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246 THE CRISIS The British people depend, for the most part, upon such persons as Mr. Harris for information. This gentleman issues a statement which bears the stamp of reason and fairness, but when read in the light of local conditions we find the fairness is not so fair as first it seemed, but that it contains a mendacious undercurrent of native inferiority and illiteracy which needs to be sheltered under the protecting mantle of Mr. Harris and the Anti-Slavery Society. In order to illustrate more clearly our point, it is only necessary to quote a few paragraphs from a memorial sent to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs by Mr. Harris's Society, dated Jan. 22, 1917:- "1. Whatever the final outcome of European hostilities may be, it is quite clear that the political status of large areas of tropical and sub-tropical territories will be vitally affected. An ideal step would be that before such changes take place the inhabitants should be given a voice in shaping their own destiny. We admit, however, that so far as most territories are concerned, this would not be a practical proposal. But this very fact appears to make it more than ever incumbent on the stronger Powers to devise means for adequately safeguarding the rights and welfare of the native inhabitants." * * * * * "3. It will be admitted that the last twenty-five years have witnessed in tropical and sub-tropical territories the most deplorable treatment of native peoples which has resulted in an appalling depopulation reaching several millions. Apart from humanitarian considerations, this represents a grave disaster to industrial progress which is only possible in such countries by the help of an adequate supply of willing indigenous labor." So far good, but under the sub-head "Suggested Reforms," we find this pertinent paragraph:- "(1) Reserve Areas of Land.-Experience has shown the social and economic advantage of setting aside a large area or areas in every dependency of suitable lands for the exclusive and secure use of native tribes, at the same time making provision for the entrance of white missionary and administrative forces to guide these tribes in the evolution of a sound administration of purely native affairs." * * * * * * The whole difficulty which faces the Anti-Slavery Society and other European bodies dabbling in native affairs is to be found in the assumption that such bodies consider themselves capable of dealing with native conditions without fire consulting the native as to his own requirements. For this reason such efforts are foredoomed to failure. Throughout the continent of Africa the various peoples and tribes have managed their own affairs for centuries before the coming of the European, and we claim that the native, being neither child nor fool, can continue to "carry on" without the meddling of these busybodies. It is indeed true that many of the old administrative injustices and abuses which the natives suffered at the hands of oppressive Europeans have been rectified by the efforts of the Anti-Slavery Society, but we feel that the Society, to put it mildly, is out of touch with progressive native thought. The African and Oriental want equal opportunity and no favor. They want a better system of education on secular and industrial lines. And above all, they do not want the white missionary. For it were more desirable to have a healthy community of moral pagans than a psalm-singing tribe of moral lepers and hypocrites. ENCOURAGEMENT The present condition of the Negro is by no means static. These times of confusion and uncertainty are merely the backwash of revolutionary changes produced by the great war. The difficulties set in the Negro's path are really milestones along the way of his progress. Says the Philadelphia Public Ledger: The avidity of the Negro race for education is positively amazing. Few are the parents who do not send their children to school, no matter what the sacrifice. In a certain section of South Carolina, during the draft process, it was discovered that the percentage of illiteracy among the whites was far in excess of that among the Negroes; a situation considered so alarming that radical measures for its rectification have been proposed. Compulsory education in South Carolina, a big political issue, became a political issue because the poor whites would not be educated and the poor Negroes would not be uneducated. The Governor of Georgia, when recently inaugurated, intimated that the situation was serious. He proposed to meet it, and emigration, not by reducing school facilities for Negroes, but by increasing those school facilities, thereby capitalizing an enormous dormant asset. Never has the Negro race, as a race, been in such a strong strategic position as it is at present. But the golden opportunity for progress is being seriously jeopardized by such outbreaks as occurred a few weeks ago in East St. Louis, and this week in Chester. The class of Negroes recruited for industrial work in the North is unfortunately not the best class. Loafers and more or less desperate characters from the river districts of New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah and Charleston have been induced easily to migrate. They find life harder, work more severe, the restrictions of society more rigorous and the opportunities for petty criminality greater. They are not unionized. They are not versed in the vernacular of labor. They are not class conscious and they exasperate men who are. Race riots in the North are in origin often industrial riots. THE LOOKING GLASS. 247 In the South there are powerful elements working to prevent the Negro from leaving; in the North there are powerful elements working to prevent the Negro from coming. Both, we believe, are wrong. The South needs a different population ratio between the races. It needs more than anything else an influx of small white farmers, to whom its rich lands should be a compelling inducement. The North, on the other hand, has rare opportunities for certain types of Negroes, in certain types of labor, where none are superior to them in ability. A competitive labor market for Negroes would increase rapidly the prosperity of the race, and, therefore, the prosperity of the entire country. The nation, and every citizen of it, assumed a directed responsibility for the Negro when he was emancipated. Out of indefensible riots some good will come if earnest, capable leaders are made to feel the burden of helpfulness which rests on them. The Negro should not be driven back; he should be aided in fitting himself to the new conditions he meets in the North. We should regard it as a national misfortune if prejudice at this crucial time should stifle the Negro ambition and tear the heart out of a race which has just begun to realize its possibilities and its future. "FRESH FIELDS" IDA CROUCH-HAZLETT writing in The Call, New York, forsees a remarkable future for the Negro. She says: August Forel, the world's authority on the sex question, states in his work, "The Sexual Question," that the North American mixed race will diminish and gradually become extinguished and will be replaced by Chinese or Negroes. In other words, the white race is a vanishing factor in this country. What we are pleased to call the "old Americans" are not having children. Look among your friends and count for yourselves. We have depended on the prolific Balkans for our population increase. Not only is that supply cut off for generations to come by slaughtered Europe, but those who come here get the American habit and cease to have large families. And then we have acquired birth control, which accelerate the tendency. Moreover, the Southern white workers are degenerate. Sprung originally in great part from criminals and derelicts transported from England to her penal colonies their powers of rehabilitation were poor to begin with. They were forced to compete with slave labor, and for generations their existence has been one of the most miserable poverty, with the direful consequences. They have had no schooling and live in the grossest ignorance, the name "poor white trash," "southern crackers," being a synonym for all that is ignorant, dirty and degraded. Their systems are poisoned by [right column] their horrible food, a poverty diet, and their extreme ignorance about preparing it; while men, women and children fairly eat tobacco, and drink the vilest coffee habitually. They are anaemic, diseased, suffering from pellagra, hook-worm, tuberculosis and universal affections. Their families are becoming small, high death rate among the children and high rate of barrenness. The Negroes are taking the place of this vanishing and worthless race. They do all the work. The whites are disappearing from the farms, the landlords preferring Negro tenants because they are better workers, and men, women and children can be exploited to a greater degree. Those whites that have energy enough to get out of the country are moving westward. Moreover, the Negro race has the elasticity of a young race, developing into its prime. In spite of the brutality of their treatment for hundreds of years they are light-hearted and happy. Both men and women have remarkably beautiful figures, strong, well-developed, beautifully molded, fitted for models for the New York studios. Wherever they have a working chance they show thrift. They are already in possession of large tracts of southern farmland. The writer has driven a distance of some seven or eight miles, where the whole surrounding country was owned by Negro farmers. A comrade of Winston-Salem, N. C., a large tobacco manufacturer, said to me, "I have worked Negroes all my life: I am thoroughly familiar with them, and I want to say that they are going to become the landed aristocrats of the South." How is that for a Southern man? In Ocala, Florida, the largest and best department store in the town, is owned by Negroes in the Negro quarter, and often the whites go there for goods that they cannot get at their own stores. They respond rapidly to any advantages that are given them. They absorb knowledge like a sponge. The public school was established in the South at the point of the rifle. The whites have always feared the educated Negro. The only education they get now is given grudgingly, and with the poorest equipment, and buildings which are tremendously overcrowded, and in many localities no provision is made for their education whatever. But, as evidence of the power of economic compulsion, in the cotton mill sections we see the white children in the mills, their existence sapped by an increasing ignorance, degeneracy and mortality; while the Negro children are in school, becoming educated, dressing well, as their parents do the work that is more highly paid. This is especially noticeable at Columbus, Ga. As more blacks leave for the North those that remain are more highly paid, as the whites cannot do effective work in the terrible heat. According to this writer the Negro is also the true Socialist.
