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THE RACE CONFLICT

TyPES OF AMERICAN NEGROES.

Arab-African

Superior African.

The " Mammy."

The "Blue Gum Nigger

The characteristics of these types are described on page 48.

THE
RACE CONFLICT
A STUDY OF
CONDITIONS IN AMERICA

BY
W. P. LIVINGSTONE
Author of " Black Jamaica."

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO., Ld.

VAie

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. The Issue - 7
II. Nature of the Antipathy - 14
III. The White Factor 24
IV. The Black Factor 40
V. Political Forces - 55
VI. The Scales of Justice 83
VII. Lynch Law - 96
VIII. Economic Relations - 117
IX. The Colour Line in Public Institutions 127
X. The Social Gulf 139-
XI. Attitude of the Negro ¦ 153
XII. The Solution - 165

prkfatory;notf
In a previous book on the negroes of the New
World — " Black Jamaica " — I described the
gradual evolution of the race in the West In
dies under conditions imposed by British rule.
In the present volume I have sought to give
a clear account of their position in the United
States, where the forces at work and the results
are very different. The strain of the situation
there and the possibilities involved in it should
be better known in other countries in which
a similar issue between black and white is
developing, as well as in America itself, where,
despite much literature on the subject, there
is yet widespread ignorance regarding the real
facts. On such a question it is not possible
to write in a way that will satisfy the racial
bias of both parties : my endeavour, as an
outside investigator, has been to take an
absolutely impaitial view of the problem, and
to suggest a solution of it along natural lines.
W. P. L.

The Race Conflict.

CHAPTER I.
THE ISSUE
The problem involved in the relations of the
white and black races is, perhaps, the most
difficult which lies before the world. There is
no question so important in its bearing on the
happiness of millions of human beings. Yet
it is curious how little the subject occupies the
mind of the public, how great the ignorance is
regarding it even among those who guide the
destinies of the nations. This is as true of
Britain, which has been in contact with the
negro for centuries, as it is of other countries,
which have just begun to handle the problem.
In none has any definite and settled policy on
the matter been adopted, or any clear conclu
sive understanding been arrived, at concerning
the real position of the black man in the scheme
7

8 THE RACE CONFLICT
of things, his capacity for advancement, and
the possibility of his living side by side on
equal terms with the white.
This situation is probably due to the magni
tude and complexity of the problem, to the
vastness of the area over which it extends, as
well as to the fact that its phenomena and the
course of its development vary in different
countries. It is not easy, also, for one race to
enter into the mental condition and outlook of
another of a widely divergent type. Neither
can one hope to understand the position from
an array of facts and figures : it involves a
relation which largely defies scientific analysis
and determination ; and it is necessary to live
in the atmosphere of it, and come into contact
with its manifestations to comprehend some
thing of its true character. Those who know
most about the negro are most chary of ad
vancing positive views. " I have been study
ing him for a quarter of a century," remarked
the white principal of an American coloured
college to the writer, " and I am less confident
now than ever of the value of my knowledge."
The situation in America at present is one
of peculiar interest on account of the light it

THE ISSUE 9
is capable of throwing on the general world-
problem. It is a direct result c f the old struggle
which culminated in the Civil War. History
is repeating itself. The Southern States,
before the war, were opposed to the Northern
States on the question of slavery and State
rights. In test cases before Congress and the
Supreme Court both bodies pronounced in
favour of the South. The moral and political
forces in the North, however, asserted them
selves and brought on a crisis, and the tre
mendous conflict ensued which gave physical
freedom to the negro. But while the Civil
War settled the question of slavery it did not
solve the race problem. The struggle between
the North and South was renewed on the
matter of the civil emancipation of the ex-
slave, and again the same old ground is being
traversed. The South accepted the verdict
which fixed the status of the negro as a free
citizen of the republic, but it has declined to
grant him the full benefit of his citizenship.
As it formerly believed that the slave system
was indispensable to its prosperity, so now it
affirms that the civil subordination of the negro
is essential to its social and economic well-

io THE RACE CONFLICT
being, and it means to keep him down and hold
him down, with a bloody hand if necessary.
It has already eliminated him from the main
activities of public life, and continues to mould
the situation in accordance with its irrevocable
views. It is the extreme friction occasioned
by the process that now and again calls the
attention of the world to the problem.
The Supreme Court and Congress have, so
far, tolerated, or acquiesced in, the irregular
policy of the South, but there is a large body
of opinion in the North which holds that tlie
mutual relation of the races must be governed
by the Federal Constitution. The Constitution
guarantees civil rights to all classes of citizens,
irrespective of race or colour, and it is claimed
that the discrimination exercised by the South
against the negro is a violation of its provisions,
and, in regard to the franchise, gives it an
unduly large representation in the Electoral
College and Congress. Either, it is asserted,
the integrity of Republican citizenship must
be maintained, or the representative principle
lying at the foundation of the Government
must be given up. The nation, it is declared,
in the spirit of Lincoln, cannot be half-slave,

THE ISSUE H
half- free. On the other hand, the people of
the South stand, as the> stood before the War,
impervious to all appeal, argument and threat,
and inflexible in their resolution to uphold,
at all costs, their policy and position. They
declare, in the spirit of Amos Kendall, that
they owe an obligation to the laws, but a higher
one to the community in which they live, and
they deprecate and condemn what they term
the " revival " of the race issue, as they lor-
merly denounced the agitation in the North.
There are many aspects of the situation
ominously reminiscent of those which preceded
the Civil War.
Apart from the extraordinary interest such
a struggle holds as an object lesson for nations
which control the destinies of native peoples
it is bound to have local effects of a momentous
and far-reaching kind. The Government of
the United States may be said to be on its trial.
If the country cannot assimilate negroes as
citizens, and can only assign them a subor
dinate and servile place, the question arises
whether the republican theory of the equality
of man and the democratic form of govern
ment have not failed, or are, at least, inapplic-

12 THE RACE CONFLICT
able to communities constituted of widely
different racial types. The fate of the great
political parties must also be determined by
it. The Republican party was built up on
the slavery question, and is in power to-day
largely as a result of the existence of the race
problem, while the main wing of the Demo
cratic party is solid simply because of the
necessity of presenting a united front to the
negro. If the negro issue were settled the
aspect of the political field would undergo a
profound change. The free development of
the South — one of the richest sections of the
Union — waits on its proper solution. The
future peace and happiness of the entire nation
depend on it.
The outlook is not hopeful. Other issues
may be more widely and vehemently discussed,
but these it is not impossible to settle within
the power granted by the Constitution, either
by a plain interpretation of its provisions, or
by a wider stretch of its ordinary meaning.
But the negro issue cannot be settled in this
way. It involves deeper and more elemental
sources of disagreement, and nothing short of
« rroat national upheaval seems likely to affect

THE ISSUE 13
the situation. So gigantic does the problem
appear, so difficult of peaceful solution, that
the nation is helpless in face of it. It has
become so subtly connected and interwoven
with all the organic texture of the national
existence that the people, as a whole, are afraid
to make it a living question, not knowing what
might be the result. There is an uneasy con
sciousness of the truth of the Southern warn
ing, that the forces of the revolution, unspent
and terrible, are ready at at any moment to
break out under sufficient provocation. Poli
ticians exploit the issue for party ends, but no
serious effort is made to bring the broad ques
tion within the area of practical politics. Thus,
although the matter is daily forcing itself on
the attention of the country in one form or
another, and imperatively demanding the
wisest thought and statesmanship of the time,
it remains, what it has been for a century, the
darkest and most menacing cloud on the
horizon of national life.

CHAPTER II.
NATURE OF THE ANTIPATHY
Science has not yet pronounced very clearly
or confidently on the matter of race origins and
capacities, and it will suffice here to indicate
the popular beliefs which, without being de
finitely formulated, influence white Americans
in relation to the negro. All who come into
contact with the race are of opinion that it
represents an early and elementary stage in the
process of human development. There is one
class, however, which holds that it is essen
tially inferior to the whites, and that while it
may be able to achieve a certain amount
of progress, it can only do so under direct
pressure and guidance from the latter, to
whose intellectual and physical level it will
never attain. According to this view, the
negro is a completed product of evolution, and
is incapable of being socially assimilated bv the
14

NATURE OF THE ANTIPATHY 15
advancing type. Another class maintains
that he is still subject to the general law of
human development, and occupies the same
kind of relation to the white as a child to an
adult, and that on account of his unfavourable
position in the world's area he has never had
a fair opportunity of ascending — as he is
capable of ultimately doing — to the social plane
of the white. The former submits that he
ought to be treated in a special way, many
asserting that he is only adapted for manual
labour in the tropics ; the latter claims for him
equal rights and opportunities with the whites.
There is, however, a small third section which
hesitates to accept the second position, yet
rejects the word " inferior " as relegating the
negroes to a state of permanent degradation,
and adopts instead the word " different,"
holding that they constitute a " different "
race with a distinctive work and destiny.
The antagonism which exists between the
white and the negro is commonly regarded as
" race-hatred " pure and simple, and is deemed
by many an unnatural sentiment, out of cor
respondence with the ethical standards of a
highly-civilised community. There is, un-

16 THE RACE CONFLICT
doubtedly, much ignorant and unjustifiable
hatred of the negro, but fundamentally the
antipathy is a natural principle regulating the
social relations of races of widely opposite
ethnological character. It is not antipathy in
the sense in which that word is ordinarily used.
It is a quality to which is assigned the special
function of preserving the purity and integrity
of race. It is not aggressive, but protective ;
it becomes aggressive only when the natural
limits of race are sought to be passed. In
other words, it is a sentinel keeping watch and
ward over the evolutionary process. Neither
is it a characteristic of the white man towards
the black alone ; it also dominates his relations
to other types, and it influences the attitude of
the latter towards peoples of a still lower social
grade. It exists, for example, in the English
man towards the East Indian, and in the
American towards the Red Indian. But it
also animates the East Indian and the Red
Indian against the negro. There is a large
East Indian population in the West Indies,
but with few exceptions the members of that
community do not associate or amalgamate
with the negroes, and it is not so much caste

NATURE OF THE ANTIPATHY 17
or custom that influences them as natural race
antipathy. In the United States the Indian
holds aloof from the negro. Both races can
be seen as fellow students in some training in
stitutions, but race distinctions are never
obliterated, and trouble is occasioned by
attempts to mix them in the elementary schools.
The same antipathy is prevalent in the West
Indies between persons of mixed blood and the
pure negro, the lighter the complexion the
stronger being the feeling. Broadly speaking,
it may be said to exist among races towards
others regarded as on a lower plane of evolution
than themselves, and is most active and potent
where they are most apart.
Though the Indian has suffered greater dis
aster at the hands of white Americans than
the negro, he is not so much disliked, and enjoys
more privileges. A prominent man of mixed
blood who was arrested and fined for an in
fringement of the separate car law, claimed
exemption from its operation on the ground
that he derived his dark skin from Indian
ancestry. He acted on the assumption that a
privilege would be accorded to an Indian which
would not be granted to a man of African

18 THE RACE CONFLICT
descent. In another case a wealthy East
Indian arrived in New York and registered at
a first-class hotel. On entering the dining-
room in evening dress he was taken for a negro,
and refused a place at the table, but the mistake
was rectified when his racial status became
known. It is the colour resulting from the
possession of negro blood that excites the an
tagonism of the white American. Knowing
this, members of the mixed community in the
West Indies, when they visit America, not
unnaturally pass themselves off as " Spaniards"
or " Italians." While the prejudice against
the negro is general, the negro, lying at the foot
of the racial scale, entertains no antipathy in
the real sense towards any race, although his
hatred of the white man is often violent enough .
The important fact to be noted is that this
antipathy, with its outgrowths, race-prejudice
and race-hatred, is most in evidence where the
contact between the races is closest. But mere
contact in itself doe> not produce race an
tagonism, which comes into play only where,
along with the contact, there goes, on the part
of the negro, an assumption of racial and social
equality. On the whole, there is probably less

NATURE OF THE ANTIPATHY 19
hostility to the blacks in the British Empire
than in any other dominion controlled by
whites. This is often attributed to the higher
ethical principles influencing the British. Much,
however, is also due to geographical situation
and climatic conditions. The main body of
the black inhabitants of the Empire is located
far distant from the main body of the whites,
and neither comes into direct contact and com
petition with the other. The negroes are
governed as a subordinate and irresponsible
people : as a rule, they possess limited political
privileges, and exercise their power only in
local matters, and have consequently no in
fluence on the Home Government, or on the
general affairs of the nation. They do not
claim racial equality, and they accept whatever
social honour the whites voluntarily grant them.
England knows nothing from actual experience
of a condition where the two races meet and
mingle on equal terms in all the various
relations of life. Her attitude may be the
effect of a more highly-developed conscience,
but it is also due to the £ iiple fact that she is
isolated from the great mas of negroes subject
to her control, and that thi y do not dwell in

20 THE RACE CONFLICT
her midst, and engage in direct social and
economic competition with her citizens. In
these portions of the Empire lying within the
Tropics where the two races mix, the position
has, so far, been determined by climate. In
the West Indies, for example, we have a handful
of British people occupying the islands as the
dominant and superior race, and actuated by
a policy which regards the uplifting of the
negro as an imperial duty. Fundamental race
antipathy exists there as elsewhere, but it is
not accompanied by friction, the political and
social contact not being sufficiently close, and
the climate preventing anything like economic
competition. The negroes have confidence in
the philanthropic intentions of those who govern
them, and with little stimulus to exertion they
continue to maintain a dependent attitude,
and have not yet sought to question or encroach
on the race supremacy of the whites. But
if the proportions of the population were
equalised and the climate more adapted for
white men, the phenomena would be different :
we should find a r ndition where, despite al
truistic considerat ons, the whites would be
less tolerant of th 5 negro and more opposed to

NATURE OF THE ANTIPATHY 21
his social advancement. The development
of the Empire has already furnished minor
illustrations of what happens in these circum
stances, and the situation now being produced
in South Africa is likely to demonstrate it on
a larger scale and in a more startling and
tragic way.
In America all the conditions that constitute
the race problem are present. Here we find
a population of nine millions of black men, the
largest compact body anywhere outside of
Africa, living and moving among sixty-eight
millions of white men. Both are equal before
the law. The principle of the Government is
democratic, and citizenship applies to both
alike. The blacks are largely, but not ex
clusively, domiciled in a section favourable for
their physical development, but which is also
adapted for white men. The whites, as a
whole, are perhaps the most active, ambitious
and practical people in the world, and both
races come into close contact and competition
with each other. Fundamental race antipathy
among the whites is universal, existing even
among those who devote their energies and
money to the elevation of the negro, though

22 THE RACE CONFLICT
they may be unconscious of it until some
attempt is made to overstep the natural limita
tions made by race, but active antagonism is
determined by the closeness of the contact and
the attitude assumed by the negro. The pro
blem, for instance, is not so pressing in the
mountain regions of the South, where the whites
predominate, as it is in the plains, where the
negroes are often in the majority. In the larger
area it is more acute in the Southern States
than in the Northern. Nor is the friction so
great between the upper classes and the negroes
as it is between the poor of both races, who
are, in the position of economic competitors.
There is, in a sense, a white America and a black
America, distinguished largely by geographical
lines. The whites in white America, who are
out of immediate range of the negroes, seek to
apply to them the ethical principles which the
British, in much the same position, apply to
the distant native races of the Empire. The
whites in black America, in direct contact with
the negroes, resolutely decline to do anything
of the kind. The problem is, therefore, not
simply a question of white against black, but
of white against white and black, or, to express

NATURE OF THE ANTIPATHY 23
it more conveniently, of the North, where
negroes are relatively few, against the South,
where they swarm.

CHAPTER III.
THE WHITE FACTOR.
The white population of the United States
numbers 68,000,000. In the Northern States
the community is composed mainly of the
descendants of the Puritans and the Dutch
and of recent immigrants from Europe. It
will be convenient to classify the Western
States with the Northern ; they were settled
from the East and by foreign immigration, and
their attitude towards the negro approximates
to that of the North. The foreign section in
all these States shows little sympathy with
the negro. Formerly the immigrants came
chiefly from Scotland, Ireland and Germany,
and became identified with the native American,
but they have latterly been coming more from
districts of eastern Europe, and are of a lower
24

THE WHITE FACTOR 25
type, and actively antagonistic to the negro
wherever the interests of the two come into
conflict. The native American attitude is of
a more generous character. There is a strong
sentiment in favour of the negro obtaining the
full benefits of the citizenship granted to him
by the Constitution, and the full and equal
protection of the laws, and this is the ostensible
policy of the Republican Party, on which it
secures whatever political support the coloured
man has to give.
Within recent years, however, several dis
tinct tendenices have become noticeable. There
is, for instance, a small but influential section
of the public that would force the issue on the
organic basis. This party repudiates the claim
made by the South that the question is one for
the South alone to settle. There is also an
increasing number who have begun to realise
their ignorance of the negro and the difficulties
of the situation, and who are more and more
inclining to the position that the matter must
be left unreservedly to the South. This was
the opinion of President McKinley. And there
are many who, coming into close contact with
the Northern negroes, and influenced by

26 THE RACE CONFLICT
Southern friends, have altered their view of
the situation, and would, if need arose, vote
for the su ordination of the race. Generally
speaking, it may be said that the attitude of the
North is determined by its distance from the
main mass of negroes. The problem presents
itself to it in the same way as the same problem
in the West Indies or South Africa presents
itself to the Englishman at home — as a remote
question, interesting more from an academic
than from a practical point of view. The
average Northerner knows nothing of the
actual conditions in the districts where negroes
predominate. He seldom or never travels
south, and he does not read southern news
papers. The South was settled by various nationali
ties — English, Scottish, Irish, German, and
French. A considerable proportion of the
early population consisted of indentured white
servants. Many of these were criminals, others
" poor redemptioners " who sold themselves
into temporary servitude and from these classes
came a shiftless and worthless element in the
communtiy. The South has since developed
along its own social lines, independently of the

THE WHITE FACTOR 27
North, and has been little affected by local or
foreign immigration. The proportion of foreign-
born people varies from less than 1 per cent.
in North Carolina to 7.9 per cent, in Maryland,
but nearly all the States have considerably
less than 5 per cent, of foreign immigrants
within their borders.
The old slave-owners were mainly of Anglo-
Saxon stock and constituted the aristocracy
of the country. They came into direct per
sonal contact with the negroes and understood
them best. There was, of course, never any
question of economic competition or of racial
or social equality between them. The Civil
War almost swept this class out of existence,
the remnants never recovered from the blow
dealt at their power and prosperity, and the
estates were broken up or abandoned, many
families removing to the towns and engaging
in mercantile or professional pursuits, and
others leaving the country. Those who survive
form a social leaven which is not without
its influence on the general character of the
people. It is noticeable that at the present
day practically no friction exists between this
class and the old body of plantation negroes.

28 THE RACE CONFLICT
They regard each other with a peculiar affection,
not easily explained or defined, but which one
can see manifested wherever the two meet.
It is a feeling of which the younger negroes
know nothing : the old conditions have passed
away, and there is no opportunty for such
reciprocal sentiment to develop. In towns and
counties where the slave-owners and their
trained and confidential servants formed a
large part of the population, and where the
conditions have not been altered in any appre
ciable degree, there still lingers a fairly good
feeling between the races. This is noticeable,
for example, in Savannah, where the negro will
be found in a somewhat better position than in
many other Southern towns. It is a suggestive
fact that intelligent negroes admit that they
have no quarrel with the former slave-holders.
They speak of them with appreciation, and
exclude them from any blame which they
attach to the white South. One negro re
marked to the writer that the race was treated
in a better spirit in slavery times than at pre
sent. Professor Kelly Miller, of Howard
University, Washington, a pure negro, said :
" The old aristocratic class has always been

THE WHITE FACTOR 29
kind to us, and if it had remained in power in
the South, we should now be enjoying a more
beneficent government."
The children of these men are grown up :
some remember the negro " mammy " who
nursed them, and retain for her sincere grati
tude and affection, and while their pride of
birth and race compels them to look askance
on the advance of a people who were their
father's slaves, and they are not disposed to
entrust them with political power, they do not,
as a rule, treat them harshly or unjustly.
Their attitude depends largely on the position
assumed by individual blacks, and the in
creasing self-assertion of many has done much
to estrange their sympathies.
The largest and most powerful class in the
South is formed of the descendants of the
" poor whites." The latter lived outside the
plantations, largely in the less productive
mountain regions, there being no place for
them in the slave system. The estates pro
vided their own unskilled and skilled labour,
and before the war the poor whites had been
practically crushed out as mechanics. They
hated the slaves as an economic factor which

30 THE RACE CONFLICT
deprived them of the means of advancement ;
and, on the other hand, they were despised by
the slaves. Large numbers fought for the
South in the war, though the success of the
South meant a perpetuation of the same
economic regime, and they afterwards obtained
possession of the land or thronged into the towns.
They became the middle-class population, and
entering the political field when the franchise
was universal, gradually rose to be the dom
inant and controlling power throughout the
South. Among this class the antipathy to the
negro is most marked. They feel no respon
sibility towards him : they do not come into
that intimate relation with him which sub
sisted between the planter and his slaves, and
they are jealous of his increasing advancement
and independence. In Atlanta, Georgia, one
of the largest and most progressive cities in the
South, this new relation is strikingly visible.
After the war the poor whites flocked down
from the upper parts of the State, and became
the main body of its citizens. The negroes also
came in, and were infected with the enterprise
of the whites, the result being the development
of a bitter feeling and a determined restriction

THE WHITE FACTOR 31
of the rights of the lower race. There are still
hundreds of thousands of " poor whites "
scattered throughout the South. Many are
idle and dissolute, and it is they who are largely
responsible for the criminal outrages on the
negro. The white women of the South are a quiet
but paramount factor in the situation, though
they are rarely mentioned in connection with
the subject, their far-reaching influence on the
solution of the problem not being generally
realised. Many of the wives and daughters
of the former slave-owners continue to keep up
a sympathetic relationship with their old
dependents, but the majority of the women of
the new South are completely alienated from
the race : their hate and loathing of the " new
negro " is unspeakable. This attitude is due
partly to the difficulties and annoyances to
which they are subjected at the hands of the
modern class of servants, and partly to the
revulsion occasioned by the crime to which
the negro is popularly supposed to be addicted.
The situation is described as being worse to
day than at any time since 1865.
Despite the upheavals and changes that

32 THE RACE CONFLICT
have taken place in the social composition of
the South, the general characteristics of the
population remain the same : the new South
has entered into the temperament and ideas of
the old. The original social ideas of the people
were influenced to some extent by the manners
and spirit of the French and Spanish, and the
conditions developed a high type of manhood
and womanhood. The same type persists
though much modified by later elements. The
people, as a rule, are high-spirited, proud and
sensitive. They have a chivalrous regard for
women and a high ideal of the home, and
carry on the old refined and gracious
hospitality. These admirable qualities, how
ever, are balanced by limitations, some of
which have been greatly intensified under the
new conditions. They are slow to receive ideas
and lack genuine culture and breadth of view.
They cannot be said to be a reading people.
As a result of this narrowness a spirit of in
tolerance prevails which retards the growth
of a healthy public opinion, and prevents free
dom of speech and writing. On the negro
question the Southern press can only take one
side : the ban on the expression of views in

THE WHITE FACTOR 33
favour of the coloured man amounts practically
to a censorship. College professors have been
dismissed or persecuted for having written
articles frankly discussing the problem. The
whites are also more sectional in view than
those in other parts of the Union. Passion
ately loyal to the South and to the memories
of the Confederacy, they resent, as keenly as
they did before the war, any interference with
their State rights, and there still runs beneath
the surface of ordinary life a deep undercurrent
of bitterness towards the people of the Northern
States. This feeling, in the opinion of re
sponsible observers, is still powerful enough
to menace the Union. The traveller comes
across ample evidence of its existence, and is
driven to the conclusion that the extent to
which it prevails is hardly realised in the
North. No doubt the increasing commercial
intercourse taking place between the two
sections will assist in modifying the latent
antagonism, but it will not alter the point of
view of the South with regard to the negro, on
which their mutual relations continue to hinge.
There are differences of opinion among the
whites respecting minor phases of the problem, c

34 THE RACE CONFLICT
but on the main issue they are practically
unanimous. Their antipathy to the race, they
say, is based, not so much on colour, as on what
the colour represents : to them it typifies the
most repellent attributes that exist in con
nexion with human nature, lack of social order,
mental incapacity, physical ugliness, squalid
domestic conditions, sensuality, crime — all the
characteristics of an inferior race. They claim
that the negro is racially and socially inferior
to the white, and they decline to concede any
privilege or obey any law which will tend to
raise him to a level for which he is not naturally
fitted. Each race must pursue its own way
independently of the other, the one on a higher,
the other on a lower, plane of national exis
tence. This fundamental policy has been em
bodied in a number of " things which may be
considered as definitely and finally settled "
enunciated by Bishop Galloway, of Mississippi,
in an address delivered at the Conference for
Education in the South as follows : —
First. — In the South there will never be any
social mingling of the races. Whether it be
prejudice or pride of race, there is a middle wall
of partition which will not be broken down.

THE WHITE FACTOR 35
Second. — They will worship in separate
churches, and be educated in separate schools.
This is desired alike by both races and it is for
the good of each.
Third. — The political power of this section
will remain in present hands. Here, as else
where, intelligence and wealth will and should
control the administration of governmental
affairs. Fourth. — The great body of the negroes are
here to stay.
The question is considered a national one,
inasmuch as it affects the character of the
government of the country, but it is also
claimed to be sectional, so far as its solution
is concerned, since only those who come in
contact with the negro can understand him,
and only those who understand him are capable
of working out the remedy. It is pointed out
that when a Northerner with a theoretical
knowledge of the negro settles in the South,
he usually adopts the Southern attitude, but
becomes even more radical in his opposition to
the race than the native white. The change
of view was aptly described by a Northerner,

36 THE RACE CONFLICT
who remarked, " I went south saying ' negro ' ;
I came back saying ' nigger '."
Along with the assumption of the Southern
whites that the negro is an inferior being, and
must be treated in a special way, there is
associated another which has become one of
the principal agents in accentuating the race
issue. This is the conviction that the South
is destined to become the wealthiest and most
powerful section of the Union. Previous to
the Civil War agriculture was dominant in the
South, most of its capital being invested in
cotton, corn, sugar, rice, tobacco, and other
products. Returns at the opening of the
war indicate that it was the richest and most
progressive part of the Union. It is asserted
by the North that this position was only made
possible by slave labour, but the Southerner
contends that it was achieved, not because of
the slave system, but in spite of it, and that the
South would have advanced more rapidly had
it not been handicapped by that moral and
economic evil. The progress made since the
incubus was removed, and since the whites have
gone to work with their own hands, is brought
forward in support of this view. Whatever

THE WHITE FACTOR 37
be the true explanation, the circumstances had
a marked influence on the white population.
They were well aware of their unlimited natural
resources, of their actual prosperity, and the
magnificent promise which the future held.
They were proud of their position, confident
in their ability, and ambitious to make the
South the most opulent and envied section of
the country. There was an increasing number
who objected to slavery, and in time, no doubt,
with the evolution of public sentiment, the
change to freedom would have taken place
without any great economic dislocation. But
they were too high-spirited to brook dictation
from the North ; they appealed to the sword,
and they lost. The result was to paralyse the
general development of the South. The
country was ruined, the spirit of the people
broken, and their aspirations and enterprise
crushed. For many years the section con
tinued poor and without prestige and friends ;
capital went elsewhere, and it was the general
belief that it would never again exercise the
same commanding authority in the nation's
affairs. As soon as the whites regained control
of public life, however, they began resolutely

38 THE RACE CONFLICT
to re-create and develop their agricultural and
industrial interests, and especially their manu
factures, the lack of which had contributed to
their defeat. Since then the industrial expan
sion has been extraordinary. No adequate
idea of it can be obtained without travelling
through the country and seeing for one's self
the process actually going on.
In these circumstances it is not surprising to
find Southerners again regarding the prospects
of their section with elation and pride, and
ambitious to realise and carry out to its most
brilliant fulfilment the promise which it con
tains. They are resolved that the negro shall
not again interfere with its natural develop
ment. Never, they say, will he have another
chance of coming between the South and its
prosperity. They do not dispute that he has
had a share in the agricultural movement, but
they assert that it is less than is generally sup
posed, and confined to mechanical labour and
production. They, and not the negroes,
possess the money and the brains, the energy
and force of character, that underlie all the
progress that has been or is likely to be achieved,
and they therefore claim the right of remanding

THE WHITE FACTOR 39
them to a secondary and subordinate position,
and of retaining in their own hands the control
of all the factors that govern the destiny of their
States.

CHAPTER IV
THE BLACK FACTOR
In 1900, when the census was taken, the num
ber of negroes in the United States was
8,333,994, or one to every eight white persons.
The term " negro " in America, however, im
plies much more than it does in the British
Empire. In the West Indies, for instance, the
population is divided into three distinct grades :
the whites, the " coloured persons " of mixed
parentage, and the negroes of pure blood. The
members of the coloured community place
themselves on a higher social level than the
blacks, and those of light complexion claim
greater kinship with the whites and would
regard it as an insult to be identified with the
true negroes. The same rule holds good in
Haiti and in other countries possessing a native
and half-caste population.
But in America no such differentiation is
40

THE BLACK FACTOR 41
made. All who are connected by blood with
the African race are designated negroes. The
term was formerly much disliked and avoided,
especially by those of mixed blood, and
" coloured persons " and " coloured race "
came to be generally adopted among them.
It is curious that even among the pure negroes
of the West Indies the word " negro " is not
in favour ; they prefer " black man " and
" black person." The whites in America, how
ever, persisted in using the word " negro " as
a generic term for all varieties of pure and
mixed blood ; and many of the most intelli
gent negroes, influenced principally by this
fact, and partly by a growing sense of race
pride and solidarity, decided to accept it.
Following their example, the census authori
ties in 1900 gave the wider significance to the
word. In the instructions to the enumerators
a " negro " is defined as one who is classed as
such in the community in which he resides.
So, in the publications of the Department of
Commerce and Labour we read : "In accord
ance with the correct usage of the leaders of
the race, the term ' negroes ' instead of
' coloured people ' is used." A volume en-

42 THE RACE CONFLICT
titled, "The Negro Problem," published in
New York, is stated to consist of " a series of
articles by representative negroes of to-day."
The majority of these are of mixed blood, and
several are, to all appearance, white men. In
the north and west the compound word " Afro-
American " is becoming popular among the
dark race. " Nigger " is the commonest term
on the lips of the whites in the South. The
States there which legislate on the inter
marriage of the races define a negro as a person
with one-eighth or more of negro blood, but
general custom extends the definition, and all
persons of negro descent, from the genuine
West Coast negro to the " coloured man " who
is practically indistinguishable from the Cauca
sian, come within its range. Southerners re
fuse to recognise any middle stage : one, to
them, is either a white man or a nigger. A
person may be much more closely allied to the
white stock than to the black, but so long as he
exhibits a trace of Wood affiliation to the lower
race, he is classed as a negro. If men of mixed
blood who hold high office and are accorded
social honour in the British West Indies paid a
visit to the Southern States, and were recog-

THE BLACK FACTOR 43
nised as persons of colour, they would be com
pletely cut off from association with the whites,
and forced down to the level of the negroes.
In the North, also, they would be refused the
consideration paid to white men.
Some uncertainty exists as to the relative
proportions of the pure and mixed elements.
On one hand it is said that there is very little
pure negro blood in the country ; on the other,
that there are very few people of mixed descent.
The census, which provides the most authorita
tive data on the subject, states, in the report
for 1900, that between 11 and 16 per cent, of
the negro population possess some degree of
white blood. The proportion is larger in the
West Indies, to judge from the conditions in
Jamaica, where 20 per cent, of the same class
of persons are estimated to be " coloured " or
of mixed descent. But the perfect accuracy
of both computations must be considered
doubtful : in America pure negroes of light
skin, like the Iboes, are often classed as mulat-
toes, while in the West Indies the fairest
" coloured " people usually register themselves
as white.
Thus, even in the very name applied to the

44 THE RACE CONFLICT
negro population of America we strike a note
indicative of the strained relations between
the two peoples. The whites have imposed a
certain course on the lower race, and the latter
have been compelled to submit to it. The
position is felt most keenly by persons of mixed
blood, many of whom are almost white in skin,
and practically white in thought and feeling.
Between these and the white race lies an im
passable gulf : they are absolutely debarred
from all social intercourse with the class to
which they have the greatest affinity. They —
and their children, though whiter still — must
take their place everywhere in the community,
as members of an inferior and degraded race.
While passing through a negro high school in
one of the middle States, the writer observed
two white girls with straight flaxen hair among
others both black and half-caste, and indicat
ing them to the Principal, a very fair man of
great intelligence, remarked that he understood
the institution was intended solely for negroes.
"So it is," was the quiet reply ; " these girls
are negresses — they are my children." Such
men protest aginst a system which, they claim,
is illogical and unnatural, and restrictive of

THE BLACK FACTOR 45
their social freedom and development, but
there is no remedy.
It is a strange and impressive fact that this
mixed class is being used to uplift the negro
race out of its slough of animalism and ignor
ance. It contains the most highly educated
and most active and ambitious members of the
community. The prominent leaders in Black
America to-day are not pure negroes — though
there are many of great ability among these ;
but mulattoes and others of whiter strain.
Unable to associate themselves with the whites,
they have deliberately cast in their lot with the
blacks, and set themselves to train the race for
the great struggle that is to come. They are
stooping to conquer. The immense importance
of this fact cannot be too clearly realised, for
it explains much in the conditions that exist,
and throws light on the possibilities involved
in the general race-problem of the world. In
the countries where there is no coercion, and
where the colour demarcations are well-defined
and observed, we find comparatively little
racial progress. The system in the West Indies
tends towards the separation of the various
grades, the creation of colour-caste, and the

46 THE RACE CONFLICT
development of mutual distrust and anta
gonism. The blacks are jealous of the higher
social status of the coloured class, while the
latter are inclined to despise the blacks. The
same conditions obtain in Haiti, where the
underlying antipathy between the blacks and
mulattoes greatly handicap the progress of the
Republic. The system in the United States,
on the other hand, is leading to the unification
of all classes of Afro-American stock as nothing
else could succeed in doing, and compelling
them to act together as one people for the pro
tection of their mutual interests, and for social
and economic advancement. If the custom
of the West Indies were followed by the
American people, and the half-castes accorded
a higher racial position than the negroes, it is
probable that the various elements would
cease to coalesce, and one of the principal factors
forcing the race issue to the front would be
removed. The pure negroes would lose much
of the stimulus now acting as a lever of action,
and would remain considerably longer in their
state of servile dependence. It is, of course,
quite consistent with such a tendency that there
should be social limitations within the race

THE BLACK FACTOR 47
itself. These are every day becoming more
sharply drawn. There are circles into which
admission is governed by culture or wealth ;
there are churches where the members are
practically restricted to people of mixed
blood. But on questions affecting the position
of the race in relation to the whites, the dis
position is to come together and stand united.
A correlative tendency on the part of the
whites is to regard all negroes as essentially
alike. There are, however, as many varieties
among them as among the whites, distinguish
able not only by cast of feature and hue of skin,
but by mental and moral capacity. Some of
these were probably originated by crossing at
some remote period with a higher type, such
as the Arab, Moor, or Saracen, from whom
special characteristics may have been derived ;
but the unmixed negroes often possess regular
features, soft brown skin, and excellent quali
ties of mind, along with natural manners that
would put many a white man to shame. On
the other hand, some, evidently from bad
African stock, give the criminals to the race.
The " Blue Gum Nigger " of the South, who is
avoided as dangerous by the better class

48 THE RACE CONFLICT
negroes, is descended from the Guinea cannibal
tribes. " You had better let dat nigger 'lone :
he's a blue gum nigger, and his bite is poison,"
is an exclamation frequently heard on the
plantations. In a series of facial types sup
plied to the writer by Mr. D. A. Tompkins, of
North Carolina and reproduced as a frontis
piece in the present volume, the principal
distinctions are well brought out and easily
recognisable by those who are acquainted with
the race. One is of an African from the high
lands of middle Africa — dark bronze in colour,
with high forehead and woolly hair : this type
furnishes the preachers, mechanics, and good
class of farm labourers. Another is of an Arab-
African from the north-east coast of Africa,
with dark bronze skin, straight nose, thin lips
and woolly hair : this type is found among the
butlers, body-servants and mechanics. Another
is of the Dinka negro — a class forming the
pastoral people of the Upper and Middle Nile :
long and clean in feature, from which are
drawn the " mammy " and house servant.
Another is of the Guinea negro — black in skin,
with flat nose and thick lips, a receding fore
head and kinky hair : this is the negro who

THE BLACK FACTOR 49
exhibits murderous instincts, and is collo
quially known as the " Blue Gum Nigger."
He is usually a farm hand, and has probably
some affinity to the Haitian negro, who occa
sionally reverts to his aboriginal customs.
In any study of the race problem it is but
fair to take into account the wide mental and
physical differences that prevail. One of the
principal complaints made against the whites
is that they invariably generalise on the race
from the characteristics or acts of single in
dividuals. There is no doubt that such a dis
position tends to increase the worst forms of
race antipathy, and makes it more difficult for
the negroes to rise and advance. The position
was thus described to the writer by an intelli
gent negro in New York : "We recognise the
differences that exist among the white people,
and we do not blame the rest for what one does.
But in our case, you make all of us responsible
for the sins of one. Each of us has to bear the
burden of the race. If I read in the morning
papers that a negro has been arrested for some
offence, I would fain stay at home, because I
feel that every white man and woman in the
streets will shun me in consequence : if a

50 THE RACE CONFLICT
lynching takes place for what is called ' the
usual crime,' I know that I typify to all I meet
a sensual and degraded people : every day,
wherever I go, the eyes of the white race are
upon me, and I am conscious of being hated
and despised. It is a heavy burden, and it is
little wonder that many of us sink under it and
become in reality what we are supposed to be."
The negro population — for the sake of clear
ness the American nomenclature is adopted,
and the words black, coloured and negro re
garded as synonymous — is not increasing at
the same rate as the white population ; but it
is not showing any tendency to numerical de
cline. According to the census the decennial
rate of increase of the whites has practically
always been greater than that of the negroes.
In the South during the past twenty years the
per centage of increase of the whites has been
fully seven-tenths greater than the negroes.
There is nothing, however, to indicate that th?
race will not prove to be a permanent element
in the population. During the past ten years
the increase in the entire country was 1,345,318,
or 18 per cent. Even under the present con
ditions, which favour its degeneration and

THE BLACK FACTOR 51
decay, it is not dying out before white civilisa
tion. Its death rate is almost double that of
the white race, but this is due chiefly to the
absence of the most elementary knowledge of
sanitation and personal hygiene. With the
increase of intelligence this abnormal mortality
will be lessened, and the race bulk still more
largely in the life of the nation.
At present it can be found everywhere
throughout the country, but is mainly concen
trated in the States bordering the South Atlan
tic and the Gulf of Mexico — the old sugar, rice,
cotton and tobacco region. These States —
which include Delaware, Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas,
along with West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee
and Arkansas — contain as many as 89.7 per
cent, of the negroes of the United States.
Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama are the most
densely inhabited by the race, these three
States containing more than three-tenths of the
entire negro population. Georgia possesses
the largest population of negroes of any State,
the number in 1900 being 1,034,813, as com
pared with a white population of 1,181,294.
In two States only do they exceed the whites :

52 THE RACE CONFLICT
in South Carolina, where there are 782,321
negroes and 557,807 whites, and in Mississippi
where the negroes number 907,630 and the
whites 641,200. What is called the " black
belt," or the area wherein negroes constitute
at least half the population, runs, with occa
sional breaks or enclaves, in a curve roughly
following the coast line from Texas to Mary
land. This is still, according to the United
States Department of Agriculture the " zone
of the cotton plant, sugar cane, rice and pea
nut." The area in which they cluster most
thickly lies along the alluvial banks of the
Mississippi, where they compose five-eighths
of the population, the largest relative propor
tion being 15 negroes to one white person.
In the South generally the negroes are chiefly
denizens of the country districts, though in
some States, like Georgia and Florida, they
often outnumber the whites in the smaller
towns. In the North they are most numerous
in the large cities. This distribution is due to
several causes, all forming part of the main
problem. The Southern negroes are, for the
most part, ignorant and unskilled, and unable
to take a share in the organised life of a city,

THE BLACK FACTOR 53
and they huddle together in the country for
mutual protection and association, a fact which
explains the continued existence of the black
belt and the degradation of the mass. When
the more ambitious seek to escape from their
surroundings, or from the race pressure of the
whites, they migrate to the North, and flock to
the cities, where they expect to find greater
freedom and opportunity. This northward
movement has been going on since the war, and
has increased within recent years as a result
of the unusual friction in the South. During
the period from 1890 to 1900 the per centage of
increase of the negroes in the North Atlantic
States has been more than twice that of the
whites. In all the urban communities of the
North and Middle States, the coloured element
in the population has now become conspicuous :
in fact, in the large cities of the country as a
whole it is increasing at a somewhat higher
rate than the white element. Washington, the
national capital, has 86,702 negroes, or more
than any other city in the Union. Baltimore
comes next with 79,258, New York has 60,666,
Chicago 30,150, and Boston 11,591. From
what one gathers the movement is likely to

54 THE RACE CONFLICT
continue. Although the negroes only con
stitute less than 2 per cent, of the population
of the North Atlantic States, the figures in
dicate that while the race question still dom
inates the South the conditions that form it
are becoming rapidly transferred to the North.
The problem is slowly but surely becoming a
national one.

CHAPTER V.
POLITICAL FORCES
Party necessities largely influence the charac
ter of the political rights extended to the
coloured population in America, but it is a
mistake to suppose that deeper principles,
transcending all temporary considerations, do
not also govern the attitude of the whites.
Their policy can only be made clear by a
reference to historical events.
The Declaration of Independence affirmed,
in the spiiit of the time in which it was written,
that all men are created equal. This sentiment
however, only referred to the whites, and not
to the slaves, or unreservedly to the free persons
of colour who were granted certain privileges.
And so, in the case of the national Constitution,
designed to " secure the blessings of liberty "
to the citizens and their posterity, only the
white population came within the purview of
55

56 THE RACE CONFLICT
its provisions. At the formation of the Union
there were many, both among the whites and
the free coloured people, who had not the right
to vote. Then, as now, the matter was in the
hands of the individual States. A few of the
Southern States granted the free negroes the
right, but all had withdrawn it previous to the
Civil War. The middle States also withdrew
or restricted the privilege. In the North few
were willing to grant the suffrage to them on
equal terms with the whites, and where granted
it was often purely formal. In the West the
States refused it even after the war. Suffrage
was not generally granted to the whites them
selves. When the Constitution went into force
a property qualification or a religious test was
required in nearly every State, and compara
tively few out of the total population had a
vote. By 1830, however, the right of the adult
white males to vote was very generally recog
nised, though restrictions were occasionally
enforced. Connecticut in 1855 required voters
to be able to read the Constitution and the
statutes ; and Massachussetts made a similar
provision in 1857. Thus while the fundamental
aim before the war was clearly to establish

POLITICAL FORCES 57
universal white suffrage, the policy of safe
guarding the ballot by judicious restrictions
was often adopted ; while with regard to the
free p :rsons of colour the tendency was to
diminish rather than to augment their political
power. There was no interference on the part
of the Federal Government with any of these
State regulations.
The Civil War threw the whole question of
the franchise into confusion. At first the
Republican party as a whole had no intention
of granting political freedom to the ex-slave ;
its object was simply to restore civil order and
authority in the seceding States. The Aboli
tionist leaders, however, pressed for negro
suffrage, partly to safeguard the interests of the
race, and partly to secure the ascendancy of
the Republican party, and the measure was
finally agreed to as an act of political expe
diency demanded by the situation at the
time. The portion of the Constitutional
Amendment which embodied it runs as
follows : —
" All persons born or naturalised in the
United States, and subject to the jurisdiction

58 THE RACE CONFLICT
thereof, are citizens of the United States
wherein they reside. No State shall make
or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States ; nor shall any State deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property with
out the due process of law, nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal pro
tection of the laws *'

The effect of this provision was to bring the
negro within the scope of the Constitution, and
give him the status of a citizen. It did not
expressly confer the suffrage upon him. It is
held that the Constitution does not confer the
suffrage upon any one. The light to vote is
considered to be a gift fiom the individual
State, and not from the Federal Government,
and, subject to the conditions expressed in the
national Constitution, each State claims the
power of limiting, if it sees fit, the exercise of
the franchise. The provision quoted has no
reference to the right to vote, since this right,
as already pointed out, has never been a
privilege or immunity guaranteed to citizens.

POLITICAL FORCES 59
A decision of the Supreme Court in connection
with a Maryland case says : —
" The privilege to vote in a State is within
the jurisdiction of that State itself, to be
exercised as the State may direct, and upon
such terms as may to it seem proper, pro
vided there is no discrimination on account
of race, colour, or previous condition of
servitude."

It was evidently thought that the Southern
States would contrive to exclude the negroes
in the mass from the benefits of the suffrage,
and a penalty clause was therefore included in
the article, which reads as follows : —
" Representatives shall be apportioned
among the several States according to their
respective numbers, counting the whole num
ber of persons in each State, excluding In
dians not taxed. But when the right to vote
at any election for the choice ot electors for
President and Vice-President of the United
States, representatives in Congress, the
executive or judicial officers of a State, or
the members of the Legislature thereof, is

60 THE RACE CONFLICT
denied to any of the male inhabitants of
such State, being twenty-one years of age,
and citizens of the United States, or in any
way abridged, except for participation in
rebellion, or other crime, the basis of repre
sentation therein shall be reduced in the
proportion which the number of such male
citizens shall bear to the whole number of
male citizens twenty-one years of age in
such State."
Previous to the war representation was
apportioned on the whole number of free per
sons in the States, and three-fifths of the slave
population : this new provision based the
apportionment on the whole number of persons
in the States, thus including the entire negro
population, and it enacted that where there
was any abridgement of the right to vote there
should be a corresponding reduction of repre
sentation in the Electoral College and Congress.
In other words, if a State excluded the negro
from the suffrage, the negro would be excluded
from the basis of apportionment. Even this
was not considered sufficient to prevent racial
discrimination, and another amendment, the

POLITICAL FORCES 61
15th, was therefore subsequently passed, which
declared that " the rights of citizens of the
United States to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States, or by any State,
on account of race, colour, or previous condi
tion of servitude," and, as in the other case,
Congress was empowered to enforce the article
by appropriate legislation. This provision,
also, does not interfere with the right of a
State to grant the franchise ; it merely en
deavours to prevent any distinction being made
in the exercise of the power on account of race,
or colour, or previous condition of servitude.
What Congress intended to secure for the ex-
slave, therefore, was the same rights which
were accorded to other citizens under the
Constitution — to place him, politically, on the
same level as the white man. It did not deprive
the separate States of the power which they had
previously possessed of limiting the franchise,
as was deemed necessary in the public interest.
But it expressly stipulated that such limitation
should not be based on colour or race. No
State has considered its former right abolished,
and even Massachussetts has still an educa
tional qualification.

6a THE RACE CONFLICT
It was unwise to place political responsbility
in the hands of the great multitude of illiterate
blacks, but there are still many who justify
the step. They say, in the words of Garfield,
that the negroes were given the ballot not so
much to govern others as to prevent others
from misgoverning them. What the most
intelligent negroes in America say on the
subject is perhaps more to the point. The
writer was told by all with whom he conversed
that the reconstruction policy was, in the cir
cumstances, a perilous experiment, and had
proved to be an irremediable blunder. In their
opinion, it has been the principal cause of the
persecution since endured by their race in the
South. It was the Government, however, that
committed the mistake, and for the actual
horrors of the reconstruction time, the white
adventurers from all parts of the Union were
chiefly responsible. But the whites have never
forgiven the negroes for the share they took in
the work of despoiling and humiliating the
South, and it is chiefly the memory of these
dark days, and the haunting dread of a similar
domination, that stand between the black race
and political freedom.

POLITICAL FORCES 63
When by methods which they do not at
tempt to justify, but which they claim were
unavoidable in the circumstances, the whites
purged public life of Africanism, and became
again masters in their own house, they found
it necessary to arrive at some positive con
clusions regarding the political status of the
negro. They had agreed, perforce, to the Con
stitutional Amendments passed when they
were under military rule, but they never
accepted the underlying principles of equal
citizenship. They now claimed that while
conforming as closely as possible to the essential
principle of democratic government, they were
entitled to suppress all elements that would
impair the safety and prosperity of the States.
On the surface this seemed but a continuation
of the policy widely adopted before the war,
and it is the expression of a belief now fairly
prevalent throughout the Union. It is con
sidered that unrestricted suffrage disfranchises
intelligence and virtue, and the imposition of
an educational and property qualification is
very generally commended as a measure
suitable not only for the South, but for the
North. In the South, as in the North, there

64 THE RACE CONFLICT
is a strong opinion that the illiterate and vicious
white element should be excluded from the
franchise, and, no doubt, were the negro out of
the way, an attempt would be made in this
direction. It is important to note that the
negroes approve of such a qualification :
among all those with whom the writer talked
on the subject there was not one who was not
in sympathy with it, and who did not express
a wish to see it universally introduced, the
only stipulation they made being that the
system should be honestly carried out without
discrimination of colour or race.
It is on this point that the whole question
turns in the South. Southerners admit that
they disfranchise the negroes, but only for the
reason that negroes, in the main, stand for
everything that is opposed to what is required
in a citizen and a votei . There is ample proof,
however, that the policy has been extended
to all classes, simply because they are negroes,
and not only to the illiterate and irresponsible
of the race. The South, as a whole, has too
great a respect for the national Constitution to
flaunt any flagrant disregard of its provisions
before the country, and there are many who

POLITICAL FORCES 65
have convinced themselves that the procedure
followed keeps well within the four corners of
the document. Most of the States achieve
their purpose under cover of local legislative
or constitutional enactments which do not
apparently conflict with the supreme law.
One does not readily obtain evidence of the
actual operation of the system : the whites talk
frankly enough on the broad situation, and
admit that they do not allow the negro to vote,
but they are chary ot showing the outsider
how the system is worked in practice. The
methods are not the same in all the States.
Each State has its own plan, which may con
sist of one or two, or a combination of the ideas
in vogue, according to local sentiments and
necessities. It will be best to describe the
methods themselves, instead of the plan of
each State. They deal chiefly with the regis
tration of voters, a duty in the hands of partisan
boards appointed by the State administration,
the registration officers being the sole judges
of the fitnesslof the applicants, white and black.
The first class embraces various qualifica
tions, based on the possession of intelligence
and character. The applicant must be able to

66 THE RACE CONFLICT
read and write ; or must make out his own
application without aid, suggestion, or memor
anda, unless physically unable ; or must be
able to read and interpret, or interpret when
read to him, or understand and give a reason
able explanation of any section of the Constitu
tion submitted to him by the officers ; or,
finally, must be a person of good character and
understand the duties and obligations of
citizens under a republican form of govern
ment. The possession by a negro of any of
these qualifications, however, does not neces
sarily mean that he will be registered. With
manifold ingenious means at their command
of throwing out the application and justifying
their action, the officers of registration are
complete masters of the situation. Their
judgment and discretion are not exercised on
the lower class negro alone. It is the intelli
gent and progressive coloured man that the
white has most to fear, and every obstacle is
placed in the way of his registration. One
lawyer of more than average ability was refused
a place on the roll on the ground of insufficient
intelligence and admitted only under the
property qualification. Another negro, a

POLITICAL FORCES 67
physician of fifteen years' standing and a
graduate of a univeristy, was informed that
while he might have the knowledge required
for his profession, it did not prove his fitness
to be a voter. What are termed the " under
standing " clauses are specially restrictive. If
the applicants show that they do not under
stand the constitution, or any part of it, they
are disqualified. The officers will probably
ask such questions as " What is a bill of
attainder ? " or " What is an expost facto
law ? " or demand an explanation of some
abstract principle embodied in the Constitution.
Not one ordinary man in a hundred would be
able to answer such questions correctly, and in
the case of illiterate negroes the result is whole
sale disfranchisement. As a lule, there is no
difficulty about the registration of whites under
this group of qualifications.
The second class embraces financial qualifi
cations. The applicant requires to be the
possessor of real or personal property to the
value of 300 dollars, or he must have paid
a capitation tax, which is usually a dollar or a
dollar and a half. With regard to the former,
the officers may express themselves dissatisfied

68 THE RACE CONFLICT
with some detail, and may demand documen
tary evidence or allege that they do not know
the applicant, who must bring witnesses to
identify him. Appearing again, he is put off
on another excuse, and the process is repeated
until he finds that the register has been closed.
Sometimes they are told to bring white wit
nesses, which, as a rule, they find it impossible
to do. So numerous are the difficulties with
which intelligent negroes are confronted that
many have ceased attempting to be registered.
It is probable that the largest number of negroes
are disfranchised under the poll-tax qualifica
tion. The great majority never think of paying
this tax, as they are not given the ordinary
opportunities of doing so, and no provision is
made for collecting it if unpaid : the penalty
is loss of vote, and arrears have to be paid
before registration can be effected. It is
estimated in some States that fully 90 per cent.
of the negroes of voting age have been dis
qualified by failure to pay the tax.
The third class embraces a prescriptive and
hereditary qualification— the " Grandfather "
clause — under which all those who on January
ist, 1867, or at any time previously, were

POLITICAL FORCES 69
entitled to vote, and all their descendants, are
entitled to vote although unable to read and
write, the effect, of course, being to exclude all
negroes from the suffrage, as they had not the
right to vote on January ist, 1867, and to en
franchise a large number of illiterate whites ;
also a military service qualification, under
which any man who has been in the land or
naval forces of the United States or of any
State, or the Confederacy, is entitled to be
registered ; but as the registration officers may
not be satisfied with the discharge papers or
credentials of a negro applicant, and may call
for identification, and so forth, it is often im
possible for such an applicant to make his
claim good.
The practical effect of these various ex
pedients has been to disfranchise the great
mass of negroes in the South. A sufficient
number is registered simply to sustain the
argument that the requirements of the national
Constitution are being complied with. The
whites claim that the Constitutional provisions
apply alike to both white and negro. This is
to some extent the case. If the negro vote is
eliminated, however, there is no necessity to

70 THE RACE CONFLICT
be anxious about the numerical condition of
the white vote. The latter is almost entirely
democratic, and voting for candidates is, in
most cases, a matter of form. Were this white
democratic vote to be in danger the white
registration would be promptly attended to
and nursed. But it is never in danger. Elec
tions in most of the Southern States are
regulated by what is termed the Australian
Ballot System, which was introduced into the
United States in 1888 by the State of Massa
chusetts and the city of Louisville, Kentucky.
Its avowed purpose is to secure the secrecy of
the ballot. New York at first vetoed the
system as tending to embarrass, hinder, and
impede the voters, an effect which has actually
followed its adoption in the Southern States.
There the election laws are so framed as to
leave considerable room for fraudulent prac
tices in recording and counting the votes, with
the result of decreasing still further the in
fluence of the black ballot. Even the negro
votes enumerated have no bearing on the
State and National elections, which are
governed by a system of white " primaries."
The real contest is not fought out in the polling

POLITICAL FORCES 71
booth, but in these gatherings of the dominant
party, where the issues are discussed and the
candidates agreed on. The campaign and the
formal election are merely ratifications of the
choice made in the primaries. From these
meetings the negroes are rigidly excluded. To
this fact is due the comparatively small num
ber of votes polled in the South, the whites not
troubling themselves to exercise their rights
when the issue is a foregone conclusion. The
number of votes polled in connection with the
primaries is said to be often in excess of the
election votes.
The sentiment which has produced this
extensive disfranchisement of the coloured
vote is extending to those Northern States
where there is a large negro voting population,
the Democrats demanding that their political
destinies must be shaped and controlled only
by the white. " While," they say, " we dis
claim any purpose to do any injustice to our
coloured population, we declare without re
serve our resolute purpose to preserve in every
conservative and constitutional way the politi
cal ascendancy of our race." Special election
laws in some States have given power to the

jz THE RACE CONFLICT
election officers to arrange the ballot in order
to perplex and handicap the illiterate voter.
" Trick ballots " and other illegitimate de
vices, designed to confuse the negroes and spoil
their votes, have been the rule in these sections.
One curious expedient came across the notice
of the writer. In a district largely inhabited
by illiterate black voters on whom success
depended, the Republican candidate was a
Sydney E. Mudd. The Democrats put up an
" Independent Republican " candidate, named
John E. Mudd, and another as " Repudiation "
candidate, named Sydney O. Mercier, in the
belief that the similarity of the words would
bewilder the voters, and that a large number of
Republican voting papers would be thrown
out. At the instance of the Republicans the
name of Sydney O. Mercier was deleted on a
technicality, but the other remained. Sydney
E. Mudd, however, was equal to the occasion :
he held night schools, at which he instructed
the blacks how to recognise his name, and he
was elected.
It is not to be supposed that this great
political revolution in the South has been
accomplished without protest on the part of the

POLITICAL FORCES 73
negroes. While the uneducated masses have
accepted the situation, intelligent members of
the race have been moved to test the legality
and constitutionality of the suffrage provisions.
One case was fought out in Alabama by a
coloured man, who, on behalf of himself and
more than five thousand negroes claimed that
the registrars had refused to enter their names
on the books as qualified electors on account of
race and colour. He pointed out that the
Convention which framed the new Constitution
was composed exclusively of white men, whose
purpose was to disfranchise the negroes, that
under the temporary plan adopted over 200,000
whites had been registered for life and only
about 2,000 negroes, and that the testimony
of all negroes was rejected, and negro appli
cants compelled to produce the evidence of
two white men as to their qualifications, while
all white men were registered without any
evidence except the oath of the applicant.
Tlie case went against him, and he carried it
to the Federal Supreme Court, which declined
relief for the reason that the matter was politi
cal and not judicial, and did not therefore
come within its jurisdiction. When, however,

74 THE RACE CONFLICT
another Southern negro who went up for
election and was, it is alleged, fraudulently
deprived by the whites of the votes, took the
case to Congress, he was informed that any
voter deprived of his right to vote must apply
to the proper State Court and up to the Federal
Supreme Court. The apparent impossibility
of securing a verdict from either branch of the
national Government in face of a public
opinion overwhelmingly in favour of racial
discrimination has tended to discourage such
efforts to secure the enforcement of the war
amendments, and the negro now hopes for
relief more from public agitation in the North
than from individual or combined effort in the
South. Friends of the race in the North have been
watching the trend of events with increasing
anxiety, but have, so far, been unable to in
fluence the situation in its favour. Any
semblance of action has been taken merely for
partisan purposes. There is no doubt that
the white Republicans in the North are half
hearted over the racial question. They say
that the negroes are becoming more exacting
in their demands as their consciousness of

POLITICAL FORCES 75
voting power increases, and that they claim
an ever larger share of political offices, and
need constant " coddling " and no small ex
penditure of money to keep them solid. The
colour line is now being more strictly drawn in
the counsels and committees of the party.
Candidates are put up, campaigns planned and
carried on, and not one negro in ten hundred
is called upon to participate or state his views.
At party meetings they are packed away in a
side gallery. The average Republican, in
short, likes the negro at close quarters as little
as the Democrat.
The Republican party, however, requires
the negro vote. It is not inconsiderable in the
North, and in some States is large enough to
decide the issue at elections. According to
the census of 1900, the number of negroes of
voting age in certain States — and it must be
remembered that they are rapidly increasing
— was as follows : —
Maryland, 60,406. Kansas, 14,695.
New York, 31,425. Massachussetts, 10,456.
Ohio, 31,235. Delaware, 8,374.
Illinois, 20,762. Connecticut, 4,576.
New Jersey, 21,474. California, 3,711.

7(> THE RACE CONFLICT
Indiana, 18,186. Colorado, 3.215-
W. Virginia, 14,786. Rhode Island, 2,765.
At State elections the negro vote in some of
these States has been sufficient to turn the tide
in favour of the Republicans. In one election
it was assumed that they would have lost
California, New Jersey, and New York but
for the coloured vote. In Connecticut their
plurality would have been reduced by more
than one-fourth ; in Indiana by more than
one-half. A Presidential victory for the
Democrats could be gained by carrying New
York, New Jersey and Indiana, and the negro
vote in these States can command the situa
tion. It also counts in the other States men
tioned but not to the same extent. According
to some authorities, the Democrats would have
a majority of more than a million if the black
votes were eliminated. Under such circum
stances it is obvious that the Republican party
is obliged to maintain the traditional hold on
the sympathies of the coloured population.
The negroes have hitherto voted for the party,
although in local and State elections in the
North one finds them occasionally voting
Democrat. In the South they vote the Re-

POLITICAL FORCES 77
publican ticket in the greater issues, but
in municipal elections they are amenable to
bribery, and the purchase of their votes is
largely indulged in by both parties. Of late
years the intelligent class in both North and
South have become increasingly suspicious of
the good faith of the Republicans, and more
lukewarm in their allegiance. They assert
that the party is given over to commercialism,
and no longer rings true to its old ideals. This
spirit of discontent frequently becomes so
manifest that it is necessary to make special
bids for their votes. When Mr. Roosevelt
was put up for President, for instance, a negro
was permitted to second his nomination, and
in the platform adopted the following plank
was inserted, mainly at the instigation of the
negro leaders : —
" We favour such Congressional action as
shall determine whether by special dis
criminations the elective franchise in any
State has been unconstitutionally limited,
and, if such is the case, we demand that
representation in Congress and in the Elec
toral College shall be proportionally reduced

78 THE RACE CONFLICT
as directed by the Constitution of the
United States."
The effect of such devices is naturally to
close in the ranks of the negroes, and consoli
date their vote for the Republicans. In the
case of Mr. Roosevelt, personality, of course,
counted for something. He never made the
race question a special feature of his administra
tion, neither did he promote any legislation
in furtherance of the general welfare of the
negroes, but he showed himself an advocate
of equal rights and opportunities for all citizens,
of whatever race. To a negro delegation in
Washington he once said : " You deserve
equal rights with all other men, irrespective of
race or previous condition. You shall have
nothing less, and as far as I am able I shall
strive, as in the past, to secure you the rights
that are yours." Apart, however, from the
personal question the negroes will always
vote for the Republican candidate, for this
at present is the only course open to the race :
the party represents to them all the recognition,
support and encouragement they receive at
the hands of the white people, while the

POLITICAL FORCES 79
Democrats stand for all that is hateful and
reactionary — disfranchisement, separate cars,
lynchings, trick ballots, peonage, illiteracy and
racial hostility in every form, and they fear
that if the latter succeed to office they will
cancel the fifteenth Amendment. At the same
time, the dissatisfaction with the invertebrate
policy of the Republicans continues, and there
is a disposition to form a national negro party,
which would throw its whole strength with or
against the main parties, with the object of
securing the most for the race. One small
organisation of the kind which recently existed
advocated, among other things, unrestricted
suffrage, the addition of two negro regiments
to the army, and the suppression of lynching.
The effect of the Republican policy in the
South is to exasperate the whites, stiffen
their resolution to maintain their position,
and intensify their antagonism to the negro.
They do not believe, however, that the party
ever means to fulfil its purpose, and cause an
investigation to be made. Such a course, it
is pointed out, would simply stir up sectional
animosity, and make the situation worse for
the negroes. That part of the provision of

80 THE RACE CONFLICT
the wai amendment imposing a penalty for
denying the right to vote for the executive
and judicial officers of a State or the members
of its legislature is regarded in the South as a
particularly unwarranted interference with
State rights, and to enforce it would be im
possible in the present state of feeling. The
South, of course, repudiates the implication
that the limitation of the franchise is governed
by colour, and holds that no enquiry is neces
sary to establish the fact. On the other hand,
an influential body of opinion is forming at the
North favourable to Congressional action. On
the assumption that the majority of negro votes
in the Southern States has been nullified, it
is asked why Mississippi, with only 641,200
white inhabitants, is entitled to 10 votes in
the Electoral College, while Minnesota, with
I.737.036, has only 11 ; why Iowa, with an
Anglo-Saxon population of 2,218,667, should
have 13 votes, while Georgia, with only
1,181,294 whites, should receive the same
number ; why Virginia, with but 1,192,855
white people, has 12 votes, and California,
with 1,402,727, has only 10 ; why Louisiana,
with a white population of 729,612, has 9 votes,

POLITICAL FORCES 81
and Connecticut, with 892,424, is only accorded
7 ; and, finally, why Texas, with 2,426,669
whites, has 18 votes, and Massachussetts has
only 16, although her white population is
2,769,764. A writer has put the case of lhe
North thus : —
" The people who are now deprived of their
just representation in the Electoral College and
in Congress would deeply regret the necessity
of a sectional struggle to get their rights ; but,
unless some other remedy is found, they will
be forced to apply the one they now have.
The Southern States have an influence in
national affairs to which they are not rightly
entitled. No matter what sympathy reason
able men may have for them in the unhappy
conditions imposed upon them by the 14th
and 15th Amendments, the Southern States
may rest assured that all that sympathy would
disappear if they persist in claiming in the
national councils a weight which they have
always had, and to which they are no longer
entitled. The oppression to which they have
been subjected is no justification for allowing
them a representation in the Electoral College
and in Congress based upon vast numbers of

82 THE RACE CONFLICT
citizens of the United States, whom they will
not permit to vote at national elections. The
States which are deprived of their fair share of
representation will certainly, sooner or later,
insist upon the enforcement of the 14th Amend
ment, and the imposition of the penalty therein
provided for. Their people belong to a patient
and long-suffering race, and are slow to act ;
but our recent history has shown that, when
they conclude that the time for action has
arrived, no obstacles are sufficient to stay their
progress, or turn them from their purpose."
The net result of all the interplay of racial
and political forces within recent years has
been to weaken the position of the Democratic
party. Southern politicians are well aware of
this, but remain, as ever, vigilant and purpose
ful. It may be that they will form an inde
pendent Southern party, which will cease to
co-operate with any of the factors in the North,
and endeavour rather to hold the balance of
power. In that direction some think secession
lies. The significant fact is that it is the black
element in the population which is exercising
so powerful and far-reaching an influence on
the destiny of the nation.

CHAPTER VI.
THE SCALES OF JUSTICE
As the negro is considered unfit to share in the
work of framing the laws of the country, so,
on the same ground, he is excluded from the
task of administering them. Coloured men are
occasionally to be found on juries, but they are
put there merely that there may be some
appearance of compliance with the Constitution.
No negro is allowed on juries in the State Courts
of the South. They are, however, permitted
to practise as lawyers, and those in the North
state that they have little to complain of in the
attitude of the Bench. But everywhere the
dispensing of justice is in the hands of the
whites. Under the Constitution the negroes are
guaranteed equality in regard to legal protec-
tionandprocess . ' ' Neither slavery nor involunt
ary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
83

84 THE RACE CONFLICT
whereof the party shall have been duly con
victed," says the 13th Amendment, " shall
exist within the United States or any place
subject to their jurisdiction." And no State,
adds the last article, " shall deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property without the due
process of law, nor deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws."
Subject to these provisions, the control of public
justice is in the hands of the individual States.
The power of the Federal Government is a
limited one : it can only take notice of offences
committed against the Federal authority,
except in cases where the States are unable to
quell disorder and violence, and call upon it
for assistance. The negroes are dependent
on the States in which they reside for proper
treatment and protection. Where no legisla
tion has been passed by Congress to enforce
the Constitutional Amendments the Courts
have no jurisdiction to punish acts which offend
the purposes of these provisions. Congress has,
in several instances, passed legislation dealing
with the subject, but this has been declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It is
held, however, that where a negro has been
UJ

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE 85
lynched, not because of his crime but because
of his colour, the act is an offence against the
United States, and can be punished as such.
In this case the jury has to determine the
motive from the circumstances of the case.
No State admits that there is discrimination
before the law, or that the Federal Government
has any ground for interference, but scarcely a
week passes in which the Constitution is not vio
lated in the South. The observant visitor can
not fail to notice the difference in the treatment
meted out to the negro and the white man in
the Courts and in the course of daily life. The
belief in the inferiority of the black man and
the racial sympathy that prevails naturally
react on the judgment of the white authorities,
and justice is very often regarded as a gift for
which the negroes should be grateful, rather
than a right to which they are entitled. Many
coloured people assert that they never think of
taking cases against whites to court on account
of the difficulty of obtaining a verdict, the juries,
as a rule, rejecting the testimony of any num
ber of negroes if it be opposed to that of a white
witness. " Justice is colour-blind," they say,
" and all we can do is to keep out of trouble,

86 THE RACE CONFLICT
though this is, naturally, often impossible,
as everything depends on the temper of the
whites." A conference, held in connection
with Atlanta University, on the causes of
crime among the negroes of Georgia, came to
the following, among other, conclusions : —
" Negroes have les$ legal protection than others
against unfair aggression upon their rights to
life, liberty and property. Courts usually
administer two distinct sorts of justice — one
for whites and one for negroes ; and this cus
tom, together with the fact that the judge and
court officials are invariably white and elected
to office by the influence of white votes alone,
makes it very difficult for a negro to secure
justice in court when his opponent is white."
Visits paid to the courts confirm these allega
tions. Cases in which negroes are concerned
are dispatched with a swiftness that suggests
insufficient consideration, while heavy fines
and long terms of imprisonment are imposed
on negro prisoners for offences of an ordinary
character. Here are a few instances noticed
by the writer. In one batch of trivial cases of
" disorderly conduct," " cursing and abusing,"
and drunkenness the fines ranged from five to

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE 87
twenty dollars, with the option of from ten
to thirty days' hard labour in the penitentiary
or chain gang. A negro charged with burglary
and another charged with snatching a pocket
book were each sentenced to 18 years' im
prisonment. Two negro women received five
years each for shoplifting, a negro 18 years for
felonious assault, and another (who was forty
years old) 21 years for feloniously assaulting
his stepdaughter.
The tendency to greater severity increases
from North to South, in correspondence with
the theory in the South that extended terms
of punishment are necessary for the suppres
sion of crime. On this point the Census Report
remarks : " It is popularly supposed that the
prevalence of crime is chiefly due to inadequate
punishment, and that the remedy for it is to
be found in harsher laws and a more rigorous
administration of them by the courts. If
this were so, then there would be less homicide
relatively to the population in the South Central
division (Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Ken
tucky, etc.) than in any other. The percent
ages of sentences for 20 years and over is
greater than in any other division, and the

88 THE RACE CONFLICT
average sentences pronounced by the courts
is longer. In these respects the Western
division stands almost side by side with the
South Central. Yet the ratio of prisoners
charged with homicide to the total population
of these divisions is much higher than else
where, and it is more than double the ratio for
the other three divisions taken altogether."
Whites sometimes receive equally long sen
tences, but wherever whites and blacks are
found together on the same level in the South
there is usually some unseen influence tem
pering the situation for the higher race. In
the presence instance the modifying factor is
the pardoning power of the Governors of
States, which is frequently exercised on behalf
of the whites — so frequently that it has be
come something of a scandal in some States —
but is seldom extended to the negro.
The fact that negro prison labour is of
monetary value to the State may unconsciously
influence the authorities. The penal system
of the South has a close connection with the
more urgent aspects of the race problem, and
it is necessary that it should be understood.
Under what was called the lease system the

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE 89
State formerly not only sold the labour of the
convicts, but parted with their custody and
control. The women were leased to private
individuals, and boys of tender years were kept
with the other convicts and accoided the same
treatment and tasks. The conditions became
such that reform was inevitable. The new
system, however, retains the essential featuies
of the old, the only difference being that the
convicts are under State supervision. There
are State farms on which men, women and
children — mostly white — are employed, but
the bulk of the felony convicts are contracted
out to private individuals and corporations for
labour in turpentine works, brick factories,
saw mills, and coal and copper mines, and to
the county authorities for work on the public
roads. The system is a profitable one, the
proceeds going mainly to the counties not
using convict labour upon their roads, to be
used for school or road purposes, as may be
determined by the Grand Juries, and the
authorities uphold it as being humane, as com
peting less with free labour than any other,
and as self-supporting. It is freely admitted,
however, even in the prison reports, that abuses

90 THE RACE CONFLICT
are frequent and unavoidable. The demand for
convict labour is usually so great that mis
demeanour convicts have been " let " or
farmed by the counties to private persons at
from io to 15 dollars per month. In a Georgia
prison report it is stated : " Thirty-two chain
gangs are worked for private individuals, in
most cases contrary to the law. Many abuses
continue to exist, and always will exist as long
as the care and maintenance of convicts are
farmed out illegally to private individuals."
And again : " Many complaints have reached
the Commissioners of ill-treatment and viola
tion of the regulations 01 the law governing
chain gangs, and in every instance the Com
missioners have endeavoured to investigate the
same, but from a want of power such investi
gation has necessarily been limited, and the
result often unsatisfactory. In one instance
the violation of the law was so flagrant and
inexcusable that the Governor and Com
missioners felt compelled to remove the con
victs." Of the convicts subjected to the system, 89
per cent, are negroes ; and when their position
in ordinary life is considered one does not ex-

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE 91
pect to find them more leniently treated as
criminals. The effect on their minds, so sus
ceptible to injustice and harshness is disastrous.
The hardened become still more sullen and
savage ; first offenders are transformed into
desperadoes. Large numbers escape annually
and it is such men who terrorise the South.
contributing to that large and increasing class
which hates the whites with a passionate hatred
its most vindictive and lawless members.
Closely analagous to contract convict labour,
and probably an outgrowth of it, is another
system which prevails as part of the backward
regime of the South. Laws as to vagrancy,
disorder, contracts for work, chattel mortgages
and crop liens are so drawn as to involve in
the coils of the law the ignorant, unfortunate
and careless negroes, and lead to their degrada
tion and undue punishment. To the mind of
an Englishman the labour arrangements in
some remote districts is nothing but pure
slavery. Negroes are arrested on charges undei
local laws specially aimed at them, and taken
to the court and fined. Farmers, or others in
the court — it may be the person at whose in
stigation he was arrested — pay the fine on

92 THE RACE CONFLICT
condition that he works out the amount and
interest in labour. Rather than go to prison
he consents and signs a bond. When he
reaches the farm he is furnished with food and
clothing, gradually gets into debt, and often
sinks into the position of a chattel or " peon "
for life. The laws and customs are such that
it is practically impossible for him to escape.
Should he contrive to do so he is tracked by
bloodhounds, brought back, again fined, and
again enslaved. Professor W. E. B. Du Bois,
a man of colour who fills the chair of Economics
in Atlanta University, and who probably
knows more about the negro than any other
person, thus describes the situation : " In
considerable parts of the Gulf States, and
especially in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Ar
kansas, the negroes on the plantations in the
back-country districts are still held at forced
labour practically without wages. Especially
is this true in districts where the farmers are
composed of the more ignorant class of poor
whites, and the negroes are beyond the reach
of schools and intercourse wi Ih their advancing
fellows. If such a peon should run away, the
sheriff (elected by white suffrage) can usually

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE 93
be depended on to catch the fugitive, return
him, and ask no questions. If he escapes to
another county a charge of petty thieving,
easily true, can be depended on to secure his
return. Even if some unduly officious person
insist upon a trial, neighbourly comity will
probably make his conviction sure, and then
the labour due to the county can easily be
bought back by the master. Such a system is
impossible in the more civilised parts of the
South, or near the large towns and cities ; but
in those vast stretches of land beyond the
telegraph and the newspaper the spirit of the
13th Amendment is sadly broken." This
peonage system recently came to the know
ledge of the Federal Government as existing in
Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee,
and, unable to pass over so gross a violation
of the Constitution, it issued indictments
against white men for holding negroes in in
voluntary servitude on their farms, and many
convictions were secured.
In the course of daily life the liberty and lives
of the negroes are safe only in proportion as
they submit to the master race. Those in more
advanced communities who separate them-

94 THE RACE CONFLICT
selves from the whites and " keep their place "
are not, as a rule, molested. All of substance
and property usually enjoy the goodwill of the
respectable white citizens, and business rela
tions are often entered into between the races,
great variations in this respect, however, being
witnessed in the various towns and counties.
Nevertheless, the racial antagonism exists, and
is always ready to break out at the slightest
provocation. The worst class of whites act
on the assumption that the negroes have no
rights which they are bound to respect, and it
is significant that even coloured people of tha
highest standing and culture never get rid of
a deep-seated uneasiness, since they never can
tell when, through inadvertence or accident,
they may run counter to the popular prejudice
and be subjected to contumely and insult.
The poorer, more ignorant, defenceless negroes
are liable at any moment to be threatened, or
maltreated, or shot. In the back districts of
the South, where the population is sparse, and
suspicion and hatred of the race very great,
they are killed on the slightest provocation.
Throughout the South generally there is a law
against carrying concealed arms, but it is

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE 95
mainly enforced against the negroes. They
may be carried as a " reasonable precaution "
against apprehended danger, but it is the white
juries who are the judges of the reasonableness
of the precaution. Practically all white men
bear weapons and keep a stock in their homes,
while very few negroes own firearms. " Eight
of us," remarked a negro to the writer, " were
talking the other night on the race question,
as we usually do when we get together, and I
asked, ' Now, if a white mob came to our
houses to-night, how many would have a re
volver ? ' There was not one, save myself,
who owned to possessing a weapon. I had
bought a rifle to protect my wife and children."
White men are seldom arrested for injuring or
shooting a negro, or if they give themselves
up they are rarely punished : provocation is
always dlleged, and no white jury would con
vict them.

CHAPTER VII.
LYNCH LAW
From murder by one or two individuals to
organised murder by a mob is but a step. Here
one reaches the most terrible phase of the
race problem. Lynch law is not a modern
development. Both negroes and white men
were lynched long before the Civil War, and
this wild form of justice was common among
the pioneers in the frontier districts until civil
society had been established and courts in
stituted It was often considered necessary
to save the community from a reign of law
lessness and terror. The justification for the
act has now largely, if not altogether, passed
away, yet lynchings occur chiefly in States
where the regular machinery of the law is in
operation, and among people under the control
of the constituted authorities and possessing
96

LYNCH LAW 97
all the outward guarantees of advanced civili
sation. They not infrequently take place in
the centre of towns, in the vicinity of churches
and schools, and under the eyes of citizens
active in their support of missionary societies,
Christian Endeavour meetings, Young Men's
Christian Associations, and kindred organisa
tions. There is no authoritative data on which to
rely in dealing with the subject. Lynchings
do not come within the purview of the official
statistician, and no record is kept of them by
the various States or by the Federal Govern
ment. Journalistic enterprise endeavours to
fill the gap, but any statistics supplied in this
way must necessarily be incomplete since they
are compiled only from reports appearing in
the Press throughout the Union. Many cases
of lynching are never made known. Some
districts avoid the notoriety attached to such
incidents, and manage them very quietly. A
posse of whites will go out after a negro suspect
or criminal, and return stating that he cannot
be found. But he is never heard of again. He
has been tracked, shot, and buried in the
woods. G

98 THE RACE CONFLICT
According to the "Chicago Daily News,"
the number of recent lynchings has been —
1903  106 1907  33
1904. ... 90 1908  68
1905  66 1909  36
1906  68 1910  45
It would be easy to fill many pages with
descriptions of lynchings of the most terrible
and revolting character, but only one or two
typical instances need be given. The method
adopted varies with the temper of the mob.
A victim may simply be shot. He may be
taken and strung up on the nearest tree or
telegraph pole, or placed on a horse and noosed
up, the animal dashing from under him when
struck a sharp blow. Occasionally the sus
pended body may be riddled with bullets. Or
he may be tied to a stake or trunk of a tree,
covered with kerosine oil and burned to death.
Of numerous cases of this nature one attracted
some attention when the writer was in the
South, the victims being two negroes of Georgia
who were charged with having cruelly
murdered a farmer and his wife and their child
ren. Bloodhounds tracked them to a picnic,
they were arrested, and along with thirteen

LYNCH LAW gg
accomplices were placed on trial. The following
is a trustworthy account of what occurred : —
" The court was opened by prayer by a
minister, a brother of the murdered man, who
had come from Texas to plead that the law
should be respected. The jury was only out
eight minutes in the case of one, and next
morning the case of the other resulted as
promptly in a verdict of guilty. The judge at
once sentenced both to be hanged, and spoke
with some emphasis about the prompt and
orderly course of justice, and the evident
respect for law existing in that community
under very trying conditions. He was
scarcely done congratulating the people
when a mob of fifteen hundred men charged
an outpost of militia beyond the court
house and discovered that their rifles were
unloaded and some of the guard without
ammunition. The captain in command
of this detail from the First Regiment
of Savannah was seized from behind, his
arms pinioned, and his pistol and sword
taken from him. His men had bayonets
fixed, but only made a perfunctory
resistance. Pouiing through the halls the

ioo THE RACE CONFLICT
mob found the prison room to which the con
demned men had been removed, and swept
over the guard of four militiamen and a
sergeant and other details of soldiers who
were supposed to guard all the entrances to
the building.
There was no attempt at concealment
among those who headed the lynching party.
One negro was dragged from beside his wife
and baby and a noose put about his neck
without a struggle. The other, a powerfully-
muscled man, fought for his life, and with
manacled hands beat back his captors. As
they were hurried down the steps the judge
faced the mob, and implored them to listen
to reason. His efforts were aided by the
clergyman, brother of the victim, who prayed
with tear-stained face that violence might be
banished from the hearts of the people. He
was shouted down with the cry that the mob
wanted blood and not religion.
Within five minutes after breaking into
the guardroom the piisoners were being
forced along the main street of the town,
toward the pine woods close at hand. Half
way to the stake the negroes were allowed

LYNCH LAW 101
to halt while they prayed. The march was
resumed to a tall pine stump, already pre
pared, where faggots and fat pine kindling
were piled in readiness. The two men were
backed against the tree, and a heavy chain
bound them fast to it. Kerosene oil to the
amount of twenty gallons was dienched over
them, and they were also coated with tar.
After the match was applied one made
little outcry, and died soon. The other
cried aloud, and besought sudden death.
One of the crowd smote him on the head,
after which he was silent. Both negroes
were almost wholly consumed.
Thirteen suspects were left in the county
jail, and many of the mob were eager to re
turn and lynch them all, and thus ' finish
the job.' The majority thought that enough
had been done for one day, and the throng
dispersed. But not satisfied with burning
these two, a white mob killed two more
negroes near Statesboro, wounded two in
another part of the county, and severely
whipped others scattered over twenty miles
of the back country."
A photographer was present at this

102 THE RACE CONFLICT
lynching scene, and he took views at various
stages of the proceedings. In one of these
the smiling face of a white man appears in the
background behind the chained negroes. It is
customary in these cases for the onlookers to
secure fragments of the charred bodies as
souvenirs of the occasion. Invitations are also
sent to friends at a distance to come and
witness the ceremony.
Women, as well as men, are lynched. About
the same time as the Georgia affair a coloured
man in Mississippi became involved in a quarrel
with a white man, who was at the point
of shooting him when the negro fired and
fatally wounded him. He escaped along
with his wife. Blood hounds were put on
their track, and after a long chase they
were captured. According to an eyewitness,
they were tied to trees and forced to hold
out their hands while one finger after another
was severed. Their ears were then cut
off, and both fingers and ears were dis
tributed as souvenirs. A large corkscrew
was next bored into their arms, legs and body,
and pulled out, the spiral tearing out large
pieces of quivering flesh. Neither man nor

LYNCH LAW 103
woman begged for mercy, nor uttered a cry.
They were finally roasted alive.
In these cases it happened that the victims
were guilty of the offences ascribed to them,
but mistakes are frequently made. The mob
is not a judicial, but a punitive body, and when
it is out for blood someone has to suffer. Crimes
have sometimes been confessed by white men
for which negroes have been lynched.
The conclusion one arrives at from a con
sideration of the matter on the spot is that
lynching is essentially a racial ciime due to the
hatred kindled in the white by the supposed
presumption of the negro. Any offence against
a white man is regarded as an insult to the
higher race, and an encroachment on its
dominancy, and it brings into active play the
fundamental antipathy which guards the divid
ing line between the two types. Lynching is
not meted out for any particular crime.
Offences against women, from their very
nature, rouse the fierce passions of the white
to a greater extent than any other, and there
are additional reasons, referred to later, which
induce a resort in such cases to mob law,
but they are by no means the cause of its

104 THE RACE CONFLICT
continuance. Many Southerners hold that
crime against the white race, and this crime
in particular, indicate an assumption of racial
equality. This, however, is a mistake. The
great mass of negroes do not know what
racial equality means, and only the most
ignorant and degraded of the race are concerned
in offences against women. Any claim to
social equality would be likely to be made by
the educated negro, who, however, is guiltless
of criminal assault. No graduate of the great
schools of Hampton or Tuskegee, for example,
has been chaiged with such an offence.
It may be pointed out in this connection that
in the West Indies the muider of a white person
by negroes is of the rarest occurrence, while
assaults on white women are absolutely un
known : the lattei can walk anywhere un
attended, night or day, unmolested and almost
unremarked. Hundreds of white homes are
situated in lonely spots among the hills, where
the ladies of the household are surrounded by
negro men servants and a negro community for
weeks together without any white protection,
in perfect safety. There is no essentia]
difference between the character of the negroes

LYNCH LAW 105
in these islands and that of the American
negroes, yet no white women in the South
cares to walk abroad without male escort.
Many are forced to carry revolvers for self-
protection, and every house has its stock of
weapons. The entire South is haunted by the
fear which this crime inspires, and its social
freedom is paralysed. How comes it that such
a reign of terror prevails in black America,
when in the West Indies the conditions are
idyllic ? The answer is to be found in the
difference of the relations between the races.
In the West Indies equal and just treatment is
accorded all classes and races, the law recog
nising no distinction of colour, and the negroes
have never lost their innate and inbred respect
for the white man. In America there is no
equality before the law, but often injustice of
the cruellest kind, and the negroes have gra
dually been alienated from the higher race.
Those who commit murder and other out
rages may be divided into two classes. The
first and largest comprises the irresponsible,
nomadic negroes who have no settled home
ties. They are usually criminals, with in
herited savage tendencies, rendered more savage

106 THE RACE CONFLICT
by mistreatment, and fierce passions unre
strained by reverence for the white race or fear
of consequences. Th? possibility of being
lynched does not act as a deterrent on such
men. They do not reason. " The negro," says
Professor Kelly Miller, of Howard University
— himself a pure negro — " cannot see beyond
the momentary gratification of appetite and
passion. He does not look before or after."
In districts where lynchings have occurred
similar crimes have almost immediately taken
place — a fact which points to the futility of
repressing race assaults by punitive measures
alone. Many offenders of the type who are
lynched are put down as " unknown," thus
indicating to what section of the community
they belong.
The second class embraces negroes who act
out of revenge. Their crime is primarily one
of race reprisal because of the wrongs and
miseries they have suffered. In the case of
criminal assault they know that such a form
of retaliation touches the white to the quick,
and as their weakness prevents them returning
blow for blow they covertly avenge themselves
in this manner. Many assert that a powerful

LYNCH LAW ,07
cause is the treatment that their women re
ceive at the hands of ill-disposed whites. " The
honour and chastity of negro women in this
State," declared a conference on crime at At
lanta, " have very little protection against the
force and influence of white men, particularly
in the country districts and small towns." The
same is stated to be true of the South generally.
In connection with criminal assaults it should
also be borne in mind that there are cases where
the women undoubtedly share the responsibility
with the negroes concerned. The opinion of
a group of Southern white officials on this
aspect of the question is of interest. " Many
of the women," they said in effect, " are of
the lowest class, who indirectly gave encourage
ment to the negro. He is usually in some
menial position, and working along with her.
She becomes familiar, often without serious
intention, and he is almost unconsciously led
on to attempt or to commit the crime. No
enquiry is made : the fact that there has been
some presumption on the part of the negro is
ample justification for the exercise of lynch
law." There are also cases where mistakes are
made. A woman sometimes imagines that a

108 THE RACE CONFLICT
negro has designs upon her, becomes nervous
and hysterical, and cries for help. The negro,
though innocent, fears the consequences and
runs, but is captured and lynched. Women
have been known to confess long after that the
assault for which a negro has suffered was a
pure illusion. Suspicion attaches to negroes in
any untoward situation. They have little idea
of time, and will wander round to the kitchen of
a house in the early morning or late at night
and conduct themselves with old-time freedom.
The new generation of whites do not under
stand their habits, impute some sinister motive
to their movements, and lynch them. In one
such case a woman whom a negro was supposed
to have intended to assault paid the expense
of his defence, and said she was convinced that
he was innocent of any evil purpose ; but he
was, nevertheless, sentenced to be hanged,
and had to be removed to another town to
escape being lynched. It may be added that
it is a common belief among the negroes that
white men blacken their faces in order to com
mit assaults on women of their own race with
impunity, some negro suffering for the crime,
but one cannot credit such an accusation,

LYNCH LAW

109

which does not appear to be supported by any
competent evidence.
It is sometimes contended that only the
worst class of whites is implicated in lynching
affairs, but this the negro population vehement
ly deny, and it seems to be disproved by the
character and standing of the persons who
are occasionally indicted. In the Georgia
case mentioned a local church passed a re
solution which condemned the act, and stated
that a few of its members were reported to
have taken part in it, and called upon them
to withdraw from the church or make public
confession. The members of the mob are, in
fact, always well known, but they are seldom
informed against. If brought to trial the
witnesses either remain mute, or say they fail
to recognise them as participants, and juries
are not inclined to incur unpopularity on
behalf of " a worthless negro." There are
many who maintain that lynching is not mur
der. In one clear case where a white man led
the mob and applied the torch, an acquittal
was ordered on the ground that there was no
evidence, and the attorney — a Senator — argued
that the burning was necessary and justified

no THE RACE CONFLICT
on account of the conditions prevailing in the
district. A storm of applause broke out from
the crowd when the result was known, and
the freed man was carried shoulder high from
the court. The character of the finding in
such cases may be seen from the following
extracts from a Grand Jury's presentments
relating to a lynching of which full details
were printed in the newspapers : —
" This Grand Jury, in the discharge of
their sworn duty as Grand Jurors, at this
term of the court, and in obedience to the
instruction of the court given to us against
mob law, and the solemn and sacred obliga
tions imposed upon us by the court to make
a searching and thorough investigation of
the lynching of John Ware, which recently
occurred in this county, beg the privilege
of making a special report on this lynching,
and we report as follows :
' We have subpoenaed and brought before
us and examined every witness known to
us who might be able to throw any light on
this crime .... In short, we are
forced to report to the court, the people of
this county, as well as the people of Georgia,

LYNCH LAW 1U
that we have utterly failed to discover any
of the guilty parties or the name of a single
member of the mob who lynched Ware.
We did not and could not ascertain the name
of a single member of this mob ; the men
who had the prisoner in charge each and all
testified that they did not know a single
man in the crowd who took from them the
prisoner and lynched him ; that they could
not tell who they were by their faces, because
they were masked ; that they did not know
them or any of them from their figures,
forms or clothes they wore ; that they did
not know any of the teams and horses, or
to whom they belonged ; they absolutely
and positively swearing that they did not
know a single member of that mob.
' This investigation has been thorough,
complete and rigid as we have ever wit
nessed. Despite all the diligence and efforts
of this body, with the aid of the Solicitor-
General, we were unable to obtain sufficient
evidence, in fact, no evidence pointing to the
guilt of a single individual, and therefor
no presentments are returned against any
man for the lynching of John Ware.' "

112 THE RACE CONFLICT
Mob law is a reversion to the summary
methods of the forest and the beasts. It
indicates that the community in which it exists
lacks balance and self-control. The moral
judgment is blinded by a wild up-rush of primal
impulse; there is nothing but the instinct
of retaliation, a blow for a blow. Yet it is con
doned by practically every class in the South.
Few reputable white men deliberately advocate
lynching, but private opinion is always lenient
regarding it. " Take the matter home," said
an educated man. " If your daughter or sister
were assaulted, what would you do ? I know
what I should do. I would simply go out and
kill niggers." And thus another : " The fives
of all the negroes are not worth the life of a
single white man of the lowest type." Such
remarks do not represent the view of the entire
South, but they indicate the existence of a
public sentiment which makes lynching possible.
There are, however, more forcible arguments
advanced in extenuation of mob vengeance.
The negroes, it is said, are so brutalised that
none of the ordinary punishments suffice as a
deterrent. When one is regularly tried and
sentenced there is usually time for him to

LYNCH LAW 113
become a martyr in the eyes of the coloured
population, the effect of his death being wholly
lost. They require to be warned and cowed
in the most terrible manner. The system of
criminal procedure in the courts is also stated
to be dilatory and imperfect. Convictions are
uncertain, and when secured it is possible for
prisoners to escape in the end by delays and
appeals and loopholes which reflect no credit
on the judicial administration. It is often a
shrewd suspicion of the machinery of the law
that sets the mob crying for blood. Against
this, however, must be placed the fact that
the legal procedure in many cases of lynching
has been swift : negroes have been caught one
day, indicted the next, and condemned to die
on the scaffold within twenty-four hours, and
yet they have been lynched. The state of
public opinion is such that there is rarely any
chance of a criminal escaping. The laws are
made by whites and administered by them,
and the tendency is always to assume the
guilt of a negro. Again, it is important to
note that social sensitiveness in the South is
so strong that the community will not allow
a white woman to suffer the humiliation of
H

ii4 THE RACE CONFLICT
appearing in court and relating, even in camera,
the particulars of an assault upon her, or of
being questioned by an unscrupulous lawyer
eager to win his case. This is alleged to be
one of the chief factors which keeps the mob
spirit alive.
To an unbiassed observer, however, the
principal cause seems to lie in the absence of a
proper police force. Authority is delegated
to sheriffs, whose business it is to track
criminals ; and in the country districts to
deputy sheriffs, who are white citizens with
power to call on others to assist them. Rifles
and bloodhounds are an essential part of the
system. Outside of the towns, therefore, the
law is executed by men who have no regular
official training or status, but belong to the
community which has been outraged, and who
naturally share the common feeling on occa
sions of social crime, thus making it difficult
for the normal procedure to run its course. As
a Southerner said to the writer : "I once went
as deputy-sheriff to look into a criminal assault
case. When I saw the victim I tore off my
badge and joined the lynchers." It is stated
that the system is cheaper and more effective

LYNCH LAW u5
than an ordinary police organisation, but the
expense involved in the State protection of
prisoners, the charges for militia guards, and
the general indirect loss to the community by
lynchings must amount annually to a very
considerable sum.
After each burst of lawlessness there usually
follows a short spell of repentance, when efforts
are made to restore the authority of the courts.
Special legislation has been pasesd, and officials
have been punished for neglecting their duty
or conniving with the mob ; but whether this
is due to humanitarian feeling or to self-interest
it is difficult to say. It is recognised that the
exhibitions have a debasing effect on the spirit
of the communit}', and it is not without signi
ficance that childi m have been seen to play at
lynching, as Spanish boys and girls play at
bull-fighting. To some extent it is responsible
for the restriction of white immigration into
the South. What Southerners dread most is
of course, Federal intervention — the intro
duction of troops of the National Government
to do what the State troops appear unable
to do. It is, no doubt, conceivable that a
condition of things might arise involving

n6 THE RACE CONFLICT
interference with Federal property or interests,
or general violence, to such an extent that
Congress might act and dispatch forces to the
scene. Any assumption of power in this direc
tion, or any undue stretching of the Constitution
to justify such a movement, would be deeply
resented in the South. In any case, Southerners
quietly assert, lynching would continue, though
it might not be committed in daylight. It
would be effected, they say, at midnight, and
with all the horror and mystery of the methods
adopted by the Klu Klux Klan.

CHAPTER VIII.
ECONOMIC RELATIONS
Iii the field of economic service we find a strong
racial jealousy of the negro. The coloured
race is not yet self-supporting : it continues,
in the mass, to be dependent on white civilisa
tion, and although there are ever enlarging
opportunities within its own limits for the
exercise of whatever powers it may develop,
it is still very much in the position of one
seeking employment.
The North has no special use for the negro
as an industrial factor ; it barely tolerates
him, and thrusts him aside whenever he comes
into direct competition with white labour.
On the other hand, the South has always been
accustomed to his service, and still needs him
under existing conditions, and the movement
to restrict his operation is not there so apparent.
Broadly speaking, there is no objection to
117

n8 THE RACE CONFLICT
his serving in a subordinate capacity, so long
as the whites have not entered the sphere of
work he occupies, or are unaffected by his
rivalry. In some positions, indeed, a deft and
obsequious negro is preferred to the more in
dependent white man. But as soon as com
petition develops the situation begins to con
tain possibilities of social danger, and race pre
judice and its concomitants are the result.
Self-interest is also an element in the question.
The negro is willing to accept less remunera
tion than the white man, and whenever the
conditions are such that his competition affects
the labour market he is shut out altogether
from the opportunity to work, or allowed to
join the trade union organisations merely that
the prices paid to whites may be maintained.
In theory the Federal Government recog
nises no distinction of race or colour, and
negroes can pass into the Federal Civil Service
or receive political appointment under Federal
control. There are numerous coloured officials
in Washington, some holding high positions,
but while the races are of necessity obliged to
work together, the line of demarcation is
drawn socially, and the whites will not eat with

ECONOMIC RELATIONS 119
blacks. The latter to a more limited extent
occupy Federal offices in the various States.
The exercise of this Federal right has annoyed
and inflamed the South ever since the war, and
continues to be the source of much ill-feeling.
Nothing has roused its antagonism in this
regard so much as the pronouncement of
President Roosevelt, that with him mere
colour would not be considered a bar to holding
office any more than creed or birthplace. He,
however, pointed out that the outcry against
him was unjustified. In the great bulk of
cases he re-appointed President McKinley's
men, the proportion of coloured persons among
the new appointees being only about one in
a hundred. During his administration he, in
fact, appointed fewer coloured people in the
South than any other president, and in doing
so not only decreased the quantity, but. in
creased the quality. It is not the official
treatment of the black man that has changed,
but the state of public feeling in the South.
The right to aspire to Federal office, unques
tioned a few years ago, is now challenged and
opposed with a vehemence and bitterness im
possible for one to realise unless he has lived

120 THE RACE CONFLICT
in the South, or come in touch with its people
and its newspapers.
In the humbler walks of life the ban on
negro service is clearly discerned. The black
man only follows the lowliest occupations. In
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Balti
more he is the waiter, coachman, cook, janitor
and hod-carrier, and even from these positions
he is gradually being ejected. In New Yoik
twenty years ago he had the practical mono
poly of many employments which he is no
longer permitted to enter ; his place has been
taken by persons of other nationalities. Hun
garians, Poles, Italians and Greeks are now
found as waiters, barbers and bootblacks.
Formerly it was customary to see negroes
cleaning the streets ; the work is now per
formed by Irishmen. Wherever there has
been an increase of the coloured community
the avenues in which they make a living have
been steadily closed. It is true that they are
often inferior in skill and capacity, but this is
not the reason for the result, because educated
negroes find still greater difficulty in securing
suitable positions. It is the colour that forms
an insuperable bar to appointment. The

ECONOMIC RELATIONS 12 1
writer talked with many coloured youths who
had tried in vain to find work for which they
were fitted. Some of these were from the West
Indies. Not realising the strength of the race
hostility in the United States, they had come
over in the hope of finding more scope for the
talents they were conscious of possessing.
They had easily secured positions by letter, but
on presenting themselves had always been
curtly informed that they were not required.
Had they been engaged the white employees
would at once have gone out on strike. To
avoid any misunderstanding, newspaper ad
vertisements now differentiate between white
and coloured.
In the South negroes are not permitted to
occupy positions which would bring them into
contact with the whites in a manner that would
involve social equality. They cannot, for
instance, be constables or postmen, but other
wise there are many posts open to them. In
dications, nevertheless, exist that the white
working-man is now beginning to crowd out
the coloured working-man, while any attempt
to substitute coloured for white labour is always
keenly resented, and usually ends in failure.

122 THE RACE CONFLICT
According to the statement of a white manu
facturer who has a lifelong acquaintance with
the negro problem, the cotton mills are operated
chiefly by white employees, the negro occupy
ing a few inferior positions. Twenty years ago
60 per cent, of the cotton produced in a given
number of counties was produced by negroes,
and 40 per cent, by white people. At the
present time the figures are exactly reversed.
The barbers' shops ten years ago were kept by
negroes ; now at least 60 to 70 per cent, of
the high-class shops are run by whites. White
girls are being substituted for black waiters
in the hotels. The machinists' trade is almost
wholly in the hands of the whites. In the
carpenters' trade the proportion of whites is
materially greater than it was ten years ago.
Twenty years ago the bricklayers were almost
all coloured ; to-day there are more white than
coloured. In all these cases the competition
comes partly from the old class of poor whites,
who have learned to work with their hands,
and, partly, from a northern class who have
found that the opportunity for the exercise
of their skill is better in the South.
The National Negro League has recently

ECONOMIC RELATIONS 123
admitted that the race is steadily losing many
avenues of valuable employment, but attri
butes this to the lack of technical education.
It is, however, pointed out by many negroes
that while the ex-slave mechanic was often
an excellent hand, he was frequently careless
and inefficient, and that the youth of the race
have now the benefit of a large number of
training institutions, and have never before
been better equipped for the battle of life. It
is true that the lack of an apprenticeship
system after the war, the freeing of an enor
mous number of poor whites for industrial
work, and the development of manufactures
requiring high-class labour, have tended to
depreciate the negro as a worker ; but it is
his colour, and not his character or his manual
skill, that determines his industrial position.
" The continued assertion by some of our
leaders," remarked one prominent member of
the race, " that a man will not be discriminated
against is untrue. The preference is given to
the white in almost every case, and the negro
is merely allowed to do the work he refuses."
Negroes throughout the United States
generally obtain smaller wages than the whites.

124 THE RACE CONFLICT
They are, as a rule, less efficient, but even if
they possess equal ability and industry, and
do the same work, they are placed on a smaller
scale of payment. To give a white man a
higher wage is often the only means of getting
him to work side by side with negroes. Where
the latter are members of labour unions equal
treatment is supposed to prevail, but as a
matter of fact membership of such organisa
tions does not carry with it freedom from
colour discrimination. Both in the South and
the North the white members favour their own
race, and the negro finds himself crowded
out. There are probably about fifty thousand
negroes who are members of labour unions, but
these are largely composed of semi-skilled
workers such as miners.
It is naturally in the agricultural sphere that
the negro finds least hindrance to free develop
ment. Of the male negro breadwinners in the
entire country, 58.4 per cent, are engaged in
agricultural pursuits, and 73 per cent, as
labourers, most of whom are probably agricul
tural workers. The majority are domiciled
in the South. Although more or less economi
cally independent, they nevertheless suffer

ECONOMIC RELATIONS 125
from the race prejudice. The inequitable civil
treatment and the outbreaks of mob violence
that occur have created a deep-seated unrest
throughout the South which has resulted in a
steady emigration of the thriftiest and most
conservative negroes to the towns, where they
think themselves safer from race assaults. In
many parts property owners are in despair,
and willingly sell out at a low valuation. In
connection with this point it is frequently
stated that the negro field labourer is a neces
sity in the South, the climate being unsuitable
for the white man. There is a conflict of
opinion on the subject, but the balance of
evidence seems to favour the assumption that
the latter can perform all the field duties re
quired, except in a few limited areas. The
negro is often preferred by those Southerners
who know how to handle him as being more
amenable, but in the end colour is the deciding
factor, and cheap native and foreign labour
is being more and more utilised in preference
to the negro.
The women of the race are not exempt from
the operation of the forces that are making
for segregation. Before the war the white

i26 THE RACE CONFLICT
housewife came only in contact with the trained
domestic servants, but intelligent negro women
do not now readily accept employment in
white homes, and only a much lower and more
irresponsible class is available, which the
average Southern lady has not the aptitude
and patience to discipline and transform into
serviceable material. The result has been to
make large numbers of white women bitterly
antagonistic to the race, and to cause the in
stitution of a movement for the training of
poor white girls in the duties of domestic
service, thus still further closing up the eco
nomic avenues for coloured people.
The general conclusion one draws from a
broad survey of the situation is that the negro
as an economic unit is being quietly but
resolutely boycotted by the white population,
and is gradually ceasing to have any industrial
relation to it. He is steadily being forced into
a separate industrial existence, and made to
depend solely on himself and his race for
support. The position is full of menace and
danger. The struggle is one for subsistence,
for life itself, and life is of more value than
political and civil rights.

CHAPTER IX.
THE COLOUR LINE IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS
It might be supposed that in the Church,
where there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor
free, but all are one, black and white meet and
mingle without prejudice. Nevertheless, it is
in the Church that the separation of the races
is most widely and rigidly enforced. Before
the war coloured people attended and held
membership in the churches of the whites,
though they did not enjoy the same privileges.
They sat in the galleries, or went to special
services at other times. Here and there, how
ever, coloured churches were being built up
as the result of missionary effort or a desire for
greater liberty of worship, the cold atmosphere
of a white environment not being congenial
to the emotional nature of the negro. After
the war no obstacle was placed in their way,
and coloured churches were everywhere estab
lished. The race has now its own religious
127

128 THE RACE CONFLICT
organisations, which are carried on, in the
main, without aid from white people ; at pre
sent there are probably about 30,000 negro
ministers in the United States. The whites
have not wholly neglected the race : various
denominations have established churches, theo
logical schools and missions, but there is always
more or less friction on account of the perpetual
craving of the negroes for a greater measure
of independence. To this fact is due the
anomaly that the richest church has often the
smallest membership — autonomy being more
to the negro than pecuniary advantage. But
relatively to the greatness of the need, white
Christianity does very little for the coloured
people of America. It is content simply to
regard their existence as a grave problem.
What is seen and heard is more impressive
than what is gathered from reports. Every
where one comes face to face with this singular
phase of the problem. Everywhere he observes
two streams of people — one, black, passing into
a certain class of churches ; the other, white,
passing into another and different class. White
seems unconscious of the existence of black
and black of white. Negroes are not, as a rule,

THE COLOUR LINE ,29
allowed into the churches of the whites. In
some, old ex-slaves can be seen sitting in a part
of the gallery reserved for them, but these are
disappearing, and their place is not taken by
the younger generation. No matter how fair
and cultured a negro may be, he is objected
to, and should he venture into a white church
he would either be stared out of countenance
or ordered to leave the building. Numerous
stories might be told in this connection, but
one incident, which also serves to illustrate
the difference between the Northern and
Southern attitude, will suffice. In a fashion
able church in Baltimore it was discovered that
one of the ladies of the choir was slightly
coloured. All the other members, save one,
at once threatened to resign if she were not
removed. The exception was a Southern lady.
After the choir had been purged, the minister
asked the latter why she, also, had not objected
to the presence of a coloured person. " Be
cause she is a paid singer, and I am not," was
the reply. The Northerners drew the colour
line absolutely ; the Southerner, while enter
taining the same prejudice, accepted the situa
tion because the offender was a menial. 1

130 THE RACE CONFLICT
The Roman Catholic Church appears to be the
most liberal in its relation to the negro. In
the administration of the Sacraments it makes
no difference between the races; all receive
communion at the same altar at the same
time, all go to Confession alike. In Baltimore
and Washington there are several churches for
the special use of coloured people, in which
the priests, who are white, devote their labour
exclusively to them. In the others for whites
there are sections reserved for coloured persons.
This is found to be necessary, as the whites will
not sit in pews with them, although there is
no distinction made at the altar rail. In
counties where there are no separate churches,
white and black worship together, but in
separate parts of the building. Occasionally,
however, the prejudice breaks out, and creates
very unpleasant situations. The Salvation
Army finds itself unable to work among the
coloured people in the South. In the state
of public feeling white women especially could
not work with any degree of success, but negroes
are not prevented from attending the meetings
if they choose to come. There is, of course,
quiet work, unaffected by colour, going on in

THE COLOUR LINE 131
most of the States. One finds Sunday Schools
being taught by the descendants of slave
owners. It is such phenomena that puzzle
the observer and confuse his judgment, but
they do not alter the general situation.
From all other voluntary associations which
bring humanity together for mutual stimulus
and assistance the negroes are rigorously ex
cluded. The Young Men's Christian Associa
tion is an important organisation in every town
of the United States, but the coloured element
is never admitted to it. This is as true of the
North as it is of the South. Were a negro
allowed to register in any association, all the
white members would immediately resign.
Independent white associations are not recog
nised by the international committee in cities
where branches already exist, but coloured
associations have been excepted, and many of
these have been established, either as the
result of negro initiative or as a development
of the regular society, although in some
Southern towns the public white sentiment
is opposed to them. Negroes are also excluded
from masonic and benefit societies and other
similar institutions.

132 THE RACE CONFLICT
There is a growing disposition, particularly
in the South, to restrict the mental develop
ment of the negro, based on the assumption
that the education he has already acquired
has rendered him less useful as an industrial
factor, and increased his tendency to crime.
The better elements in the community are still
strong enough to resist the reactionary forces,
and many white Southerners are joining with
Northern philanthropists in the general work
of improving and extending the facilities ex
tended to the race in this direction, but there
is no doubt that the majority of the whites
look askance at the movement, and would
rather see a steady restriction of the advantages
granted and a minimum limit fixed by law.
It is widely held that the negroes should con
tribute the entire cost of their own schools, the
whites retaining the management, and this idea
has already influenced the course of State
politics to a considerable extent.
In the meantime, there is a rapid approxi
mation to complete separation. The North
provides by law against any discrimination in
the common schools, but there is, neverthe
less, a disposition to segregate the races where-

THE COLOUR LINE 133
ever possible. This is effected in a way which
does not directly suggest the drawing of the
colour line, as, for example, by planting a
school in a district where negroes predominate,
the latter attending it as a matter of course,
and the white children proceeding to another
in a white district not far off. Such schemes,
however, cause friction and trouble. In
Pennsylvania, where the law forbids dis
crimination, a negro parent complained that
his children were separated from the white
pupils, and the matter found its way into court,
where the judge expressed the opinion that
the action of the teacher was illegal, though
the object in view was a commendable one.
In the South the children are, of course, taught
in separate schools, and the negroes do not
enjoy the same facilities as the whites, though
the provision for the latter is often meagre
enough. The white schools are bad ; the
negro schools are worse. What a white super
intendent said of the system in his State applies
generally : "It will be readily admitted by
every white man that our public school system
is designed principally for the welfare of the
white children, and, incidentally for the negro

134 THE RACE CONFLICT
children." Only 33 per cent, of the latter,
from 5 to 18 years of age, attend school, and
the school term lasts, as a rule, less than five
months in the year. Few of the schools carry
the pupils beyond the elementary grade. The
sum expended on the negro schools amounts to
only about 20 per cent, of the whole total.
There has been much controversy as to the
share which the negro bears in supporting his
own schools : on one side it is stated that the
entire cost is borne by white taxpayers ; on
the other, that if everything is taken into
account they have not cost them a cent, except
in a few city areas. It is safe to say that the
whites contribute a large amount, while they
have all the burden of organisation and
management. Possessing full control they
can, of course, regulate the code, and the general
development of the system. The Northern
school-books have long since been supplanted
by others compiled by Southern authors, who
naturally adopt the confederate view of his
torical events. One, picked up by the writer
in Virginia, " prepared for use in public and
private schools," and recommended for its
accuracy and unprejudiced and truthful char-

THE COLOUR LINE 135
acter is openly anti-Northern. As an antidote
to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's " misleading "
and " exaggerated " story, which " did gross
injustice to the South," it describes the happy
conditions of the slave period, and gives an
illustration, entitled " Sunday afternoon on
a Southern plantation," depicting a white
woman sitting on a lawn reading to a number
of well-dressed slaves.
Some coloured primary schools have white
teachers, but the great majority, especially
those in the rural districts, are taught by
negroes. Wherever the two are employed
together the latter are paid less, either because
they are not so efficient — due largely to in
adequate training — or because they are willing
to accept what is offered. In all schools taught
by negroes only the wages are considerably
less than the average remuneration paid to
the whites.
Higher education is the form of negro culture
to which the white community is most an
tagonistic. The white college does not con
template the special needs of the negro race.
No negro has ever been admitted to Princeton,
and at Yale and other leading institutions they

136 . THE RACE CONFLICT
are endured rather than encouraged. Harvard
and most of the Western Colleges, however,
admit them. Negro young women are advised
not to apply to any of the large colleges for
women. In the South the negroes are not
allowed into any white scholastic establish
ment. The colleges and training schools for
the blacks which one finds scattered over the
country are mainly the gift of Southern philan
thropists and missionary societies, though some
have been started and are carried on by the
negroes themselves without any outside assist
ance. The white staffs of these institutions
are ostracised by the white people in their
neighbourhood, and form a small social com
munity in themselves. It is stated that it is
becoming more and more difficult to obtain
funds for the support of these colleges on
account of the prominence now generally given
to industrial training by some leaders of the
race. Northerners are not unwilling to
believe that it is best for the negro to work with
his hands, and are therefore inclined to transfer
their interest and contributions to the institu
tions that carry out the idea of manual labour.
Southerners are equally in favour of a system

THE COLOUR LINE ,37
which is in line with their own theory of the
inferiority of the negro, and are ready to sub
sidise it. It is consequently not surprising to
find negro colleges making it a special point
to combine an industrial and academic curri
culum. Closely associated with the schools question
is that involving the right of the negro to the
use of free libraries. It might be thought
that the whites would not object to his obtain
ing books, since this does not involve social
contact. But it involves social equality, and
the handling of the same books, and to this the
Southerner, at any rate, will not consent. The
libraries there, are for the white population
alone. If a librarian is questioned on the
subject, his answer will be : " We would not
lend out books to Booker Washington himself."
It is, however, proposed in some States to
establish separate libraries for the negroes.
No distinction is made in the North, while the
middle States also admit negroes to the privi
lege of free reading. Taking a Delaware
example, we find the coloured people using the
library and taking out books of good quality,
many making a special study of the racial

1 38 THE RACE CONFLICT
problem. Coloured children frequent the
juvenile room and mix with the white children.
Books are sent to the public schools, and it is
stated that the coloured child makes as good
use of the opportunity, and takes as good care
of the volumes as the white child.

CHAPTER X.
THE SOCIAL GULF.
Nothing illustrates better the increasing gulf
between the races than the process of residen
tial segregation which has been steadily going
on since the war. The white population every
where strongly objects to the proximity of
negro householders, and even in the South,
where negro neighbours are part of the condi
tions, the tendency is to force the coloured
community into a district by itself.
In the North these areas are well defined :
they may form a wing or suburb of the town,
or a particular block of streets in the heart of
it, so that one may pass suddenly from
thoroughfares filled with white faces into others
where all are black, and then out again into
the stream of whites. Negro families, however,
are sometimes allowed to occupy obscure lanes,
and any odd corner where whites cannot be
i39

140 THE RACE CONFLICT
got to rent the rooms. Respectable negroes
find it difficult to procure suitable houses in
New York, Brooklyn, Boston, and similar
towns, and they are obliged to pay much higher
rents than the whites. In one New York
street the tenants stated that they paid £i per
month more than the white residents, and
had less accommodation and fewer facilities.
The owners justify their action by saying that
negro tenants always depreciate the rental
value of property in the same neighbourhood.
As a rule, an agent will not rent or sell a house
in a white district to a coloured man, no matter
how cultured he may be. When this is done
it is usually out of some feeling of malice or
revenge, and there are numerous cases in the
North where the Africanising of a district has
begun in this way. Occasionally, also, a
covetous agent or owner may sell a house to a
negro in order to make a handsome profit. The
appearance of the new proprietor at once causes
a stampede among the whites, who sell at a loss
and go elsewhere. Other negroes buy up the
houses, and only those whites remain whom
circumstances compel to do so. Whole dis
tricts are thus invaded by the blacks, and in

THE SOCIAL GULF i4,
some towns there are bitter complaints among
the middle-class whites, who state that they
are forced to keep moving outwards and farther
away from their work. It has been suggested
that a negro should obtain the consent in
writing of every owner and tenant in a block
before he is allowed to rent or buy a house,
which would, of course, mean his exclusion
from it. In States where racial feeling is not
held in check by legislation, the lower whites
take the matter into their own hands, and drive
objectionable neighbours out by threats, or
by dynamiting or burning their homes.
Both educated and illiterate negroes are
obhged to live in the same surroundings,
though a rude attempt at social separation
among themselves can be observed in the
South, where the houses of many well-to-do
men are grouped together at a distance from
the hovels of the poor. But if a visitor calls
on a prominent negro he will be driven to the
squalid quarter of the town, which is usually
on the lower levels where railroads and fac
tories are situated, or wherever the lie of the
land makes it undesirable for white residences
to be erected. The streets are neglected and

,42 THE RACE CONFLICT
filled with ruts, without drainage, and, in some
cases, without pavements. In Atlanta this
is very noticeable.
To closer personal association there is still
greater repugnance. In public conveyances
in the North negroes are not yet separated
from the whites, but special laws enforce segre
gation generally throughout the South. They
are not allowed to travel with whites on the
railroads and steamboats, the companies pro
viding separate accommodation. There are
special coaches for each race, the words
" white " and " coloured " in conspicuous
letters being placed upon them for the public
guidance. The law requires the accommoda
tion to be equal, but the negro coach has always
a dirty appearance, and is frequented by the
train officials and newsboys, and by the lower
class of whites, who use the utmost freedom
although the separation law applies also to white
men, and Is enforced wherever the white pas
sengers are of good social grade. The writer
was ordered out of one of these cars when he
entered it. The law gives the conductor power
to declare who are white and who are black
and to assign them seats accordingly. All

THE SOCIAL GULF 143
negroes, men or women, refined or degraded,
are obliged to travel in these " Jim Crow " cars.
If they refuse they are promptly arrested and
punished. With the adoption of the law by
Maryland a curious situation was brought
about. There is no legal discrimination of
race in Washington, the seat of the Federal
Government, and in the trains which leave the
city no coercion can be applied. But on pass
ing the boundary line in any direction the
trains enter territory where the law is in force,
and the negroes are required to move into their
own coach. In order to save trouble, the pas
sengers usually do this before they start. The
same rule applies to trains running into
Washington. In Maryland it operates on local
trains, or on through trains doing a local
business, but not on express trains made up in
the North, where no discrimination is made.
Pullman cars are not regarded as common
carriers under the law, and do not, therefore,
come within its provisions, but as these feed
their passengers on the train, and do not stop
for refreshments, and as whites will not dine
with blacks, the latter are practically debarred
from travelling on them. On one excuse or

144 THE RACE CONFLICT
other they are refused tickets, or are offered
transportation on the slower trains, which
stop for refreshments and possess " Jim Crow "
coaches. Some Southern States go so far as
to prohibit the races quartering under the same
roof at night, which effectively prevents the
negroes riding on limited expresses. For
excursions they charter special trains and
steamboats. The singular anomalies of the situation are
illustrated by the character of the exceptions
to these provisions. While no negro is allowed
into the white compartment on equal social
terms with the whites, no objection is taken to
any who are there in a servile capacity.
Coloured nurses, maids and valets can sit in
them with their employers. A negress with
a white infant is allowed to enter, and no notice
is taken of her, but without the child she would
be expelled. Negro prisoners are also allowed
to ride in the same coach, provided they are in
the custody of a white officer.
In street cars the social juxtaposition of the
races is of shorter duration, and the matter is,
consequently, left very much to the city
governments. Thus, in the South we have

THE SOCIAL GULF ,45
cities which have as yet no regulations and no
restrictions, and others where special seats in
the rear are reserved for the negroes. The
rule appears to be strictly observed, for in
Richmond the writer was ordered out of the
negro part of the cars. The coloured people
are more incensed at this discrimination than
at the separation on the railways, probably
because they are more dependent on the cars,
and in some cities they have retaliated by
boycotting them. It is significant that the
sentiment in favour of the arrangement is
steadily moving northwards, and in the middle
States every real or fancied instance of dis
order on the part of negro passengers is seized
on as an argument in favour of its introduction.
The foremost advocates of " Jim Crow "
accommodation are the white women, whose
influence naturally tells greatly in favour of
the movement. One case of which consider
able political capital was made may be related
as typical of many. It was alleged that a
" big negress " had sat down on the lap of a
white lady in a car because there was no room
for her in the seat, and there was an indignant
demand for the immediate reservation of

146 THE RACE CONFLICT
places for the negroes. The writer traced the
offender, and found her to be a pupil in a high
school, a young, lightly-coloured, fair-haired
girl who wore glasses and had a timid aspect.
She stated that she had made her way to a
vacant seat beside the woman in question, who
resented her appearance, and struck her and
broke her glasses. She called a policeman,
but the woman turned the tables by giving her
in charge for assault. At the station the latter
was discharged, and the girl was locked up for
the night. Next day she was charged with
disorderly conduct, and admitted to bail. As
an election involving the racial issue was pro
ceeding, her lawyer had delayed the case, there
being no hope of a favourable verdict under
the circumstances.
In other spheres of social contact the same
spirit prevails. There are separate waiting
rooms at all the railway stations in the South
for the coloured people. In the handsome
station at Augusta, for example, the writer
saw on the left the intimation : " Black
Women," and on the right : " White Ladies."
In the South the races do not meet on the field
of sport ; coloured persons are excluded from

THE SOCIAL GULF 147
most theatres, and all public baths ; they are
taken to separate hospitals or wards, and to
separate prisons or cells ; they kiss separate
Bibles in court, and as they are not permitted
to associate with the whites in health or sick
ness, so after death their bodies are laid in
separate cemeteries.
Nothing is more inflexible than colour caste
in the domain of intimate social intercourse.
It is not considered good form in many cities
for a white man publicly to engage in conver
sation, or to be on friendly terms, with a negro.
To be ostentatious in one's regard is to run the
risk of being arrested and fined for disorderly
conduct. " A white man who stoops to walk
the streets arm in arm with a negress deserves
no mercy," said a judge when pronouncing
sentence on one occasion. Business relations
sometimes permit of a relaxation of the rule
in the South, but there is a well-defined line
beyond which few dare to pass. Here is the
statement of an educated negro in Atlanta to
the writer : " I go to the city and enter a
banking house, the manager of which I know
well. If he is alone he receives me most
eordially ; if another visitor is in the room

148 THE RACE CONFLICT
he is more distant, unless he is sure that the
latter is a friend of my race, when he probably
introduces me. When alone our talk is of the
most friendly, and unrestrained character. A
quarter of an hour afterwards I meet him on
the street, and he does not know me, and passes
me by as if I were a complete stranger, or turns
his head aside to avoid seeing me. One is
accustomed to it : it is the fate of my race."
Perhaps nothing shows the inflexible charac
ter of the colour code better than the absolute
refusal of white people to eat with negroes.
There are laws in the North against any dis
crimination in hotels and restaurants, but they
are universally ignored. One can find third-
rate resorts in the poorer districts of cities
where the races dine together, but in none of
the ordinary restaurants frequented by the
whites are coloured men permitted to sit at
the tables. The rule is so well known that
no self-respecting negro attempts to break it.
Should he do so one of several things may
happen. The white patrons may rise and walk
out. The waiters may pretend not to see the
intruder, and keep him waiting a long time.
The dishes he asks for may " not be ready," or

THE SOCIAL GULF 149
may be " finished." Or, if he finally obtains
what he desires, the prices may be three or four
times the regular rates. Cultured negroes —
professional men, teachers and others — say that
they have either to send out for lunch, or eat
badly-cooked food in the low-class re
staurants, otherwise their hunger remains
unappeased. Even in Washington it is diffi
cult for them to procure a cup of coffee in the
business part of the city. They can only buy
it indirectly from white restaurants, and it is
stated that hundreds of coloured men adopt
this plan. On the railroads special refresh
ment rooms are provided for the coloured
passengers, the words : " Coloured lunch "
being sometimes placed over the buffets. A
well-known coloured ecclesiastical dignitary,
who has been feted in England, was refused a
" summer drink " at a soda-water fountain,
the proprietor bluntly declaring that he did
not care who he was — so long as he had negro
blood in him he could not be served. He was,
no doubt, influenced by the fear of losing his
white custom. The leaders of the race are
often placed in similar embarrassing positions.
When they travel they are compelled to go for

150 THE RACE CONFLICT
food and shelter to the humble homes of their
own people.
To invite a black to dine at one's house is
considered by the South as an act of mental
aberration, and it ostracises the white as com
pletely as it does the negro, while it vigorously
resents any official condonation of the practice.
Negroes have always been accustomed to
attend the Presidential receptions at the
White House, but little notice was taken of
what was considered a necessary feature of
governmental life in a democratic country until
what was called the " Booker-Washington
incident " occurred. When Mr. Roosevelt
was President, Dr. Washington — who is not a
pure negro, but of mixed blood — called on him
one day as he was about to proceed to lunch.
On the impulse of the moment, the President
asked him to accompany him to his table.
There was nothing in his mind beyond extend
ing ordinary courtesy to a distinguished man,
but the sensitive Southern people saw in it an
intention and determination to recognise and
enforce the social equality of the races. A
storm of indignation swept over the country,
and the protests, spoken and written, were

THE SOCIAL GULF 15 r
characterised by a bitterness scarcely paralleled
even in the days before the war. The writer
was at a meeting where he heard a prominent
politician voice the sentiment of the immense
audience regarding the incident. " The
attempt of the President," he said, " is the
dream of a fanatic and a visionary that will
never be realised. He can never force upon
the people of this country either social or
political equality. Providence has decreed
otherwise. It is a decree as unbending and
inexorable as the laws that govern the universe.
The President may cause great and serious
trouble. He may provoke insurrection. He
may arouse the feelings of passion and revenge.
He may fill the towns and hamlets of the South
with turbulence and disorder. He may re
kindle the fires of prejudice and sectional
hatred, and cause a deadly conflict of the
races, but let me predict to him that he will
never subordinate the intelligence and the
refinement of the people of the South to the
rule of barbaric ignorance and degradation,
and he will never drive and scourge the people
of any Southern commonwealth into sub
mission to his infernal policy."

1 52 THE RACE CONFLICT
It was generally stated that the policy of
the President had incited the negroes to claim
equality and encouraged them to commit
outrages, but those who at the time questioned
negroes in town and country in the South
discovered that the majority had never heard
of the incident, while many did not know who
Booker Washington was.
There is no intermarriage between the races :
the relation is prohibited in the South ; and
in the North, where cases occasionally occur,
it is usually a white man who has married a
coloured woman. The former, as a result,
always makes a social descent : he takes his
place in the coloured community, while, in
addition to being ostracised by the whites, he
is not infrequently despised by the blacks.

CHAPTER XI.
ATTITUDE OF THE NEGRO
White men naturally regard the racial problenr
from their own side of the colour line. They
do not put themselves in the place of the negro
and view it also from his standpoint. Southern
people not only do not read the articles and
books written by coloured men, but they refuse
to read those written by white men which show
sympathy for the negro. The writer was on
one occasion sitting in the library of a well-
known preacher, discussing with him the racial
question. " I have just been looking at a
book by a negro," the latter said. " Here it
is : ' The Souls of the Black Folk,' by Professor
du Bois ; it will be a favour if you take it away,
for, of course, I could not have it in my library."
Trivial as the incident was, it was a significant
illustration of the spirit of the South.
The coloured people complain that when
i53

154 THE RACE CONFLICT
white investigators go South they do not apply
to them for information, but are content with
the statements of the whites, which give them
an erroneous view of the situation. The
underworld in which they live seldom echoes
to the footfall of a white man. " We are
terribly alone," said a negro sadly. " We
rarely see the faintest glimmer of understand
ing and sympathy." And yet there are forces
stirring there. The main body is lying steeped
in ignorance and vice, but there is a large and
increasing number who have developed a
national consciousness and ambition, and are
striving to uplift and unite their fellows. Much
confusion of thought and much conflict of
opinion and difference in ideal naturally exist
among them, but the impartial mind cannot
help being impressed by the fairness of argu
ment, the clarity of opinion, and breadth of
moral vision which characterise the greater
part of their literature.
If one finds a class displaying a spirit of
bitterness and a desire for retaliation, the
position of the race must be borne in mind.
" No other race of our latent strength," they
say, " would have quietly submitted to all

ATTITUDE OF THE NEGRO 155
that we have suffered without a rebellion."
Some believe that the limit of endurance has
been reached, and advocate an appeal to fire
and blood. " We don't intend to be oppressed
any longer, and I give warning that if this
oppression in the South continues we will
resort to the torch, and the Southland will
become a land of blood and desolation. If
the Southern people start to Klu Kluxing, as
they threaten to do, they will not this time
have to deal with the same timid people who
suffered in the sixties." These words were
spoken in public at a mass meeting in Washing
ton, and they are symptomatic of a very general
sentiment. Among this class a belief is pre
valent that a crisis is approaching, which may
be followed by civil war. " A conflict is bound
to come," was the remark of a prominent
Northern negro, " and it is likely to cost the
nation more in blood and treasure than any
that have taken place in the past."
The majority of intelligent negroes take a
more moderate view. They are wise enough
to know that however great the oppression
and degradation, it is better to bear the burden
than enter on a conflict with a race infinitely

156 THE RACE CONFLICT
superior in numbers, ability and resource.
" The struggle," said a negro who was discussing
the matter frankly with the writer, " would be
like one between an armed and an unarmed
man. It would be slaughter and the killing
would be all on one side." This class contents
itself with an appeal to reason and the sense
of justice, and endeavours by calm and per
sistent representation to secure for the race a
larger measure of civil recognition. Those
who compose it point out that they are loyal
to American institutions and interests. " We
have fought in her wars," they say; "we
identify ourselves with her interests. The chief
Italian papers in America appeal to Italian
immigrants not to become Americans, but to
remain alien in speech and habit of thought.
Not so with us : we are true to American ideals.
If we are energetic it is because we have copied
the Americans ; if we are ambitious we are
ambitious for the welfare and progress and
honour of our country."
On the question of the relative status of the
two peoples, educated negroes acquiesce in the
theory that their race, in the mass, is at present
inferior to the white race. " It is certain,"

ATTITUDE OF THE NEGRO 157
Professor du Bois admits, " that we must
recognise the hard limit of natural law, and
that any striving, no matter how intense and
earnest, which is against the constitution of
the world is vain." But it is contended that
they are capable of unknown development.
Dr. Booker Washington, speaking of his people,
says : " We must face the fact that in a
large degree ours as yet is but a child race —
very largely an undeveloped race, but such a
race is a far different thing from an inferior
race. The child and youth in their place de
serve as much respect as the full-grown man."
The mass of the people have no opinion on the
matter whatever, though their whole attitude
is a confession of inferiority. In fact, the
Southern party bases its policy on this attitude.
No race equal to the whites — it argues — would
have submitted for a moment to the treatment
it has received. On the other hand, the
negroes assert that they have displayed as
much courage, both moral and physical, during
their residence in the United States as any
other element in the population. If the average
young negro one meets is asked what he thinks
of the position, his answer will probably be :

158 THE RACE CONFLICT
" I do not think of it ; I am born into it, and
I accept it as a matter of course. I must serve
the whites and earn my living."
Is is generally acknowledged that association
with the white race is necessary in order that
the advantage of its example and stimulus
may be secured, but as to the exact nature of
the association there is much diversity of
opinion. The majority agree that in view of
the present attitude of the whites it is desirable
that each race should work out its destiny
separately, without coming into actual contact
with one another. A small number see no
reason why both cannot work and mix together,
as white and black do in the West Indies ;
but, broadly speaking, the race does not claim
racial equality, most negroes being willing to
allow the question to remain over to be decided
in the future.
Nor do they seek social equality. To claim
the right of freemen, they say, is not to claim
social privileges. " We have not the slightest
desire to force ourselves where we are not
wanted," said one. " Social equality prevails
only at the will of the individual, and the whole
tendency of things is opposed to it. White

ATTITUDE OF THE NEGRO l59
workmen do not seek to dine with their masters,
but is not an employer honoured by the pre
sence of a distinguished labour leader at his
table ? While no negro seeks to establish a
false relation with the whites, why should Dr.
Booker Washington not be a guest of the
President ? The conferring of a social privilege
is a matter of social prerogative, and to us it is
as great an honour to be the guest of a cultured
negro as it is to be one in a cultured white
family. But we have learned our lesson, and
we do not want what the whites are not willing
to bestow. No doubt an aggressive member of
the race may occasionally assert a claim that
he is equal to the white man, but this is usually
the result of irritation caused by a contemp
tuous drawing of the colour line, and does not
represent the real feeling of our people."
As regards political aspirations, two great
streams of thought exist, one taking its rise in
the South, where the impossibility of securing
votes and representation is realised, and the
other in the North, where the hopelessness of
the situation is less appreciated. The Southern
party is headed by Dr. Booker Washington.
He does not approve of the negro giving up

160 THE RACE CONFLICT
anything that is fundamental and guaranteed
by the Constitution, holding that all the rights
belonging to him as a citizen should be con
ceded. In principal he believes in universal
free suffrage, but the existing conditions in the
South are such that he admits the necessity
and wisdom of an educational and property
test. He is wise enough, however, to know
that any attempt to secure the honest working
of this arrangement would be futile, and his
whole policy is based on the assumption that
nothing is to be gained from a frontal attack.
Political and other privileges he has, accord
ingly, relegated for the present to a secondary
place, and is devoting himself to the improve
ment of the material status of the race. The
battle of the negro, he maintains, is chiefly an
economic one ; he will be able to obtain his
rights only when he proves that he has ac
quired the position and wealth that entitles him
to their possession. He sees clearly that if the
negro neglects industrial training and the
whites come to monopolise the skilled work in
the South, he is doomed to hopeless servitude ;
and his aim is, therefore, to educate his people
as trained workers and producers, and to make

ATTITUDE OF THE NEGRO ; 161
them cultivate patience, self-control, thrift,
and all the other qualities that go to the making
of a responsible and independent nation. This
is the principle underlying the work at his great
institution at Tuskegee, in Alabama, from
which he is annually sending out hundreds of
young men and women to carry out his policy
in every corner of America. Many express
surprise that he should condone the revised
constitutions of the South, but they are factors
assisting the evolution of character and the
acquisition of property ; they put a premium
on thrift and intelligence, and he consequently
welcomes them as not altogether hostile to the
best interests of the race. There are many,
also, who, while sympathising with his views,
believe that he underrates the value of higher
education, or does not sufficiently emphasise
the need for it. This party is convinced that
the negro cannot be uplifted without the
highest mental culture, and it is endeavouring
to give nim a thorough collegiate training.
Dr. Washington, however, does not ignore the
necessity for such training — to him it is an
indispensable corollary to the other — but it is
not the special work he feels called upon to

162 THE RACE CONFLICT
undertake. He leaves it to others to accom
plish, preferring to push ahead with what
he thinks will most quickly and most surely
bring the race into a position to claim its own.
The tendency in the North is to make the
voting rights of the negro the supreme con
sideration, and it is one of the anomalies of the
situation that the negro newspapers there
violently oppose the policy of Dr. Washington.
They call him the " arch-traitor of the race,"
and denounce his gospel of industrial training
as one leading straight back to servitude,
claiming that mere material prosperity will
never secure rights for the negroes, and point
ing in proof to the fact that the progress already
achieved by individuals and the race seems
only to have intensified the prejudice of the
whites. Educated men are excluded from the
polling booth as effectually as the illiterate.
" Every man who puts on a clean collar de
stroys a voter," was the bitter remark of one
negro. They do not object to the industrial
uplifting of their race ; their contention is that
this will never change their relations with the
whites, although their own position may be
improved. There is much truth in such a view.

ATTITUDE OF THE NEGRO 163
In the South one learns how difficult it is for
negroes, no matter how cultured and affluent,
to obtain from the authorities privileges and
concessions that would be readily granted to
white applicants of any class. If they had
votes and were permitted to record them, they
would naturally possess political influence, and
be a factor which it would be necessary to con
ciliate and serve. In a country where politics
rule to such an extent, voting power is an
important weapon of defence, and it is not sur
prising that very many shrewd negroes refuse
to acquiesce, even for the time being, in the
withdrawal of rights accorded to them by the
Constitution. One is struck with the readiness with which
they respond to any interest or sympathy
shown by the whites, and with their desire to
be scrupulously just in their estimate of the
forces against them. One finds them cheer
fully acknowledging the good in the South—
" the little nameless kindnesses which are not
so few and far between as some imagine" as one
remarked. " The South is a seething mass of
sympathy and antipathy, passion and com
passion, benevolence and malevolence, love

164 THE RACE CONFLICT
and hate, with the baser elements temporarily
in the ascendency." As to the final outcome
they have no doubt. They recognise that
there are anxious times ahead for the race, but
they are assured of ultimate triumph. This
faith in the future is one of their most remark
able characteristics. It is based on religious
conviction. A cultured business man, on being
asked by the writer why the race was so patient
and hopeful in spite of its burdens and dis
couraging outlook, quietly took down a Bible
from a shelf over his desk, and said the secret
was there. " As a nation," he said, " we have
invariably fought our greatest battles on our
knees. We shall also win this, the most
momentous and awful of them all, through
prayer. This is the reason of our submission.
God is not colour-blind, though man is, and in
His good time we shall come into our own. It
is the meek that are going to inherit the earth."
Indomitable optimism ! There must be some
thing in a race which faces its fate in such a
spirit.

CHAPTER XII.
THE SOLUTION
We have seen that the racial situation is
characterised by a number of well-defined
phenomena. In the North, side by side with a
general altruistic sentiment, there is a quiet
but growing movement adverse to the social
and economic advancement of the negro ; in
the middle States there is a stricter social
ostracism and an active and open opposition to
his political ascendancy ; and in the South,
along with an uncompromising hostility to his
social and political progress, there is a strong
disposition to restrict his educational and
industrial development, and to relegate him
permanently to the position of a servile
worker. It is the conflict of these powers with
the higher instincts of humanity, and the
effort to reach some adjustment in the rela
tions between the races, that constitute the
problem. '65

1 66 THE RACE CONFLICT
There are many persons who, realising the
gigantic and complex nature of the question,
have come despairingly to the conclusion that
it has no solution. It would be strange if this
were so — if natural laws were too limited in
their scope and power to deal successfully with
the entanglements of human mistake and
wrong. One must believe that there is a
remedy, if only it could be found. The weak
point about those which have been put forward
is their artificial character.
One class, for instance, favours the deporta
tion of the race. It is an impossible plan : it
involves a task beyond even the resources of
the United States, and even if it were possible,
the negroes could not be got to quit the country
except under physical compulsion. They are,
as it were, part of the soil, and prefer their pre
sent position with all its disadvantages to exile.
There is, moreover, no spot in the world suitable
for their settlement. Africa contains no vacant
ground where they could be domiciled in a
body, even if it commended itself to them in
other respects. " Those who have studied the
situation," says Dr. Booker Washington, "know
that the negro has less protection against the

THE SOLUTION ,67
encroachments and the competition of the
white race in Africa than he has in America."
There is room in Central and South America,
but the inhabitants of the various republics
would not have them at any price. If Santo
Domingo were available it would be an ex
cellent region for their colonisation ; it is.
perhaps, the most magnificently endowed
island in the world, and is capable of supporting
15 millions of persons with ease. Its present
population consists only of a handful of blacks,
mulattoes, and Spanish whites. Even there,
however, the American negroes are not wanted.
" I would willingly permit a few thousands to
settle in the country," said a late President of
Haiti — a pure negro — to the writer, " but not
the whole race, since that would mean turning
the Government over to their control." The
Dominicans are still more opposed to negro
immigration. There is, in short, no place for
the American negro but America. " There is
nothing for him to do," is Booker Washington's
verdict, " but to remain where he is and
struggle up."
The same difficulties confront the proposal
to segregate the race on one or more

1 68 THE RACE CONFLICT
reservations throughout the South. It is
possible, however, that this policy might be
carried out on a small scale to the relief of
-ertain areas.
Another class pins its faith on intermarriage,
in the hope, rather than in the belief, that the
black strain would be gradually eliminated
It is the wildest of all the schemes proposed.
It is opposed to the fundamental antipathy
which is bearing the two races ever more apart.
Whatever union takes place at present is almost
wholly illegitimate, and is being more and more
restricted to the dissolute of each race. Negroes
are well aware of this. " The two races," they
say, " will never blend ; when the process
takes place it is usually unlawful." Booker
Washington's remarks on this subject are
of interest : "It should always be borne
in mind that it takes two races to
amalgamate, and the absorption of one
by the other cannot be accomplished with
out the consent of both. I do not believe
that the negro is yet willing to disappear. Now
that he is beginning to understand his own
possibilities, to believe that he has an indepen
dent mission in the world, and to gain that sort

THE SOLUTION ,69
of self-respect that comes with the conscious
ness of that mission, the disposition and the
willingness to surrender his racial identity
and to detach himself from the life and destiny
of his own people are, I am convinced, steadily
decreasing." The only effect which the sug
gestion has on the whites is to rouse their
fiercest passions ; and to make the proposal
seriously would be to doom the negro to de
struction. Those who discuss it cannot know
what they are talking about.
There is more practical interest attached to
various schemes proposed in palliation of the
situation. The idea is gaining ground that
the South is best able to deal with the problem,
and that it should be left to deal with it alone •
Many thoughtful Northerners have arrived at
this conclusion, and are willing to trust the
South in the matter. What the South wishes,
however, is the repeal of the War Amendments.
It believes that if these were removed from the
Constitution the negro would cease to aspire,
and would quietly fill the position which, it
is claimed, Nature has allotted to him. But to
this course an immense body of opinion in the
North is opposed. Many would prefer to see

1 70 THE RACE CONFLICT
the South punished for its policy regarding the
franchise. Between these extreme sectional
points there is another party who wish to make
representation in Congress contingent on the
granting and extending of the suffrage, thus
establishing a reward for enfranchisement,
instead of imposing a penalty for disfranchise
ment. Such a plan merely touches the fringe
of the question ; it ignores the deep-seated
antipathy which exists, and the unyielding
opposition to any scheme which places the two
races on the same level. In any case, the
ingenuity of the South would always be able
to devise expedients for eluding the require
ments of the law. This is frankly admitted in
the South. " Even should the new constitu
tions of the southern States be declared void,"
said one, " others would be found which would
provide for the maintenance of white supre
macy." The only result of this and other
remedies would be to render the position of the
negroes more unfortunate and unhappy.
There seems only one way in which the
problem can be solved, and that is along the
lines of natural law, and in accordance with the
principles of justice. It cannot be settled until

THE SOLUTION l?l
it is settled right. The question is— Can the
fundamental antipathy which exists between
the races be reconciled with just treatment
of the negroes ? i
Much of the confusion which surrounds the
subject is due to the absence of a scientific
determination of the negro's racial position.
The old declaration that all men are free and
equal served a useful purpose, but it is ad
mitted now that while all are, or should be, free,
all are not equal in the scale of existence. It
was on the old idea that the War Amendments
were based : they stated that the negroes were
free, and had become citizens. It is the essen
tial principle of democracy that the citizens
make the laws, and that they all enjoy the
privileges of freemen. But the white popula
tion resolutely refuse to acknowledge the
negroes as equals, and dee'ine to grant them
the rights of citizenship. These two line? of
policy do not converge, but run parallel, and
they will never meet. Behind both lies a
certain measure of truth and justification, but
the method of their expression and operation is
wrong. What requires to be changed is the
fundamental conception held regarding the

i72 THE RACE CONFLICT
negro. The basis of a satisfactory settlement
lies in a recognition of the fact that the race as
a whole is still in an elementary stage of de
velopment, and therefore inferior, as a whole,
in racial and social status to the whites. As a
race the negroes are not yet fitted for equal
association with the latter, nor yet capable of
the same responsible discharge of public duties.
World-wide experience demonstrates that their
progress in civilisation is conditioned on con
tact with the higher race. For them to be
isolated from its influence means stagnation
and degradation.
These primary facts appear to suggest the
duty of the American people. The nation must
be prepared to treat the negroes for the present
as a distinct race on a lower scale of evolution,
and to deal with them in a special way. This
does not imply segregation — a process which
would prevent their advancement as effectively
as it has done that of the Indians, even if it
were possible to carry it out, but it does mean
in a sense separation, not the separation that
is taking place at present — which is arbitrary
and based on race hatred, and illogical because
the whites continue to control the courts, the

THE SOLUTION ,73
schools and the franchise — but the separation
that involves the relation of master and servant,
of class and class, and implies a certain amount
of daily association. Neither does it signify
injustice. The denial of racial and social
equality is not a denial of equity. In the West
Indies no claim is made in this respect, and the
conditions are admitted to be absolutely just.
The negroes would be treated as men — as men
in the making — and be granted all the rights
belonging to such a position. They would not
in the mass be given the full rights of American
citizenship, because these are not the rights of
a primitive and irresponsible people. They
would not be citizens, but subjects, and would
be governed according to the principles which
are now beginning to enter more largely into
British rule. " The British," Mr. Chamberlain
has written, " have had to recognise the fact
that for an indefinite period of time the ideas
and standards of our social and political order
cannot be intelligently accepted or applied by
races which are centuries behind in the process
of evolution . ' ' The English people would never
permit a large body of ignorant negroes in their
midst to exercise the vote. They confer the

174 THE RACE CONFLICT
franchise upon them in colonies like Jamaica,
where, up to the present, the system has worked
fairly well ; but even there they would not
think of conceding them the control of public
affairs. America has come to realise and act
on the same principle in regard to the peoples
who have lately been brought within her
guardianship or domination, and it seems
singular that she should do more for races
higher in the scale of civilisation than for the
negroes within her own borders. Why, for
instance, should she pave the streets and
establish sanitation in Santiago and San Juan
and neglect her own negro quarters ? Why
should she train up the natives of the Philip
pines for self-government, and do less for the
coloured inhabitants of the South ?
Dr. Alfred R. Wallace has expressed his
opinion regarding the same problem in South
Africa, and it is interesting to find him coming
to the same conclusion. "It must be ad
mitted," he says, " that the view of inherently
superior and inferior races, — of master and
servant, ruler and ruled — is the most consistent
with actual facts, and perhaps not the less fitted
to ensure the well-being, contentment and

THE SOLUTION 175
ultimate civilisation of the inferior race. It
is also by no means incompatible with a just
treatment of the native, with sympathetic
interest in his welfare, and with the grant of
a considerable amount of self-government."
The negroes themselves, as we have seen, are
not anxious for the posesssion of political
privileges, although the refusal of them under
present conditions is resented. They distrust
their own power of collective action, and prefer
autocratic rule, so long as it is just and leaves
them their freedom. Hence we usually find
that the government of negro republics, or
republics with a large African element in the
population, are practically dictatorships. In
Spanish-American countries the President is
sometimes constituted dictator for a time, in
order to restore public peace. When the writer
was in Colombia the people were crying out for
a strong man to seize the Presidential chair,
and when he landed in Santo Domingo the
citizens there were longing for a tyrant like
Heureux. The President of Haiti is always a
despot. Very much the same feeling prevails
among the negroes in the United States. Their
experiences have taught them to believe in a

176 THE RACE CONFLICT
centralised government, a beneficent despotism.
They gave their votes largely for Mr. Roosevelt,
the man, not the Republican party. Their
adhesion to Dr. Booker Washington is governed
by the same sentiment. Republicanism dr.es
not suit their nature, especially in a country
where all the spoils of office are claimed by the
higher race.
The theory, however, that the negro is a
finished type of evolution does not stand the
test of facts, though it is true that his evolution
is extremely slow. It will have to be recog
nised that he is capable of development, and
that he must be afforded the fullest opportunity
for cultivating whatever powers he possesses.
The question of his enfranchisement would
sooner or later have to be considered. It is
difficult to see how the higher members of the
race could be permanently excluded from the
privilege of citizenship. But the qualification
would be based on education, character, and
property, and be made so high that only the
most responsible would pass into the electorate.
This is the restricted suffrage which Lincoln
originally wished to see introduced as an ex
periment. A class of voters would be thus

THE SOLUTION l77
established, which, if one is to judge from the
West Indies, could be depended on for loyalty
to the common welfare. There is no reason
to suppose that the possession of a vote by
intelligent negroes with a stake in the country
and devoted to its interests would imperil white
supremacy. The negroes themselves point to
the fact that the South does not hesitate to
entrust the care of its children to the picked
members of the race, which is, perhaps, as im
portant a concession as the act of voting. No
parallel can be drawn between the present and
the past ; the conditions are totally different,
and so long as the whites have faith in them
selves and the courage to do the right, they
cannot cease to be the dominant race. They
ought not to rule by force and repression, but
in virtue of superior virtue and ability ; and
if they maintain their relative racial position
they have nothing to fear from the develop
ment of the blacks.
In support of this contention, it is a privilege
to give the conviction of a man of commanding
ability and a trusted friend of the black race,
one who has as intimate and sympathetic
knowledge of the negro nature as any whiteM

178 THE RACE CONFLICT
can have— the Archbishop of the West Indies
" My strong impression," Dr. Nuttall says, re
ferring to American negroes, " is that if the
political difficulty could be removed out of the
way (if not in the British fashion, yet in some
way suited to the conditions of government in
America), the other difficulties would vanish —
gradually indeed, but at a steadily increasing
rate under the influence of religion, education,
sympathy, justice, and common sense. The
coloured people, if they are to be helped al all,
must be helped by being made fit for the
exercise of all the rights and powers of free
government — a process which, as regards the
bulk of the population, will occupy several
generations ; and he must be a short-sighted
man who cannot see that to remove out of the
way of political intriguers the chances of plying
their unwholesome trade among the coloured
people, and to remove out of the way of the
ignorant coloured people the temptation to
spend their time in helping to play at the game
of politics, and thus to relieve the South of any
fear of a government based on ignorance and
incapacity, is the first step towards giving a
real chance for development, and. for realising

THE SOLUTION ,79
the aspirations of the capable, industrious and
educated among them."
Without such a hope the negroes would be
consigned to a state of inferiority which they
would not always endure . They will not always
submit to the present state of things. It must
be remembered that they have made marvellous
progress in economic capacity and work. It
is extraordinary what they have achieved in
business. They are learning to combine and
organise, and when they feel strong enough they
will undoubtedly seek to free themselves from
what they consider the tyrannical conditions
that now prevail. The door of opportunity
must be open for them. They do not want
racial or social equality, but they do want the
equality that makes life worth living for all
races— equal justice and freedom, the chance of
following out their destiny, whatever it may be.
Only by granting these will there be peace in
America. Forming a special class in the community
the negroes would be regarded as the wards
of the nation, and be under the direct care of
the Federal Government. It would be neces
sary to establish a national- department to

180 THE RACE CONFLICT
supervise the interests of the race, of much the
same character as the East Indian Immigration
Department in the West Indies, but wider in
its scope, which would see that strict justice
was meted out between whites and blacks, and
that all the obligations of the new relation were
observed on both sides. It is curious that the
necessity for such a bureau has nevtr impressed
itself on the Government. It exercises a
paternal control over the Indian population,
and is busy uplifting the natives in the Philip
pines and the West Indies, and yet leaves the
negroes within the Union, its own citizens,
entirely to themselves, although they have not
yet as a race reached the stage when they can
do without the direction and assistance of the
whites. One of the chief objections to the scheme is
?he necessity of bringing the Constitution into
accord with the modern ideas of human de
velopment. The War Amendments cannot be
deleted without the sanction of a two-thirds
majority in the Senate and Congress, and of
three-fourths of the States, and this, practical
politicians are well aware, would be an exceed-
!ngly difficult thing to secure, In the first place,

THE SOLUTION j8i
the average American regards the Constitution
with an almost superstitious reverence, and it
would take the gravest national crisis to induce
him to sanction an alteration in its provisions.
In the second place, to assign the negroes a
special place in the community would be to
make an open confession of failure of the
Jeffersonian theory of democracy, which it is
their boast to maintain. But the negro amend
ments were passed simply as a temporary
political expedient a generation ago, and did
not affect the deeper principles governing the
relations of the races. Knowledge is pro
gressive ; the negro is better known now than
he was forty years ago, and what is known is
incompatible with the sentiment that dictated
these amendments. A higher and truer, but
not less sympathetic view has to be taken of
the coloured people, and there can be no
violence to political ideals in acknowledging
and acting upon the lines which nature has
unmistakeably laid down. As a matter of fact,
the arrangement would simply be an exten
sion of the principle which has been applied
to the white population— that of attaching
educational and property qualifications to

iSa THE RACE CONFLICT
the suffrage, so as to deny the ballot to
the ignorant and shiftless. This is the old
Puritan conception, and there is no doubt
that it is the only one which can operate suc
cessfully in a community embracing un
developed races. Under such a system it is
the duty of the wise and strong to govern the
weak, the ignorant, and the degraded, and to
train them up until they are able to govern
themselves. The real difficulty is, perhaps, the impos
sibility of making the mass of American
citizens pause and think. The majority are
busy and taken up with other interests, and the
necessity for action does not appear to appeal
to them. It took the Fugitive Slave Law to
rouse men in the North to the anomalies of
the situation before the War, and it may re
quire a closer acquaintance with the more
tragic aspects of the race issue now before they
again make up their minds to act. The in
creasing flight of negroes to the North, and the
conflicts that are so frequently occurring in
the various States, are not without their parallel
in the past and their significance in the present.
It is evident thatsuch a policy would place

THE SOLUTION ,83
the negro in a much better position than he
occupies at present. He would not be in a
state of servitude, he would merely be on a
lower plane than the whites ; it would not be
so much a middle ground between slavery and
freedom as a middle ground between incapacity
and responsibility. He would lose nothing
by the arrangement, for he is now treated,
openly and deliberately, as an inferior being,
and denied the rights which have been legally
granted to him. Hf would, indeed, gain much.
for he would secure an unfettered opportunity
for developing his powers, freed from the
dread and humiliation which now darken his
life. One imagines that the South would welcome
a re-adjustment of racial relations on this basis,
and would even agree to reduced representation
in order to secure it, provided that the system
applied throughout the Union, since it would
relieve it of a heavy burden, make the social
conditions more orderly, and life more secure,
and increase the flow of white immigration.
The assignment of the negro to a distinct
social and political sphere would, at any rate,
be an enormous gain, and would disarm the

1 84 THE RACE CONFLICT
hostility of the whites. Whether they would
at once accord him just treatment it is not
easy to say in face of the extr me position at
present taken up by large numbers of the
population. Possibly these might frequently
come into conflict with the authorities in charge
of the race, but they could have no valid
excuse for their action, and the nation as a
whole would be in favour of upholding the
principle of equal justice. Even at the woist,
however, the situation would be an improve
ment on that at present.
There are many, no doubt, who will say that
such a remedy simply means postponing the
time when both races will be on a footing of
equality, and bequeathing a greater problem
to later generations. But if a nation acts
rightly it can with confidence leave the future
to take care of itself. The immediate results
would amount almost to a revolution : the
negro would no longer be a factor in politics,
nor a tool in the hands of corrupt politicians ;
new parties would be created, and new and
higher political ideals would come to the front ;
there would be an end to sectional antagonism,
and one would see greater union for the pro-

THE SOLUTION 185
motion of the common welfare. And the
future would have its own rewards. Good
seed does not produce bad fruit. Nature never
resents obedience to her laws.
In any case, the time has arrived when the
Government should appoint a commission of
competent men who could be trusted to throw
aside prejudice and to investigate the whole
question with the view of arriving at some
definite conclusion regarding the policy to be
adopted. The data that would be obtained by
such an enquiry would alone prove valuable,
and would throw light on many points at pre
sent misunderstood.
If nothing is done to alleviate existing con
ditions one can foresee the inevitable end as
clearly as if it were visible to the eye. The
struggle will go on increasing in intensity as
the negroes advance in intellectual capacity
and material resource ; the passions of both
races, now fitfully venting themselves in law
less action, will rise beyond control, and a
catastrophe will ensue which will startle the
world. THE END.

BURLEIGH PRESS,
NA*ROW LBWINS MEAD,
BRISTOL

Distribution of Negroes in the United States.

{Reproduced, by permission, f. m the 1900 Census Bulletin. The colour values of the original are retained by means of shading.)

This preservation photocopy was made at BookLab, Inc.,
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