H. T. KEALING.
fortune-telling tn
h!stqr\^^
H. T. KEALING,
Editor A. M. E. Review.
SECOND EliIUON—REVI^ED.
PUFUSHED AT
631 1'INK STREET, PHILADELriXIA, PENNA.
1900.
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
BY H. X. KEALING.
It is hoped that none will
Explanation of Subject, so far misread my subject
as to suppose I intend
herein to ask any portion of their valuable time to
consider that foolish pretense to prophetic power
which is claimed for Gypsies, seventh sons, and
fakirs who make their living by humbugging foolish
men and simple women. Such is no part of my pur-
' pose. I wish to consider the tendency and practice
of men in all ages to predict the future rank and
greatness of a nation as it appears from time to
time above the horizon of history. I might have
called my subject "Predictions'' or "Prophecies" in
history, either word containing the essential idea
of foretelling, but preferred the word "Fortune-
4
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
telling" in order that the failure of that foretelling
might be implied in the title as well.
There is a strain of super-
The Universal Vein stition in us all, one class
of Superstition. may laugh at the signs and
omens of another, but these
in turn will be found to cherish some sign, too. The
derision we heap upon the conjurer and the vou-dou,
with their little flannel bag containing red pepper,
a lizard tail, a snake head and a man's little finger-
bone, can sometimes be heaped upon us when our
nose itches, the rooster crows in the door, when 13
persons sit down together, or when we begin a jour¬
ney on Friday, to say nothing of turning back after
the journey is begun.
A gentleman once said to an old man on his farm,
"I am surprised that Uncle Henry is foolish enough
to believe there's luck in the left fore-foot of a rabbit,
there's nothing in that." "Jis so, sah," said the old
man, "I been tellin' him dat all de time. Dey ain't
nothin' in de lef' fore-foot; it's de lef' hin'-foot, sah,
of a cross-eyed graveyard rabbit, sah 1"
And if facts were known, it would often be found
5
that many who laugh at the signs of others do not
repudiate signs themselves, but prefer their own.
But I would rescue
The Failure of Predictions, this discussion from
all consideration of
these superstitions, and limit it to those attempted
scientific prognostications of learned men who have
given valuable thought to the world. A careful sur¬
vey of human history will show that the sages of the
predominant peoples of any age have tried, from a
study of the phenomena of civilization about them,
to fix upon the future course their own and subordi¬
nate peoples would run, the heights they would at¬
tain, and the ultimate relativity of the several peo¬
ples in the scale of civilization for all time to come.
In not one single instance of completed record have
these predictions proven true, from the vauntings
of that Eastern despot, ruler of the world, who
asked, "Is not this great Babylon which I have built
by the might of my power?" to the all-conquering
Roman, who revealed his mind in calling his capital
"the Eternal City."
6
I once saw a gentleman set
The Little Dog and out in a buggy accompanied
His Master. by his little dog, to visit
some place. The dog, be¬
lieving he knew the course and the intended end of
the journey, ran on ahead several blocks, but when
he looked back, the master was turning an unexpect¬
ed corner, and the dog was obliged to retrace his
steps. Overtaking his master, he ran on ahead a
second time supposing that now, at least, he knew
the direction intended, but only to have to return a
second time, and, indeed, a third time. Now, the
streets away from which the man turned were
broader and fairer than those into which he turned,
and the dog apparently showed better judgment
in selecting the route than his master, but the con¬
trary was really true, for the dog had misunder¬
stood tile purpose of the master.
The broad streets were those upon which hun¬
dreds of his master's friends were driving and
it seemed the natural way for him to go also;
but when finally the ill-paved narrow route he really
took brought him into a new district of the city
where finer houses than any along the paved ave¬
nues were going up, where finer lawns were being
*T
f
sodded, and ampler grounds laid out, it was seen
that the higher intelligence which had thwarted and
disappointed the lower was vindicated in its course.
This, I take it, is a complete illustration of what
God does among nations. Sociologists, philoso¬
phers, and savants points out the ways of nations
along the magnificent pathways and avenues already
thrown up by an anterior civilization, only to find
that God has guided them by a way never before
traveled, for He, too, has new districts to be devel¬
oped, new ways to be paved, and the philosopher
finds, like the little dog, that he must retrace his
steps and revise his prognostications to be at one
with the Master Mind.
Yet, however variant the types, civilization has
never gone backward. The overrulings of a benefi¬
cent Providence have pushed the race ever onward
—not always, indeed, the same nationality through
the whole course; not always the same ideals, but
still the human race, in new combination, in new
territory, in new purpose. Reverting to the figure
just used, sometimes the horse in the buggy may
assert his own will and refuse to turn the way the
master directs; he must then be supplanted by one
more tractable. Perhaps the horse at some stage
$ FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
of the journey may lose faith in his master's direct¬
ing power, or feel too exuberant from pampering and
ru« away, breaking up the buggy. The master must
then get both a new horse and a stronger buggy.
Any and all of these things astonish the little dog.
He had no plan in his mind for anything except the
trip in safety as he wished it. Thus refractory na¬
tions have been supplanted by tractable ones which
would go the Master's way; or reckless nations
which have gone wild and wrecked their civilization,
have had to see a new nation lead on to a higher
and better civilization than theirs.
When Patrick Henry said he
The Past No Guide. knew of no way to judge the
future but by the past, he
gained the consent of thoughtful men everywhere;
but, as a matter of fact, the greatest misjudgments
men have ever made have been based upon the past.
They seem to forget that the moment new and un¬
known manifestations cease, progress turns upon
itself and a circle is begun; but so teaches the lesson
of the ages. Thus each civilization has proclaimed
itself the abiding one, and the leading people have
always justified their belief in the permanence of
9
their own primacy. They ask, What have these in¬
feriors following in my train ever done in the past
to j ustify their hope of a higher place than they now
hold? Wrapped in the grasp of these preconcep¬
tions, the course and meaning of the events of every
century have been ticketed in all sincerity with a
false, though plausible, significance by contemporary
philosophers, and the real bearings not seen till
new generations looked back from their places mid¬
way in the next century. Nor is this very strange.
The man overboard buffeting with the waves is the
last one to know that the storm is abating. He is
too much in it to note any change that does not
actually pluck him out of the water.
Suppose we briefly notice a few of the things in
history which men have seen and misinterpreted.
In 675 B. C., when Esar-
Some Instances Haddon, king of As-
©f Unfulfilled Prediction, syria, conquered Egypt,
it seemed to him that
the star of Assyrian ascendancy had risen never to
set; to Egypt, it seemed that civilization (for
hers was the highest of the time) went down:
into eternal night. Both were wrong. Assyrian
IO
ascendency was a momentary thing, and Egyp¬
tian civilization was not lost. It was God's way
of passing it through Persia into Greece. It
was transplanting the tree
Assyria and Egypt, from the tropical habitat of
Asia and Africa, favorable to
great physical development, into the keener climate
of Europe conducive to stronger and higher nervous
development. The Luxors and Ivarnacs were the
growths of a physical civilization; Greece was mind
and soul. And when Rome, brawny, quarreling,
fighting Rome, replaced the click of a Phidias' ham¬
mer with the clang of a Caesar's spear and shield, if
there ever was reversion in civilization, here it was;
but it really was the conquest of will over sentiment,
the prevailing of action over meditation. Greece
could never have fought a Gallic War nor quelled a
British yeomanry. What did Alaric and his hordes
of blood-drinking Barbarians rep-
Rome and resent to the Romans when these
the Barbarians, savages overran the paved streets
and gazed in contempt upon the
marble baths of that great people. Simpfy and
solely destruction, savagery and ignorance un¬
speakable. The very Barbarians themselves saw no
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY. II
other meaning than more room for themselves and
the destruction of effeminacy and artificiality from
the earth. But it really meant England, France,
Greater Germany,—in short, Western Europe. It
meant Charlemagne, Columbus, America. It meant
the Christian religion, the dignity of the common
people. It meant the Reformation, the steamship
and world communication, the railroad and interior
development, the telegraph and annihilation of dis¬
tance. All these and more. But who saw it then?
Let us turn to a few important mind movements
that were misjudged either in what it was thought
they would do or destroy.
When Peter the Hermet aroused
The Crusades, the whole Western world to go to
the Holy Land to rescue it from
the Mohammedan unbeliever, the nations and the
Church saw in it God's will and their sure success.
But the seven Crusades, covering nearly two hund¬
red years, left the land still in the hands of the Mo¬
hammedans. The Saracens and Christians agreed
in believing the Crusades a failure. They did not
see what was accomplished. We do. The rude
European soldiers were brought into contact with a
12 FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
learning so far above any in their lands that they
were astounded. They brought back Arabian alge¬
bra, alchemy, alcohol, astrology, and a hundred
civilized arts to which Europe had been a stranger.
They came in contact with the corruption of the
Roman hierarchy and were absolved from their
superstitious fears, so that bound up in those
Crusades were both the English universities and
the German Reformation.
The Dark Ages were read as
The Dark Ages, the end of civilization. They
were the brooding time, in fact.
It was then that human thought was hibernating
after the exhaustion of three thousand years of
physical ideals, preparatory to the erection of new
political and philosophical ones.
The French Revolution did not de-
The French stroy all government, as it seemed
Revolution, to threaten in its mad struggle for
liberty from all law and religion,
nor did Napoleon destroy all freedom in his nation-
chaining career. They gave the world a republic in¬
stead of anarchy or despotism, and in the pitting of
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
r3
the individualistic ideal of Anglo-Saxon against the
communistic one of Latin, they peipetuated liberty
aiid expansion of wealth throughout the world.
They sounded the death-knell of slavery and made
sure the foundations of the growing American re¬
public.
Peter the Great showed a shrewd understanding
of the contradictions of apparent truths when, after
repeated defeats by Charles XII, of Sweden, he said,
"It is all right. He is simply teaching me how to
whip him." So it was.
Let us for a moment
Evolution and Religion, bring these reflections
nearer home. When
Evolution was first proclaimed, it seemed to presage
the end of the Bible as authority in religion. Both
Christian and infidel so regarded it.
It really broke the bands of an unscientific age and
released ecclesiastical learning from dogma. The
Sabbath-school teacher knows more arguments for
the authenticity and authority of the Bible to-day
than theologians in the time of Jonathan Edwards.
Higher criticism is confronted by archaeology, and
a Harper met by a Sayce!
14
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORV.
The American Civil War was
The American fought to destroy the doctrine of
Civil War. States' Rights. Both the North
and the South believed that the
fate of that issue was involved. The contest began
between Jefferson and Hamilton. But though the
North won, States' Rights is the accepted doctrine
of the nation still. A new issue not intended was
settled—the question of slavery. Was the war then
a failure? Not so; men are beginning to see that a
nation cannot be more righteous than its public con¬
science, and the onus of moral responsibility has
been put upon each individual rather than upon the
government. This, of course, gives lawless ele¬
ments power to control where they exist, but acts
powerfully to stamp out their existence. The con¬
stant appeal to civilization, humanity and religion is
not fruitless. Does any one suppose that under the
mailed hand of military occupancy in the Southern
States free schools would flourish by the voluntary
jactijon and will of the people as they do under local
self-government ?
We might easily multiply instances tending to
show that man has made poor headway in under¬
standing the meaning of national and social phe-
FORTUNE-TEI.LING IN HISTORY.
nomena and in predicting the outcome of a move¬
ment. Let us now note a few of the reasons.
It is not because there is not a
Some Reasons for philosophy of history. If hu-
Failure. man nature is essentially a
constant quantity, as all believe,
knowing the qualities to be affected and the powers
that affect them, we can tell what action will come,
or be attempted, under a certain set of circum¬
stances. This is true of individuals. It is also true
of masses, which are but congregated individuals;
but in this case the calculation must not only take
into consideration each individual, but such modi¬
fications of self-manifestation as arise from his rela¬
tion to all the others. When we pause to reflect
that, though human nature is one, it is exceedingly
difficult to know, a difficulty, too, multiplied in geo¬
metric ratio in a social organism, we can begin to
see the magnitude of the problems. A certain man
who owed a debt promised to bring a load of hay
to his creditor in payment. But when he got to
town, instead of doing as he promised, he sold the
hay for cash to another man. The creditor, meeting
him, said, "Didn't you promise to bring me that
j6 fortune-telling in history.
hay?" "Yes, sir." "Well, you didn't do it, did you?"
"No, sir." "Well, you lied, didn't you?" "Yes, sir."
"What made you do it?" "Well, I don't know, boss,
cep'en I ain't de man I took myself to be." Most of
us find that difficulty in trying to read human nature.
We find we are not the men we take ourselves to be.
First, one of the reasons for
National Egotism, failure in prophecy is that each
nation leading in any civiliza¬
tion is intensely egotistic. It is hard to see that its
greatness comes out of the tomb of a preceding
civilization. 'Tis true, other people have perished
in the midst of their greatness, but we always think
we see their mistake and will not repeat it. Just as
though there are not other mistakes for new condi¬
tions! Greece, Rome, Italy, Spain, Austria, Scan¬
dinavia, each in turn believed it had the torch for¬
ever. Even Turkey once saw visions of undying
power and universal empire. It is hard to convince
a man in the full tide of health and happiness that
he will die.
Secondly, it is hard to see in any people more than
it has already given indication of. For this reason
leading nations are apt to be supercilious with small
FORTUNJE-TELLING IN HISTORY. 17
ones and require of them a sign, and as no people
can prove what is in them before the time of proof,
they are referred to their eventless past and told to
stand aside. Japan is the most recent instance of
unexpected development. Anglo-Saxon supremacy
is not through rubbing its eyes yet. England, Ger¬
many, Spain, France, Russia, are further instances
of States to which, in their infancy, first-class power
and importance were thought impossible. What
was the opinion the Roman had of the Gaul and
Briton? and what thought the Norman of the Sax¬
on? Who saw in Russia over two centuries ago the
coming great power of the world? Do men even
now concede to Japan possible equality with the
Western civilization? On the contrary, we admit
that it has shown wonderful growth and cleverness,
but we think of this as compared with Asiatic civil¬
ization, that of stagnant China especially.
Thirdly, men assume the
Assumption of continuation of existing
Continuing Conditions, conditions and make these
the basis of their calcula¬
tions. Yet it is strange that they should. Migration
to new lands and climates, with the attendant
18 FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
changes of food, habit and labor, discovery of new
natural materials, new control of natural powers,
inventions doubling power and comfort and giving
more leisure, would seem to be sufficient sugges¬
tions to man of a constantly changing set of condi¬
tions, and a consequent change of positions among
peoples; but he is slow to apply the lesson to his
own times and contemporaries. To glance at the
most patent case in point: We have said that the
Crusades revealed to Western Europe a civilization
and knowledge far in advance of its own, and for
many years it seemed that the feudal constitution of
European civilization was antagonistic to the de¬
velopment of learning. But in the fifteenth century
printing was invented, and Europe at once forged
ahead of Asia Minor and has held the pre-eminence
ever since. Look at the wonderful commercial
operations of the present day, one firm now fre¬
quently doubling the largest transactions of that
former Croesus of Commerce, the East India Com¬
pany. Only a few weeks ago Trusts were incorpor¬
ated in New Jersey to the amount of one billion and
a quarter of dollars. These things are the legiti¬
mate response to Arkwright's loom, Whitney's gin,
Morse's telegraph and Fulton's steamboat. More
!9
than that, history has been made and modified by
these same changes in conditions and environments.
Gunpowder is the cause of an open China and a
progressive Japan; the locomotive and the McCor-
mick reaper have given us an aroused Russia. The
cotton-gin gave impetus and untold magnitude to
human slavery. The loom gave emancipation again.
In fact, we begin to awaken to the truth somewhat
appalling, if it were not for a God behind it all, that
we are being made without our will and pulled in
an unknown direction by the steeds which we have
boasted of harnessing, but which seem to have taken
the bits in their teeth. You remember the story in
the Arabian Nights, where the fisherman, casting
in his net, brought up a copper kettle which he un¬
covered to explore its contents. Immediately, a
mist began to arise from it till it assumed the form
of a gigantic man, who in a terrible voice bade the
fisherman prepare for death. When the poor fellow
asked why, the giant explained that he had been
confined in that kettle by order of King Solomon for
many years. From time to time he had promised
immense rewards to the one who would release him,
but at last, none coming, in exasperation he had
sworn to kill the first one who set him free. The
2 O
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
unfortunate fisherman was that person. So it would
seem to be with us to-day. We seem not only in
prospect of involuntary expansion, but of certain
death by the exasperation of the great forces so long
bound down, but which modern science and inven¬
tion, under Christianity, are releasing upon us. Our
great Trusts and the rampant spirit of immoral com¬
mercialism threatens our existence more and more
every day. Our foretellers in history can, there¬
fore, no longer forecast from old conditions, or even
depend on the present ones, and having done so is
the cause of their discomfiture to-day.
Fourthly, we forget that
Forgetfulness of Force each power shown is
of New Powers. called forth by the con¬
dition that needs it, and
each new condition creates its own spirit, if not
actually new powers. Under ordinary circum¬
stances things retain their identity and qualities, but
under stress of a certain kind of vitalized contact
we may get a people very different from the original
stock and thus a new force appears upon the scene.
Hydrogen and oxygen would be in the same vessel
a century and still be hydrogen and oxygen; but
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
21
pass an electric spark into the vessel and we have
water formed at once. So nations long inert and
barbarous, by the vivifying power of an outer civil¬
ization sometimes take on entirely new qualities and
become active factors in the world's progress. This
is what actually occurred to make England the great
power she is. Who would suppose from any evi¬
dence extant, outside of history, that the German
is the same stock as the Englishman ? So it is, how¬
ever; yet one cannot understand the other speak
even, and their ideas of government and colonizing
are diametrically opposite. In one, popular power
is withheld as far as possible and the divine right of
kings still lags superfluous on the stage; in the other,
popular government is the most cherished part of
administration, and it is a kingdom by courtesy. Nay,
the contrast is still greater between America and
Germany. Who can tell what Japan and China may
become under the inspiration of that sanguine West¬
ern civilization that now begins to permeate their
mummied veins? Who can tell what will be the
next nation to come forth from the womb of time?
Will it be an African nation, one of the tardy bar¬
barous interior Asiatic peoples, or some strong agri¬
cultural little republic Switzerland—who will
prophesy?
22
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORV.
Fifthly, men use the same
Using Old Chronology chronology in estimating
to Measure Rate national growth now that
of Growth. they used in the centuries
before Christ; but it re¬
quires only a* little thought to see that days now do
the deeds of years, and years of centuries long ago.
Rome took two thousand years to become a power:
England took a thousand years; but young America
was in the full tide of national greatness when she
was a hundred; and most wonderful of all, Japan,
counting only thirty years since she was thrilled by
the spark, is teaching our mathematics, using our
railroads, operating our machinery, sending mes¬
sages over our telegraphs, managing our gun-boats
and whipping with our cannon. She is wearing ouj
clothes, competing with our commerce and hedging
with our diplomacy. American carpets are on her
floors, our standards enter into her monetary system,
and popular government and legislative processes
rule. Have we begun to realize that it only takes a
few years now to make a world-power? Men not
only move faster and carry more things, better made,
in this age of steam and electricity, but they think
faster, think better, follow thought by action sooner,
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
23
and thus bring forth more fruit than in the days of
the "one-hoss shay" and the ox-cart. Tennyson's
lines, "Better a day in Europe than a cycle in
Cathay," will soon be an anachronism, for Cathay
bids fair to live its cycle in a European day.
Sixthly, in predicting the career
Hidden Forces, of nations, we are apt to give an
accidental and adventitious oc¬
currence the weight of one produced by long contin¬
ued, though hidden, causes, or a phenomenon may
be referred to the wrong cause. For instance, M.
Demolins, in discussing the causes for France's de¬
cline, finds it not in the things to which men have
generally attributed it, but in the false system of
education in France, which prepares boys to get
office and stay at home, rather than for the struggle
for existence in the great, wide, inviting outside
world which the English are taking to themselves.
Seventhly, it is next to im-
Unknown Ancestral possible to provide, in a fore-
Factors. cast of a people's future
status, for the effect of the
undeveloped tendencies arising from unknown fac-
24 FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
tors in the ancestry. Our history of races and na¬
tions fs very imperfect. All we do know is that there
are no pure, unmixed people in the civilized world,
but what and how many elements enter into each,
no one can tell. Yet it is still true that "blood will
tell."
These seven difficulties, suggesting- possibly many
more, give some idea of the elements with which the
prophet or foreteller must deal in order to forecast
the horoscope of any people. It is much easier to
take things as they are and predict the perpetuity
of the nation then in the ascendant, for this method
has the advantage to him who is not concerned
about posthumous fame, that it will make him popu¬
lar in life and no one of those who exalt him will be
living- to witness the failure of his prophecy.
I speak here to an American
What is Civilization? audience, and it is well
known that the presence in
large numbers of the Negro has given rise to two
classes of inquiry: (i) What is to become of the
nation through its dealings with these people? and
(2) What degree of civilization and capacity to de¬
velop will they show in the years to come? This,
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
as l have intimated, is a difficult inquiry under any
circumstances, owing to the many and complicated
considerations which affect the answer; but it is
especially so when we consider that a large class of
people who contribute to the judgment will not hear
the evidence to be had, or will not eliminate their
predilections from the verdict they are asked to
make up. In asking what part the Negro is to con¬
tribute to American civilization, it is pertinent to
inquire of what that civilization consists. And this
is not such a simple inquiry as sciolists are wont to
believe. Guizot has given this matter of civilization
much study, and his definition, largely accepted and
quoted throughout the world of
Two Elements, scholars, divides it into two parts
or elements, the social or associat¬
ed development, or life, of a nation; and the moral
life or development of the individuals forming that
nation. One may exist in great perfection without
the other. I sec in a window a rug of beautiful fig¬
ure, the colors harmonizing pertectly, the design is
elegant and chaste, but on near approach, I find that
it is made of jute, or some other very coarse material.
Thus are nations constituted. The pattern of their
civil and social institutions may be worthy of admir¬
ation, but the constituent elements, the units, the
26
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
individual quality of the men of that nation, may be
very coarse and crude; or, vice versa, the social and
civil structure may be loose or repellant, but its
units well developed.
Rome was an instance of
Two Instances of the first—a well-ordered
Defective Civilization, government of a people of
low moral development;
while Palestine was an instance of the latter—a poor
civil organism made up of people highly developed
in the individual. Now, it is clear there can be no
perfect civilization in the absence of either civil or
personal excellence. In a weak civil association, the
ends of social existence, of commerce, and of inven¬
tion will be but poorly met. In an inferior develop¬
ment of personal morality and conscience, the home,
the family, virtue, honor and regard for others, will
be swallowed up in a grinding organism that lives
by preying upon the weak and unprotected. With
both, we have a happy, honorable, virtuous and
high-minded people, full of vigor, organic power
and enterprise, a great nation within and without.
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
27
Can xne encomiums which
Are We Civilized? have been "heaped upon our
form of government, its enter¬
prise and invincibility, be extended to praise of its
units as moral factors ? or is it not true that there is
not a uniform development in all sections of the
nobler qualities of the inner life? What can disre¬
gard of law and order mean but a low moral state
among the people who endure it? A very few
moments' thought will show that the standard of
moral sentiment is of varying elevation in the differ¬
ent sections of the country. New England has
long been noted for its high regard of the virtues,
and for human life and happiness. And while the
pouring of a constant stream of foreign and lower
elements has carried in, to some extent, a deteriora¬
tion, it is still true that relatively New England re¬
mains the type of the best American civilization.
Here is the testimony on this point given by Rev.
Dr. Steele, editor of the Rambler, a Southern man:
"In all the elements of a high civilization, industrial,
intellectual, and moral, New England is a century
ahead of the South." The standard in the West is
lower, owing to the primitive conditions that pre¬
vailed in the conquering of that region, as well as to
28
the immense influx of foreign elements. It should
be remembered that the Western people were mainly
young emigrants full of the radical and vital ten¬
dencies of youth unrestrained by the counsel, ex¬
perience and conservatism of their aged sires in the
East, lacking largely the offices of religion and set¬
tling for an avowedly sordid purpose. The South
has in some respects the lowest standard of all.
Burdened by a heritage of slavery that debauched
both master and slave; fixing degrees to man's obli¬
gations to his fellow by a system of color discrimi¬
nations ; nay, denying to some the very claims of
common humanity; forced to use cruelty and op¬
pression to suppress resistance; permitting the illicit
commerce of the opposite sexes of the two races,
thus bringing into existence the mulatto; covered
with a pall of ignorance and superstition in the slave
and paralyzed in its industries and development by
the indolence and contempt for labor in the whites,
what other conditions could there be except a low
condition of moral sentiment, cheapness of life,
ready resort to deadly weapons, pride of birth that
spurned honest toil, and the substitution of personal
vengeance for legal punishment.
29
It will be seen, therefore, that
Deficient in Both not only is the personal element
Elements. of real civilization among us
lower than one would expect
from an observation of our institutions, laws, and
material grandeur, but a more careful study of these
institutions themselves will reveal inherent struc¬
tural weakness in the social fabric very surprising
to those who have been accustomed to vaunt the
perfection of the work of the fathers; for notwith¬
standing the admitted slowness of this nation to
protect its citizens abroad, leading often to insult
from inferior powers, we have the more remarkable
spectacle of its absolutely asserting constitutional
inability to protect them at home. If there is a prop¬
osition stronger than the one that a government's
first duty is to protect those who give it allegiance
and life, then that other proposition is also the state¬
ment of the nation's weakness. The statement that
one citizen may abuse or abridge the rights of an¬
other, unless a third citizen officially request that the
injustice be stopped, seems little short of monstrous
when we consider the purpose of government; and
the other proportion that a foreigner is without
national protection among us, is about as bad. Yet
3°
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
both of these are decided to be good law. If any¬
thing could greater ridicule to such a govern¬
ment, it is the ox,—- proposition, also accounted good
law, that my letter or my express package can be
guarded by all the armed force of the nation, the
very letter perhaps that goes to ask for the protec¬
tion which its answer will refuse to give me, the
writer. If our Constitution so teaches, what is the
objection to so amending it that the nation might
protect the man who helps to make the nation ?
But to return to our fortune-tellers. Our litera¬
ture is not wanting in those who have attempted to
foretell the future place of our own country among the
nations, but we find more to discredit the penetration
of these seers than to establish forecasting as a science
based up fixed principles.
Every great people enters upon
Some Accepted such a study with certain assump-
Fictions. tions complimentary to its own
qualities of endurance and con¬
quest ; certain assumptions as to climatic effect which
have been put forward by such eminent authority
and accepted so universally that one who values his
reputation for scholarship and balance will require
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
31
courage to question them. Let us examine one or
two of these assumptions.
It is generally accepted that man-
The Warm kind began in the warm regions
Climate Fiction, of the earth where the conditions
of existence are easier, but that
the northward movement of the race was absolutely
necessary to the development of civilization; that
nations in warm regions must of necessity be in¬
ferior to dwellers further north. But how can we
reconcile this view with the fact that the subtlest
philosophy, the sublimest religions, the earliest
science, the truest sculpture, the greatest masters
in music and painting, and some of the greatest
poets and the greatest generals, have all come from
the regions pronounced anathema to civilization.
What shall we say of Greece? If it be replied that
her civilization was the best of ihe time before the
Western civilization was born, we answer: Benja¬
min Kidd says that in respect to the mental caliber
of isolated minds like Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, or
Phidias, and in the mental average of the whole
people, the Greeks seemed to have surpassed us
(Anglo-Saxons). Mr. Lecky, in his History of
32
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
European Morals, says that in philosophy, poetry
of every description, in written and spoken elo¬
quence, in statesmanship, in sculpture, in painting,
and probably in music, the Greeks attained almost
or altogether the highest limits of human perfection.
Mr. Galton, a scientist of authority in these matters,
says that the ablest race of whom history tells is
unquestionably the Greeics, that we have no men to
put by the side of Socrates and Phidias, and that the
millions of Europe breeding for two thousand years
have never produced their equals. He further states
that the Athenian race was really two grades higher
in ability than our own. These people belonged to
the warm peninsula of Europe. But the Grecians
are not all that challenge the correctness of the ac¬
cepted theory. The warmer regions are to be credit¬
ed with Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Mohammed,
Charles V. of Spain, Columbus, Galileo, Dante,
Tasso, Napoleon, Michael Angelo, Titian, Murillo,
Cicero, Demosthenes, Archimedes and a score of
scarcely lesser lights in all the avenues of life whose
names cannot be matched in our history. The south¬
ern countries, Italy and Spain, have led in civiliza¬
tion even in the days of Anglo-Saxon organized and
civilized government. Germany, Holland and Bel-
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
33
gium owned their sway. Algebra began with the
Arabians. The very etymology of the world is Ori¬
ental. Astronomy began with Egypt. We haive
added nothing to poetry and to art, and little to
literature. In the light of these facts, the climate
theory is somewhat in need of repair.
Another popular misconcep-
The Aryan Moral tion is that the highest
Supremacy Fiction, moral and religious systems
belong to the Anglo-Saxon,
at least, to the Aryan peoples. But what becomes
of such a claim in the face of the fact that the Aryan,
or Indo-European, people have given rise to none
of these, neither Christianity, Mohammedanism, nor
Confucianism; Buddhism, the most destructive to
human progress of any of them, alone excepted. All
these have come from Semitic and not Japhetic peo¬
ples, the Jews, the Arabians, and the Chinese. West¬
ern Aryans have no surviving religion. The Druids
are all gone. Mythology is the burden of the child's
story-book.
34
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
Again, it is generally believed
The Brain that the intellectual ability va-
Capacity Fiction, ries as the brain capacity of the
cranium, but this is not true
either. Professor Quatrefages, the eminent French
scientist, says that by such a test the Troglodytes
found in the caves would be superior to the best of
modern races; that the intellectual faculties are to
a great or less extent independent of the volume of
the brain. A little independent investigation on our
own part concerning the men about us who are most
able, will confirm this view also.
But every one, we may very
The Inventive well suppose, would confidently
Genius Fiction, point to the inventions of the
Anglo-Saxon now as conclusive
proof of mental superiority. Here, at least, we say,
there can be no mistake. But Mr. Kidd has been at
great pains to puncture even this consolatory
thought, and he is ably supported in his view by
Mr. Edward Bellamy. Both agree that the greatest
achievements, inventions, and improvements of to-
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
day result from all the little items of knowledge
passing-through many generations of thinkers and
added to by each till the final idea brings the dis¬
covery to view. Mr. Kidd, in proof of this, says that
a large number of the most valuable discoveries have
had rival contemporaneous claimants for the honor,
mentioning Differential Calculus, Conservation of
Energy, Evolution, Interpretation of Hieroglyphics,
the Undulatory Theory of Light, the Steam Engine,
Spectrum Analysis, the telegraph and telephone.
Those conversant with the history of several of
these know that experiment and study began years
ago and came through many men, till the happy in¬
ventor put on the final idea, and we had the useful
invention. Take electricity as the most striking ex¬
ample of this inheritance of labors. We commonly
begin with Franklin's experiment with the kite,
though Frankiin himself had the idea given him;
but, beginning with him, we find not an idea lost,
but built upon by one and another, till a century
shows the arc light, the trolley, the automobile, the
dynamo in factories. The first step in these inven¬
tions was to acquaint one's self with all that others
had learned about the force and add experiment to
that knowledge till the full fruit was gathered. Mr.
36 FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
Gladstone joins the ranks of those who deny the in¬
tellectual superiority of this age, saying, "Develop¬
ment, no doubt, is a slow process, but I do not see
it at ail. I do not think that we are stronger, but
weaker, than the men of the Middle Ages."
There is still another fiction
The Anglo-Saxon that stands in the way of
Blood Fiction, that receptive attitude to¬
ward the true principles of
progress necessary to a correct foresight and in¬
sight. It is the fable of the miraculous qualities of
the Anglo-Saxon blood which cannot fail to over¬
ride all other strains. Now, I do not know, where we
are to go to find unmixed Anglo-Saxon blood. Cer¬
tainly not in England, for the intermixture of Gallic
from the Norman,, Celtic from the Irish, the Welsh
and the Scottish, with doubtless a strain of the Latin
through the Romans, has produced a blend that can
only be called Anglo-Saxon by a fiction of language,
the same as that which calls Dumas a Negro because
of a drop of African blood in his veins. Now, add
to this admixture of alien blood, Indian, Malay,
African and Mongolian, coming from England's
world-wide colonies, both from illicit commerce and
fortune-telling in history.
37
by cross-marriages, and the fiction of a pure Anglo-
Saxon blood has not much more left in it than
Colonel Ingersoll's famous hotel, which was weatfe-
er-beaten and deserted, but whose sign still swung
in the breeze proclaiming the legend of its halcyon
days, "Entertainment for Man and" Beast!" If this
is true of staid, conservative old England, what shall
we say of the American who, not content with the
blend as he brought it from across the sea, poured
into the pot pourri Spanish, French, German, Hun¬
garian, Pole, Swredish, Negro and Indian ingredients.
If it be agreed that the term Anglo-Saxon is used
for the sake of brevity to cover the people of Eng¬
land and America regardless of the fact of blood,
we cannot well object,Except to say that its use is
unfortunate in that it selects a word having a real
and proper meaning to designate a fact not belong¬
ing to that proper meaning, and is, to that extent,
confusing and misleading. The real fact is, that the
resisting quality of some of the decried bloods is
more remarkable than the absorbing power shown
by the Anglo-Saxon; for a hundred years of contact
with American blood, language and institutions
have utterly failed to eradicate eithei the physical
characteristics or language of the Spaniards in Flor-
38
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
ida and Texas, of the French in Louisiana and Can¬
ada, though they accept and are proud of the title,
American citizen, thus reducing to the minimum the
conscious resistance. But there is another word to
be said in this connection. If it were granted that
Anglo-Saxon domination is indeed a matter of pure
blood, both England and America would rob their
boasted lineage of much that is greatest in their
world of achievement and statesmanship. From the
time of Cabot down to Disraeli and Gladstone, to
say nothing of her Carlysles, Burnses, Moores, Gold¬
smiths, and Rothschildses, men not of Saxon blood
have contributed the most glorious pages to English
history and literature. They were Anglo-Saxon only
by the fiction, not by blood. And the same is true
in America to an even greater degree. It will be
surprising how many of our greatest names have
other than Saxon origin. Probably Lincoln and
Grant are our strongest names to conjure with when
we would exalt the Anglo-Saxon strain in our his¬
tory. At least, this is true in our political history.
Demolins, in his great work on "Anglo-Saxon
Superiority: to What Is It Due?" seeks to segre¬
gate what in the two Anglo-Saxon countries belongs
to the other bloods, Celtic, Welsh and Norman. He
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
39
finds that the leading characteristic of the Anglo-
Saxon is attachment to agriculture, industries and
commerce, while the other strains just named run
to politics and the liberal professions. The Celts,
for instance, predominate in Ireland, in the Scotch
Highlands, Australian towns, and in New Zealand.
In America, politics is mainly run by the Germans
and Irish, Tammany being a noted instance in point.
The Normans have given to England its law of
primogeniture, its hereditary nobility and the House
of Lords. It will thus be seen that a scientific inves¬
tigation into these things destroys many miscon¬
ceptions, and overthrows the idea that all manifesta¬
tions of our history belong to one strain alone. It
is to be understood that there is no effort here to
overthrow the fact of the actual superiority of these
countries. It is freely admitted and rejoiced in, but
the contention is simply that it is less a matter of
blood foreordained to rule because of inherent un-
conquerability, than it is, in part, of characteristics
predominant in other races entering into our com¬
posite one.
4°
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
Note one fact, while we are on the ques-
The Slav, tion of blood. If present indications are
to be the criteria for making- up a judg¬
ment as to the races to rule in the future, we cannot
ignore the Slav, whose empire is to-day the strong¬
est in the world and whose rapid development from
barbarism to a world-power has been the wonder of
the century. Owning more of Europe than all the
other powers put together, owning more of Asia
than any power in the world, recently having fasten¬
ed a grasp on China that, in its other history, it has
never been known to relax, possessing the strategic
position of having contact with almost every Euro¬
pean power and with nearly every European de¬
pendency in Asia, the hardiest of the hardy by rea¬
son of a rigorous climate, the most energetic people
of the world by reason of the same fact, possessed
of the wheat fields of the Eastern world, and profit¬
ing by the unity of a despotic government that is
enlightened enough to cull the best from the other
civilizations of both continents,—we may well sup¬
pose these advantages, with the demonstrated power
to appreciate, develop and use them, must presage a
remarkable future for the people possessing them.
Not even the climate theory is against the greatness
of Russia.
41
And again, shall the ease with
China and Japan, which Japan, a Mongolian peo¬
ple, the most variant, except the
Negro, from the white races, has put on exteriorly
and imbibed in spirit the civilization we are accus¬
tomed to call Anglo-Saxon, have no meaning with
us in pointing out a new and higher path for her in
the future? Related to one continent by her insu¬
lar position as England, her great prototype, is to
another, will their careers show a similar course?
And will China, sorely vexed and raped now, re¬
ceive the seed of progress by the violence which dis¬
rupts her stagnant and archaic life and produce a
strength and power in the next century commensu¬
rate with her numerical and territorial magnitude?
Here are mighty problems for our oracles to answer.
Prince Konoyne, President of the Japanese House
of Lords, recently visited this country, accompanied
by a native professor of Tokio University. He stat¬
ed that he came to gain an intimate knowledge of
the American political situation and to get data that
might be valuable in the government of Japan. The
professor said: "We have adopted many of your
Western ideas, and find that our young people take
to them with avidity." These two statements were
42
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
made respectively in fluent German and English!
Not long ago Philadelphia saw the unusual spec¬
tacle of a Chinese nobleman discussing before the
American Society of Social and Political Science the
faults of our civilization, and that, too, in the most
grammatical English! Will anyone sneer at the
possibilities of such a people?
Now, I approach a nation
The Fortune-tellers within a nation—the Negro in
and the Negro. America. What have the for¬
tune-tellers said, and what is
to be said as to the development he can and will
make, the place he is to be accorded, or can wrest,
in the life of his country?
In the Negro's case there have never been want¬
ing those whose notes of evil rang with the con¬
fidence of divination or inspiration. We have been
told of his failures, his excellences, his limits, his
capacities, his assimilability, his alienism, times
galore. I shall compress in as small space as possible
this great mass of owlish deliverance, in the hope
that out of the sifting we may find the sure grains
of truth and, sometimes, of verification so far as time
has brought them to light. If we find this or that
fortune-telling in history.
43
line of piophecy true, we shall be at less loss to see
the outcome of the whole matter as a final propo¬
sition. If we find this dark enigma has done
better than our forebodings whispered, we need not
be discouraged if he has done less than our partiality
expected, for we shall have evidence that growth,
and not decay, belongs to him, even if the rate be
different from the sanguine predictions of those who
proclaim him the wonder of the world, and his furry
scalp the most valuable of sables.
Up to the time of American slavery, the Negro
had never been in receiving contact with a great
civilization. He was known only as a black savage.
Men estimated his human content by the light his
past and present shed upon it. The judgment was
against him. Reversing the old proverb, we said,
What a man has not done, he cannot do; and there
it rested. Out of this false philosophy grew a host
of false propositions. Starting with the dictum that
Negroes have no souls, we have been forced slowly
to abandon many former positions because it was
human pride, human greed, human injustice speak¬
ing through us. Much that seemed the deep utter¬
ance of profound learning and the fearless expression
of all candor, has proven to be the stubborn lan-
44
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
guage of desire and self-justification. Thus, many
a man, great in his proper sphere, has departed from
his greatness in this.
Let us consider some of these efforts at fortune-
telling seriatim:
i. Alexander H. Stephens
Fifteen said: "The Confederacy's cor-
Buried Prophecies, ner-stone rests upon the great
truth that the Negro is not
equal to the white man, that slavery, subordination
to the superior race, is his natural and normal con¬
dition."
The corner-stone proved unstable, for it and the
super-structure are overthrown, and over two hun¬
dred thousand Negroes helped to do it.
2. John C. Calhoun said: "If one Negro can be
found who can construe a sentence in Greek, I am
willing to concede the attributes of humanity to the
race."
Professor W. S. Scarborough, of Wilberforce, O.,
has written a Greek grammar and read a paper be¬
fore the American Philological Society on "The
Birds of Aristophanes."
3. Thomas Jefferson said:"I do not believe him
fortune-telling in history.
45
capable of demonstrating a proposition in Euclid."
Kelley Miller is now professor of mathematics in
Howard University, Washington City. Mr. Pelham,
of Detroit, Mich., was assistant civil engineer for the
Michigan Central Railroad when he died. The pro¬
fessor of higher mathematics in a Southern Negro
•college is instructing the white county surveyor
how to calculate railroad curves!
4. Robert Toombs said: "I will yet call the roll
of my slaves under the shadow of Bunker Hill
Monument."
.To-day the tax-rolls of his ex-slaves are being
•called under the shadow of his old home in Georgia.
Notice that in each of these cases the argument
seemed couclusive, and nothing was forthcoming
in rebuttal; but Time had not qualified her witnesses
to answer—that was all.
5. It was predicted that the Negro would not work
in a state of fre-edom.
Here is the answer: In 1865, to consider one item,
alone, four and a half million Negroes produced 3,-
000,000 ba les of cotton, or two-thirds of a bale to the
man; in 1898, after thirty-three years of freedom,
nine million Negroes produced 10,000,000 bales, or
over one whole bale to the man.
46
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
6. He was said to be too improvident to accumu¬
late property, and many philanthropic persons ex¬
pressed the fear that, turned loose as he was, with¬
out experience and without a dollar, he would
starve. But he did not starve and he does not beg.
On the contrary, the estimated values upon which
he pays taxes (and this excludes his church and
school property) are $400,000,000. Nineteen per
cent, of the Negro families are home owners, the
census showing 264,288 homes owned, with 234,747
of them free from incumbrance. Taken out of its
setting of the brief time in which this has been done,
and away from all comparison with the achieve¬
ments of other people always free, these figures may
not mean much; but with these back-grounds, the
showing is phenomenal. The Negro has been free
only one-third of a century. In France and the
United States (white), where conditions are the
best, the ratio of home-owning to non-home-owning
families is as 1 to 2; in Germany, 1 to 3; in England,
1 to 5; in Ireland, 1 to 10; among the American
Negroes, 1 to 5. Here is a state of mind for the for¬
tune-tellers.
7. It was held that the Negro was a good imitator
and follower, but a failure in initiative and organiz¬
ing power.
47
It is only a little while ago since definite matter
tending to disprove this view was available. Aside
from what could be seen in a general way among
Negro churches, there was nothing on the other side
to adduce, but it is somewhat different now. For
over a hundred years, two great Negro church
organizations, claiming, combined, over a million
communicants, have successfully managed their af¬
fairs, operating missionary, educational, publication,
financial, church extension, and Sunday-school
bureaus, some of whose operations reach over $100,-
ooo a year in one of these organizations, and whose
field of operations reaches both sides of the world
and involves bank credit.
In 1898, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, m his third report
of the Atlanta University Annual Conference, treats
of the work of 79 churches, 92 secret societies, 26
beneficial societies,^ 3 insurance societies, 21 benevo¬
lent organizations, and 15 co-operative societies,
making 236 in all. Passing over all but the largest,
the True Reformers, a co-operative enterprise, in
Richmond, Va., we find it is capitalized for $100,000,
owns $115,000 in buildings, residences and the like;
has 7086 depositors, and $ioi,933-32 deposited.
Since its establishment, in 1889, it claims to have
48
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
handled $3,795,667.36, and to have paid out of the
insurance department $370,910.75. This is a straw.
8. It is said that the giving of the ballot to the
Negro was a mistake, and that he is incapable of
statesmanship.
The ballot was not given him as a matter of fact
till it was seen he must have it in self-defense. It
was two years after he was freed before he was made
a voter, and then only after the States had shown by
a system of apprentice and vagrant laws intended to,
and which really did, virtually re-enslave him, that
he must have some means to defend himself from
the animosities engendered against him by the issue
of the Civil War. Who that criticises can suggest
a better way for his protection than that adopted?
And despite his own ignorance and the Caucasian
leadership that must be charged with most that is
monstrous and corrupt in that time, two facts
stand out to the eternal credit of the Negro—
the only two, perhaps, that survive the new con¬
stitutions and have the approval of the white people
of the South—public free schools for every child,
and the principle of Federal appropriations for in¬
ternal improvements. Both were opposed by the
whites; both are now cordially accepted and cham-
fortune-telling in history. 49
pioned by them. No people are more zealous in
their support of public education than the Southern
white people to-day, and no Congressmen are able
to make a better argument in favor of a large ap¬
propriation than theirs. The sole rejection of the
Sugar Bounty by Texas serves to emphasize the
fact that she stands alone.
9. Strange as it now seems, it was once said by
the fortune-tellers that the Negro could never learn
books.
Forty-three per cent, of all ten years old and over
can read and write to-day.
10. When this failed, they fell back upon the state¬
ment that he could never take the higher learning.
There are over 30,000 Negro graduates of colleges
in the United States; 749 physicians, 450 lawyers,
and about 30,000 school teachers.
11. But the prophets return to the charge with
the statement that he is not making progress as fast
as other races with the same advantages would.
In the ten years between 1880 and 1890, Negro
illiteracy was reduced 14.8 per cent.; white illiteracy,
only 4.4 per cent. There were 108,650 fewer black
illiterates here in 1890 than in 1880, but there were
193,494 more white illiterates, making a net increase
of 84,844, all white.
5°
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
Again, in 1876, only 3 per cent, of all Negroes were
in school; in 1896, 20 per cent, were attending. In
1890, there were 175 schools for the higher and in¬
dustrial education of this race, 28 of them managed
by members of the race, and 6 of them founded and
managed by them. Thirty-three thousand students
attended these schools.
12. Some alarmist finally raised the cry that, at
their rate of increase, the Negroes would soon over¬
run the country.
In the hundred years between 1790 and 1890, the
whites increased from a little over 3,000,000 to
eighteen times as many; the Negro from 750,000 to
only ten times as many.
13. Well, said a counter-alarmist, the Negro is
dying out.
In i860, there were 4,500,000 Negroes in America;
to-day there are 9,000,000, a doubling in about
thirty-five years.
14. One of the main and undisputed contentions
of the prophets was that the Negro could not stand
a cold climate. This, taken with the climate theory,
was intended to convey the idea that his position
among the Caucasian race must always be an in¬
ferior one.
5i
A single instance of disproof will be sufficient to
suggest others: In 1870 there were 22,147 Negroes in
Philadelphia; in 1890. there were 39,371. From 1870
to 1880 the city increased as a whole 25.69 per cent.;
but its Negro population increased 43.13 per cent.
In the ten years from 1880 to 1890, the city increased
25.3 per cent; the Negro population, 25 per cent.
15. Judging from his docility in slavery, it was
long held by friend and foe that the race lacked
courage to fight. But with New Orleans, Wagner,
Pillow, El Caney and San Juan before them, the
fortune-tellers are silent.
It would seem that in the face of this showing,
men would allow, if not the equality of the Negro
under like conditions, at least, that his powers are
as yet unfathomed, and that more time will be re¬
quired to determine his place, but the hasty and
hostile prejudgments still go on. Why should a
man fight against the decrees of God ancl nature?
Why should he even desire to see them changed?
When the Negro has reached his limit he will stop;
till then, nothing can stop him.
52
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
Again, it would seem that it
Nothing but Truth is beneath the dignity of a
Wanted. people who feel themselves
the masters of the world t©
begrudge and retard the progress of those who can
never be their rivals, as they say. Yet a glance at
the dire predictions we have just recited shows that
they are often contradictory and agree in only one
particular—in being hostile and uncandid. Is it
wise to deceive ourselves to please ourselves? Can
juggling figures strangle facts? Our sole desire
should be to know the truth and not be found op¬
posing the inevitable. You ask me what is the in¬
evitable. I tell you I do not know; but I shall seek
to know. At any rate, I shall not be found proclaim¬
ing God's purposes till He has revealed them.
We can know when we are against God even be¬
fore we know His will—by the spirit within us. If
it is one of love and good-will and helpfulness to all
men, even the Negro, we shall not be found far
wrong, no matter what we believe can or cannot be
done.
53
It would be a fruitful in-
A Right Spirit quiry to ask why so many
the Conquering One. reforms have succeeded
against the opposition of
the numerous, the powerful and the rich—why the
poor and depressed classes have constantly gained
rights and privileges against the will and protest of
the mighty. Such reforms have always implied the
restrictions of the power of the ruling forces; such
extension of privileges to the people have always
meant the limiting of the immunities of the upper
classes. How, then, were these things possible?
Reform movements begin in weakness and ridicule;
the submerged masses are always lacking in organ¬
ization and leadership.
The success and strength of a just cause lie in the
fact that those who fight against it are weakened and
dispirited by the consciousness that they are fighting,
against righteousness. Hence the finest and strong¬
est souls surrender first, then disintegration in the
ranks follows faster and faster till all yield. Thus
doth conscience make cowards of us all, and God's
three hundred prevail over the mighty, though the.
one have only pitchers, lights and trumpets to fight
---itict the others' swords and shields.
54
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
We desire to close this discus-
What the Negro sion by a summing up of the
Brings. good that the Negro offers in
the problems before us, and the
burdens he lays upon us, as we'll. The following
things belong to the credit side of the account:
His great physical endurance.
His cheerful nature, rising above every circum¬
stance.
His lack of vindictiveness.
His love of his white neighbor.
His love of country.
His desire for the respect of others.
His self-respect, as shown in his good opinion of
himself.
His confidence in his own future.
His acquisitiveness, as shown in what he has al¬
ready acquired in property against great odds.
His growing indications of social efficiency, as
shown in the increasing organizations, church and
secular, he is successfully conducting.
His deep religious nature and wealth of emotion.
His power of assimilation and adaptability, mak¬
ing him the only one of the so-called inferior races
that has ever failed to dwindle and die in the face of
our civilization.
55
The following are the burdens he lays upon us:
His ignorance.
The Burdens He His low average of morality.
Lays. His lack of enterprise.
His lack of self-reliance.
These are some of the injustices he now suffers:
Exclusion from full partici-
The Injustice He pancy in the benefits of our
Suffers. civilization and in the use of all
the agencies of advancement
granted to other citizens.
Contempt and a spirit of resentment against his
pretensions or aspirations to a full manhood.
A willingness to refuse him the privileges lawfully
his, and to use dishonorable means to evade obliga¬
tions solemn and morally binding, which the laws
we have sworn to obey put upon us to abridge in
no way the rights, privileges, and immunities of the
humblest citizen.
Confusion as to the bearing of his civil rights
upon his social status.
A determination to take the fixing of his place
out of the hands of God and fix it, right or wrong,
where we would have it be.
56
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
Making out our case by magnifying faults com-
-mon to all classes and by ignoring or concealing the
good that is to be seen.
These are some of the benefits and advantages he
enjoys:
Living in sight and touch of our
The Benefits He civilization, with its mighty sug-
Enjoys. gestions and incentives.
Being allowed some participancy
in its operations.
Situated so as to imbibe the spirit of Christianity.
Subject to the toning up that comes from favor¬
able climatic conditions.
Adopting tne Saxon ideal in education and pro-
gressiveness.
Realizing by comparison how far behind he is in
the race of life.
Learning that no people seeking light will have
the solid opposition of the superior class against
which it must contend, but that many of the strong¬
est and best will be found for fair play and a free
field.
FORTUNE-TELLING IN~HISTORY.
57
And thus the case is made
The Case Made Up. up, with God and all good,
courageous men on the side
of full opportunity for the straggler, to determine
without prejudgment what he can do and how far he
can go before nature and his endowment stop him;
and with the unfair, prejudiced! and unchristian
classes on the other, to order the constitution of
nature as they will it. Where shall we place our¬
selves?
I referred to the story of the
The Copper Kettle, released giant in the Arabian
Nights, but I did not finish it.
Let me do so now. The fisherman finally persuaded
the giant to prove that he really came out of the
kettle by resolving himself again into mist and re¬
entering the vessel, then suddenly closing it, the
fisherman refused to open it till he had exacted a
promise of help and protection from the imprisoned
giant. So the liberal Christian and altruistic spirit
that has made possible the release of the great ma¬
terial and natural forces that are now threatening
the destruction of their liberator in the substitution
of a selfish commercialism for fraternal love, must
58
FORTUNE-TELLING IN HISTORY.
coax them back into bounds and make them helpers
and allies in bringing in the better day when the lion
and the lamb shall lie down together.