way which is still more effective, is the 
 practice of paying the laborer with orders on the 
 store instead of lawful money. By this means, 
 money is kept out of the hands of the Negro and the 
 Negro is kept entirely in the hands of the landlord. 
 
 16
 
 C&e Conflict 
 
 He cannot save money because he gets no money to 
 save. He cannot seek a better market for his labor 
 because he has no money with which to pay his fare 
 and because he is by that vicious order system al- 
 ready in debt, and therefore already in bondage. 
 Thus he is riveted to one place, and is, in some sense, 
 a slave ; for a man to whom it can be said, "You shall 
 work for me for what I choose to pay you, and how 
 I shall choose to pay you," is in fact a slave, though 
 he may be called a free man. We denounce the land- 
 lord and tenant system of England, but it can be said 
 of England as cannot be said of our free country, 
 that by law no laborer can be paid for labor in any 
 other than lawful money. England holds any other 
 payment to be a penal offence and punishable by 
 fine and imprisonment. The same should be the case 
 in every state in the American Union. 
 
 Under the mortgage system no matter how indus- 
 trious or economical the Negro may be, he finds him- 
 self at the end of the year in debt to the landlord, 
 and from year to year he toils on and is tempted to 
 try again and again, but seldom with any better re- 
 sult. With this power over the Negro, this possession 
 of his labor, you may easily see why the South some- 
 times makes a display of its liberality and brags that 
 it does not want slavery back. It had the Negro's 
 labor heretofore for nothing, and now it has it for 
 next to nothing, and at the same time is freed from 
 the obligation to take care of the young and the aged, 
 the sick and the decrepit. There is not much virtue 
 in all this, yet it is the ground of loud boasting. 
 
 I now come to the so-called, but miscalled, "Negro 
 Problem," as a characterization of the relations ex- 
 isting in the Southern States. I say at once, I do 
 not admit the justice or propriety of this formula, 
 as applied to the question before us. Words are 
 
 17
 
 C ft e Conflict 
 
 things. They are certainly such in this case, hence 
 they give us a misnomer that is misleading and hence 
 mischievous. It is a formula of Southern origin and 
 has a strong bias against the Negro. It handicaps his 
 cause with all the prejudices known to exist, and any- 
 thing to which he is a party. It has been accepted by 
 the good people of the North, as, I think, without 
 proper thought and investigation. It is a crafty in- 
 vention and is in every way worthy of its inventors. 
 
 It springs out of a desire to throw off just respon- 
 sibility and to evade the performance of disagreeable 
 but manifest duty. Its natural effect and purpose is 
 to divert attention from the true issue now before the 
 American people. It does this by holding up and pre- 
 occupying the public mind with an issue entirely dif- 
 ferent from the real one in question. 
 
 That which is really a great national problem and 
 which ought to be so considered by the whole Ameri- 
 can people, dwarfs into a "Negro Problem." The de- 
 vice is not new. It is an old trick. It has been oft 
 repeated and with a similar purpose and effect. For 
 truth, it gives us falsehood. For innocence, it gives 
 us guilt. It removes the burden of proof from the old 
 master class and imposes it upon the Negro. It puts 
 upon the race a work which belongs to the nation. 
 It belongs to that craftiness often displayed by dispu- 
 tants, who aim to make the worse appear the better 
 reason. It gives bad names to good things and good 
 names to bad things. 
 
 The Negro has often been the victim to this kind 
 of low cunning. You may remember that during the 
 late war, when the South fought for the perpetuity 
 of slavery, it usually called the slaves "domestic ser- 
 vants," and slavery "a domestic institution." Harm- 
 less names, indeed, but the things they stood for 
 were far from harmless. The South has always 
 
 18
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 known how to have a dog hanged by giving him a 
 bad name. When it prefixed "Negro" to the nation- 
 al problem it knew that the device would awaken 
 and increase a deep-seated prejudice at once and that 
 it would repel fair and candid investigation. 
 
 As it stands, it implies that the Negro is the cause 
 of whatever trouble there is in the South. In old 
 slave times, when a little white child lost his temper 
 he was given a little whip and told to go and whip 
 "Jim" or "Sal," and thus he regained his temper. 
 The same is true to-day on a large scale. I repeat, and 
 my contention is, that this Negro problem formula 
 lays the fault at the door of the Negro and removes 
 it from the door of the white man, shields the guilty 
 and blames the innocent, makes the Negro responsi- 
 ble when it should so make the nation. Now, what 
 the real problem is, we all ought to know. It is not 
 a Negro problem, but in every sense a great national 
 problem. It involves the question, whether after all 
 our boasted civilization, our Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, our matchless Constitution, our sublime Chris- 
 tianity, our wise statesmanship, we, as a people, pos- 
 sess virtue enough to solve this problem in accor- 
 dance with wisdom and justice, and to the advantage 
 of both races. 
 
 The marvel is that this old trick of misnaming 
 things, so often displayed by Southern politicians, 
 should have worked so well for the bad cause in 
 which it is now employed, for the American people 
 have fallen in with the bad idea that this is a Negro 
 problem, a question of the character of the Negro and 
 not a question of the nation. It is still more sur- 
 prising that the colored press of the country and 
 some of our colored orators have made the same mis- 
 take and still insist upon calling it a "Negro problem," 
 or a race problem, for by race, they mean the Negro 
 
 19
 
 Cfce Conflict 
 
 race. Now, there is nothing the matter with the Ne- 
 gro whatever ; he is all right. 
 
 Learned or ignorant, he is all right. He is neither 
 a lyncher, a mobocrat or an anarchist. He is now 
 what he has ever been, a loyal, law-abiding, hard- 
 working and peaceable man; so much so that men 
 have thought him cowardly and spiritless. Had he 
 been a turbulent anarchist he might indeed have been 
 a troublesome problem, but he is not. 
 
 To his reproach, it is sometimes said that any 
 other people in the world would have invented some 
 violent way in which to resent their wrongs. If this 
 problem depended upon the character and conduct 
 of the Negro there would be no problem to solve; 
 there would be no menace to the peace and good or- 
 der of Southern society. " He makes no unlawful 
 fight between labor and capital. That problem, which 
 often makes the American people thoughtful is not 
 of his bringing, though he may some day be com- 
 pelled to talk of this tremendous problem in common 
 with other laborers. 
 
 He has as little to do with the cause of Southern 
 trouble as he has with its cure. There is no reason, 
 therefore, in the world why his name should be given 
 to this problem. 
 
 It is false, misleading and prejudicial, and like all 
 other falsehoods must eventually come to naught. 
 
 I well remember, as others may remember, that 
 this same old falsehood was employed and used 
 against the Negro during the late war. He was then 
 charged and stigmatized with being the cause of the 
 war, on the principle that there would be no high- 
 way robbers if there were nobody on the road to be 
 robbed. But as absurd as this pretense was, the 
 color prejudice of the country was stimulated by it 
 
 20
 
 and joined in the accusation and the Negro had to 
 bear the brunt of it. 
 
 Even in the North he was hated and hunted on 
 account of it. In the great city of New York his 
 houses were burned, his children were hunted down 
 like wild beasts and his people were murdered in the 
 streets, all because "they were the cause of the war." 
 Even the good and noble Mr. Lincoln, one of the best 
 and most clear-sighted men that ever lived, once told 
 a committee of Negroes who waited upon him at 
 Washington, that "they were the cause of the war." 
 Many were the men who in their wrath and hate 
 accepted this theory and wished the Negro in Africa, 
 or in a hotter climate, as some do now. 
 
 There is nothing to which prejudice is not equal 
 in the way of perverting the truth and inflaming 
 the passions of men. 
 
 But call this problem what you will or may, the 
 all important question is: How can it be solved? 
 How can the peace and tranquility of the South and 
 of the country be secured and established? 
 
 There is nothing occult or mysterious about the 
 answer to this question. Some things are to be kept 
 in mind when dealing with this subject, and should 
 never be forgotten. 
 
 It should be remembered that in the order of Di- 
 vine Providence the "man who puts one end of a 
 chain around the ankle of his fellowman will find 
 the other end around his own neck." 
 
 And it is the same with a nation. Confirmation of 
 this truth is as strong as proofs of holy writ. As we 
 sow we shall reap, is a lesson that will be learned 
 here as elsewhere. 
 
 We tolerated slavery and it has cost us a million 
 graves and it may be that lawless murder now rag- 
 ing, if permitted to go on, may yet bring the red hand 
 
 21
 
 Clbe Conflict 
 
 of vengeance, not only on the reverend head of age, 
 and upon the heads of helpless women, but upon even 
 the innocent babes in the cradle. 
 
 But how can this problem be solved? I will tell 
 you how it can be solved. It cannot be solved by 
 keeping the Negro poor, degraded, ignorant and half 
 starved, as I have shown is now being done in South- 
 ern States. It cannot be solved by keeping back the 
 wages of the laborer by fraud, as is now being done 
 by the landlords of the South. It cannot be done by 
 ballot-box stuffing, by falsifying election returns or 
 confusing the Negro voter by cunning devices. It 
 cannot be done by repealing all federal laws enacted 
 to secure honest elections. It can, however, be done, 
 and very easily done, for where there is a will there 
 is a way. 
 
 Let the white people of the North and South con- 
 quer their prejudices. 
 
 Let the Northern press and pulpit proclaim the 
 gospel of truth and justice against the war now be- 
 ing made upon the Negro. Let the American people 
 cultivate kindness and humanity. Let the South 
 abandon the system of mortgage labor and cease 
 to make the Negro a pauper by paying him dishon- 
 est scrip for his honest labor. 
 
 Let them give up the idea that they can be free 
 while making the Negro a slave. Let them give up 
 the idea that to degrade the colored man is to elevate 
 the white man. 
 
 Let them cease putting new wine into old bottles 
 and mending old garments with new cloth. They are 
 not required to do much. They are only required 
 to undo the evil they have done in order to solve 
 this problem. 
 
 In old times when it was asked, "How can we abol- 
 ish slavery?" the answer was "quit stealing." 
 
 22
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 The same is the solution of the race problem to- 
 day. 
 
 The whole thing can be done simply by no longer 
 violating the amendments of the Constitution of the 
 United States, and no longer evading the claims of 
 justice. 
 
 If this were done, there would be no Negro prob- 
 lem or national problem to vex the South or to vex 
 the nation. 
 
 Let the organic law of the land be honestly sus- 
 tained and obeyed. Let the political parties cease to 
 palter in a double sense and live up to the noble 
 declarations we find in their platforms. Let the 
 statesmen of our country live up to their convictions. 
 In the language of ex-Senator John J. Ingalls: "Let 
 the nation try justice and the problem will be 
 solved." 
 
 "Two hundred and twenty years ago the Negro was 
 made a religious problem, one which gave our white 
 forefathers about as much perplexity and annoyance 
 as we now profess. At that time the problem was in 
 respect of what relation a Negro should sustain to 
 the Christian Church, whether he was in fact a fit sub- 
 ject for baptism, and Dr. Godwin, a celebrated di- 
 vine of his time, and one far in advance of his breth- 
 ren, was at the pains of writing a book of two hun- 
 dred pages or more, containing an elaborate argu- 
 ment to prove that it was not a sin in the sight of God 
 to baptize a Negro. His argument was very able, 
 very learned, very long. Plain as the truth may 
 seem, there were at that time very strong arguments 
 against the position of the learned divine. As usual, 
 it was not merely the baptism of the Negro that gave 
 trouble, but it was as to what might follow such bap- 
 tism. 
 
 The sprinkling him with water was a very simple 
 23
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 thing and easily gotten along with, but the slave- 
 holders of that day saw in the innovation something 
 more dangerous than cold water. 
 
 They said that to baptize the Negro and make him 
 a member of the Church of Christ was to make him 
 an important person in fact, to make him an heir 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It was to give him a place at the Lord's supper. 
 
 It was to take him out of the category of heathen- 
 ism and make it inconsistent to hold him as a slave, 
 for the Bible made only the heathen a proper sub- 
 ject for slavery. 
 
 These were formidable consequences, certainly, 
 and it is not strange that the Christian slave holders 
 of that day viewed these consequences with immea- 
 surable horror. It was something more terrible and 
 dangerous than the Civil Rights Bill and the Four- 
 teenth and Fifteenth Amendments to our Constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 It was a difficult thing, therefore, at that day to 
 get the Negro into water. Nevertheless, our learned 
 doctor of divinity, like many of the same class in 
 our day, was equal to the emergency. He was able 
 to satisfy all important parties to the problem, ex- 
 cept the Negro, and him it did not seem necessary 
 to satisfy. 
 
 The doctor was a skilled dialectician. He could 
 not only divide the word with skill, but he could di- 
 vide the Negro into two parts. He argued that the 
 Negro had a soul as well as a body, and insisted that 
 while his body rightfully belonged to his master on 
 earth, his soul belonged to his master in heaven. By 
 this convenient arrangement, somewhat metaphysical, 
 to be sure, but entirely evangelical and logical, the 
 problem of Negro baptism was solved. 
 
 But with the Negro in the case, as I have said, the 
 24
 
 Conflict 
 
 argument was not entirely satisfactory. The opera- 
 tion was much like that by which the white man got 
 the turkey and the Indian got the crow. When the 
 Negro looked for his body, that belonged to his 
 earthly master; when he looked around for his soul, 
 that had been appropriated by his heavenly master. 
 And when he looked around for something that 
 really belonged to himself, he found nothing but his 
 shadow, and that vanished into the air, when he 
 might most want it. 
 
 One thing, however, is to be noticed with satisfac- 
 tion ; it is this : something was gained to the cause of 
 righteousness by this argument. It was a contribu- 
 tion to the cause of liberty. 
 
 It was largely in favor of the Negro. It was a 
 plain recognition of his manhood, and was calculated 
 to set men to thinking that the Negro might have 
 some other important rights, no less than the religious 
 right to baptism. 
 
 Thus, with all its faults, we are compelled to give 
 the pulpit the credit of furnishing the first impor- 
 tant argument in favor of the religious character and 
 manhood rights of the Negro. 
 
 Dr. Godwin was undoubteldy a good man. He 
 wrote at a time of much moral darkness and when 
 property in man was nearly everywhere recognized 
 as a rightful institution. 
 
 He saw only a part of the truth. He saw that the 
 Negro had a right to be baptized but he could not all 
 at once see that he had a primary and paramount 
 right to himself. 
 
 But this was not the only problem slavery had in 
 store for the Negro. Time and events brought an- 
 other, and it was this very important one: Can the 
 Negro sustain the legal relation of a husband to a 
 wife? Can he make a valid marriage contract in 
 
 25
 
 6e Conflict 
 
 this Christian country ? This problem was solved by 
 the same slaveholding authority, entirely against 
 the Negro. 
 
 Such a contract, it was argued, could only be bind- 
 ing upon men providentially enjoying the right to 
 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and since 
 the Negro is a slave and slavery a divine institution, 
 legal marriage was wholly inconsistent with the in- 
 stitution of slavery. 
 
 When some of us at the North questioned the 
 ethics of this conclusion, we were told to mind our 
 business, and our Southern brethren asserted, as 
 they assert now, that they alone are competent to 
 manage this and all other questions relating to the 
 Negro. In fact, there has been no end to the prob- 
 lems of some sort or other involving the Negro in 
 difficulty. 
 
 Can the Negro be a citizen ? was the question of the 
 Dred Scott decision. Can the Negro be educated? 
 Can the Negro be induced to work for himself with- 
 out a. master? Can the Negro be a soldier? Time 
 and events have answered these and all other like 
 questions. We have among us Negroes who have 
 taken first prizes as scholars; those who have won 
 distinction for courage and skill on the battlefield ; 
 those who have taken rank as lawyers, doctors and 
 ministers of the Gospel ; those who shine among men 
 in every useful calling, and yet we are called a prob- 
 lem a tremendous problem ; a mountain of diffi- 
 culty; a constant source of apprehension; a disturb- 
 ing social force, threatening destruction to the holi- 
 est and best interest of society. 
 
 I declare this statement concerning the Negro, 
 whether by good Miss Willard, Bishop Haygood, 
 Bishop Fitzgerald, ex-Governor Chamberlain, or by 
 26
 
 C & e Conflict 
 
 any and all others, as false and deeply injurious to 
 the colored citizens of the United States. 
 
 But, my friends, I must stop. Time and strength 
 are not equal to the task before me. But could I 
 be heard by this great nation, I would call to mind 
 the sublime and glorious truths with which, at its 
 birth, it saluted and startled a listening world. Its 
 voice then was the trump of an archangel sum- 
 moning hoary forms of oppression and time-honored 
 tyranny to judgment. Crowned heads heard it and 
 shrieked. Toiling millions heard it and clapped their 
 hands for joy. 
 
 It announced the advent of a nation, based upon 
 hitman brotherhood and the self-evident truths of 
 liberty and equality. Its mission was the redemption 
 of the world from the bondage of ages. . . . 
 
 Apply these sublime and glorious truths to the 
 situation now before you. Put away your race 
 prejudice. Bannish the idea that one class must rule 
 over another. Recognize the fact that the rights of 
 the humblest citizens are as worthy of protection, 
 as those of the highest and your problem will be 
 solved ; and whatever may be in store for you in the 
 future, whether prosperity or adversity, whether you 
 have foes within, whether there shall be peace or 
 war, based upon the eternal principles of truth, jus- 
 tice and humanity, with no class having cause for 
 complaint or grievance, your Republic will stand and 
 flourish forever." 
 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 Were I to conclude this effort at this point, enough 
 would be said in refutation of anything which has 
 been spoken or written, or that may ever be spoken 
 or written derogatory to the Negro race. But I shall 
 not stop. A soul shall speak its defiance to the op- 
 27
 
 C&e Conflict 
 
 pressor until oppression shall cease. Truth shall op- 
 pose falsehood, right against wrong, light against 
 darkness. Truth, justice and right must prevail. It 
 is an invincible trinity anchored in the consciences 
 of just men and women everywhere who shall over- 
 throw oppression by opposing moral purity to moral 
 corruption. The potency of truth to error. Hence, I 
 take up the third section of "The Mulatto Negro 
 The Yellow Peril of the North." The writer says: 
 
 "With the industrial failure of his race in the low- 
 er grades of service, the educated and professional 
 Negroes of the South will be forced into new fields ; 
 for it is true of Negroes as of whites, that those who 
 do the head work must be supported by those who 
 work with the hands. What field so alluring to the 
 educated and ambitious Negro as the region whence 
 the propaganda is so often heard that only ignorance 
 and poverty separate him from the white man? That 
 once he has educated and enriched himself the Negro 
 should be admitted to full partnership with the An- 
 glo-Saxon. It is not the purpose of this article to 
 quarrel with this propaganda. Let those hold it who 
 will, only from henceforth let those who preach it, 
 practice it. We have reached the point where the ex- 
 ponents of this idea should either back it with their 
 example, or back down from it altogether. The edu- 
 cated Negro of the North ivill be satisfied with noth- 
 ing short of full recognition, and those who are not 
 yet ready to accede to all his demands would do well 
 to draw the line while there is time." 
 
 Right here, permit me to plead the readers' 
 thoughtful consideration of this third section of 
 the article now under review; especially the 
 paragraph just quoted, as I shall oppose to 
 it a logic the force of which is demonstrated 
 in a law which cannot be infracted, but that 
 28
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 in the persistent attempt to do so a national calamity 
 must result. In this, the writer and all others who 
 think as she does or follow her teachings, are as 
 Satan : rebelling in heaven fighting against an invis- 
 ible, invincible, all-powerful host. The issue is in- 
 evitable, and her ridiculousness is only equalled by 
 the enraged bull who would attempt to butt a locomo- 
 tive off the track. But back to her argument "We 
 plead only for honest declaration and purpose." The 
 writer above quoted concludes his remarks with: 
 "The misery of all our debating about the Negro is 
 that we cannot honestly pretend to be glad that he is 
 here or to desire that his seed shall increase. Yet 
 surely we can afford the honesty of telling him the 
 truth." This is the only plea that can fairly be made 
 for the Negro now. This he has a right to demand, 
 and this is finally the only kindness we can show him 
 at present. Yet it is precisely this which very few 
 people seem disposed to do. The political complica- 
 tions which envelop him at the North and his en- 
 tanglements with the industrial system of the South 
 have hitherto prevented a free expression of opinion 
 in regard to him. He has been deceived and misled 
 by specious theories and glittering generalities until 
 he might well be pardoned for praying: "Lord, save 
 us from our friends ; we may be able to take care of 
 our enemies !" 
 
 "In the autobiography of a Northern Negress, pub- 
 lished in the Independent some months ago, occurs 
 this sentence: 'I can but believe that the prejudice 
 that blights and hinders is quite as decided in the 
 North as in the South, but does not manifest itself 
 so openly and brutally.' Probably her Southern 
 readers thought the Northern colored sister's adverb 
 "brutally" might be more justly rendered "frankly," 
 but that is immaterial. The important thing is her 
 
 29
 
 Cjje Conflict 
 
 testimony to the existence of the "blighting preju- 
 dice" in the section where she was born and reared, 
 and where she claims her father was an officer in 
 a white church for years, and her mother was per- 
 mitted to teach in a white Sunday school and young 
 white girls officiated at her own wedding. And still 
 she was not satisfied ! 
 
 The Negro is what the French term "a difficult 
 subject." He is so humble in his lowliness and so 
 perked-up in his arrogance that one fluctuates be- 
 tween indulgent commiseration and an indignant de- 
 sire to punch his head in a hopeless effort to adjust 
 one's mental plane to his attitude." In this para- 
 graph, in fact, in this entire section of her article, 
 she shows her animus and unreasonable bias her 
 brain seemingly colorpho-biased ; reminding me of 
 DR. GEORGE MORTON and MISS BERTHA 
 
 GILMAN. 
 
 the aristocratic and wealthy young woman living in 
 the country village not far out from Philadelphia, 
 and of whom it was reported in big headlines in 
 all the Philadelphia papers a few years ago, that 
 one night she awoke and seeing a "big, broad-shoul- 
 dered mulatto Negro, with a slouch hat on, climbing 
 in her bed-room window she did not frighten and 
 scream as characteristic of her sex, but quietly got 
 out of bed, cocked her little revolver, aimed and 
 fired at the "big, burly brute." Her aim was good; 
 as she had learned to shoot while visiting on a ranch 
 somewhere out West. She heard her victim drop 
 from the window to the ground below. She hastened 
 to the window and looking down by the bright moon- 
 light, she saw him on the ground below and pumped 
 two more bullets into him and "heard him groan." 
 Yes, I have all the newspapers with the full account 
 and the young woman's photo as published. And a 
 30
 
 C&e Conflict 
 
 learned physician examined the blood as left in the 
 trail by the "big mulatto Negro" as he dragged 
 himself away into the bushes where, inside of a 
 week afterward an honest white constable, seeking 
 the wounded prowler, followed the trail of blood 
 which the physician had declared to be human blood 
 and found what was in reality a "big torn cat" with 
 three bullet holes in its carcass. Thus exploding an- 
 other bad case of Negro on the brain. 
 
 Back to "the mulatto Negro" "His presence in 
 any considerable numbers at the North will force 
 public sentiment there to line up on the issue. Un- 
 like the South, the North does not present a united 
 front on this question, and this will increase her diffi- 
 culties when her time comes to wrestle with the 
 'problem.' " 
 
 As promised, I will oppose to this argument a 
 logic irrefutable. In "McGirt's Quarterly Maga- 
 zine," July, August, September, 1909, a series of 
 six articles on "The Future of the American Negro" 
 is just concluded. From it I quote: 
 
 "This is an economic age; men are studying the 
 workings of economic law more now than ever be- 
 fore. They are beginning to find that as no law of 
 man's making can annul or divert the effect of the 
 physical laws of nature, so no human legislation can 
 withstand the workings of economic laws. They are 
 both immutable. For example, we have already 
 found out that legislation cannot fix prices nor 
 wages. And though a few centuries ago we tried 
 to fix these things, yet the man who would introduce 
 a bill in Congress to fix the price of lard or sugar 
 or bread or the wages of all carpenters or day la- 
 borers would be laughed to scorn. We have learned 
 that these things are fixed by the economic law of 
 
 31
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 supply and demand; that to legislate supply and de- 
 mand out of existence is impossible." 
 
 "Dr. Seligman, of Columbia University, to whom 
 we have previously referred, says that economic free- 
 dom is absolutely necessary for the highest develop- 
 ment of any people, and that a nation which does not 
 give the highest economic freedom, or tries to inter- 
 fere with this freedom by legislation, may succeed 
 for a while, but in the long run must fail of its high- 
 est development. He says there are seven various 
 kinds of economic freedom. These he enumerates 
 as follows: 
 
 On pages 165 to 168 (i) The first and most obvi- 
 ous form is "freedom of marriage and divorce." This 
 involves the right of any man of good, sound mind 
 to marry any woman of the same character, if they 
 both be willing, without any outside pressure on the 
 part of the State. (2) "Freedom of movement," 
 which permits the man to take his labor wherever 
 he chooses without governmental interference. If he 
 thinks it will net him more to work in California than 
 in Maine, he is at liberty to go. (3) "Freedom of 
 occupation." No laws should prohibit one man from 
 going into any occupation which he desires, provid- 
 ed he is competent. All men should have a chance, 
 so that the best may come to the top and the worst 
 go to the bottom; drop out or change to some other 
 occupation, all willingly. (4) "Freedom of associa- 
 tion." Every man can associate with every other 
 man who desires to associate with him. No law 
 should prohibit two persons who want to associate 
 from doing so. (5) "Freedom of consumption." If 
 a man works he ought to be free to spend his money 
 as any other man. It is against all economic law, 
 and therefore against the best interest of a people 
 for any law to exist which permits one person or 
 
 32
 
 C 6e Conflict 
 
 group of people to buy sugar or salt and forbids an- 
 other from doing this, or lets one have automobiles 
 and prohibits another from doing so ; to let one have 
 sleeping cars or rooms in hotels and prohibits an- 
 other. All men ought to be permitted to consume 
 according to their ability to pay, and no human law 
 ought to interfere. (6) "Freedom of production," 
 including freedom of contract and enterprise. All 
 sane men ought to be allowed to make contracts, and 
 both parties ought to have the same protection. The 
 law should not know the employer from the employe, 
 or the black from the white; all that it should do 
 should be to protect the rights of each. (7) "Free- 
 dom of trade." The State can require uniform li- 
 cense, but should put no burdens on one tradesman 
 that it does not put on another. 
 
 These are some of the forms of economic freedom 
 so necessary to national development. It took the 
 civilized world centuries to learn them, and all of 
 them are now accepted by most civilized nations for 
 internal purposes. All except the 7th are accepted in 
 the United States of America, both internally and ex- 
 ternally, and from the calls for revision of the tariff 
 it appears that the time is not far distant when we 
 may have free trade, as England has to-day. 
 
 But while these are accepted in the United States, 
 the Negro is excluded from the first, fourth and fifth 
 kind of freedom, namely, marriage and divorce, of 
 association and of consumption. The ground of his 
 exclusion from this freedom is "social equality," 
 which will lead to the amalgamation of the races. 
 Let us approach the subject fairly and squarely, 
 without expressing our opinion or caring for the ra- 
 cial prejudices of black or white men; let us ap- 
 proach it from the viewpoint of the student of 
 society. From this viewpoint it is not hazarding toe 
 
 33
 
 i)e Conflict 
 
 much to say that economic progress demands that 
 these three limitations be done away with. The 
 country cannot get the best out of itself or out of 
 the Negro so long as these three limitations are per- 
 mitted. They are uneconomic, therefore unnatural 
 and, despite laws and prejudices must go. To show 
 how impotent the law is, let us illustrate: 
 
 There should be freedom of marriage, says the 
 economist. Negroes and whites shall not marry, 
 says the law. 
 
 Now, marriage, economically speaking, is a mating 
 of males and females, and its chief aim is to pre- 
 serve and increase the population. To have children 
 is the chief aim of marriage from the point of view 
 of the economist. But the law steps in and says that 
 there shall be no marriage between them. 
 
 But what does it accomplish? Nothing, only to 
 retard the working of economic law. For it, indeed, 
 prohibits marriage but does not prevent children. The 
 fact that the race of mulattoes is constantly increas- 
 ing, and increasing more to-day than ever before, 
 is ample evidence of the impotency of legislative 
 statute to prohibit the mating of men and women of 
 different classes, and the birth of children from their 
 intercourse. That is why we do not advocate social 
 equality or amalgamation or miscegenation or any 
 other such unnecessary thing, for it does no good to 
 advocate or oppose these than it does to oppose or ad- 
 vocate gravitation or evolution, or the course of the 
 stars. They are fixed by higher laws than those made 
 by human legislatures. 
 
 Of course the Negroes shall continue to grow in 
 wealth and intelligence ; in power to organize, and in 
 their influence in politics. This being true, they shall 
 become more and more differentiated into social 
 groups and classes, and though they remain for gen- 
 
 34
 
 Cbe conflict 
 
 erations to a degree separate, yet it can be depended 
 upon that in a few decades they will become more and 
 more diffused among the nation as a whole. 
 
 They cannot always maintain their position of iso- 
 lation. As soon as the Anglo-Saxon finds it to his 
 advantage to attempt to break up the Negro's isola- 
 tion, the Negro's future in this country will depend 
 upon the Negro's economic development. 
 
 They are now in a strategic position. And if they 
 use the opportunities they now have even halfway 
 well they cannot be kept down. It is said that when 
 James K. Vardaman was inaugurated Governor of 
 Mississippi, that some of his partisans predicted that 
 the Negroes would "be put in their place." 
 
 The fact was, more Negroes rose in business and 
 otherwise in Mississippi during- Vardaman's adminis- 
 tration than in all the forty years preceding. They 
 established more banks and more schools, more soci- 
 eties and more businesses than ever before. Some 
 ignorant whites said. "Vardaman would stop Negro 
 women from wearing silk dresses," but the women 
 wore many more than before, and as one man re- 
 marked, underdresses too. 
 
 Some women in Jackson went to Vardaman to get 
 him to force Negro women to work for them at a 
 low price. But, despite the fact that he was gover- 
 nor, and had a willing Legislature, he found it impos- 
 sible to be of help to these would-be house-mis- 
 tresses ; for economic laws are stronger than human 
 laws. 
 
 And thus I claim that there is no power under 
 heaven to keep the Negroes down, they have begun 
 to rise and they must rise if America is to be the 
 great nation she hopes to be; for as no nation can 
 survive half slave and half free, so none can make 
 permanent progress where there is a double standard 
 
 35
 
 Conflict 
 
 of morals, in politics, in business or in law; one for 
 whites and the other for blacks. They all must go." 
 Thus it is evident that the harder the Negro is thrown 
 down the higher he bounces. Like the fabled 
 dragon if its head is cut off a thousand other heads 
 spring from the bleeding neck, and from every drop 
 of blood shed springs a young dragon. 
 
 Oppression is the womb from whence springs 
 civilization. Through it and in the multiplicity of po- 
 litical parties among the whites I see the salvation 
 finally of the Negro race. 
 
 Professor Kelly Miller, in his book "Race Adjust- 
 ment," says: "Genius knows no age, no country, no 
 race. It belongs to mankind. The Negro enters in- 
 to the inheritance of all the ages on equal terms with 
 the rest, and who can say that he will not contribute 
 his quota of genius to enrich the blood of the world ?" 
 Yes, the future yet remains that the Negro race will 
 by the exercise of thought draw out evidences, and 
 produce facts yet unknown to the annals of history. 
 
 As declared in my introduction, that they who es- 
 pouse the cause of righteousness will shed a radiancy, 
 illumining a path for their posterity, and that their 
 personality would stride down the ages in splendor 
 as evidence a great man and a statesman who has 
 just died, in the person of Grover Cleveland. 
 
 He speaks from the tomb on this great national 
 question in and through his deeds which lives and 
 works. Good men and women everywhere honor 
 his memory, Philadelphia having just erected and 
 dedicated to his memory a public school building at 
 a cost of $2,500,000, accommodating 1,200 pupils. 
 
 In the "A. M. E. Review," July, 1894, appeared by 
 me an article entitled "Cleveland's Administration 
 Influencing Public Opinion." Pertinent to this part 
 of my argument, I quote from that article, "I regard 
 
 36
 
 C & e Conflict 
 
 Grover Cleveland in many ways one of the most re- 
 markable men that ever attracted public notice. 
 
 It must be admitted that his selections for cabinet 
 portfolios and other high appointments have contrib- 
 uted more than anything in recent years toward the 
 solution of vexed national problems, and especially 
 toward the easy and certain solution of a problem 
 the positive existence of which is cause for the na- 
 tion's greatest anxiety; and that problem exists in 
 the denial of civil and political rights to more than 
 16,000,000 people, who by Congressional enactments, 
 amendatory to the national Constitution is made 
 first, by Article XIII, Freedmen; and second, by Ar- 
 ticle XIV, is given the right of franchise ; and third, 
 by Article XV, is guaranteed protection in the exer- 
 cise of that right. Here allow me to remark that the 
 act making one a citizen according to the Constitu- 
 tional meaning of the term citizen, clothes that one 
 with all the privileges and immunities peculiar to the 
 protectional guarantees declared by the fathers of this 
 American Republic in the basic principles of the Con- 
 stitution, namely : "Life, liberty and the peaceful pur- 
 suit of happiness." Hence, when the Negroes were by 
 Article XIII made citizens there was no need for fur- 
 ther legislation enacting the Fourteenth and Fif- 
 teenth Amendment to the Constitution. 
 
 The recent decision of the Supreme Court sustain- 
 ing the contention of Fortune V. S. Trainor evi- 
 dences the fact that the Negro citizen has every im- 
 munity and privilege embraced in and recognized by 
 the Constitution, even as that of any other citizen, 
 notwithstanding the nullity of the Fifteenth Article, 
 the inanity of the Fourteenth Article, and the repeal 
 of the Federal election laws. 
 
 Nevertheless, public opinion appears indifferent to 
 the disposition of some people to disregard the Negro 
 
 37
 
 C&e Conflict 
 
 citizen's constitutional, civil and political rights, and 
 herein is the Negro problem. 
 
 In emphasis of our claim to the existence of a 
 grave national problem, Mr. John Temple Graves, 
 the brilliant ex-editor of "Dixie," says : "Let me as- 
 sume, without argument, that no thinking man of to- 
 day questions the existence of a race problem a 
 vital and present and pressing problem, which chal- 
 lenges at once the humanity, the pride, the integrity 
 and the safety of the Republic. It is the bar to fra- 
 ternity and to the unity of national sentiment. It 
 is the obstruction in the way of foreign immigration 
 and capital. It throttles liberty of sentiment and 
 suffrage in the South. It poisons the Southern bal- 
 lot. It demoralises justice in the Southern courts. 
 It steadily threatens the peace and safety of society. 
 It impedes the progress and full development of a 
 race." Yes, it stains the Judicial ermine with foul 
 murder and more in the South. 
 
 The condition could not be more truthfully or 
 beautifully stated, but Mr. Graves, in prescribing a 
 panacea falls into the same error as others who 
 have come like him, and gone before him, while the 
 problem remains a fact not to be solved by African 
 deportation, neither by separate statehood for the 
 Negroes as suggested by Mr. Graves, Bishop H. M. 
 Turner, Dr. Edward W. Blyden and Mr. McKinney, 
 of Virginia. 
 
 No! Mr. Graves must face the situation, and 
 though grave it be, he and others must first recognize 
 and admit that whatever in this problem is cause for 
 local, national or universal alarm, the white people 
 in the South particularly, and the white peo- 
 ple throughout the country generally, are respon- 
 sible, for in that the Negro's condition in this country 
 is what -the white people have made it, and now to 
 
 38
 
 change this condition the panacea demanded is sim- 
 ple justice. Nothing short of that will do it. ... 
 
 Hence, long magazine and newspaper articles and 
 flowery speeches are but a waste of time and breath. 
 
 Justice must finally come through the deeper 
 thought, greater honor and higher intelligence of the 
 nation, and the nation, as a whole, is taking on these 
 qualities through cosmopolitan intermingling and na- 
 tional contact of the West and South with the East 
 and North. 
 
 This cosmopolitan intermingling and national con- 
 tact of thought and energy seems to be what Mr. 
 Graves and all others of his way of thinking dread, 
 especially if the Negro is to be considered fairly and 
 as a man therein. But despite all objections, thought 
 is being revolutionized and prejudices overcome 
 through the opinions expressed in print by men and 
 women, and by party leaders who are uncompromis- 
 ingly wedded to the cause of right and justice rather 
 than party success. 
 
 The noiseless conscience of a divine and irresisti- 
 ble providence in nature is like a great maelstrom at 
 work purifying public opinion even as the wreckage 
 and refuse of ocean is swallowed up ; and thus Mr. 
 Graves and all others of his way of thinking are be- 
 ing drawn by the whirlpool and carried down the 
 vortex to trouble earth no more. 
 
 In this relation Mr. Cleveland has done and is 
 doing great good. Through his administrations Car- 
 lisle, Watterson, Bayard, Pugh, Morgan, Mills, La- 
 mar, Gorman, Garland and other strong leaders in 
 the South, not incapable of broader thought, were 
 brought into relations and in touch with the nation's 
 higher and better thought as they had not before 
 conceived of. 
 
 Hence these men are to-day ashamed of their for- 
 39
 
 C & e Conflict 
 
 mer selves, since they now see how narrow were their 
 views, how contracted their thoughts on public ques- 
 tions. Their higher opportunities and broader asso- 
 ciations now enable them to see how little and un- 
 worthy of themselves were their former opinions. It 
 certainly is a mutual help by way of mental improve- 
 ment and manhood development to associate with 
 great minds and lofty spirits at Delmonico's in New- 
 York, and as the guest of the Home Market and 
 other clubs in Boston, at the nation's capitol and 
 among the royalties abroad. 
 
 One cannot enjoy such opportunities and then be 
 narrow unless he be both hide and brain bound. 
 Therefore, if for nothing more than these appoint- 
 ments to the democratic party, Cleveland and his ad- 
 ministration are deserving of praise, for aid to this 
 extent has been given toward the solution of the 
 nation's problems. 
 
 Again, the appointment by Mr. Cleveland of Ne- 
 groes to high positions of trust and emolument has 
 added wonderfully toward the easy and certain solu- 
 tion of the Negro problem, in that by such appoint- 
 ments, first, personal ambitions, self-interest and an 
 almost general disposition among white democrats, 
 and especially at the South, to discredit the Negro's 
 ability is in great measure overcome by their animus 
 being aroused to study more observantly the Negro 
 as he really is, and being finally convinced of his 
 sterling qualities and susceptibility and ability along 
 with that of others. 
 
 Second, the appointment of Negroes to high office 
 lays white men along with others under tribute to 
 them, especially when Negro diplomats and heads of 
 departments have patronage to dispense and influ- 
 ence to help office-seekers. 
 
 Thus, in all, it is plainly evident that Cleveland's 
 40
 
 C&e Conflict 
 
 administrations have wonderfully influenced public 
 opinion toward an easy and certain solution of the 
 Negro problem. 
 
 Then what has the Negro citizen to dread from 
 the ascendency of a Democrat to the Presidency, 
 gauged by Cleveland's administrations? 
 
 Some of the important appointments by President 
 Cleveland during his first administration were C. C. 
 Astwood, Consul to Santo-Domingo ; Moses Aaron 
 Hopkins and Charles H. J. Taylor, Minister Pleni- 
 potentiary to Liberia, and Mr. Thompson, Minister 
 to Hayti; Wm. H. Matthews and James Monroe 
 Trotter, Recorder of Deeds of District of Colum- 
 bia. 
 
 During this, his second administration, he ap- 
 pointed Mr. Astwood Minister to Calais, France, and 
 Mr. Taylor, Minister to Bolivia, S. A. The Senate 
 failing to confirm Mr. Taylor, Mr. Cleveland re- 
 cently appointed him Recorder of Deeds. He also 
 sent Mr. Smith Minister to Hayti. 
 
 These are but a few of his strong appointments, 
 not to mention the great number of Negro Republi- 
 cans retained in office and held over throughout his 
 first administration. 
 
 In spite of my friend, Senator John J. Ingalls' 
 philosophy, the Negroes are factors not only in the 
 politics of this country, but otherwise, and it is un- 
 reasonable to expect them to advance more rapidly, 
 while only twenty-eight and a half years out of bon- 
 dage." 
 
 CESAR A. A. TAYLOR. 
 
 At the time my article just quoted was written it 
 is seen that I had a better opinion of some of Cleve- 
 land's Cabinet selections and other appointees than 
 they were worthy of. But it is not always easy to 
 
 41
 
 C i) e Conflict 
 
 distinguish the false prophet from the real, or the 
 despicable demagogue from the statesman. 
 
 But anathematic oblivion will shroud in eclipse all 
 demagogic scoundrels whose hides and brains are im- 
 pervious to reason, ungracious, and invulnerable to 
 the higher sense of justice to mankind. Such some 
 of these men have proven to be. The world will rate 
 them, execrate them and then forget them. 
 
 Their offspring in seeking entrance into the world's 
 forum of assembling character, intellect and general 
 worth will be shamed by the memory of their upas- 
 like turpitude; as some of these murderous, power- 
 hunger scamps died endeavoring to again rivet the 
 shackles upon millions of their fellowmen. 
 
 Yes, some of these howling mountebanks are dead, 
 and others are dying, but the soul of justice is alive 
 in the land. ' 
 
 In two recent elections in Maryland, an intensely 
 Southern state, the principles of hell was defeated at 
 the polls ; the last time on the 2nd of jNovember, this 
 1909. 
 
 "BLOOD WILL TELL." 
 
 "Blood will tell" is an expression often quoted, 
 and nothing demonstrates it stronger than the 
 achievements of one individual or race as compared 
 with the achievements of another individual or race. 
 
 Hence, tell me of the hero's fight. 
 
 In horrors' blackest night; 
 
 For they alone are great 
 Who great deeds have done ; 
 
 Who triumph against fate; 
 Who from depths to heights have come. 
 
 Yes, blood will tell. The question raised by this 
 expression is answered in the honest, humane judg- 
 
 42
 
 C&e Conflict 
 
 ment of every impartial, unbiased mind in the affir- 
 mative. 
 
 Of the North American Indian and the Negro, 
 which of them as individuals or as a race have con- 
 tributed most, if anything, to the cause of civiliza- 
 tion, discovery, art, science or invention? 
 
 Has an Indian ever written and published a book 
 of interest? No. 
 
 Has any Indian ever invented and had patented 
 any article of utility ? No. 
 
 Has any Indian ever given to the world any valu- 
 able discovery in any of the arts or sciences? No. 
 
 Have the Indians ever evolved or perfected any 
 organization economical, religious, political, or 
 otherwise of a civilized nature? No. 
 
 Have the Indians ever demonstrated ability to con- 
 duct a newspaper or magazine, monthly, daily or 
 weekly ? No. 
 
 Have the Indians ever demonstrated ability in com- 
 merce or the trades and professions, in law, in medi- 
 cine, in journalism, in art, in science, in literature, 
 in politics or otherwise? No. 
 
 In the history of the American Republic has an 
 Indian ever sat as a member in either branch of 
 the United States Congress? No. 
 
 Has an Indian ever in the history of the American 
 government held a position of national significance? 
 No. 
 
 Then what have the Indians ever done as a race to 
 class them among the benefactors of mankind? Noth- 
 ing. Absolutely nothing. 
 
 From the "Okamulga Indian Territory Democrat" 
 the following: 
 
 "A few hundred dispirited, ragged, impoverished 
 and ignorant people, the remnant of one of the most 
 powerful tribes of North America is all that is left 
 
 43
 
 Cije Conflict 
 
 of a once happy and contented race, dwelling in Ar- 
 cadian peace and primitive simplicity. These full- 
 blood Cherokee Indians are starving to death. They 
 have no food in their cabins, nor sufficient clothing 
 on their backs. While half-breeds and whites and 
 the Dawes Commission are quarrelling and contend- 
 ing over rolls, the treaties and land tenures, the real 
 Indian the people the country justly belongs to 
 are actually dying in the hills for lack of food and 
 clothing." 
 
 This story is not overdrawn. It is not tinged with 
 "yellow journalism." 
 
 Three hours' drive into the hills east of Grand 
 River will prove every assertion, and the half has 
 not been told and never will be. Eternity alone will 
 reveal the depths of poverty of these people, the 
 owners, but not the users, of a princely estate. Will 
 nothing be done to relieve these exceeding poor peo- 
 ple? Will their own people, their kinsmen, many 
 of them rolling in wealth gained through the use of 
 more than their part of the common estate, will they 
 permit these poor Indians to continue to perish for 
 lack of bread? 
 
 This is the present dreadful, actual picture of a 
 people who inhabited and owned the whole American 
 continent when the white man first set foot upon it 
 more than four hundred years ago. A people who 
 have been exploited and despoiled by the paleface 
 from that time on down to the present. 
 
 Hence the half-breeds, the amalgamated offsprings 
 of the paleface, are now the despotic and tyrannical, 
 tricky masters of the poor, incompetent remnant of 
 full-blooded Indians. 
 
 Has any other race ever, will any other race ever, 
 demonstrate to all the world its utter incapacity to 
 overcome its environment, or even to rise and assert 
 
 44
 
 Cbe Conflict 
 
 an individuality when aided by others? Echo an- 
 swers No. 
 
 I cannot more appropriately ring down the curtain 
 on this sickening tragedy than by quoting from a 
 Western magazine, published by two Indian half- 
 breed sisters, the following: "Now that so much is 
 being written about Anglo-Saxon dominion, and 
 Cubans and Filipinos are to be either annexed or 
 absorbed, perhaps it is not beside the question to look 
 back to another inauguration of Anglo-Saxon do- 
 minion a century or two ago, with the landing of the 
 Mayflower and the settlement at Jamestown. Doubt- 
 less, a consciousness of strength and power induces 
 contempt for the conquered, an underrating of his 
 good qualities, an exaggeration of his faults; at any 
 rate, whatever the fate of the Cuban or Filipino, it 
 is possible that the thinking world has never done 
 the Indian justice. We see him to-day, the remnant 
 of a once great and powerful nation, struggling 
 against the inexorable laws of the survival of the fit- 
 test, and unmindful of the heroism of that struggle, 
 the world regards him with idle curiosity, as a sort 
 of anachronism, or quotes that flippant bit of epi- 
 gram, "no good Indians but dead ones." 
 
 With characteristic selfishness, the great mass of 
 humanity has passed on unheeding, and the tragedy 
 is nearly played out now ; the curtain rose on the last 
 act with the signing of the allotment of lands and the 
 opening up of the territory. 
 
 A hundred years or more will mark the passing 
 of the Indian. 
 
 Though there will be those who proudly trace their 
 descent from Indian ancestry, the full-blood will 
 have had his day. 
 
 His has been a losing cause, though led heroically, 
 45
 
 CDe conflict 
 
 meeting the issue with stoic courage, giving no sign, 
 he has fulfilled his destiny. 
 
 When the white man first set foot on the North 
 American Continent he found it inhabited by the 
 most unique type of savage known to history. Of 
 commanding physique, brave, courageous, of noble 
 dignity, faithful to a fault, neither "forgetting a kind- 
 ness nor forgiving an injury/' worshipping his Great 
 Spirit with simple faith, hoping, as his reward, to 
 live forever in the happy hunting grounds such 
 was the Indian before the wise men came out of the 
 East. The blight of civilization fell upon him, driv- 
 ing him backward, ever backward, breaking his spirit, 
 usurping his domain, sapping his strength. 
 
 Yet a certain quixotism has always characterized 
 the Indian. 
 
 He has a keen sense of justice, and though suffer- 
 ing from the grossest injustice himself, he cannot 
 consent to inflict it. 
 
 When fugitives from justice, social outcast, ad- 
 venturers, all the flotsam and jetsam of civilization 
 sought refuge in Indian Territory, they were unmo- 
 lested, while their misdeeds and crimes were laid at 
 the Indian's door. 
 
 Though the vices of civilization have left their 
 mark upon him, though the unequal struggle has 
 taxed him sorely, he remains the most picturesque, 
 the most heroic figure on the pages of American 
 history. 
 
 He goes down to succeeding generations without 
 a literature and with no history save that recorded 
 by a race inimical to the Indian in every instinct of 
 his being. 
 
 Until some Cooper shall arise, some Longfellow 
 with a "higher, bolder note," the richest heritage of 
 
 46
 
 Conflict 
 
 American literature must remain unchronicled, un- 
 sung blood will tell. 
 
 The Indian is passing. 
 
 Yea, merit is the source of life, 
 Through the fiercest earthly strife, 
 
 Sterling merit brings him safe, 
 
 WJjgjjj the gods such a boon vouchsafes. 
 
 Since first Africa was known, 
 
 Many a nation's overthrown; 
 In oblivion's sea has died, 
 
 All unfit to stem the tide. 
 
 But since Africa arose, 
 
 Her success confounds her foes. 
 
 Watchful, faithful, true and pure, 
 She must evermore endure. 
 
 A few years ago at the United States Indian In- 
 dustrial School, at Carlisle, Pa., Prof. W. H. Coun- 
 cill, of Normal, Ala., speaking on the "Negro and the 
 South: His Work and Progress," in part said: "Some 
 years ago, in the city of Montgomery, Ala., an old 
 aunty was walking down the street from the capitol. 
 A gust of wind swept her bandanna from her head 
 out into the sands of the avenue. A manly Anglo- 
 Saxon gentleman recovered the handkerchief and 
 presented it in a most courtly manner to that old 
 Negro woman. That gallant man was Thomas G. 
 Jones, then Governor of Alabama. I am not afraid 
 of a people who can produce men like that. This is 
 only reciprocal kindness, for every great white man 
 and white woman of the South, was taught patience, 
 love and politeness by the thousands of black mam- 
 mies and uncles scattered throughout the South for 
 two hundred years, which peculiar conditions pro- 
 
 47
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 duced a manhood and womanhood, both black and 
 white, unlike any other manhood and womanhood in 
 the world. 
 
 AN UNCROWNED QUEEN. 
 
 "The Negro woman is, indeed, an uncrowned 
 queen in adversity, and lifts her head far above 
 abuse, slander and insult as the lofty mountain peaks 
 kissed by the pure airs of heaven tower above the 
 swamps and marshes which lie at their base. 
 
 "Our female element, under mother influence, at- 
 tends school and church, eschews the brothels, stays 
 at home and works, and, to our shame, is the back- 
 bone of the Negro race to-day. Were it not for the 
 Negro women the outlook would be dark. I ani 
 aware of the breadth of my speech when I say that 
 the world has never furnished a higher womanhood 
 under like conditions than the Negro women of the 
 South. With strong appetites and passions, penni- 
 less, often houseless, practically left to shift alone, 
 amid debasing influences in the race and out, exposed 
 everywhere, stumbling, falling, rising, fleeing she 
 goes on washing, cooking, plowing, sowing, reaping 
 educating her children, building the cottage, erect- 
 ing churches and schools often supporting husband 
 and son this black woman deserves the admiration 
 of the world. 
 
 THE NEGRO TRUE TO HIS COUNTRY. 
 
 But has the Negro no claim upon the American 
 government? Is there a section which has not felt 
 the warm breath of his loyalty? Is there a section 
 which has not been bathed in the sweat of his brow ? 
 Is there a section that has not felt the lifting up in- 
 fluence of his toils? Is there a decade in history, or 
 a spot on its surface which has not been hallowed 
 
 48
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 by his blood ? Has the East ever called when he did 
 not answer? It was Crispus Attucks, a Negro, who 
 was the first to lay down his life in the Revolution- 
 ary War. Has the South ever called when he did 
 not answer? Was he not with Jackson at New Or- 
 leans? Did he not there pile up the cotton bales 
 which protected the Americans from British lead? 
 Has the North called when he did not answer? Al- 
 though he would not follow Nat Turner, although 
 he spurned the entreaties of John Brown to rise and 
 slay innocent women and children, still, when he had 
 a legal opportunity, he marched two hundred thou- 
 sand strong, beneath the Stars and Stripes for his 
 own freedom and the perpetuation of the Union. 
 
 Has the whole nation ever called when he did not 
 answer? It was the Tenth Cavalry under gallant 
 Wheeler which planted the American standard on 
 the heights at San Juan, crushed out the Spanish 
 Empire, changed the map of the world, and made the 
 crowned heads of all nations seek our government. 
 
 True, through it all, as was great Toussaint L'Ou- 
 verture who provided for the safety of his master's 
 family, then whipped the best drilled soldiers of the 
 world, gained the freedom of his people and the in- 
 dependence of his beloved isle. 
 
 What else is needed to establish the Negro's title 
 to participate in the enjoyment of the rights and lib- 
 erties of this great country? 
 
 Permit this interjection to say: 
 
 That despite the long, honorable record of faith- 
 ful service to the nation, the patriotism and hero- 
 ism of these Negro troopers whose valor made lus- 
 trous more than a quarter of a century's page, in the 
 nation's history I say despite this, southern preju- 
 dice and Negro hate at Brownsville, Texas, gigan- 
 tically conspired to blot them out, but through an 
 
 49
 
 C&e Conflict 
 
 overuling Providence, Theodore Roosevelt, as the 
 nation's Chief Executive, whether unwittingly or in- 
 tentionally, did by a stroke of his pen in executive 
 order rescue the Negro troops from a bad predica- 
 ment i.e., saved them from courtmartial, where 
 enemies among white men in and out of the Army 
 would have had wide scope to have done them incal- 
 culable harm. If lies would in this case have accom- 
 plished anything there would have been no lack of 
 liars volunteering to testify before a courtmartial. 
 Hence is explained the attitude of some publications 
 and public persons who apparently were anxious that 
 the Negroes be court-martialed rather than that they 
 received Roosevelt's drastic dismissal. 
 
 The position of this class of solicitous false friends 
 was a reversal of the Irishman who was on trial for 
 stealing a watch. He said to his lawyer : "Faith, see 
 that ye get me out o' this." 
 
 The attorney replied: "I'll see you get justice, 
 Pat." AVhereupon Pat hurriedly said: "No, faith, 
 it is not justice I want, but freedom." He knew that 
 justice meant conviction, as he had actually stolen the 
 watch, 
 
 By this act of Roosevelt's the negro soldiers were 
 saved from their false friends. Notwithstanding 
 there may have been, and doubtless were, many hon- 
 est lovers of fair play who believed that Roosevelt 
 did wrong. 
 
 But I see "standing in the shadow the Great 
 Unknown, keeping watch over his own" yea, may- 
 be in Roosevelt, another Daniel come to judgment. 
 At any rate, Roosevelt had reason to remember the 
 valor of the Negro troopers at San Juan Hill, making 
 possible his continued and brilliant career. 
 
 Quoting Prof. Councill's address, "Every Man's 
 Friend" I know of no good element in human char- 
 So
 
 Conflict 
 
 acter which is not found in the Negro race. Indeed, 
 the Negro has been placed under great strains of 
 conscience, and taxed more severely in honor and 
 integrity than any other race known to history. The 
 South is wild in its praises of Negro fidelity in the 
 days when it was prostrate in civil strife and its de- 
 fenceless women and children committed to the care 
 of the Negro. Is there a single case of treachery or 
 infidelity recorded against us? The Northern sol- 
 dier could always trust his life in the hands of a 
 Negro wherever found. Is there a single case of 
 treachery or infidelity recorded against us by the 
 North? The faithful Negro would defend and feed 
 "old mistress," hide the cattle, food and valuables in 
 the hollows and in the thickets, and then pilot the 
 Northern army by these hidden goods safely through 
 the mountain out of danger. There was a struggle 
 between his sense of honor and his desire for free- 
 dom. He would rather have remained in bondage 
 to this very hour than to have violated his sacred 
 honor. Was ever human nature so taxed before? 
 Do the pages of history record greater fidelity and 
 heroism? Those same noble traits of character are 
 in the Negro to-day. But some men will not see them. 
 
 LESSON OF THE MONUMENTS. 
 
 The world's monuments tell the story of human 
 struggle. Where man has shed the most tears and 
 moistened the earth with his blood, there the monu- 
 ments have their foundation deepest. 
 
 Where man has toiled and struggled for man, 
 there the foundations of the monuments are broadest. 
 
 Where man has fought fiercest in the realm of 
 mind, there he has conquered most and there the 
 monuments rear their heads highest My race has 
 
 5'
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 built a monument in America which Time cannot 
 efface. As long as man loves true liberty, as long as 
 the spirit of justice finds lodgment in the human 
 breast, as long as the virtues of fidelity and patience 
 live among men, so long will the memory of the Ne- 
 gro race in America live. All efforts to discount 
 or wipe out our glorious record will only brighten it 
 and cause it to reflect its refulgent glories far away 
 across the ages to come. 
 
 LESSON FROM THE JEWS. 
 
 Nothing is immortal but mind. Nothing survives 
 but spirit. 
 
 Nothing triumphs but soul. The Jewish people 
 are the fittest people in the annals of man. They 
 alone live. All others die. All nations, whether an- 
 cient or modern, have been broken and shattered in 
 proportion to the intensity with which they have 
 thrown themselves against this spiritual people. 
 
 Oppress them, they increase. Persecute them, 
 they flourish. Discriminate against them, they grow 
 rich. They go right on growing stronger by the 
 cruelty of their enemies. Babylon carried them into 
 captivity. The Jew is here. Where is Babylon? 
 Egypt beat them with many stripes, while they built 
 her gigantic pyramids, and her enigmatical sphinx. 
 The Jews are here, the pyramids and sphinx which 
 they built are here. Where is Egypt? Rome whipped 
 the Coloseum out of their muscles. The Coloseum is 
 here. The Jews are here. Where is bloody Rome? 
 Such will be the history of spiritual races unto the 
 end the Negro is a spiritual race. 
 
 WHAT SOLUTION MEANS. 
 
 The solution of the race problem does not de- 
 pend upon votes. Houses and lands cannot solve it. 
 
 52
 
 C&e Con f Met 
 
 Wealth and all the power, ease and comfort which 
 it brings may aggravate it. 
 
 The race question can be settled only by each race 
 understanding its relation to the other. 
 
 The solution of the race question does not mean 
 social equality between the races, but it does mean 
 fair treatment of races in inferior condition by races 
 in superior condition. 
 
 The solution of the race problem does not mean 
 the triumph of one race over another. It does not 
 mean the measuring of industrial and literary capaci- 
 ties. It does not mean comparison of racial possi- 
 bilities, but it does mean peace and mutual helpful- 
 ness among the races. 
 
 If this is not to be the result of discussion and 
 present educational effort our civilization is a fail- 
 ure, and our Christianity a farce. 
 
 NO HISTORY. 
 
 It is said we have no history. Take Egypt from 
 us, if you please. We give up Hannibal. We will 
 not remember noble Attucks. Wipe from history's 
 page great Toussaint L'Overture and grand old 
 Douglass, and still the Negro has done enough in the 
 last forty years to give him creditable standing in 
 the society of races, and to place his name in letters 
 of gold across the azure blue above. 
 
 Although we may be considered the baby-race in 
 civilization we have answered every test which your 
 highest civilization has applied. In science, in art, 
 in literature your best critics give us good standing. 
 
 In invention your own records give us credit. In 
 music and song- you say we lead the world. In ora- 
 tory you place us with your best. In industrial 
 walks we have piled up a billion dollars for our- 
 
 53
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 selves and a billion for you in thirty-nine years. In 
 the military your government records place us first. 
 In Christian fervor and generosity we have taught 
 the world lessons of self-denial, patience and love, 
 transcendentally beautiful and glorious. And it doth 
 not yet appear what we shall be. 
 
 We will light up our wonderful imagination and 
 emotion by the lamp of culture, turn our imagination 
 into mechanical and philosophical invention, turn our 
 deep emotion into music and poetry, turn our con- 
 stant stream of feeling into painting and sculptury. 
 We will send wonder and amazement through the 
 scientific and literary world. 
 
 There are more inventions to be thought out, 
 higher classes of forces yet undiscovered to be har- 
 nessed to appliances, more worlds to be discovered, 
 more of God to be brought down to man. If the 
 Negro is true to himself he may be God's instrument 
 to bring it all about. 
 
 God does not pay large prices for small things. 
 
 Two millions of men did not meet forty years ago 
 upon the battlefield, bankrupt the nation and redden 
 the earth with their blood for nothing. 
 
 God is helping the Negro to rise in the world." 
 
 BLOOD WILL TELL. 
 
 Dissatisfaction with one's condition is a virtue 
 to be commended, dissatisfaction with one's self is a 
 vice to be deplored. He who is dissatisfied with his 
 condition will strive to better that condition, but he 
 who is dissatisfied with himself is lacking in courage 
 to face the demands of existence. As we emphasize 
 one or the other of these views we go up or down; 
 we either make or mar ourselves. The failures, the 
 wrecks, the dispirited, the disheartened in life, the 
 
 54
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 suicides, are all people who hate and despise them- 
 selves, while, on the other hand, those who succeed, 
 who triumph over opposing environment, who rise 
 to place and power, who achieve greatness, who shape 
 and mould the thought of others, who compel the 
 world's support and applause, are those who are not 
 dissatisfied with, but love themselves, and are dis- 
 satisfied with, and hate and despise their condition or 
 opposing environment. 
 
 Be a man black, red or white, whatever is in him 
 he will be. Yes, "blood will tell." If we want to 
 we can, and we can if we will. We may want to, but 
 cannot if we will not. 
 
 I know not my mother, and never knew a father. 
 Some think me a Negro, some think me a Mexican 
 greaser, some think me a Cuban, some think me a 
 Filipino, some designate me an Australian, etc. But, 
 notwithstanding I do know that Indian blood courses 
 largely through my veins, whatever be the other 
 blood, and yet I cannot but deplore the Indians' sad 
 plight and give credit to, and admire, the surviving 
 qualities of worth as demonstrated in the Negro race. 
 Yes, "blood will tell," so be it whatever blood pre- 
 dominating in me, I do know that there is some kind 
 of blood (if it be but one-sixteenth) in me which 
 causes me to be satisfied with myself. It makes me 
 love myself. I am proud that I am what I am, but 
 I hate and despise my opposing environment the 
 conditions which hamper and hem me in. So, by 
 the eternals, I have sworn, I have determined to 
 break through! 
 
 I will be a man among men, either living or dead. 
 I will not be satisfied with any condition less than 
 that which is the right and due to a man and a gen- 
 tleman. 
 
 Thus my soul, heart and brain yea, all my com- 
 55
 
 Conflict 
 
 bined powers even as a giant hand, I lay it hard upon 
 the world around me, compelling where coaxing does 
 not avail the consideration accorded any other man. 
 
 BLOOD WILL TELL. 
 
 It is in me; I have done, am doing, and will do 
 until I die. The world will know that in me a man 
 lived. I will. Even of there is one-sixteenth of Ne- 
 gro blood in me, I will be a man, for blood will tell, 
 and heroic passions, great men and an illustrious an- 
 cestry are requisite to the making of a nation. Thus 
 I see in the Negro a worthy example to emulate. 
 
 Being of an adventurous nature, with a love for 
 travel and romance, and being a free man born, it 
 was and is my prerogative to exercise the rights of 
 a freeman in gratifying my desire for travel; yet 
 when I essayed a tour of the Southern United States 
 my color made me subject to Southern caste pro- 
 scriptions ; forcing and compelling me into social re- 
 lations where, despite the fact that I had sworn 
 never to be other than a bachelor, rather than the 
 benedict to any woman of a race the virtue of which 
 the white man had either compromised or clouded 
 with suspicion. I say, despite my determination, 
 somehow or other, I contracted marriage with a 
 young woman of mixed Indian and African blood. 
 
 Her father, a mixed blood Negro of prominence 
 who had served as a Senator in his state, as Post- 
 master of his town and as Chairman of the Republi- 
 can Committee of his county. 
 
 Notwithstanding this Negro's high prominence, a 
 low, degraded white man had despoiled his fair 
 daughter. She was a mother before she was fifteen. 
 I married her, and put her child by the white father 
 into a boarding college. 
 
 I preached ambition, the hope of opportunity and 
 56
 
 Ij e Conflict 
 
 a better life and future to both the mother and the 
 growing- daughter, but I was not to be allowed to 
 make the best I could in getting enjoyment out of 
 the sacrifice which I had made. The white villain 
 who had seduced my wife before I knew her fol- 
 lowed her, sought her out, and in my absence again 
 caused her to pawn her soul; to be faithless to her 
 marriage vows. 
 
 I refused to believe it until the truth was so plain 
 I was compelled to admit it. And still I clung to her 
 whom I had married. I tried to forget her guilt 
 her unchastity. I travelled her around the world. 
 I lavished wealth ; the fruits of my toil of brain and 
 hand upon her. I introduced her among persons of 
 honor and high distinction in America, and nobility 
 abroad. I caused many distinguished attentions to 
 her by press and public, but the effect of her first 
 fall was upon her we grew further and further 
 apart, until finally divorced by legal decree. 
 
 This is what the white man did for me changed 
 the whole course of my life. Blighted my most 
 honorable aims and highest hopes. 
 
 It is not in me to be a libertine, and again I de- 
 termined to never marry any woman unless she 
 either be virtuous or have not less than $10,000 
 whatever her race. 
 
 I am now married again. My wife is a white 
 woman, a woman who won me because of her vir- 
 tue and her love. Yes, she loved me. I loved her. 
 I did not seek to despoil and seduce her as white 
 men do the women of other races. No, I married 
 her honorably. And because I did this honorable act 
 a white mob of hoodlums assailed my residence and 
 place of business, threatened my peace and life and 
 made me an exile among strangers. 
 
 The white man in the United States of America 
 
 57
 
 l)e Conflict 
 
 has so robbed, plundered and otherwise exploited 
 the Negro they have so lived upon them in print, on 
 platform, and in church pulpit before all the world. 
 They have caricatured, misrepresented and distorted 
 the truth about these people till now that the Negroes 
 by their endeavor and achievement are proving them 
 as the greatest historical liars they as a last desper- 
 ate resort turn to lynching, burning, open murder, 
 incitement to riot, and all manner of barbarities, hop- 
 ing thus to prevent the human part of the world 
 from being undeceived. 
 
 They charge the Negro with inferiority, while their 
 own criminal brutality proves their inferiority, while 
 the Negroes' superior virtue is seen in his magnani- 
 mous patience and irresistible progress against every 
 despicable hindrance the whites can impose. 
 
 A VAMPIRE UPON THE NATION'S 
 OTHER HALF. 
 
 or the South's only, and a deadly enemy, and the 
 nation's worst foe. In any community those who 
 industriously labor as wealth-producers are certainly 
 not a hindrance, but a help to the support of that 
 community, while those who "neither toil nor spin," 
 but with lusty throat and blatant mouth stir up racial 
 strife by appeals to brute passions, fomenting pre- 
 judice, and inciting mobs, threatening life and dis- 
 turbing the peace and quiet of others, that through 
 it they may obtain office to thereby enrich them- 
 selves, are as certainly pariatic vampires upon that 
 community; sucking its life blood, throttling pro- 
 gress, and sowing a withering desolation more dis- 
 mal than Sodom. 
 
 Such men at the South are vampires upon the na- 
 tion's other half. They are the South's only, and a 
 deadly enemy, and the nation's worst foe. The 
 
 58
 
 6 e Conflict 
 
 Southern people are generally a noble people, goo- 
 at heart, but the curse to them and their gloriously 
 beautiful Eden-like land is the unrestrained yelping, 
 and howlings of their Tilmans, Dixons, Vardamans, 
 Hefflins, Germans, Smiths, Davis's, Slaydens and 
 the wholesale tribe of other revenue-seeking dema- 
 gogues who, to boost themselves into power, raise a 
 hue and cry. Others hearing it, and wishing to ap- 
 pear as not approving the inhuman instinctive make- 
 up of the Negro as they believe it to be as pictured 
 by the unprincipled politicians, so they join in the 
 yelling without taking the trouble to inform them- 
 selves. 
 
 Then there are a considerable number of low, vic- 
 ious, worthless, "ne'er-do-well" class of poor, white 
 trash, typical of a class to be found in every com- 
 munity and of every race. Such persons naturally 
 envy those whose enterprise and endeavor place them 
 in fortunate circumstances, and welcome the op- 
 portunity to add emphasis to the firebrand utter- 
 ances of the demagogue, and in these outbreaks of 
 turbulence the thief, thug and corner loafer come to 
 the front and loot right and left ; sparing none where 
 opportunity favors them to plunder, and at times to 
 even burn and murder thus to augment a reign of 
 terror, the better enabling them to ply their nefarious 
 thievery undetected. 
 
 And since, in the nature of things, there are a 
 large number, the great majority who do not feel 
 to jeopardize their interest or hazard themselves 
 amid the howlings and yelpings of the demagogue, 
 the thug, the thief, the hoodlum and such like in a 
 bloody crusade for spoil, so, since the voice of 
 these is heard the loudest, it seems all is going their 
 way. 
 
 Hence, the cause of right and justice suffers; not 
 59
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 because there is not a majority of good men and 
 women in our land, only that these good men and 
 women have not as they ought to interest themselves 
 as their "brother's keeper" to call a halt to iniquity 
 in the land. But praises be given that there is now 
 beginning an awakening yea, righteousness must 
 and will prevail God is not dead. 
 
 Here again I quote "The Mulatto Negro a Yellow 
 Peril": "Largely speaking, there are three classes of 
 Northerners in their attitude toward the Negro. 
 There is a small, select cult, who preach the doctrine 
 of full political and social equality and boldly advo- 
 cate miscegenation as the only Christian and ra- 
 tional solution There is, of course, no 'Negro peril' 
 for this class anywhere. There is another class, the 
 antipodes of this one, in whom Caucasian exclusive- 
 ness is as strongly developed as in the proudest South- 
 erner, and who answers to President Eliot's descrip- 
 tion of being even more averse to personal contact 
 with the Negro. This class of Northerners are not 
 appeased by the colored man's educational veneer- 
 ing, nor by his acquisition of wealth and official 
 honors, nor yet by his light complexion. They are 
 less impressed by the meretricious show of Negro 
 progress than many Southerners, because with more 
 discernment they have thought the thing out for 
 themselves independently of their environment. They 
 hold that the qualities of the blood go deeper than 
 any mere surface-show of book learning or pious 
 phraseology; that 'reversion to type' is a scientific 
 principle." I here recommend the writer and all so- 
 called and self-constituted historians and scientists 
 who have delighted to juggle the facts of history 
 that they read with honest eyes the brilliant history 
 of Carthage for more than 700 years, of Hasdrubal, 
 of Hamilcar and of Hannibal. Remember that the 
 
 60
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 Roman Senate conferred not the title of Cartha- 
 genus, but Africanus upon Scipio thus attesting the 
 fact that the Carthagenians were Africans. 
 
 Read of Egypt, in the northern part of Africa, 
 founded by the great Miseraim, the descendant of 
 Ham, Kam or Chem, the root of chemistry Egypt, 
 the cradle of learning, of science and art, from 
 whence light emanated and as a torch in the hands of 
 men and women it was borne around the world, 
 banishing ignorance from darkened minds at a time 
 when the descendants of Shem and Japhet were 
 dwelling in caves, covering themselves with the 
 skins of wild animals and subsisting upon roots and 
 herbs. Memnon in Egypt invented letters. Thales 
 traveled in Egypt, returned to Greece, the place of 
 his nativity, and calculated eclipses and made other 
 astronomical reckonings more than 600 B.C. 
 
 It cannot be wisely contended that a civilization 
 the like of that in Egypt did not affect the entire 
 African continent. As a fact, travel in Africa to- 
 day is bringing to light the truth of the ancient 
 greatness of the African continent by and through 
 its people centuries ago. The African, the Negro 
 parent root, lives to-day. Where are the Huns, the 
 Celts, the Gauls and other races who live only in 
 history ? A certain class of white writers and speak- 
 ers would if they could blot all this out if they 
 could not twist and distort it to suit their own 
 prejudiced, biased brains. 
 
 The writer further says : "They stand by the bio- 
 logical axiom that "the man history is the race his- 
 tory." Yes, and I say: and vice versa. Continuing 
 she writes: "and they know the proper place to 
 study the latter is where the racial tendencies have 
 free play, unrestrained by the presence of the domi- 
 nant race. Therefore for the real Negro character- 
 
 61
 
 Cbe Conflict 
 
 istics these turn not to the cities of Europe and con- 
 tinental United States, where he is constantly copy- 
 ing and leaning upon the white man, but to the jun- 
 gles of Africa and to the black republics which he 
 has established for himself, where he may work his 
 own sweet will without let or hindrance from 
 others." 
 
 Nowhere is he permitted to do this. Whites en- 
 deavor to exploit him, and to this end diplomatically 
 intermeddle with him and endeavor to discredit him 
 everywhere even as you are doing. But what of 
 ancient Egypt as compared with the world both an- 
 cient and in modern times? What of Liberia and 
 of Abyssinia despite their environment? 
 
 What of Hayti as compared with other, and white 
 governments in South and Central America? 
 
 There was a time when the great government of 
 these United States of America wanted a coaling 
 station as a naval base at Mole St. Nicholas in Hayti, 
 but being unable to secure such a foothold on Hay- 
 tian territory under the then Haytian administration ; 
 somehow or other a revolution ensued down there, 
 and some ambitious Negroes, even as like white peo- 
 ples, came to the front, through a revolution, to the 
 overthrow of the Negro Haytian patriot who could 
 not be used to foster the designs against his govern- 
 ment by those who to serve their own ends would 
 bathe the weaker nations in blood. 
 
 Why did Frederick Douglass resign as Minister 
 to Hayti ? Who knows ? What of Capriano Castro, 
 Venezuela and the United States of America ? What 
 of Panama, Colombia and the United States of 
 America when this good and righteous government 
 wanted a right of way for a link of the Atlantic with 
 the Pacific Ocean, and more recently the complica- 
 tions between Nicaragua, the United States and the 
 
 62
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 ever ready tool the ambitious, aspirant hungry for 
 place and power in close juxtaposition? Oh, you 
 Monroe Doctrine, you are great, and no doubt 
 about it, but the world is watching you. What would 
 your Uncle Sammy do if some foreign "galoot" 
 should have the "gall" to come here and even attempt 
 to start a filibuster movement against his government 
 at Washington? 
 
 She writes: "And these Northern students of the 
 race problem along purely scientific lines find the 
 racial traits therein revealed so little to their liking 
 that they have no mind to take chances on them in 
 their own families not even for the "eighth move." 
 These will fight most strenuously the new Negro peril 
 at the north, and in so doing they will merit the sym- 
 pathy of the civilized world, for they are fighting 
 foes within and without and, as usual, the worst 
 are those of their own household. 
 
 Between the two extremes of Northern opinion 
 on this question there is another and by far the most 
 numerous class at the north, who wish well to the 
 Negro in a vague and general sort of way, who would 
 like to "help" him at long range, who are full of 
 beneficent platitudes anent the "man and brother," 
 but whose regard for him rests partly on a miscon- 
 ception of his real nature and partly on a sense of 
 security from him in any event. With the "coming 
 of more Negroes" this class will have an opportunity 
 of applying to themselves the theories they have so 
 long believed applicable at the South, with the pos- 
 sible result of a better understanding of their South- 
 ern neighbors. It is a favorite argument with this 
 class that the South's policy of making the Negro 
 subordinate, of drawing the color line as rigidly 
 against the educated and virtuous as against the illit- 
 
 63
 
 Cfu Con f iict 
 
 erate and depraved, is not calculated to foster the 
 Negro's self respect nor conducive to a very high 
 racial development allowing that he is capable of 
 such development and this is indisputably correct. 
 
 There is absolutely no flaw in our Northern 
 friends' reasoning on this point, and if the Negro's 
 advancement were the sole thing to be considered, 
 the South's "color line" policy should receive unmiti- 
 gated condemnation. 
 
 But there is another aspect of the question on 
 which the Northern mind does not appear to reason 
 quite so clearly. It fails to see the logical connection 
 between political equality and social equality in a 
 free republic, and particularly the advocates of social 
 equality, for the most deserving Negroes deny that 
 this is the natural precursor of miscegenation. They 
 take sharp issue with the statement of Professor 
 Smith of Tulane University (New Orleans) in his 
 recent book, "The Color Line: A Brief in Behalf 
 of the Unborn" 
 
 "If we sit with the Negroes at our tables, if we 
 entertain them as our guest and social equals, if we 
 disregard the color line in all other relations, is it 
 possible to maintain it fixedly in the social relation, 
 in the marriage of our sons and daughters, in the 
 propagation of our species ? Unquestionably, No ! 
 
 It is as certain as the rising of to-morrow's sun 
 that once the middle wall of partition is broken down, 
 the mingling of the tides of life would begin instant- 
 ly and proceed steadily. If the race barrier be re- 
 moved and their individual standard of personal ex- 
 cellence be established, the twilight of this century 
 will gather upon a nation hopelessly sinking in the 
 mire of mongrelism." As every one knows, "The mid- 
 dle wall of social partition" has never been so solidly 
 maintained in the North as in the South, and the 
 
 64
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 greater mongrelism as set forth in the census records 
 cited in this article seems to uphold Professor 
 Smith's position rather than that of the Negrophiles 
 However, the final vindication of the one or the 
 other will come with the increase of the Negro popu- 
 lation at the North, and the opportunity to witness 
 the effect of the different Negro policies when some- 
 thing like an equality of numbers obtain between the 
 sections. If it should happen, for instance, that cer- 
 tain counties of Massachusetts instead of Mississippi 
 should register eight Negroes to one white citizen it 
 will be interesting to watch the working of the "free 
 ballot and fair count" system in the home of its chief 
 apostles." 
 
 My strictures on this section are the same as upon 
 that preceding this, as well as all I say in this book, 
 and the Negro himself, when viewed by humane eyes, 
 unprejudiced, everywhere answers this, "Blood Will 
 Tell." Yea, to quote that true and beautiful poem 
 by Ella Wheeler Wilcox : 
 
 "However the battle is ended, 
 
 Though proudly the victor comes 
 With fluttering flags and prancing nags 
 
 And echoing roll of drums, 
 Still truth proclaims this motto 
 
 In letters of living light 
 No question is ever settled 
 
 Until it is settled right. 
 
 "Though the heel of the strong oppressor 
 
 May grind the weak in the dust, 
 And the voice of fame with one acclaim 
 May call him great and just, 
 
 65
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 Let those who applaud take warning 
 
 And keep this motto in sight 
 No question is ever settled 
 
 Until it is settled right." 
 
 "I know as my life grows older 
 
 And mine eyes have clearer light, 
 That under each rank wrong somewhere 
 There lies the root of right." 
 
 Here I take up the sixth section : "One fact which 
 is usually ignored by the Negro-rights' agitators, and 
 clamorers tor "equality of opportunity," must com- 
 mend itself to every thoughtful intelligence: wher- 
 ever the Negro exists in sufficient numbers to make 
 his presence felt in any community, in direct pro- 
 portion as his privileges increase is the racial feel- 
 ing against him intensified." Sure, competition be- 
 gets rivalry anywhere among all peoples, but rash 
 indeed are those, and insanely so, who do not realize 
 that the Negroes in this country are industrial fac- 
 tors and have got to be so considered in any eco- 
 nomic scheme embracing capital and labor if this 
 nation is to continue a free and prosperous Republic. 
 
 The truth is, that "they whom the gods would de- 
 istroy they first make mad," was never more mani- 
 fest than is seen in the attempt being made in the 
 United States of America to inaugurate an indus- 
 trial policy eliminating the Negro. 
 
 Facing the fact that there are hundreds of thou- 
 sands of Negroes in this country who are not only 
 willing and capable, but anxious to do the labor of 
 the land in any line of industry if only given a 
 chance, paid fair wages and treated humanely, it is 
 with commiseration and pity that I contemplate the 
 future of this country when I see the inhumanity of 
 
 66
 
 C&e Conflict 
 
 a class of white men in the United States of America 
 giving cause for the following editorial as appeared 
 September I9th, 1907, in the Philadelphia, Pa., 
 Press; 
 
 "Attorney General Bonapart's opinion on state as- 
 sisted immigration as affected by the immigration act 
 passed by the Congress just adjourned will be a very 
 serious disappointment to Senator Tillman and other 
 Southern Senators. Led by the Senator from South 
 Carolina, they objected to the prohibition of assisted 
 immigration. The new legislation vitally changed 
 the law. Before assisted immigration was prohibited 
 if the assistance was based on a contract for future 
 labor at an agreed wage. The new legislation cuts 
 off all assisted immigration whatever. 
 
 "Senator Tillman anxiously asked if this cut off 
 aid from the State Bureaus of Immigration. Htf 
 was assured it did not. The law, however, was 
 clear. Congress has the explicit power to cut off 
 any assisted immigration. In the new immigration 
 act it has exercised it. 
 
 "The Southern States are desirous of white immi- 
 gration. South Carolina, Louisiana and Texas have 
 active commissioners ready to pay the passage of 
 immigrants. Charleston, New Orleans and Galve- 
 ston were by special acts in the Congress just ad- 
 journed made immigration stations. All assisted 
 immigration, however, has its perils normal immi- 
 gration takes the adventurous, efficient and enter- 
 prising. Assisted immigration attracts the reverse. 
 
 "Steamship companies are already doing enough 
 to bring in assisted immigration under one disguise 
 and another. One investigation and some scandal 
 have grown out of one state assisted colony of im- 
 migrants. Others may follow. States which permit 
 peonage, the chain gang and the use of various means 
 
 67
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 to keep men at work, including in some counties the 
 shotgun and the lash, are liable to have employers 
 ready to apply these means to foreign immigrants, 
 brought over under contract and set to work in 
 isolated regions. Immigration needs to be sifted, and 
 there is no better test than the stringent requirements 
 that an immigrant shall have the thrift and initiative 
 to bring himself here, without any aid whatever, 
 State or individual." 
 
 This editorial rings clear and right, but there is 
 absolutely no earthly reason at all for this maD doG 
 backwards business. But read this: 
 
 "Washington, D. C, Sept. i8th, 1907. More than 
 a quarter of a million places of employment are 
 open for the thousands of aliens who are pouring 
 into the United States, according to a report to-day 
 by Terence V. Powderly, chief of the division of 
 information of the Bureau of Immigration, to Sec- 
 retary Straus, of the Department of Commerce and 
 Labor. Although the bureau has been in existence 
 only two months, it already has on file information 
 showing that places can be provided for 256,400 
 men, women and children at wages ranging from 
 $3.00 a week to $3.50 a day. 
 
 "Individual employers will place immediately 1,395 
 at wages ranging from $1.25 to $3.00 a day. 
 
 "Commissioners of Labor and State Boards of 
 Agriculture report that 84,100 aliens can be 
 given employment at wages ranging from $18.00 per 
 month to $3.00 per day. 
 
 "The Commissioners of Agriculture of three 
 States say that 1,020,000 settlers are needed in their 
 States. 
 
 "It is proposed to distribute this information in 
 circulars and pamphlets printed in several languages 
 through steamship agencies abroad, on vessels com- 
 
 68
 
 Cbe Conflict 
 
 ing into this country carrying aliens, through foreign 
 missions and societies at various European ports and 
 at the steamship docks and immigration stations at 
 Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore and 
 through the public press. 
 
 "It is proposed also to have well qualified men and 
 women to travel on steamships to inform incoming 
 aliens of what they may expect on arrival in the 
 United States. Through these agents, it is expected 
 to check any attempted violations of the alien con- 
 tract labor law." 
 
 Now, wouldn't the mummies save this nation? 
 
 Why all this commotion why this fustin and 
 feathers ? 
 
 Could not the government be in better business if 
 it were to busy the Department of Commerce and 
 Labor in trying to equalize the distribution of the 
 American citizen laborers right here at home, both 
 whites and Negroes, instead of being so solicitous 
 about the foreigner and the alien? 
 
 Here and now I speak a prophecy, that in this 
 policy the nation is "sowing to the winds to reap 
 the whirlwind." 
 
 In my book to follow this I shall have more to 
 say upon this particular subject. 
 
 Again I quote the "Mulatto Negro, the Yellow 
 Peril" : "This is strikingly illustrated in the District 
 of Columbia, where there are more Negroes (ninety 
 thousand) than in any single community North or 
 South, and where thev are at the same time under 
 fewer restrictions. Barring the self-assertiveness 
 which this policy naturally engenders in them, the 
 Washington Negroes are as well-behaved as the most, 
 and yet nowhere in the country is racial antagonism 
 so acute, and this without respect to the sectional 
 leanings of the whites. Nothing is more common 
 
 69
 
 Clje Conflict 
 
 than to hear citizens from the Northeast or North- 
 west, where Negroes are scarce, depose : "We thought 
 we had a good deal of sympathy for Negroes before 
 we came to Washington ;" or to hear them informing 
 newcomers from those regions: "You have only to 
 come to Washington to find out your real sentiments 
 about the Negroes." And racial antagonism is a 
 factor to be reckoned with. Right or wrong, it in- 
 sists on space to exist as much as the roots of a tree. 
 You cannot reason it away, nor preach it out of 
 countenance, nor annul it by legislative enactment, 
 and any scheme for the amelioration or uplifting of 
 the Negro which ignores this as a complication must 
 surely fall to the ground. Few people have the 
 honesty and the fearlessness to tell the Negro that 
 only by his consenting to remain the "under dog in 
 this government can he hope to continue a peaceful 
 residence under it; and yet this is precisely what 
 every honest thinker, white or black, knows to be 
 the case. The colored teachers who have the courage 
 to proclaim this truth have usually paid the penalty 
 of their rashness in the mob vengeance of their irate 
 followers." 
 
 Concluding this section the writer reasons like a 
 baby, ignoring the fact that a race of people that 
 could furnish more than two hundred thousand he- 
 roes to offer up their lives for the Stars and Stripes 
 that this nation might live will surely not be lacking 
 in courage if the time should ever come to fight to 
 retain the liberty they have once breathed even 
 such as it is. 
 
 She either ignores or forgets the Negro's career 
 as a soldier and a fighter campaigning in the West, 
 at San Juan Hill, at El Caney and in the Philippines, 
 not to mention the thousands of courageous hearts 
 
 70
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 and cultured minds to inspire, lead and direct, these 
 in the ranks of the Negro and among his friends 
 amid every race throughout the world. 
 
 The Negro fully realizes that "To wealth there is 
 no royal route: 
 
 'Tis written with a sigh, 
 
 The universal rule must be, 
 
 "Root, hog or die." And he's er-rootin' 
 
 live or die; 
 His children will profit by and by. 
 
 This Negro question is the nation's problem, and 
 it must be solved two of four ways, either social and 
 religious, or political and industrial; and if to serf- 
 dom the Negro is reduced, then will the wage stand- 
 ard of the white man go down. Then our Republic 
 is gone. In the language of the immortal Lincoln, 
 "This nation cannot exist half slave and half free." 
 
 Again I say: 
 
 "Laws of changeless justice binds 
 Oppresser with oppressed, 
 And close as sin and suffering joined 
 We march to fate abreast." 
 
 Will this nation commit the great crime of aban- 
 doning the Negro to the opulent, rapacious greed and 
 the unequal struggle to pursue peace, life and liberty 
 against the combined wealth, intelligence and crafty, 
 conscienceless statecraft of the Southern white man ? 
 No, I cannot believe it. 
 
 Writing in the January, 1907, "American Maga- 
 zine," Dr. Washington Gladden chose for his sub- 
 ject "The Negro Crisis." Quoting from that article, 
 he says : "Governor Hoke Smith of Georgia declares 
 
 71
 
 C&e Conflict 
 
 that the proper position of the Negro in the nation is 
 not that of a citizen, but that of a ward, a dependent 
 the same position as that of the Indian. He for- 
 gets or ignores the fact that the attempt to keep the 
 Indian in this relation has brought blight to the In- 
 dian and a perennial curse to every agency of the 
 government that has tried to deal with him. But, of 
 course, Governor Hoke Smith agrees with Governor 
 Vardaman in advocating the repeal of the Fourteenth 
 and Fifteenth Amendments, for they precisely define 
 the position of the Negro in the nation, and declare 
 that he is not a ward nor a subject, but a citizen. 
 
 These recent utterances of representative men show 
 that the movement described by Mr. Schurz to re- 
 duce the Negroes to a permanent condition of serf- 
 dom is well under way. 
 
 MAKING SLAVES OF MEN. 
 
 Will this movement be successful ? I do not think 
 so. The Negroes have submitted, without much re- 
 sistance, to practical political disfranchisement, but 
 when it becomes evident that their intellectual and 
 economic opportunity is limited or threatened, there 
 is likely to be serious trouble. Mr. Schurz has a 
 few sober words on this subject which ought to be 
 pondered: "To keep a race in slavery that had been 
 in that condition for many generations, as was done 
 before the Civil War, is one thing, comparatively 
 easy ; but to reduce that race to slavery or something 
 like it, after it has been free for half a century (and 
 after, we might add, it has increased from four to 
 nine millions), is quite another thing nobody knows, 
 how difficult and dangerous." 
 
 This campaign of subjugation into which the gov- 
 ernors of Mississippi and Georgia propose to lea(| 
 
 72
 
 the Southern whites will be found to be an ardu- 
 ous one. 
 
 The white population of the Southern tier of 
 States from Texas to North Carolina number 
 6,622,281 ; the Negro population of those States num- 
 bers 5,483,460. 
 
 The whites, of course, are far stronger, and could 
 easily overpower the Negroes in a race war; but the 
 Negroes are numerous enough to cause them a great 
 deal of trouble. It is not likely that any general 
 conflict would be precipitated; but Senator Tillman's 
 prediction that race struggles of a very bitter nature 
 are likely to be frequent and continuous in the South 
 is not without probability. 
 
 If any such policy as that which the two governors 
 are advocating should be generally adopted through 
 the South, that result may be confidently predicted. 
 Allow me to interject here to remark that the South 
 has already seen the hand-writing on the wall, and 
 is thus busy through her emissaries (Tillman, Varda- 
 man, Dixon, Graves, Smith, Swanson, Hefflin and 
 the author of "The Mulatto Negro: A Yellow 
 Peril"), turning earth and hell upside down in an 
 endeavor to corrupt the North and the world to ac- 
 quiesce, if not be a partner, to the iniquitous piece of 
 infamy which it hopes to finally consummate; but, 
 hear Dr. Gladden further: "In their, the Negroes', 
 resistance to this policy, which undertakes to shut 
 them out from the opportunities of manhood, the Ne- 
 groes would have the sympathy of the whole civil- 
 ized world. That they would have the sympathy of 
 the vast majority of the white people of the United 
 States can hardly admit of a doubt." 
 
 In my use of the word South in a general sense, 
 I wish not to be understood as referring to the many 
 good and noble people in that section. I mean the 
 
 73
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 reactionaries, those loud mouthed demagogues who 
 assume to speak for the people of that section. Quot- 
 ing Dr. Gladden again, he says: "I have spoken of 
 this policy of subjugation and repression as the pol- 
 icy of the reactionaries of the South. But I wish 
 now to make it very plain that the people of the 
 South are not all reactionaries. I have admitted that 
 a good many people at the North sympathize with 
 this policy, and I rejoice in believing that a good 
 many people at the South utterly abhor it." 
 
 That other movement which Mr. Schurz predicts 
 is also in motion to-day, "the movement in the direc- 
 tion of recognizing the Negro as a citizen in the full 
 sense of the word." 
 
 That is not distinctly a Northern movement. It is 
 a Southern movement as well. There are many 
 Southern men who are determined that the Negro 
 shall not be reduced to serfdom; who mean that he 
 shall have a chance to be a man to make of himself 
 what God meant him to be. 
 
 Listen to the words of the Southern man who now 
 presides over the university founded by Thomas 
 Jefferson: "The best Southern people are too wise 
 not to know that posterity will judge them according 
 to the wisdom they use in this great concern. They 
 are too just not to know that there is but one thing 
 to do with a human being, and that is to give him 
 a chance." 
 
 What is to be done with the Negro race? It "must 
 somehow be built into this national fabric, and or- 
 ganically incorporated with the national life and 
 character." That is the word of Professor Wood- 
 ward of Trinity College, South Carolina. 
 
 "For a superior race to hold down an inferior one 
 simply that the superior race may have the services 
 of the inferior was the social doctrine of mediaeval- 
 
 74
 
 c Conflict 
 
 ism. To deny the Negro the highest and strongest 
 influences is to enslave him to a life of moral weak- 
 ness and moral degradation ; and the God who made 
 him, in the final settlement of human history, will not 
 likely overlook such unrighteous conduct." That is 
 the word of President Kilgo of the same college. 
 
 While the development of the higher life (of the 
 Negro) may come slowly, even blunderingly, it is dis- 
 tinctly to be welcomed." That is the word of the 
 Rev. Edgar Gardner Murphy of Alabama. 
 
 We must not belittle the work that has been done 
 for the Negro in the South, since it has been a great 
 and beneficent work, and the men who have taken 
 part in it deserve the honor of the nation and of 
 human-kind. 
 
 If at this moment the movement which they repre- 
 sent seems to be losing ground, and "the movement 
 in the direction of reducing the Negroes to a perma- 
 ment condition of serfdom" seems to be advancing, 
 we may hope that this reverse is temporary, and the 
 forces of Christian civilization are sure to prevail. 
 
 "The forces of Christian civilization," I have said. 
 I have not spoken of the Christian Church, but it 
 would seem that it ought not to be, in this computa- 
 tion, a negligible quantity. Does the Christian 
 Church believe that the Negro is a man? Does it 
 believe that Christ died for him? Does it believe 
 that the word of Jesus is addressed to him, "Be ye 
 therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is 
 perfect"? Does the obligation rest on him of mak- 
 ing the most of himself, of cultivating to the full the 
 powers with which his Creator has endowed him? 
 
 We know what some Christians of the South think 
 about these things, for the above words that I have 
 quoted just now are the words of Christian men, 
 and they were inspired by love and loyalty to Jesus 
 
 75
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 Christ ; the mind of Christ is in them. And it would 
 seem that the great truth of the Fatherhood of God 
 and the Brotherhood of Man, which is shining forth 
 in these days with such compelling clearness, which 
 is forcing men in all the lands to consider the cause 
 of the poor, and to do justly and love mercy, must 
 become the controlling influence in the church of 
 Jesus Christ everywhere. 
 
 If that central truth of Christianity is accepted 
 by the churches of the country, North and South, 
 there can be no question about the solution of this 
 problem. 
 
 CONFLICT OF OPPOSING TENDENCIES. 
 
 In the meantime the issue is clear between the 
 ideas and interests represented by the two Governors 
 and Senator Tillman on the one hand, and those rep- 
 resented by these college presidents and professors 
 on the other, and the question is, which of these 
 movements is destined to prevail? 
 
 What will happen if the first of these movements 
 becomes prevalent I have tried to indicate. If the 
 other, which is in harmony with the Constitution of 
 the United States, and with the instincts of human- 
 ity and with the principles of the Christian religion, 
 should prove the stronger, the two races would 
 continue to dwell together peacefully; the laws 
 would be rigidly and steadily enforced equally 
 against Negro brutality and white savagery; 
 each race would learn to respect the other and to 
 respect itself; the specter of miscegenation would 
 vanish and the two races would co-operate produc- 
 tively for the common good. Each needs the other; 
 the highest prosperity and welfare of each depends 
 
 76
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 on the friendship of the other. Not only on its 
 friendship, on its well-being also. 
 
 Those reactionaries at the South who imagine 
 that they can build economic prosperity on a pros- 
 trate laboring class are simply ignorant of the com- 
 monest truths of human experience. It is a momen- 
 tous conflict between these opposing tendencies. 
 
 The chief theatre of it is at the South, but the 
 North is involved in it. 
 
 We have had our own outbreaks of savagery, in 
 which race-hatred made wild beasts of men; and so 
 long as our industries shut the Negro out of all the 
 best opportunities, we have few stones to throw at 
 our Southern brethren. 
 
 Our trades unions are less frank in their treatment 
 of the Negro than Governor Vardaman or Senator 
 Tillman, but they are not much less inhuman. 
 
 We must clear our skirts of these stains before 
 the North can hope to speak to the South as per- 
 suasively as it ought to speak respecting the rights 
 of the Negro. 
 
 Nevertheless, the problem at the South, as we 
 have already seen, is a national problem, and we 
 must not withhold our hands from doing what we 
 can to help in its right solution there. With those 
 true and brave witnesses whose voices we have heard, 
 and with all who stand with them for the opportun- 
 ity of the Negro to be a man, we join ourselves in an 
 earnest endeavor to open to him the gates of op- 
 portunity and to lift up before him the ideals of 
 Christian civilization." 
 
 "With redoubled emphasis I ask, can it be possible 
 that any race of people would be so rash as to invoke 
 their own annihilation by open and brutal defiance 
 of God through persistently trying to prevent the 
 
 77
 
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 Negro from developing to the limit whatever good- 
 ness God has implanted in him? 
 
 If the white race can succeed in this dastardly at- 
 tempt then infidelity and atheism is enthroned and 
 the world goes back to beastly anarchism, and says 
 with me : damn the white man of America's religion, 
 damn his church, damn his preaching, and damn his 
 false interpretation of God's Book of Holy Writ, 
 and the compassionate Christ. 
 
 Coming now to the Seventh Section of "The Mu- 
 latto Negro, etc.," the writer says: "The advocates 
 of the elevating process, to be consistent, should also 
 advocate giving the Negro a country and a govern- 
 ment of his own; but, strange to say, those who are 
 most insistent upon the high qualities and great pos- 
 sibilities of the Negro race oppose any colonization 
 scheme upon the ground that the Negro cannot be 
 trusted to work out his own salvation. People are 
 continually talking about educating and elevating the 
 Negro as the final and amicable solution of the race 
 problem, when they must know, in the light of all 
 past history, that whenever the Negro rises to the 
 dignity of rivalry with the Anglo-Saxon his doom 
 is sealed." It may be the doom of his rival. 
 
 The world and Russia thought likewise about 
 the "little brown men of Nippon." 
 
 Remember, the Negroes make no boast by way of 
 inviting such an issue, but, by the Eternal it is 
 sealed as writ that he will be whatever it is in him 
 to be, and all the combined powers of darkness are 
 impotent to prevent it. You and those of your 
 thought had better be satisfied that there is room for 
 fair play for all. In such a rash declaration your 
 race has much to lose and nothing to gain ; while 
 the Negro has much the hope of being a man, or 
 dying in the struggle yea. in the cataclysm or the 
 
 78
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 holocaust, whatever you might choose to forecall it. 
 
 When a patience like that of the Negro's ceases to 
 be a virtue animate and inanimate creation will stand 
 aghast at a conflict the like of which the world has 
 never seen. 
 
 Continuing this section: "The measure of con- 
 sideration which he receives at present is due to the 
 fact that we feel ourselves so immeasurably above 
 him. 
 
 It is a case of "noblesse oblige." Well, why in 
 all creation do you oppose him so hard? "To unset- 
 tle a weak mind, were an easy, inglorious triumph. 
 And a strong cause taketh little count of the worth- 
 less suffrage of a fool." "Thrice, not twice, but three 
 times, is he armed who hath his quarrel just, and he 
 but naked though locked up in steel whose conscience 
 with injustice is corrupted." 
 
 Again, I say: 
 
 "Within the breast of many a one who cannot bear 
 
 to see, 
 
 The hated negro prospering, 
 This form of prayer may be: 
 
 'O, Lord, do keep the nigger back. 
 Let darkness be his shroud. 
 
 He's tripping close upon our track, 
 He's ranting long and loud. 
 
 We've sent some educated farmers to the legis- 
 lative halls 
 To make some laws, that when enforced should 
 
 make the nigger fall. 
 We've clipped his rights, we've stole his vote, 
 
 but he rises over all. 
 O, Lord, do keep the nigger back." 
 
 79
 
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 Still gnashing her teeth over the "Mulatto Peril" 
 she writes : 
 
 "Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, in the summary of 
 his conclusions on this subject says: 'There are but 
 two solutions of the Negro problem: we must re- 
 move him, or we must elevate him.' " Mr. Page 
 would have put the case more accurately in saying: 
 "If we elevate him we must remove him." 
 
 In himself are the elements of elevation, hence, 
 the question arises: can you remove him? You are 
 certainly trying hard. 
 
 Beginning April, 1907, Mr. Ray Stannard Baker 
 had a series of articles appearing in the American 
 Magazine, "Following the Color Line." From the 
 July number, I quote, "Continued aggression," John 
 Hay once said, "is the necessity of a false position." 
 The ante-bellum Southern leaders saw that they must 
 either extend their institution or else face its ulti- 
 mate extinction. 
 
 At the present time we have a repetition of the 
 ante-bellum aggression. As it happened then, we 
 have speakers like Tillman and others coming North 
 urging the validity of the Southern treatment of the 
 Negro. 
 
 Writers like Thomas Dixon rekindle old fires of 
 hatred. 
 
 At the same moment that Tillman is abusing the 
 North for its interest in Southern education, he 
 himself is speaking from Northern platforms to 
 make sentiment for the Southern position. So we 
 have the extension of disfranchisement and "Jim 
 Crow" laws to the new Western State of Oklahoma 
 and the agitation for disfranchisement in Mary- 
 land. So we. have the advancing demand by South- 
 erners in Congress for the repeal, of the Fifteenth 
 Amendment, and just recently Congressman Heflin 
 
 So
 
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 of Alabama has introduced a bill seeking to provide 
 for "Jim Crow" distinctions upon the street cars 
 of Washington. How all this recalls efforts of 
 the ante-bellum Southern congressmen to force the 
 United States government to take the Southern po- 
 sition on the slavery question. 
 
 FIGHTING TO KEEP THE NEGRO DOWN. 
 
 I have recently read some of the voluminous dis- 
 cussions upon the subject of slavery which took place 
 before the Civil War, and I have been astonished to 
 find the arguments of the Southern political leaders 
 of to-day almost identical in substance (though 
 changed somewhat in form) with the reasoning of 
 the old slave-owning class. 
 
 One hears the same arguments regarding the 
 physiological and ethnological inferiority of all col- 
 ored men to all white men; the argument that "one 
 drop of Negro blood makes a Negro," and even that 
 the Negro is not a human being at all, but is a beast. 
 
 I have before me a book recently published by a 
 Bible house (of all places!) in St. Louis and widely 
 circulated in the South. It is entitled, "Is the Negro 
 a Beast?" and it goes on to prove by Biblical quota- 
 tion that he has no soul! 
 
 Being a beast, it becomes a small matter to kill 
 him. 
 
 One also hears the argument now, as in slavery 
 times, of the divine right of the white man to rule 
 the Negro. "God intended the white man to rule," 
 says Vardaman, "and the Negro to be a humble ser- 
 vant." And, finally, there is the frank argument of 
 physical force : that the white man, being strong, will 
 and must rule the Negro. 
 
 Hoke Smith to-day is supporting the idea of a 
 81
 
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 white aristocracy exactly as Robert Toombs did be- 
 fore the war. 
 
 Of course, Hoke Smith has receded from the be- 
 lief in the chattel slavery of the Negro for which 
 Toombs contended, but in many other respects he 
 evidently believes that the Negro should be reduced 
 (as ex-Congressman Fleming of Georgia says in the 
 quotation given above) "to slavery in many of its 
 substantial forms." 
 
 In order to validate its position and keep its place 
 (and make the Negro keep his)., the white aristoc- 
 racy has been formed to defend the doctrine of all 
 monarchies and aristrocracies the inequality of men 
 in all respects. 
 
 Hoke Smith states the fundamental assumption 
 thus plainly in his address (June Qth, 1906) : "I be- 
 lieve the wise course is to plant ourselves squarely 
 upon the proposition in Georgia that the Negro is in 
 no respect the equal of the white man, and that he 
 cannot in the future in this State occupy a position 
 of equality." 
 
 Out of this position has flowed naturally and in- 
 evitably the long- list of discriminatory laws, limita- 
 tion of the franchise, hostility to education, "Jim 
 Crow" legislation, and the like, all of which tend, of 
 course, to force the Negro back to a position of eco- 
 nomic servitude. 
 
 And Vardaman, honestly pursuing his position to 
 the logical end (for Vardaman, when all is said, has 
 the frank courage of his convictions) has asserted 
 that there must be two sorts of justice in the South 
 a justice for white men and a justice for Negroes, 
 He says: "Men talk of justice and the enforcement 
 of the laws upon the white man and the Negro alike, 
 as though such a thing were possible. Justice must 
 be the end and aim of all, but justice to the Negro 
 
 82
 
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 does not mean that you must treat the Negro in all 
 matters, even in the enforcement of the law, as you 
 would the white man. ... In spite of the pro- 
 visions of the Federal Constitution, the men who 
 are called upon to deal with this great problem must 
 do that which is necessary to be done, even though 
 it may have the appearance at times of going some- 
 what outside the law." 
 
 Thus it is sacriligiously, painfully evident that 
 these nation corruptors and world polluters are 
 frantically endeavoring to induce this nation and the 
 world to become candidates for Hell red hot and 
 unadulterated. 
 
 In such infernally inspired fiends I see the white 
 multi-crime-soaked imps of the horned-head, claw- 
 fingered, fire-eyed, forked-tailed, misshapened-bod- 
 ied, web-footed personality as pictured incarnate by 
 Dante. 
 
 O, ye Gods, and Angelic Hosts (if such there be), 
 defend this nation and the world, and insure to us 
 that paradise which we are preached the Christ died 
 and arose to make sure. 
 
 "BOTH THE SOUTH AND THE NORTH 
 UNDEMOCRATIC. 
 
 Thus I have attempted to present the political 
 situation in the South and the reasoning which under- 
 lies it. It possesses a large significance for the en- 
 tire country. Here is the fact: the war and the 
 emancipation proclamation did not make the South 
 completely democratic; it merely cut away one bul- 
 wark of aristocracy slavery. 
 
 The South is still dominated by the aristocratic 
 idea, and more or less frankly so. The South has 
 admitted only grudgingly, and not yet fully, the 
 
 83
 
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 "poor white" man to democratic political fellow- 
 ship. 
 
 There are, as I have shown, hundreds of thou- 
 sands of disfranchised white Americans in the 
 South. Moreover, many white leaders look askance 
 on the new Italian immigrants, though they, too, 
 are white men. The extreme point of view in regard 
 to the foreigner was expressed in a speech by the 
 Hon. Jeff Truly, candidate for Governor of Missis- 
 sippi, at Magnolia in that State, on March i8th, 
 1907: 
 
 "I am opposed to any inferior race. The Italian 
 immigration scheme does not settle the labor ques- 
 tion; Italians are a threat and a danger to our 
 racial, industrial and commercial supremacy. Mis- 
 sissippi needs no such immigration. Leave your lands 
 to your own children. As Governor of the State, I 
 promise that not one dollar of the State shail be 
 spent for the immigration of any such." 
 
 As for the Negro, of course, the South has never, 
 and does not now, believe in a democracy which 
 really includes him. 
 
 But neither does the North. 
 
 When we get right down to it, the controlling 
 white men in the North do not believe in an inclus- 
 ive democracy much more than the South. I have 
 talked with many Northerners who go South, and it 
 is astonishing to see how quickly most of them adopt 
 the Southern point of view. For it is the doctrine 
 which many of them, down in their hearts, really 
 believe. Of course, the North preserves a fiction of 
 complete democracy, but in reality the North also 
 has an aristocratic government, an oligarchy based 
 upon wealth and property, which dominates politics 
 and governs the country more or less completely. 
 
 Roosevelt has been fighting some of the more 
 84
 
 CM Conflict 
 
 boisterous aspects of the rule of this oligarchy, and 
 has shown the country how powerful it is ! 
 
 THE UNDER MAN FIGHTING ALL OVER 
 THE WORLD. 
 
 It is curious, indeed, when one's attention is awak- 
 ened to the facts, how strong the parallel is between 
 the South and the North. I mean here a parallel 
 not in laws or even in customs, but in spirit, in the 
 living reality which lies down deep under institu- 
 tions, which is, after all, the only thing that really 
 counts. 
 
 The cause of all the trouble in the North is ex- 
 actly what it is in the South the under man will not 
 keep his place. 
 
 He is restless, ambitious ; he wants civil, political 
 and industrial equality. 
 
 Thus we see the growth of labor organizations, 
 and the spread of populist and socialist, who de- 
 mand new rights and a greater share in the products 
 of labor. 
 
 They will not, as Hoke Smith says of the Negroes, 
 "content themselves with the place of inferiority." 
 
 The essential feature of the history of the last five 
 years in this country, and it will go down in history 
 as the beginning of great things, has been the vague, 
 crudely powerful effort of the under man (half his 
 strength wasted because he is blind) to limit in some 
 degree the power of this moneyed aristocracy. 
 
 Such is the meaning of the demand for trust and 
 railroad legislation, such the significance of the in- 
 surance investigation, such the effort to curb the 
 power of men like Rockefeller, Harriman and Mor- 
 gan. 
 
 Societies as well as men have different methods of 
 85
 
 Cfce Conflict 
 
 expression : One man reveals his strength by the 
 blow of his clenched fist, another with the rapier of 
 his mind. 
 
 The coin of expression of the South is talk and 
 legislation; that of the North is cash, property. 
 
 When the South becomes as rich and prosperous 
 as the North, it will not concern itself with the "su- 
 periority" and "inferiority" problem to the extent 
 that it does now. A man who is rich can set him- 
 self apart without recourse to law-making; he can 
 buy his exclusiveness and convince himself of his 
 superiority with material possessions. So the North, 
 in spirit, disfranchises its lower class exactly after 
 the manner of the South. It does it by the purchase 
 of elections in one form or another of its "poor 
 whites" and its Negroes. 
 
 What else is the meaning of Tammany Hall and 
 the boss and machine system in other cities? Tam- 
 many Hall is our method of disfranchisement : it is 
 our cunning machine for nullifying the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth amendments. While the South is dis- 
 franchising (with frankness) by legislation, the 
 North is doing it by cash. 
 
 THE QUESTION WE ARE COMING TO. 
 
 I have spoken of the lack of free speech in the 
 South; but that is not peculiar to the South, though 
 there is, undoubtedly, a far greater intellectual free- 
 dom to-day in the North than in the South, yet for 
 every professor disciplined in the South for his 
 utterances on the Negro problem, the North can 
 match a professor disciplined for his utterances on 
 the trust or railroad questions. South or North, it 
 is dangerous to attack the entrenched privileges of 
 those in control. 
 
 86
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 And the North also has its "Jim Crow" regula- 
 tions not by that name, but none the less real. The 
 under man in the North is set apart, unescapably, in 
 hotels, restaurants, railroad trains and everywhere 
 else. 
 
 Imagine a carpenter, iron worker, street cleaner, 
 trying to live at the Astor Hotel or the St. Regis 
 or a Russian Jewish tailor eating at Delmonico's, 
 and on the railroads the aristocrats travel in private 
 cars or Pullmans; for all essential purposes the line 
 is drawn between upper man and under man as ef- 
 fectively as though by statutes. 
 
 We are horrified in the North by the frankness of 
 Vardaman in advocating different standards of 
 justice for white men and Negroes, but we do not 
 have the same custom in the North ? How extreme- 
 ly difficult it is sometimes to get a rich criminal into 
 jail in the North! 
 
 The North also believes thoroughly in the divine 
 right theory the divine right of the man who owns 
 property and the more property he owns the di- 
 viner his right. 
 
 The South has this single great advantage over the 
 North its under men are all colored and can be 
 readily distinguished. 
 
 So the North preserves its "color line," not by ob- 
 trusively frank legislation, but by purchase, by prop- 
 erty. 
 
 The spirit, North and South, is the same. 
 
 In short, we are coming again face to face in this 
 country with the same tremendous (even revolution- 
 ary) question which presents itself in every crisis of 
 the world's history a sign in itself of the greatness 
 and virility of the age in which we live : "What does 
 democracy include? Does democracy really include 
 Negroes as well as white men? Does it include Rus- 
 
 87
 
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 sian Jews, Italians, Japanese? Does it include 
 Rockefeller and the Slavonian street-sweeper, and 
 Tillman and the Negro farmhand?" 
 
 The white man's "industrial emancipation will 
 never come until he recognized the Negro as a man 
 and brother in the industrial world. In my larger 
 book to follow this I shall more exhaustively discuss 
 the industrial relation of the \vmtj in:-n to the Negro 
 in which I shall reproduce an article by me, and 
 which appeared in the "Commoner and Glasswork- 
 er," Pittsburgh, Pa., September I4th, 1889, in a spe- 
 cially illustrated series along with the Rev. Dr. Ed- 
 ward McGlynn, the great single-tax priest; August 
 Donath, the then president of the International 
 Typographical Union and editor of the "Craftsman," 
 the official organ of the Union, and others equally 
 prominent as writers and thinkers in interest of the 
 laborer. 
 
 I shall also in that book republish a bill drawn by 
 me and intended to be introduced in the national 
 Legislature. Said bill intended to compel an equit- 
 able distribution of the wealth which labor in con- 
 junction with capital creates. 
 
 Said bill was drawn by me twenty years ago, was 
 read to an audience in Mercer Hall at Princeton, 
 N. J., was read by me before bodies of organized 
 labor at Trenton, N. J., at Philadelphia, Pa., and 
 elsewhere and published in several daily and weekly 
 papers, but laughed at as visionary. 
 
 I state all this because the same principles as set 
 up in that bill are just now beginning to be applied 
 through legislation and by executive order notably 
 under the Roosevelt administrations. 
 
 In discussing the question of superiority or inferi- 
 ority of the Negro as against the white, as relates to 
 the justice accorded the classed inferior of the one 
 
 88
 
 Conflict 
 
 race or the other, the white fares the better, because 
 of opportunity afforded, both North and South, to 
 prove their worth by the exercise of developed abil- 
 ity, and the reward as finally given in recognition. 
 
 Thus the white individual is everywhere amenable 
 to the highest recognition by reward for display of 
 ability which is often inferior to that of many Ne- 
 groes of extraordinary superior ability. 
 
 Hence, the Negro, despite ingenious and multi- 
 combined obstacles, often compels by sterling merit 
 his elevation to high positions of reward and 
 honor, though there are many who have never yet 
 received approximately the full reward of their hon- 
 orable merit. 
 
 If I were born a and not as it is, not 
 
 knowing who I am, though under opposing circum- 
 stances denied every opportunity afforded others. 
 
 Though a self-made individual, I have proven 
 executive and versatile ability, which, if not for a 
 foolish sentimentality, practically cruel caste preju- 
 dice, I would long since have been at the head of 
 some great corporate enterprise or otherwise high 
 in the world of honors and emoluments. 
 
 How strangely is it evident that there are numer- 
 ous fools, in that they recognize, yea, worship, idol- 
 ize ability where it is veiled under a seeming na- 
 tionality acceptable to their fancy ; whereas repudia- 
 tion would quickly follow if they but knew it was an 
 ability, but not possessed by the nationality they be- 
 lieve it to be. Such is the hollow, empty fickleness of 
 life. Damn such an age which fosters such hypoc- 
 risy. Damn the religion of a people who evidence 
 themselves to be such unmitigated damn fools. 
 
 Universally, I see this damn unholy, un-Christly, 
 un-Godly sentiment so powerfully, malignantly exert- 
 ed no power seeming able to counteract it that I 
 
 89
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 despair of being honest and getting a man's chance 
 to exist and advance. Hence, I am forced to live 
 a lie however much my soul hates it. / must. I will. 
 Blood will tell. And right here, I am reminded 
 of Auguste Rodin's statue, "Le Penseur," which 
 personates in the nude a giant Negro with rope-like 
 muscles, sitting on a huge rock, back bowed, left 
 arm resting on knee, right elbow resting on thigh 
 with closed right fist jammed to his mouth as if to 
 suppress some terrible pent-up emotion. The pic- 
 ture of this statue recently appeared in a current 
 magazine with a poem beneath it by Julia Magruder, 
 entitled : 
 
 "THE THOUGHT. 
 
 "Thinker thou art not, however called, 
 What room for thought in that poor, narrow head? 
 Only brute instincts' cry for daily bread 
 Has reached thy consciousness, securely walled 
 Behind the structure of coarse bone and brawn, 
 By dreary time and grievous toil induced. 
 Patient thou'st lived and worked the thing of 
 
 scorn 
 To which, by those who think, thou art reduced. 
 
 "Yet once, indeed, there came to thee a thought, 
 Gripping thee, as thy feet this clay. Within, 
 A spark thrilled through thy mighty frame and 
 
 wrought 
 
 A consciousness of outrage, shame, and sin. 
 Thy great hand stops thy mouth, to hush its cry 
 A piteous, bitter, and unanswered: Why?" 
 
 And then in "Everybody's Magazine," Dec., 1904, 
 appeared a poem by Emery Pottle, entitled: "MUTE." 
 from which I quote : 
 
 90
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 "Here on his Western plains, so far, so still 
 
 Where dawn and twilight fill my eyes 
 With wondering tears, and earth seems as the 
 
 sill 
 Of Paradise, 
 
 Mute I must live, and one day die 
 
 Go as I came, the silent guest 
 And none shall ever hear the pent-up cry 
 
 Within my breast." 
 
 Me. I feel it. Shut up from all the world, or 
 who am I, and why is it thus? That suppressed 
 figure is not I. For they shall hear it. Yes, the 
 world the ages shall hear my cry. My soul shall 
 speak its defiance. 
 
 Democracy in its technical and broadest sense 
 ought to include the rich and poor, the Negro and 
 the white alike, but it does not, and never will any- 
 where, but there will come a day when universally 
 will be recognized the eternal and divine right of 
 all men to develop and demonstrate the best that 
 there is in them, and reward proportionately will 
 not as it cannot be withheld because of creed or na- 
 tionality. 
 
 This, then, will be as it should the recognition 
 and reward of merit this the living standard of true 
 democracy. 
 
 Socialistic teachings does not embrace this view in 
 its tenets the "Golden Rule" does : "Do unto others 
 as you would that they do unto you." 
 
 Any one taking a correct and unbiased view of 
 my definition here given of the standard of true 
 democracy will unhesitatingly admit that my stric- 
 tures on page 105 on the democratic party in the 
 United States of America, and such of its leaders as 
 
 91
 
 Ci)e Conflict 
 
 Tillman, Vardaman, Dixon and others is altogether 
 inadequate no, to exhaust adjectives would not do 
 their "ilk" that due them as obstructors in the path 
 of real democracy. 
 
 The writings and preachments of such creatures 
 affect and corrupt the minds of ignorant and weak 
 mortals who have generally grown up undisciplined, 
 or are false cultured, and such mortals in turn trans- 
 mit by heredity and teaching the poison of their own 
 poisoned minds to the minds of their children. 
 
 Thus, the pernicious seed for a hell-crop is sown 
 to the winds of the world only to be finally reaped 
 in a whirlwind by way of strife and wars among 
 communities, peoples, and nations. 
 
 Sad to see it, yet I am often chagrined to see some 
 inconsequential, hair-brained, worthless white per- 
 son, or some poorly-bred, incapacitated, raggedy, 
 semi-starved, despair-eyed, overworked white youth 
 assume an air of superiority over a Negro of indu- 
 bitable superiority, or hatefully and revengefully 
 sneer at the mention of some act or work of merit 
 by a Negro in whose little finger is more intelligence 
 than in the combined bodies of five or more such 
 green-eyed sneerers. 
 
 It is reported that the late Frederick Douglass on 
 one occasion was, by his matchless oratory, elec- 
 trifying an audience of several thousand when in the 
 crowd a newly-landed Irishman yelled out: "Faith, 
 ain't he a foin speaker !" Whereupon an American 
 born, prejudice-blinded Irishman accompanying him 
 retorted: "O, sha, he's only a half Nigger." 
 
 The first Irishman exclaimed: "Gee, if only a half 
 a Nigger can do that good what wouldn't a whole 
 Nigger do!" And so I say. 
 
 It has been my pleasurable delight to squelch not 
 92
 
 C&c Conflict 
 
 a few of such up-start sneerers at Negro worth and 
 manhood. 
 
 On one occasion, while sitting- in front of my 
 place of business in the leading city in a Southern 
 State, when a twisted speech, lean looking, ignorant 
 white country youth came up asking me some in- 
 formation regarding the city. A friendly answer, 
 one word brought on another. He finally started to 
 discussing the Negro, saying : "The colored folks here 
 seem to put on a lot of airs, living in fine houses, and 
 wearing fine clothes." I replied: "That if they did 
 it by honest effort I could not understand that it 
 should worry anyone." He retorted that : "A Nigger 
 was no good anyway." I replied: "There are some 
 industrious, scholarly Negroes of excellent charac- 
 ter." He whined back that "no matter what they 
 were, he never seed a Nigger the equal of a white 
 man." Then I opened up my batteries (so to speak) 
 on him, telling him: "He had not seen everything, 
 that, in fact, he had seen very little ; that there were 
 Negroes in that city the superiors in wealth and in- 
 telligence to any white man back in the woods from 
 where he came, "that I was his superior in ability, 
 in character, in ideal, and in means, though I was not 
 white." I began to recount to him briefly the dis- 
 tinctions of Bruce, of Douglass, Langston, Price, 
 Revels, Elliott, Smalls, Walls, Dunbarr, Dumas, 
 Derrick, Banneker, Lyons, Hannibal, Generals 
 Doods and L'Overture, Arnett, Allen, Vernon, 
 Washington, Blyden, Scarborough, Du'boise, Tan- 
 ner, Aldridge, Maceo, Peter Jackson, Dixon, God- 
 frey, Cans, Wolcott, Veezy, Cuffie, and a long line 
 of others illustrious in oratory, letters, science, state- 
 craft, music, art, etc. 
 
 I recounted Negro industries, organizations and in- 
 stitutions. I called his atention to Negroes of dis- 
 
 93
 
 C6 e Conflict 
 
 tinction and Negro enterprises right there in his home 
 state and in the city where he then was. I directed 
 him to streets in that city where he would see what 
 Negroes were doing of merit, as he had never in all 
 his life seen in the backwoods and swamps where he 
 had come from. As I throwed it into his "crop" and 
 jammed it down his throat (so to speak) he became 
 violent, and rushed from me, as if to remain he would 
 burst wide open from the effects. 
 
 I shot it into him and at him as he ambled away 
 like a cur hound-dog, with flopping ears and hanging 
 jaw. God pity such miserable, cowardly curs ! 
 
 Taking up the Eighth Section of "The Mulatto 
 Negro," the writer says: "There is yet another 
 phase of this question which holds a darker meaning 
 for the whites than race war or 'black supremacy.' 
 Every onlooker in Northern cities is struck with the 
 number of mulattoes who might easily pass for dark 
 skinned members of the white race. Again the Negro 
 - 1 particularly the mulatto despises himself. He is 
 ashamed of being a Negro, and bends all his energies 
 toward wiping out that fact. No epithet of abuse is 
 quite so offensive to him as his own appropriate 
 racial name. Even the euphemistic appellations 
 'colored gentleman,' 'Afro-American citizen/ etc., 
 have become distasteful to him. He grows more and 
 more resentful of any kind of differentiation. 
 
 An important witness to this fact is the statement 
 of the chief statistician of the Census Bureau, that 
 no attempt had been made to obtain the percentage 
 of mulattoes in the total Negro population for 1900 
 because of the growing reluctance of quadroons and 
 octoroons to admit their real identity. Said he: 
 "Those who are very light won't admit it at all, and 
 those who find it impossible to deny it altogether 
 confess to it in a less degree than the fact." 
 
 94
 
 Conflict 
 
 Instances are on record of this mongrel class per- 
 juring themselves rather than confess to their Afri- 
 can inheritance. 
 
 Now, what is the significance in all this? It must 
 be apparent to every thoughtful observer that the 
 Negroes' contempt for himself and his kind which 
 prompts him by every possible means to elude identi- 
 fication with his kind will also lead him to seek ad- 
 mission into white families under an Anglo-Saxon 
 guise, if need be." This is the bone which chokes 
 you Ah ! See ? 
 
 "The successful pose of Hannah Elias in the cele- 
 brated Platt case of New York ; the well nigh suc- 
 cessful role of B. Sheppard White in Washington 
 a few years ago ; the more recent case of a Minister 
 from one of the Central American states, whose en- 
 gagement to a proud society belle was brought to a 
 sudden termination by the discovery of his African 
 descent, all point very ominously to the possibility 
 and feasibility of unwitting and unwilling amalga- 
 mation of races in this country. 
 
 Granting that this wish of the hybrid Negro to lose 
 his identity in the Caucasian stream has its pathetic 
 side; granting also the retributive justice in it for 
 the proud Anglo-Saxon who of his bestial appetites 
 has made whips to scourge not only himself but his 
 race ; this article aims only at pointing out the most 
 salient traits of the mulatto and their significance for 
 the white people of the North particularly." 
 
 As a truth the Negro has every reason to be proud 
 of his record as already made, and is endeavoring to 
 so live as to make the word Negro his name signify 
 for all time a proud, a progressive, and a happy race 
 of people; but at this point the writer in her argu- 
 ment seems to forget, or wantonly ignores, the fact 
 that while the Ncrth and the world in the past were 
 
 95
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 condemning the mongrelistic concubine practices 
 which Southern brutality delighted its libidinous, 
 memphomaniacally lustful passions in, the loud- 
 mouthed votaries brayed out long and loud, "Mind 
 your own business," "This is our own domestic in- 
 stitution." Yea, they continued the propagation of 
 mongrelistic hybrids, converting the product into 
 cash in the slave markets on the auction block, and 
 now that the slave pen has been torn down and the 
 auction block rooted up, they still continue to propa- 
 gate the mongrel species, which, like the plagues out 
 of Pandora's box, begin to scourge them in discom- 
 fiting their villiany. they now send some educated 
 petticoats throughout the land to cry alarm. 
 
 Where is the cause for alarm? "They alone are 
 great who great deeds have done" ? and the Negro is 
 great, measured by "the depths from which he has 
 come." 
 
 Individual character, brains and wealth take prece- 
 dence over empty family titles, pride, etc., as made 
 so much ado about in the continuance of this section 
 thus : "In the nature of the case the danger must 
 be greater in those states where miscegenation re- 
 ceives the sanction of the law, the conscientious ap- 
 proval of a portion of the whites, and where the 
 freer association and commingling of the two races, 
 coupled with the presence of a large foreign popula- 
 tion of varying complexion, enables the masquerad- 
 ing octoroon to pursue his course with more or less 
 impunity. 
 
 For the select few who guard with jealous care 
 their own little Anglo-Saxon plot, the peril is not 
 imminent, perhaps. But a great many quite worthy 
 and well-meaning Americans, either from indiffer- 
 ence or from a democratic scorn of aristocratic pre- 
 tensions, do not enquire very closely into the antece- 
 
 96
 
 C & e Conflict 
 
 dents of persons claiming to be "white and respect- 
 able." This applies especially to the North, where 
 the "for a' that" man has always had more show 
 than at the South, where the idea of caste and of 
 family pride has ever been dominant. It is worthy 
 of note that exposure, in two of the instances cited 
 above, followed upon the gentlemen's proposing mar- 
 riage to Southern women, whose families instituted 
 the customary probing into genealogical backgrounds. 
 
 It is worthy of note, also, that they met these 
 Southern ladies in Northern society, for the South- 
 ern Negro, be he black, brown or lightest tan, is care- 
 fully fenced off "in his own back yard." Which fact, 
 joined with the knowledge of swift and certain pun- 
 ishment for any Negro masquerading as a Caucassian 
 lessens the probability of mesalliances of this char- 
 acter occurring at the South." 
 
 At the South, white men should have thought of 
 all this wonderful philosophy about Anglo-Saxon 
 purity before they started in to propagate a crop of 
 mulattoes, as a theme to lecture the North about. 
 
 "Deep is the sea, and deep is hell, but pride mineth 
 deeper." Beneath the poverty, rags, and turpitude 
 of an obvious class, "It is coiled as a poisonous worm 
 about the foundations of their soul." Yes, "Pride is 
 a double traitor, and betrayeth itself to entrap thee. 
 Rather look away from innate evil, and gaze upon 
 extraneous good, for in viewing the heights above 
 thee thou shalt be taught thy littleness. Could an 
 emmet pry into itself it might marvel at its own 
 anatomy; but let it look on eagles to discern how 
 mean a thing it is. 
 
 97
 
 Conflict 
 
 Beware that the standard of thy soul wave from 
 
 the loftiest battlement: 
 For pride is a pestilent meteor, flitting on the 
 
 marshes of corruption, 
 That will lure thee forward to thy death, if thou 
 
 seek to track it to its source. 
 It is a gloomy bow, arching the infernal firmament, 
 That will lead thee on, if thou wilt hunt it, even to 
 
 the dwelling of despair." 
 
 As an illumining close to this section, I here re- 
 produce the report of 
 
 SOME TRAGEDIES OF COLOR. 
 
 In the news despatches through the daily papers 
 November 29th, 1909, appeared the following: 
 
 WIFE AN OCTOROON, HE IS DRIVEN 
 TO SUICIDE 
 
 Secret of Ex-Chancellor Von Buelow's Cousin 
 Revealed in New Orleans 
 
 Humiliated by Foes 
 
 Arrested for Mixed Marriage. Husband 
 Becomes Desperate, Dis- 
 appears 
 
 New Orleans Nov. 28th. There no longer seems 
 to be any doubt that Edward von Buelow, a cousin 
 of the former German Chancellor, has killed him- 
 self. The act, following upon his financial ruin and 
 the breaking of a happy home which he maintained 
 
 98
 
 i)e Conflict 
 
 for fourteen years, has brought to light a pathetic 
 and romantic story. 
 
 His fortune was deliberately wrecked, it appears, 
 and his most sacred secret that his wife was an 
 octoroon was deliberately revealed to the public by 
 enemies he made in cotton speculations. 
 
 "More than that, he was arrested under the law 
 prohibiting the marriage of white with persons hav- 
 ing a slight trace of Negro blood. And so, penniless, 
 heart-broken and facing a trial, he vanished, and it 
 is generally believed, killed himself. 
 
 "No one will ever see my husband again. He is 
 dead," said Mrs. Von Buelow, a beautiful woman, 
 as light of complexion as most women of the South, 
 and she says, the daughter of a judge who bore an 
 honored name in Louisiana. Her two children are 
 flaxen-haired and blue-eyed, little German-Ameri- 
 cans." 
 
 Another : 
 
 "JILTED GIRL ENDS LIFE. 
 
 "Sandusky, Ohio, Nov. 29th, 1909. Hannah 
 Stanley, nineteen, daughter of a colored couple, 
 but frequently taken for a white girl, committed sui- 
 cide here this morning by drinking carbolic acid. 
 
 "Acquaintances say that a young man from a 
 neighboring city who had been courting Miss Stan- 
 ley found out Sunday night that she was not of his 
 race and told her that their engagement was ter- 
 minated. Hannah Stanley was one of the prettiest 
 young women in the city. She dressed in the height 
 of fashion and had many admirers." 
 
 These are an item of the millions of crimes worse 
 than murder resulting from the conduct of the 
 Southern Wilburs as referred to on page 8. 
 
 I now proceed to the Ninth and last section of 
 99
 
 C ft e Conflict 
 
 that infernally inspired article "The Mulatto Negro" 
 as appeared in the National Magazine, January, 
 1906, by one Annie Riley Hale. She says: 
 
 "This then appears to be the situation in brief: the 
 North is the natural and preferred home of the mu- 
 latto, by common consent, who is to 'make the trou- 
 ble' for the white man. It goes without saying, also, 
 that every untoward aspect of this question for the 
 North will be aggravated by the increase of her Ne- 
 gro population. 
 
 "The past five years have witnessed a rapid in- 
 flux of Southern Negroes to Northern cities, and the 
 next decade will probably augment this beyond all 
 previous records. Any attempt at drastic legisla- 
 tion aimed at the Southern States by Congress would 
 surely facilitate and precipitate a Negro exodus from 
 those States into the North. For the South will 
 wage no more devastating wars over the Negro. She 
 has had enough of that, nor is it necessary. There is 
 an easier way out of the difficulty. The South is 
 working out her Negro problem along industrial 
 lines, and the Negro, all unconsciously to himself, 
 is her most active assistant in it. In the slow work- 
 ing out of racial destinies it becomes practicable to 
 shift the burden she has born so long onto the shoul- 
 ders of her quondam critics, and in doing so her 
 temper is neither pugnacious nor controversial. She 
 has put forth her best writers and orators in the past 
 to tell the North and the world tvhat they know 
 about this unfortunate race, and their report has 
 been credited in the main. One of these writers, 
 Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, says apropos of this; 'We 
 have the singular example in this country of opin- 
 ions on this subject being weighed and estimated, not 
 according to the character, intelligence and oppor- 
 tunity to know the facts, but altogether upon the geo- 
 
 100
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 graphical habitat of the person delivering them. As 
 a rule, it is enough to know that a writer or speaker 
 comes from the South to rob his testimony of half 
 its value.' " 
 
 So that in handing over to the North the Negro and 
 his concomitant perplexities, the South's only mes- 
 sage is, in parliamentary phrase: "Are you ready 
 for the question? . . . It is yours." 
 
 Thus ending this remarkable tirade the writer says 
 she's quitting. I cannot conceive it. Nevertheless, 
 this book and more to follow is to meet the damna- 
 ble arguments of the "South's best writers and ora- 
 tors," as she says. 
 
 She admits two truths in closing: That the South 
 is by every hook and crook through "its best writers 
 and orators," is moving earth and hell to pollute and 
 corrupt the North and the world. Second, That "the 
 testimony of a writer or speaker from the South is 
 discredited or accepted with suspicion." 
 
 This is precisely as it should be . . . 
 
 "Behold the sorrowful change wrought upon a fallen 
 nature : 
 
 He hath lost his own esteem, and other men's re- 
 spect ; 
 
 For plain truth, where none could err, he hath chosen 
 tortuous paths. 
 
 Verily, infirm thyself, be slow to chide a brother's 
 imperfections, 
 
 For many times the decent veil must hang on faults 
 of nature. 
 
 Often will the meanness of life hidden away in cor- 
 ners 
 
 Prove wisdom; and the generous is glad to leave 
 them unregarded in the shade." 
 
 10 r
 
 Clje Conflict 
 
 A LECTURE TO THE DEMAGOGUE. 
 
 To the Vampire of the Nation's Other Half. 
 
 To the Souths Only and Worst Enemy, 
 
 The Nation's Deadly Foe. 
 
 "Let honesty be 'companied by charity of heart, lest 
 
 it walk unwelcome; 
 Or the mouthing censor of others and himself soon 
 
 shall sink to scorn. 
 Let honesty be added unto innocence of life : then a 
 
 man may only be a martyr; 
 But if openness of speech be found with secrecy of 
 
 guilt, the martyr will be seen a malefactor. 
 There is a cunning scheme to put on surface blunt- 
 ness, 
 And cover still water with the clamorous ripples of 
 
 a shallow. 
 
 For a man to gain his selfish ends will make a stalk- 
 ing horse of honesty; 
 And hide his poaching limbs behind, that he may 
 
 cheat the quicker. 
 Such an one is loud and ostentatious, full of oaths 
 
 for argument 
 Boastful of honor and sincerity, and not to be put 
 
 down by facts : 
 
 He is obstinate, and showeth it for firmness : 
 He is rude, displaying it for truth; 
 And glorieth in doggedness of temper, as if it were 
 
 uncompromising justice." 
 
 The North and the world hath seen such scoundrels. 
 "Beware of such a man; his brawling covereth de- 
 
 signs ; 
 This specious show of honesty cometh as the herald 
 
 of a thief: 
 
 102
 
 C&e Conflict 
 
 His feint is made with awkward clashing on the 
 
 buckler's boss, 
 But meanwhile doth his secret skill insure its fatal 
 
 aim. 
 This the hypocrite of honesty; ye may know him by 
 
 an overacted part; 
 Taking pains to turn and twist where other men 
 
 walk straight; 
 Or walking straight, he will not step aside to let 
 
 another pass, 
 But roughly pusheth on, provoking opposition on the 
 
 way; 
 
 He is full of disquietude for calmness, full of in- 
 triguing for simplicity, 
 Valorous with those who cannot fight, but humble 
 
 with the brave. 
 .Where brotherly advice were good, this man rudely 
 
 blameth, 
 And on some small occasion flattereth with coarse 
 
 praise. 
 The craven in a lion's skin hath conquered by his 
 
 character of courage; 
 Sheep's clothing helped the wolf, till he slew by his 
 
 character for kindness." 
 
 Such unmitigated scoundrels have no place in a Re- 
 public . . 
 No, not in our glorious country . . No. 
 
 The good and righteous, like the Virgin Queen, 
 Victoria of England, like Grover Cleveland and 
 Judge Thomas G. Jones of our land, like Sumner, 
 Garrison, Phillips, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Robert 
 Emmet, Benjamin Disraeli, Daniel O'Connell and 
 the list too long to here enroll are the personalities 
 that will live amid the annihilation of time. 
 103
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 "For honesty hath many gains, and well the wise 
 
 have known 
 This will prosper to the end, and fill their house with 
 
 gold. 
 The phosphorus of cheatery will fade, and all its 
 
 profits perish, 
 While honesty with growing light endureth as the 
 
 moon." 
 
 If these United States of America were a land of 
 thieves, it might be wise to dare the virtue of 
 honesty, "if any would be rich." 
 
 "For that which by the laws of God is heightened 
 into duty, 
 
 Ever in the practice of a man, will be seen both 
 policy and privilege. 
 
 Thank God, ye toilers for your bread, in that daily 
 laboring. 
 
 He hath suffered the bubbles of self-interest to float 
 upon the stream of duty: 
 
 For honesty of every kind, approved by God and 
 man, 
 
 Of wealth and better weal is found the richest cornu- 
 copia. 
 
 Tempered by humbleness and charity, honesty of 
 speech hath honor ; 
 
 And mingled well with prudence, honesty of pur- 
 pose hath its praise: 
 
 Trust payeth homage unto truth, rewarding honesty 
 of action: 
 
 And all men love to lean on him who never failed 
 nor fainted. 
 
 Freedom gloweth in his eyes and nobleness of nature 
 at his heart, 
 
 And independence took a crown and fixed it on his 
 head: 
 
 104
 
 Cfce Conflict 
 
 So, he stood in his integrity, just and firm of pur- 
 pose, 
 
 Aiding many, fearing none, a spectacle to angels, and 
 to men: 
 
 Yea, when the shattered globe shall rock in the 
 throes of dissolution, 
 
 Still will he stand in his integrity, sublime an honest 
 man." 
 
 Where demagogues dominate is not the place for 
 honest men. 
 
 It is certainly not the place for men who would be 
 freemen. 
 
 THE MILITANT PARTY IN UNITED 
 STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 No political party is qualified to be intrusted with 
 the destinies of the great American people until it 
 has proven itself qualified to deal with equality and 
 justice among all the people in the States in which 
 it is in the ascendency. 
 
 In a republic "of, for, and by the people," no man 
 or group of men can honestly and consistently aspire 
 to political distinction or official position with the in- 
 tention of carrying into execution ideas and views 
 favoring the interest of a part of the people, a class 
 of the people, or a section of the country to the ex- 
 clusion of another part of the people, class of the 
 people, or section of the country, whether that man 
 or group of men be called Democrat, Republican, 
 Socialist, Prohibitionist, Independent, Woman's 
 Right or otherwise. 
 
 Such a man or group of men so aspiring are inimi- 
 cal to the constitution and to the republic and should 
 be shunned. 
 
 105
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 By this standard I gauge parties, and thus find 
 that the democratic party as existing in the United 
 States of America is not deserving of the confidence 
 of either men or women who claim for themselves 
 freedom of thought and action along lines of right 
 and justice. 
 
 It is a fact of history that the democratic party 
 in the United States of America has either originated 
 or championed every issue that threatens the peace 
 and progress of the nation and the perpetuity of our 
 republican constitution. 
 
 It was that party which prolonged the traffic in 
 human souls in America, devised methods for its con- 
 tinuance, and to perpetuate it sought to destroy the 
 Union of States. 
 
 It is that party in the States in which it controls 
 to-day through a rape of the ballot legislates against 
 freedom of speech and action, and by legislation 
 imposes a tax upon those who fought to defend the 
 Union of States; said tax to pension those who 
 fought to dissolve the Union and to perpetuate slav- 
 ery, and thus array in competition the millions of 
 poor white men, women, boys and girls north and 
 south against slave labor. 
 
 This pensioning of ex-Confederate soldiers is not 
 the only evidence that at heart and in practice the 
 democratic party, solidified at the South, is still the 
 nation's greatest foe. 
 
 If not, why hug the memory of a despicable past 
 and a lost cause? 
 
 If not, why pedestalize in the archives of the capi- 
 tols of the Southern States and look with idolatrous 
 eyes upon the tattered returned battle flags, the in- 
 signia of a traitorous cause? 
 
 These flags rightly belong at the nation's capitol, 
 and no man who has the courage of his convictions 
 106
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 will acquiesce in the false cry "Peace" while the 
 enemy that was, yet evidences by its every act that 
 what it could not accomplish by force of arms it 
 hopes to finally accomplish by the hypnotic influence 
 of diplomacy and legislation. 
 
 By appeals to base passions, to race prejudice and 
 sectional hate the leaders of the Democratic party 
 at the South secure a following which by the stuffing 
 of ballot boxes and the intimidation of voters elect 
 themselves to the Governorship, to the Legislature 
 and to the National House of Representatives. 
 
 It is a fact undenied that there is not a Democratic 
 member of Congress from a Southern State but who 
 is there by virtue of suppressed speech and stolen 
 votes. 
 
 The same being true of the Southern democratic 
 legislatures which elects the United States Senators 
 from the South, it is plainly evident that our republi- 
 can form of government is dangerously menaced. 
 
 Will this republic stand while this condition en- 
 dures ? 
 
 Gauging the democratic party by the men who 
 lead it, what do men and women who demand for 
 themselves right and justice and fair play think of 
 the industrious preachments and writings of Ben. 
 Tillman, Jeff. Davis, Hoke Smith, Tom Dixon, 
 Claud Swanson, Williams, Vardaman, Slayden, 
 Hefflin Stone, English, Haskell Graves, Grady, 
 Handy and the host of other rabid Southern lead- 
 ers? What, O, what do you think of them? 
 
 The Democratic Party through its leaders is not 
 only the corruptors of the nation, but of the world. 
 They allow no opportunity to pass that they do not 
 try to convince the world to their way of thinking, 
 and no man of thought and observation can say that 
 they are not making converts. 
 107
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 The Democratic Party as far as it has been able 
 has nullified every act of right and justice which 
 has been sealed by Union soldiers' sacrifice of blood 
 and treasure on gory fields of war and carnage, and 
 in the nation's congress. 
 
 Trust them further, and it is only a question of 
 time when the nation by legislation at its seat of gov- 
 ernment will be taxed to pension those who sought 
 its destruction. 
 
 Not only this: damages for every chicken, goat, 
 or hog lost, or every blade of grass trampled in the 
 South during the war of the rebellion will be exact- 
 ed by ex-rebels or their representatives in Congress. 
 
 I have in my possession a bill I came by traveling 
 through the South some years ago. Said bill de- 
 manding damages for a donkey killed, and other in- 
 consequentials lost during the war. This bill was in- 
 tended to have been introduced in Congress during 
 the late Democratic administrations. 
 
 By every standard of justice; even at a sacrifice 
 of principle, the North has tried to placate and con- 
 ciliate the South. I, myself, as a former newspaper 
 editor, advocated a division of the Negro vote, pub- 
 lishing a symposium of views from leading Negroes 
 throughout the country to that end. 
 
 Dr. Booker T. Washington and others have ad- 
 vocated abandonment of politics for industrial pur- 
 suits to the Negro, adinfinitum. 
 
 WHAT HAS IT ALL AMOUNTED TO? 
 
 The history of the Democratic Party in all its 
 long years' production of leaders with but rare ex- 
 ceptions is one of unparalleled retrogression, pessi- 
 mism, demagogy, obstruction, destruction and all- 
 108
 
 Conflict 
 
 hell shaming, harranguing conglomerates, as evi- 
 dent to all the universe in Jim Tillman, Vardaman, 
 Hoke Smith, Tom Dixon and the other great crop 
 of blatant, braying, yelping, howling and altogether 
 despicable demagogues of equal or lesser degree in 
 their hell-inspired and upas-like influence. 
 
 If the Democratic party was what we are asked to 
 believe it is its leaders would not be what they are. 
 
 No, no, no ; men like Tillman and Vardaman could 
 never be elected as the mouthpieces of the Demo- 
 cratic party. 
 
 The Democratic party is a party of misrule. It 
 thrives by suppressed speech, stolen votes, appeals to 
 brute instincts, by demagogy and anarchy. 
 
 It is a party which believes in feudalism and a 
 landed aristocracy, with serfs to till its lands and 
 support its barons in profligate idleness. Hence it 
 demands free-trade to secure pauper made products 
 of Europe to the disestablishment of Northern fac- 
 tories. 
 
 It is a party which, given the power, it would 
 lower our money standard and substitute a depreci- 
 ated currency. 
 
 It is a party as visionary and impracticable as it is 
 seen to be brutal in the States over which it presides. 
 
 It is a party not to be trusted. 
 
 That is the Democratic party, and just in propor- 
 tion as it is allowed to come into control of the nation 
 we may finally witness the disgraceful and humiliat- 
 ing spectacle of mobs formed, riots incited, and 
 lynching bees promoted in the North, even at the 
 nation's capital by Southern Congressmen, judges, 
 colonels, etc., like Congressmen Hefflin of Alabama 
 and Sullivan of Mississippi, and other intolerant hot- 
 heads who constitute themselves prosecutor, judge 
 and jury perforce. But Wilson, I think, will prove a. 
 Statesman. 109
 
 Cle Conflict 
 
 Just now, the Progressive party is the party not 
 alone for the Negro, but for all men who aspire for 
 a "land of the free and a home for the brave," but 
 when need there be the opportune time and the men, 
 yea, strong hearts will not be lacking to save the 
 republic. 
 
 In the Negro will be found the "lump to leaven the 
 whole." Consider these figures: 
 
 THE NEGRO A BALANCE OF POWER. 
 
 The United States census for 1900 gives a total 
 Negro voting population of 2,065,989. To-day it is 
 greater. In 1902 the excess of Negro votes over the 
 Republican majorities in the states here given was 
 as follows: 
 
 Negroes of Republican 
 
 voting ag. majority. 
 
 New York 29,649 8,803 
 
 New Jersey 21,240 6,634 
 
 Delaware . . 8,354 3,249 
 
 Maryland .... 60,208 2,940 
 
 West Virginia ' 14,774 1^873 
 
 Indiana 18,149 7,282 
 
 California 3,413 2 >549 
 
 Total Negro vote 155^87 43>33O 
 
 Republican majority .. 43,330 
 
 Hence there were 112,457 Negro votes in excess 
 of the Republican majority over all votes counted in 
 these seven states in the state elections for 1902, and 
 the Negro voters are all Republicans, with exceptions 
 too rare to be worth mentioning. 
 
 The Negro vote in these states, nearly four times 
 more than the Republican majority, was a formidable 
 no
 
 C6e Conflict 
 
 factor in the 1904 presidential election. And remem- 
 ber that in this computation is not included the 
 States of Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio 
 and Pennsylvania, with their big electoral count and 
 large Negro vote. 
 
 "The question is an interesting and pertinent one, 
 because there is no doubt about the weight of the 
 Negro vote in the aggregate in any election. If the 
 Negro vote had gone over to Cleveland from Harri- 
 son in 1886, Cleveland would have been elected. Un- 
 der normal conditions New York, Connecticut and 
 Indiana would hardly be classed as rock-bound Re- 
 publican States. These States alternate about. The 
 New York Negro voting population in 1900 was 
 31,000. 
 
 The McKinley and Roosevelt, and the Bryan and 
 Parker contest showed an anomaly as to vote casting 
 in the history of the country, but the Negro vote of 
 Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware was required by 
 McKinley in 1895 m order to carry those States. 
 Hence, it is evident that the Negro vote is a balance 
 of power in close States and communities, and in the 
 aggregate also in any national election. 
 
 Following this line to its logical analysis : it was I 
 who swung the States of Massachusetts, New York, 
 Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and other 
 States to the election of Grover Cleveland. 
 
 It was I who defeated Frederick C. Gibbs, in the 
 Eighth Senatorial District in New York in 1885. Ask 
 Stephen Merritt, Charles N. Taintor and others in 
 New York. See my article in "Howard's Negro- 
 American Magazine," as published about that time. 
 See also my book copyrighted: "The Negro Race, 
 Retrospective and Prospective," about that time. 
 
 It was I who took Chicago and Cook County, 
 Illinois, from Carter Harrison and the Democratic 
 in
 
 C& e Conflict 
 
 Party. Ask Mr. Baddenoch, the then Chairman of 
 the Republican Committee. 
 
 It was I who took Jacksonville, Fla., Duval Coun- 
 ty, and the State of Florida from Bourbon Democ- 
 racy, and gave it to the Corporation or Liberal 
 Democrats an element which invited capital, and 
 the development of the State. Ask Messrs. Luken- 
 bill, J. E. T. Bowden, Jules Solomon, and the then 
 Democratic State Chairman, Hon. E. J. Treighi. 
 
 See also my paper in the "Forum," published in 
 Florida and Texas, issue Nov. 26th, 1898, before and 
 after. See its rating in Rowell's and other newspa* 
 per directories. 
 
 In some movements which I have been identified 
 with in the past there no doubt were some who 
 may have thought they were "using" me, but that is 
 another question. 
 
 It was I who first ennunciated the policies actuat- 
 ing Roosevelt in his fight against the rapaciousness 
 of corporate greed, but the hollow mockery in our 
 governmental genius, based on color, denied me that 
 hearing essential to attaining to that point where 
 I could execute my idea. 
 
 It was I who aided strongly in the instantaneous 
 launching of the New York Press, which was the 
 main medium electing to the presidency Wm. Mc- 
 Kinley, the champion of the economic protection 
 principle. Messrs. Bridgeman, Porter and Hatton 
 ought to remember me. 
 
 I have said "the hollow mockery in our govern- 
 mental genius, based on color. Instance: December 
 4th, 1906, a bill was introduced in Congress by Rep- 
 resentative Slayden, of Texas, "providing that all 
 enlisted men of the army who are colored or of 
 colored descent shall be discharged from the service 
 of the United States and thereafter no colored per- 
 
 112
 
 Cfte Conflict 
 
 son or person of colored descent shall be enlisted or 
 appointed in the service of the United States." 
 
 This certainly was an effort far reaching in its de- 
 signs, and worthy of the Democratic Party. It was 
 the effort of a swelled head gone mad, as every hon- 
 est and intelligent person the least informed as to the 
 history of this country knows that of all its citizens, 
 native or adopted, none has ever surpassed the Ne- 
 gro race in loyalty and patriotism, and I speak a 
 truthful prophecy that "when the American nation 
 follows the lead of this wild Texan, of Ben. Tillman, 
 Vardaman and others of their like, forgetting the 
 debt of gratitude due this government to the Negro, 
 that day will the government perish as a blot upon 
 civilization, a farce a travesty upon justice, and 
 unworthy to exist. 
 
 Yea, I already see the decline of the American na- 
 tion in the multiplication of such men as Ben Till- 
 man, the extension of "Jim Crowism," Negro dis- 
 franchisement, caste prejudice, race discriminations, 
 international meddling, of "yellow journalism," 
 demagogic appeals to passion and prejudice; inten- 
 sifying bitterness and strife between capital and la- 
 bor, the visionary theories, intemperate utterances, 
 overzealous and unsupportable charges against pub- 
 lic persons and corporations by irrational, impetuous 
 and often unscrupulous persons, who through some 
 adventitious, circumlocutions manner have forced 
 themselves into a position of prominence and author- 
 ity among the people. Through the greed and rapa- 
 cious avarice of certain American white men, who 
 in plundering the Indian and despoiling the Negro 
 has been whetted an appetite blinding such white 
 men to every principle of justice and honor, hurry- 
 ing the nation on to a fearful cataclysm.
 
 Clje Conflict 
 
 As in the past the Negro as the nation's loyal de- 
 fender will be needed in the not distant future. 
 
 The people of enlightened Japan are not so blind 
 as not to see that it the humblest of their race is 
 discriminated against on account of his race it will 
 only be a question of time when all their race alike 
 will be discriminated against. 
 
 Personal interest, where loss of liberty is threat- 
 ened, compels men sometimes to form strange alli- 
 ances, thus history records intrigues between indi- 
 viduals of one nation with the government of another 
 where it is made possible for a weak and despised 
 government by outside financial aid and information 
 to humble, if not overthrow, a stronger and more 
 self-confident government. 
 
 To-day there are numerous persons whose indi- 
 vidual millions alone could finance a war of greater 
 magnitude than the modern filibustering expeditions 
 promoted for commercial supremacy and the ex- 
 ploitation of peoples in the islands south and west 
 of the United States and in Africa and China. 
 
 Blood may be "thicker than water," and interna- 
 tional marriages may multiply, but the honest pat- 
 riotic American statesman will still have reason to 
 anticipate a clash of interest as long as John Bull at 
 Fort Sarna and Uncle Sam at Fort Huron and else- 
 where along the great lakes and Canadian border 
 glare at each other through cannon's mouth, with 
 Mexico and Brazil to the south of us. 
 
 Are we as a nation not a little too selfish in our 
 consciousness ? 
 
 Would-be American statesmen may bluff and blow, 
 we may write as we will, but a "jingo" diplomacy 
 cannot forever stave off the ultimate issue. "As we 
 sow, so shall we reap," "Laws of changeless justice 
 binds," etc. Remember. . . 
 114
 
 e Conflict 
 
 Like a Colossus we have spradded out over Ha- 
 waii, Porto Rico, the Philippines, Santo Domingo 
 and Cuba, and yet we have troubles of our own. 
 
 To the real thoughtful our position is as the dog 
 with the bone, and there is such a thing as raising the 
 devil and not being able to put him down. 
 
 The real Cuban the numerical people in that isl- 
 and are not uninformed of the crafty manner with 
 which the white race of America has dealt with the 
 Indian and Negro of America and the dark people 
 of Hawaii and the Philippines, and yet it is known 
 that the ostrich sticks its head in the ground imagin- 
 ing its entire body to be hidden. 
 
 The American government in its "world power" 
 policy has planted its foot and flag in parts remote, 
 yet not adequately defended, while our domestic re- 
 lations are not of the most assuring, with a vanishing 
 hope for a betterment while Tillman, Vardaman, 
 Smith, Davis, Dixon, Graves, the wild Texan Slay- 
 den and other blatant demagogues continue their 
 preachments among us. Yes, "We are marching to 
 fate abreast." 
 
 The contest between right and wrong is eternal. 
 
 Let the American white race deal justly with all 
 men, the Indian and Negro races included, and there 
 is no problem on this continent. Then shall we be 
 strong to face the world, otherwise we shall fall 
 when we think we are strong. 
 
 We all know the Southerner like a spoiled pam- 
 pered child has been made intolerant through his long 
 sway of undisputed power over the former slave, and 
 now that the Negro is free to dispose of his labor as 
 best conserves his own interest is free to change 
 in the exercise of his choice for an employer who 
 exhibits the most humane consideration for his ser- 
 vices. Thus the Southerner considers the new or
 
 C!) e Conflict 
 
 young generation of Negroes impertinent when they 
 dare to exhibit a will of their own, be it ever so 
 much in the right. 
 
 The white Southerner has said it, and believes 
 that a "Negro has no rights that a white man is 
 bound to respect. 
 
 But ah, Mr. Southerner, the day of "Marse John" 
 and "Miss Sue" is gone forever. It was written at 
 Appomattox when Lee humiliatingly laid off his 
 sword, and as a bird of plumage strutted no longer. 
 This may stick in your "crop," but you can't get 
 over it, so you had as well run along, and be a good 
 little baby. 
 
 Your naughty intolerance, bigotry and narrov/ 
 prejudice has long held back the full development 
 of the beautiful southland, and now it cannot be 
 that the North, the East and the West will recede 
 to the barbaric civilization of the South, and thus 
 America become a corrupting menace to all the na- 
 tions of the earth? 
 
 If so, then the world goes back to beastly anar- 
 chism, though rich in material wealth. 
 
 When the South has substituted the Negro laborers 
 for alien laborers, or black for white labor, will 
 Southern white men be more just and tolerant to 
 their imported laborers? 
 
 From all accounts it does not appear so; as for 
 instance, white peonage in Georgia, in Florida and 
 elsewhere in the South, and bloodshed in Louisiana 
 some years ago when Italian laborers resisted being 
 reduced to the Southern ideas concerning laborers. 
 
 Again, I ask, is the world through the unbrotherly 
 greed of mankind by legislative and treaty enact- 
 ments to be made a prison restricting people in their 
 desire to travel from one place to another, from one 
 country to another; excepting persons of leisure or 
 116
 
 Cfce Conflict 
 
 such as can afiord to loaf because of their wealth ? 
 
 I see developing a false and dangerous Politico- 
 Industrial Economy. 
 
 May it not be possible that other governments are 
 as astute in diplomacy as our great government? 
 
 In our "World Power" tour it would appear the 
 part of wisdom to make home secure before ventur- 
 ing into new fields, weakening by spreading ; leaving 
 weak places undefended as an opening for the enemy 
 when we have become too deeply enmeshed to retrace 
 our steps then, all is lost. 
 
 Yea, "pride goeth before a fall." 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 After being forcibly and by stealth brought from 
 his native land by the white man two hundred and 
 forty-seven years ago, the Negro was in America 
 subjected to a degradation the like of which never 
 before distressed any human soul, and yet, though 
 saturated with his heart's blood, the hounds of Hell in 
 human guise pursue him with malignant hate, though 
 he never did them wrong or harm. Then is there 
 not a cause that he should be defended? Let Christ, 
 let the human heart, yea, let all the angelic host that 
 mortal mind has capacity to conceive of, answer. The 
 timid may falter, and demons may howl, but while 
 more than ten millions of God-created souls are 
 hounded, caricatured, misrepresented, and savagely 
 slaughtered, and no power seeming able to call a halt, 
 can it be conceived that any righteous man or woman 
 would cry halt when, as in this book, I attempt to 
 throw my hand into the throat of the assassins of a 
 race of unoffending, patriotic, magnanimous people. 
 
 "Woe to him by whom the offence cometh" is 
 God's edict. 
 
 117
 
 CHe Conflict 
 
 Forty-eight years* ago, when the shackles were 
 struck from the Negro, he stood without a knowledge 
 of letters, without money a poor, trembling, quak- 
 ing, human outcast, clothed with more than twenty- 
 four hundred years of ignorance, vice, superstition, 
 fanaticism and other attendant evils ; confronted by 
 a gigantic combination of wealth, intelligence and 
 statesmanship of a mighty confederacy, combined to 
 hold him down and if possible crush him out, but 
 by Northern philanthropy, supplemented by his own 
 endeavor, the seed of liberty and intelligence has 
 been deeply sown and is now bearing fruit, and no 
 power in the universe can check the swelling tide. 
 He is waxing into a mighty race beneath the giant 
 upas-like tree of oppression. The world hears afar 
 off the muffled, thunderous, reverberation of the on- 
 ward march of a mighty rival in good and righteous 
 endeavor. 
 
 Yea, he is coming over the hills of ignorance and 
 oppression, and demonstrating to the ill-informed 
 world that: 
 
 "Merit is the source of life, 
 
 Through the fiercest earthly strife. 
 That sterling merit brings him safe, 
 
 Whom the gods such a boon vouchsafes. 
 That first since Africa was known 
 
 Many a nation 's overthrown, 
 In oblivion's sea has died, 
 
 All unfit to stem the tide. 
 Thus, since Africa arose, 
 Her success confounds her foes. 
 Watchful, faithful, true and pure, 
 She must evermore endure." 
 118
 
 Cfje Conflict 
 
 "What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted? 
 Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just, 
 And he but naked, though locked up in steel, 
 Whose conscience is with injustice corrupted." 
 
 Oh, will not the white man of America deal justly ! 
 
 [The End] 
 
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