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24     THE CRISIS

be the fractional Negroes' fault, but the fault of the persecutors of the Negro and of sociologists like Dr. Giddings.

The New Haven Register rebukes the impatient sociologist and says that he shows an impatience–not to call it pessimism– which is hardly creditable to a thoughtful student of sociology. Professor Giddings can find not many miles from the seat of Columbia a race of white men who do not observably make any political progress, and show no signs of doing so. The subjects of Tammany Hall seem, superficially, to be about where they were in Tweed's time, and their condition under Murphy is not materially better. Shall we conclude then that things will never be any different in politically darkest New York?

The Boston Globe is quite cheerful about the matter:

But the Negro race will not stand still, nor will it be exterminated. With more and better education, with greater industrial and business privileges, especially in the South where the Negro has larger opportunity to work among and for his own people, his progress will be inevitable. Neither will the white race stand still, and when the Negro is able to enforce his claim of equality the white man will surely be sufficiently enlightened to avert the race conflict which Prof. Giddings predicts.

The Southern papers get considerable satisfaction, and yet they do not agree with the professor.

The Savannah News, for instance, says:

Prof. Giddings' expressed fear that a great race war will come when the Negro reaches a plane where he can back up his demand for political equality shows that the professor still has something to learn. The opposition to the ignorant Negro's ballot was more because of the character than the color of the voter. * * * There is no sentiment here against the Negro in the professions provided he qualifies himself, and when he fits himself for the ballot there will be little if any obstacle to his having it.

So there you are! And then the Bourbon Charleston News and Courier steps in with its ancient pseudo-science:

Are we face to face with another irrepressible conflict? We doubt it and we doubt it because we are sure that the Negro never will be able to show educational and economic equality. Dr. Smith, of Tulane University, in his splendid study, 'The Color Line,' shows conclusively that physiologically the Negro is precluded from intellectual progress comparable to that achieved by the white man. In the Northern schools it is often noted that black students are very precocious in the lower grades. Suddenly their growth in a mental way stops. They generally fall behind. The reason seems to be that the sutures of the black's skull become absolutely fixed at about the age of 16, while the growth of the white's skull continues until the man is 25 years old or more.

What is one going to do with rational people that talk like this? Where is all this race conflict coming from, and where does the real point of contact occur? If we turn to the Negro papers, we may more easily see. A little Texas colored paper, for instance, says:

That this is a 'white man's country' is forcibly illustrated by the way Negroes are dealt with on the street cars and in all public places where masses of people congregate. Regardless of the restrictions limiting the races to certain confines, white people are prone to violate the law. They do it with impunity and wherever and whenever they please. When the cars are crowded white people stand and sit right along in the colored division, even if complaint is made. As a rule, the conductors don't kick, nor do they attempt to enforce the rules. On the other hand, when colored people act similarly, they are snatched up, arrested and fined for violating the law. In the Negro's case the conductors make it a point to see everything, enforcing the law with vengeance, humiliating 'Cuffy,' treating him with contempt and worse than a dog in most cases. In face of all this, too many of our people persist in butting in where they are not wanted, making it harder for us as a class, causing us to suffer indignities of every kind and degree, as though we were not members of the human race.

A colored woman soliciting for a Southern school said to the representative of a Worcester paper:

Because the colored race is colored, and because we have been slaves, there will always be more or less prejudice, I suppose. We should be treated fairly. Have you ever been in a depot in the South? You will find the part of the depot that is reserved for white folks is clean and comfortable, but the part that is for the colored folks is generally dirty and uncomfortable. One day I got a


OPINION    25

registered letter that had been in the post-office, I believe, for nearly ten days, but each day I called for it I could not secure it. I brought the matter to the attention of the authorities at Washington, and one day the postmaster told me the letter was there.

But for real insight to the innermost meaning of the race conflict commend us to Laurence Taylor. We do not know Laurence, neither does Who's Who, but in a letter to the Boston Herald he states the case with startling perspicuity. Negroes and whites, he says, are different races and should have kept apart. Let the traveled, educated Negroes educate their own and live among them, and whites do the same. They cannot be mixed, as the wisest whites and Booker Washington have found out. It is not a matter of refinement, or learning, or that one feels superior; all such compromises lead to unfortunate results, unfair to both sides. There are many white men who are objectionable, even dissipated, clubmen; also many colored who might conduct themselves better than they–that has nothing to do with the case. It is instinct and race that are called into question, and only this.

This is getting down to the real pith of the matter, and it takes the Chicago Examiner to give the final word. Speaking of the deaths of children, it says:

Science is already working out its race-suicide problem in splendid form. Reports show that the largest percentage of deaths of babies under one year is in families of the Negro and of the uneducated foreigner. The smallest percentage is in native white families.

We hesitate to suggest to the Examiner the use of strychnine as an aid to malnutrition.

There comes, however, one large and reassuring word from Mrs. Annie Besant, the great lecturer of England. From a speech at Letchworth Garden City Summer School we clip the following significant extracts:

Let us take the colored races one by one and try to understand them. Britain has a great future before it in that work if the whole of our social system is going to be remodeled and reorganized on a new basis of human happiness instead of on the basis of struggle.

China and Japan are both great and growing powers in the Pacific. Can we think it likely that, if their people are not treated with more courtesy and justice, they will always submit to a nation of 5,000,000 people? We should not do it if in their place. Is it possible for English people to discriminate constantly among colored races, and yet expect them always to remain quiet and submissive, taking an inferior place, which very often is not theirs?

In Australia we have an enormous territory, with about 5,000,000 of white men, and an immense coast line. But even in Australia there are some parts that exclude the colored man. One condition is that a man must be able to write and translate in a foreign tongue. An Indian going there is given a passage in modern Greek to read and translate, and if he cannot do it he is turned back. No Indian prince can go into Australia. Arrangements are carefully made beforehand in order to prevent his landing when he reaches those shores.

There is a terrible outcry when an outrage is done to a white woman, but nothing is said or done when tens of thousands of Kaffir women are outraged by white men. This is a most serious question, for no white woman was ever touched roughly by a Kaffir until his own women had been outraged by the white man. The advance of womanhood in South Africa has been destroyed by the white man, and not by the colored races. It is the white man who has broken down the barrier that surrounded her and left her no longer safe among the colored people. It is there that lies one of our greatest sins; the utter disregard of all morality where colored women are concerned; the shameful disregard of womanhood in every country where Britain has entered and where Britain rules. We send our missionaries over to them, but English people themselves should first be taught. I cannot forget the shame I felt one day when a great Indian orator, speaking of the English in India, turned to me and said: 'If you take away your religion, police and your brothels, we can manage the rest of the difficulties for ourselves.' It is no good sending missionaries while such a retort lies on on the lips of the Indian.

HOUSING THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO.

The Chicago Post says that the difficulty on the part of the Negro in getting decent housing facilities in Chicago is well brought out by Miss Sophonisba Breckinridge, who, with Miss Edith Abbott, has edited the series of housing reports of which this is a part. Miss Breckinridge, though a