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158 THE CRISIS suggested above, to unenlightened psychological repulsion and underestimation of the dynamic or environmental factors. (b) Since, therefore, there is no fair proof of some races being substantially superior to others in inborn capacity, our moral standard, or the matter of treating others--seeing how under favorable circumstances one people after another rises to fame, and how members of all human groups pass through universities with equal success--should remain the same whatever people we are dealing with. 7. (a) So far at least as intellectual and moral aptitudes are concerned, we ought to speak of races. (b) Indeed, even the physical characteristics, excluding the skin color of people, are to no small extent the direct result of the physical and social environment under which it is living at any moment, and hence these characteristics differ measurably both in the history and in the different social strata of one and the same people; and (c) these physical characteristics are furthermore too indefinite and elusive to serve as a basis for any rigid classification or division of human groups, more especially as there has been much interbreeding among all peoples and because race characteristics are even said to distinguish every country and almost every province. 8. (a) The most fruitful cause of race crossing is ill-will - as illustrated by war, conquest, slavery, exploitation, and persecution - for where there exists mutual respect the differences in differing traditions, etc., make it almost an invariable rule that intermarriage is avoided - as shown by any two nations friendly to each other; (b) but intermarriage, we find - contrary to popular tenets - improves the vitality and capacity of a people, and cannot, therefore, be objectionable in itself. (c) The chief drawback to intermarriage between peoples is the same as the drawback to intermarriage between different social classes - i.e., the different traditions of the partners in marriage. (d) Those who dread intermarriage should, therefore, reflect both that there is no such thing as purity of race, and that the rate of crossing decreases with the increase of interracial and international amity. 9. (a) Each people might study with advantage the customs and civilizations of other races or peoples, including those it thinks the lowest ones, for the definite purpose of improving its own customs and civilizations even have much to teach. (b) Dignified and unostentatious conduct and deferential respect for the customs of others, provided these are not morally objectionable to an unprejudiced mind, should be recommended to all who come in passing or permanent contact with members of human groups that are unfamiliar to them. These are a fair summary of the conclusions of writers who are among the best-known names in modern science. In the next number of The Crisis we shall give some of their views at length. LYNCHING The mob spirit in America is far from dead. Time and time again the disappearance of lynching has been confidently announced. Still this species of murder and lawlessness flourished blithely. Its sickening details in the last few weeks have been as bad as could be imagined. The cause of this is obvious: a disrespect for law and a growing cheapness of human life. Why should America lose respect for law? Because for years some of its best brains have been striving both in the profession of law and on the bench to show how worthless legislation is and helpless to accomplish its ends. To cite an instance: The Constitution of the United States, the highest law of the land, says that citizens of the United States cannot be disenfranchised on account of race or color. Yet every schoolboy knows that Negro Americans are disenfranchised in large areas of the South for no reason other than race and color. This is but one instance of our laughing at law. EDITORIAL 159 Why should America count human life cheap? Because it is cheap. Because it is difficult to punish a rich murderer and extremely difficult for a black suspect to escape lynching. Back of the despising of life lies the contempt for men who live. They are not ends, but means - "hands" for doing my work, "masses" for me to contemplate, "niggers" for me to keep down. Their lives, their hurts, their thoughts and aspirations - what is that to me as long as I live and enjoy and rise? Shall my race be disturbed, my fortune taxed, my world turned upside down because six black men in Florida are murdered or a woman and child hanged by ruffians at Oklahoma? Nonsense. They are not worth it. They can be bought for fifty cents a day. Thus we despise life. The result is mob and murder. The result is barbarism and cruelty. The result is human hatred. Come, Americans who love America, is it not time to rub our eyes and awake and act? LONDON There is in the world no city like London. Nor is its distinction merely a matter of size. To be sure, it is a vast aggregation of men - it gives the visitor a curious sense of endlessness by its very disorganization, by the fact that one can find center after center of busy running life stretching away mile after mile and yet all is London. London has no beauty that will compare it to Paris, no blare and flare like New York. Yet London has individuality, a tradition and an importance that make it the capital of the world in a sense, true of no other center since the days of imperial Rome. The individuality is peculiar, subtle, sticking - yet is difficult to express. One sees a busy mart of endless interests, world-wide ramifications, tremendous power. One sees a tradition, a memory clothed in living flesh and word, and a power which makes this city an expression of the empire on which the sun never sets. This empire is a colored empire. Most of its subjects - a vast majority of its subjects - are colored people. And more and more the streets of London are showing this fact. I seldom step into the streets without meeting a half dozen East Indians, a Chinaman, a Japanese or a Malay, and here and there a Negro. There must be thousands of colored people in the city. They do not, of course, color the world so obviously as in an American city, but one senses continually the darker world. no pageant to-day in London is complete without the colored representatives. In the two great coronation processions it was the black and brown and yellow Indian princes in the brilliant magnificence of their silk and jewels who shared the plaudits of the crowds with the king himself, and the black Prince of Abyssinia rode among the royal guests. London is polite and considerate to her darker brothers. There is color prejudice and aloofness undoubtedly here, but it does not parade its shame like New York or its barbarity like New Orleans. Hotel, theater and restaurant stand not only open, but studiously attentive and polite. The courtesies of the street and the tramcar are thoughtfully passed, and in the highest social life colored men and women at the last days of festivity sat at the tables of the highest in the land. Yet London is uneasy. London is sensing the strength and determination in the darker world and is wondering what it all portends in the future. The unrest in India and Egypt causes deep and widespread apprehension in all England, and the situation in South Africa is being narrowly watched. What more fitting center than London for the coming together of the first world conference of the races and peoples of the world! They are to meet not as master and slave, missionary and heathen, conqueror and conquered - but as men and equals in the center of the world, and the meeting will be watched with intense interest and remembered for many a long day. W. E. B. D.
