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FOREWORD

The following pages attempt a discussion of the most important question that is likely to engage the attention of the American People for many years and even generations to come. Compared with the vital matter of pure Blood, all other matters, as of tariff, of currency, of subsidies, of civil service, of labour and capital, of education, of forestry, of science and art, and even of religion, sink into insignificance. For, to judge by the past, there is scarcely any conceivable educational or scientific or governmental or social or religious polity under which the pure strain of Caucasian blood might not live and thrive and achieve great things for History and Humanity; on the other hand, there is no reason to believe that any kind or degree of institutional excellence could permanently stay the race decadence that would follow surely in the wake of any considerable contamination of that blood by the blood of Africa.

It is this supreme and all-overshadowing importance of the interests at stake that must justify the earnestness and the minuteness with which the matter has been treated. The writer does not deny that he feels profoundly and intensely on the subject; otherwise, he would certainly never thus have turned aside from studies far more congenial and fascinating. But he has not allowed his feelings or any sentimental considerations whatever to warp his judgment. It has been his effort to make the whole discussion purely scientific, an ethnological inquiry, undisturbed by any partisan or political influence. He has had to guard himself especially against the emotion of sympathy, of pity for the unfortunate race, "the man of yesterday," which the unfeeling process of Nature demands in sacrifice on the altar of the evolution of Humanity.

It may be well to indicate at the outset the general movement of thought through this volume:

Chapter One in its title strikes the keynote. In the following pages the main issue is stated, the position of the South is defined, and her lines of defence are indicated. But there is no attempt to justify the fundamental assumption in the Southern argument.

In Chapter Two this shortcoming is made good. The assumed inferiority of both the Negro and the Negroid is argued at length, and proved by a great variety of considerations.

In Chapter Three the notion that this inferiority, now demonstrated, is after all merely cultural and removable by Education or other extra-organic means, is considered minutely and refuted in every detail and under all disguises.

In Chapter Four the powerful and authoritative plea of Dr. Boas, for the "primitives," is subjected to a searching analysis, with the decisive result that, in spite of himself, this eminent anthropologist, while denying everything as a whole, affirms everything in detail that is maintained in the preceding chapters. Inasmuch as the Address of this savant may be regarded as the ne plus ultra of pro-African pleading, both in earnestness and in learning, it has seemed that no treatment of the subject would be complete that did not refute it thoroughly—"so fight I as one not beating the air." To do this was not possible without quoting extensively, which is the less to be regretted as the Address has been too little read.

In Chapter Five the obvious and instant question is met. What then is to become of the Black Man? The answer is rendered in general terms and is supported by the remarkable testimony of the distinguished statistician, Professor Willcox. But only general sociologic moments are regarded, and the statistical argument in detail is held in reserve.

In Chapter Six this omission is fully supplied. The Growth rate, the Birth rate, the Death rate, the Crime rate, and the Anthropometry of the Negro are discussed minutely from every point of view, and the positions of the preceding chapters are bulwarked and buttressed unassailably.

It has been the one aim of the writer, who is perfectly convinced in his own mind, to convince the reader. To this end no pains have been spared and no drudgery avoided. Since it appeared necessary to regard the matter from various nearly related points of view, under only slightly divergent angles, it has happened that the same argumentative materials have come to hand more than once in almost equivalent forms. But in this there is no disadvantage; factors of such sovereign potence do not suffer from repetition. The whole discussion is biological in its bearing and turns about a few pivotal points; and these deserve to be stressed by every device of emphasis. "For twice indeed, yea thrice, they say, it is good to repeat and review the good."

There remain yet certain important political and economical and even juridical aspects of the subject, concerning which the writer has not neglected to gather relevant material of evidence; but any adequate discussion would carry the reader too far afield and would mar the unity of the work as it now stands. Accordingly these aspects are left unregarded.

The writer fancies one may forecast the only reply likely to be brought forward under even a thin guise of plausibility. It will be said, as it is said, that the much-dreaded contamination of blood is the merest bugaboo. But nay! it is a tremendous and instant peril, against which eternal vigilance is the only safeguard, in whose presence it is vain and fatuous to cry "peace, peace" when there is no peace, a peril whose menace is sharpened by well-meant efforts at humanity and generosity, by seemingly just demands for social equality masquerading as "equal opportunity." The one adequate definition of this "equal opportunity" has been bravely given by that most able and eloquent Negroid, Prof. William H. Councill: "Will the White man permit the Negro to have an equal part in the industrial, political, social and civil advantages of the United States? This, as I understand it, is the problem." All this is quite beyond question to the mind that cherishes no illusions and insistently beholds things as they are. Neither is it less sure that even the Southern conscience needs quickening at this vital point. The writer has been appalled at the cool indifference with which amalgamation is contemplated as necessary and inevitable by certain highly intelligent philanthropists in the Southland. The matter is delicate and difficult to argue, and in the body of the book it has perhaps been stressed too lightly; but the danger signals are clearly discernible, even as they were to Prof. E. D. Cope, and it is madness not to heed them. If the race barrier be removed, and the individual standard of personal excellence be established, the twilight of this century will gather upon a nation hopelessly sinking in the mire of Mongrelism.

It can hardly be hoped that any reader will be satisfied with the glimpse here disclosed of the future. Certainly not the Negro, nor his apologists; nor even such as sympathize most fully with the writer. The solemn secular processes, to which the solution of the problem is relegated, are so very leisurely in their working, closing down upon their final result with the deliberation of a glacier, or like some slowly convergent infinite series. But Nature is once for all thus leaden-footed, and it is extremely difficult to quicken her pace.

We have bestowed merely a glance upon the scheme of Deportation, which is alas! not now a question of practical statesmanship, though it may indeed become one sooner than we think.

However, the outlook is not hopeless to him who has a sense of the world to come, who lives in his race, who feels the solidarity of its present with its future as well as with its past. "Of men that are just, the true saviour is Time." Besides, it seems not at all strange that a disease, chronic through centuries, should require centuries for its cure, that the multiplied echoes of the curse of African slavery should go sounding on, even to the years of many generations.

W. B. S.

Tulane University,

25th October, 1904.

THE COLOR LINE

CHAPTER ONE

THE INDIVIDUAL? OR THE RACE?

Let not man join together

What God hath put asunder.

In the controversy precipitated by the luncheon at the White House, and embittered by more recent procedures, the attitude of the South presents an element of the pathetic. The great world is apparently hopelessly against her. Three-fourths of the virtue, culture, and intelligence of the United States seems to view her with pitying scorn; the old mother, England, has no word of sympathy, but applauds the conduct that her daughter reprehends; the continent of Europe looks on with amused perplexity, as unable even to comprehend her position, so childish and absurd. Worst of all, she herself appears to have no far-reaching voice. However ably or earnestly her daily journals may plead her cause, their circle of readers rarely extends far beyond her own borders: she seems to be talking to herself or raving in a dream.

Under such conditions, why not appeal to her generous foes, to the Northern Press, to lend the mighty resonance of their own voice to the proclamation of the Southern plea? "Their tone has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." But the demands on their space are overwhelming; they hesitate before an article of more than fifteen pages, and they would not needlessly wound the sensibilities of their readers. No! The Southern plea, if it is to be made effective, must be presented in a book.

The present writer professes neither authority nor special fitness to speak for the South. No one but himself knows that he is framing or intends to frame this defense; but the situation appeals to him powerfully, and it is so transparent and so easily understood of any one here in the midst that he cannot believe he commits any sensible error in his statement of the case.

To begin, then, it is essential to any proper conduct of the discussion that the point at issue be clearly defined, and that all false issues be excluded rigorously and in terms. Unless we widely err, much current argumentation, especially at the North, is perverted by the fatal fallacy of mistaken aim. On the other hand, we shall not be at any pains to defend or excuse intemperance in the language of Southern writers or speakers; on this head we have no dispute with any one but are willing to admit, whether true or false, whatever may be charged.

What, then, is the real point at issue, and what does the South stand for in this contention—stand alone, friendless, despised, with the head and heart, the brain and brawn, the wealth and culture of the civilized world arrayed almost solidly against her? The answer is simple: She stands for blood, for the "continuous germ-plasma" of the Caucasian Race.

The South cares nothing, in themselves, for the personal friendships or appreciations of high-placed dignitaries and men of light and leading. She must concede to such and to all Northerners' and to all Europeans the abstract right to choose their associates and table company as they please. What she does maintain is, that in the South the colour line must be drawn firmly, unflinchingly—without deviation or interruption of any kind whatever.

It may be too much to affirm that in all extra-social matters—in politics, in business, in literature, in science, in art, everywhere but in society—even the best sentiment or practice of the South is eager to give the Negro strict justice, or ample scope, or free opportunity. Southerners are merely human; and there is, perhaps, no great historical example of an inferior race or class treated with all proper consideration by the superior. Certainly our Northern friends will hardly maintain that recent disclosures clearly show that their ruling corporate powers are humane, or generous, or even barely just towards the poor and humble, in their administration of the important industrial trusts which God has so wisely placed in their hands. They are giants, and it is the nature of giants to press hard. At this point, then, the South is or should be open to conviction. It is the part of statesmanship, as well as of humanity, continuously to adjust the relations of classes—much more so of races—so that the largest interests involved may be sacredly conserved and at the least possible sacrifice of any smaller interest that may conflict. More can hardly be expected in a world whose law is strife. Tried by this standard, it is very doubtful whether the South falls even one notch below the average set everywhere by the example of the ruling class. If she does, then let her bear the blame, with neither excuse nor extenuation for her shortcomings. But in the matter of social separation we can and we will make no concessions whatever. Neither dare we tolerate any violations of our fundamental principle among ourselves; nor dare we sit calmly by and behold its violation by others, when that violation imperils our own supreme interests and renders more difficult the maintenance of our own position. Here, then, is laid bare the nerve of the whole matter: Is the South justified in this absolute denial of social equality to the Negro, no matter what his virtues or abilities or accomplishments?

We affirm, then, that the South is entirely right in thus keeping open at all times, at all hazards, and at all sacrifices an impassable social chasm between Black and White. This she must do in behalf of her blood, her essence, of the stock of her Caucasian Race. To the writer the correctness of this thesis seems as clear as the sun—so evident as almost to forestall argument; nor can he quite comprehend the frame of mind that can seriously dispute it. But let us look at it closely. Is there any doubt whatever as to the alternative? If we sit with Negroes at our tables, if we entertain them as our guests and social equals, if we disregard the colour line in all other relations, is it possible to maintain it fixedly in the sexual relation, in the marriage of our sons and daughters, in the propagation of our species? Unquestionably, No! It is certain as the rising of tomorrow's sun, that, once the middle wall of social partition broken down, the mingling of the tides of life would begin instantly and proceed steadily. Of course, it would be gradual, but none the less sure, none the less irresistible. It would make itself felt at first most strongly in the lower strata of the white population; but it would soon invade the middle and menace insidiously the very uppermost. Many bright Mulattoes would ambitiously woo, and not a few would win, well-bred women disappointed in love or goaded by impulse or weary of the stern struggle for existence. As a race, the Southern Caucasian would be irreversibly doomed. For no possible check could be given to this process once established. Remove the barrier between two streams flowing side by side—immediately they begin to mingle their molecules; in vain you attempt to replace it. Not even ten legions of Clerk Maxwell's demons could ever sift them out and restore the streams to their original purity. The moment the bar of absolute separation is thrown down in the South, that moment the bloom of her spirit is blighted forever, the promise of her destiny is annulled, the proud fabric of her future slips into dust and ashes. No other conceivable disaster that might befall the South could, for an instant, compare with such miscegenation within her borders. Flood and fire, fever and famine and the sword—even ignorance, indolence, and carpet-baggery—she may endure and conquer while her blood remains pure; but once taint the well-spring of her life, and all is lost—even honour itself. It is this immediate jewel of her soul that the South watches with such a dragon eye, that she guards with more than vestal vigilance, with a circle of perpetual fire. The blood thereof is the life thereof; he who would defile it would stab her in her heart of heart, and she springs to repulse him with the fiercest instinct of self-preservation. It may not be that she is distinctly conscious of the immeasurable interests at stake or of the real grounds of her roused antagonism; but the instinct itself is none the less just and true and the natural bulwark of her life.

To set forth great things by small, we may take the instinct of the family, with its imperious and uncompromising demand for absolute female chastity. It is not here, in any controlling measure, a question of individual morality. We make no such absolute demand upon men. We regret, we condemn, we may infinitely deplore sexual irregularity in son, or brother, or husband, or father, or friend, but we do not ostracize;—we may forgive, we may honour, we may even glorify the offender in spite of his offense. But for the female dissolute there is no forgiveness, however we may extra-socially pity or even admire. A double standard—an abomination! But while none may approve, yet every one admits and applies it—for reasons deeper than our conscious logic, and irresistible. For the offense of the man is individual and limited, while that of the woman is general, and strikes mortally at the existence of the family itself.

Now the idea of the race is far more sacred than that of the family. It is, in fact, the most sacred thing on earth; and he who offends against it is an apostate from his kind and mounts the apex of sacrilege.

At this point we hear some one exclaim, "Not so fast! To sit at table, to mingle freely in society with certain persons, does not imply you would marry them." Certainly not, in every case. We may recognize socially those whom we personally abhor. This matters not, however; for wherever social commingling is admitted, there the possibility of intermarriage must be also admitted. It becomes a mere question of personal preference, of like and dislike. Now, there is no accounting for tastes. It is ridiculous to suppose that no Negroes would prove attractive to any whites. The possible would become actual—as certainly as you will throw double-double sixes, if only you keep on throwing. To be sure, where the number of Negroes is almost vanishingly small, as in the North and in Europe, there the chances of such mésalliances are proportionally divided; some may even count them negligible. But in the South, where in many districts the Black outnumbers the White, they would be multiplied immensely, and crosses would follow with increasing frequency.

It is only the sense of blood superiority, the pride of race, that has hitherto protected the white labourer. Break this down or abate it, and he sinks swiftly to the level of the mongrel. Laugh as you will at the haughtiness of the ignorant Southerner, at his scorn of the Negro, perhaps his superior, it is this very race self-respect that is the rock of his salvation. As Bernhard Moses points out, it was because the Anglo-Saxon so cherished this feeling that he refused to amalgamate with the Indians—a proud and in some ways superior race—but drove them relentlessly, and often, it may be, unrighteously before him into the sea. It was just because the Spaniard, though otherwise proud enough, did not cherish this feeling, that he did amalgamate with the victims of his greed and descend into hopeless depths of hybridization. So far, then, from doing aught to weaken this sentiment, we should do our utmost to strengthen it; we should studiously avoid offending it. But social equality must deadly wound it and hence drag miscegenation and all South America in its train.

But some may deny that the mongrelization of the Southern people would offend the race notion—would corrupt or degrade the Southern stock of humanity. If so, then such a one has yet to learn the largest-writ lessons of history and the most impressive doctrines of biological science. That the Negro is markedly inferior to the Caucasian is proved both craniologically and by six thousand years of planet-wide experimentation; and that the commingling of inferior with superior must lower the higher is just as certain as that the half-sum of two and six is only four. [1]

If accepted science teaches anything at all, it teaches that the heights of being in civilized man have been reached along one path and one only—the path of Selection, of the preservation of favoured individuals and of favoured races. The deadly enemy of the whole process of uplifting, of the Drang nach oben, of the course of history itself, is pammixia. Only give it play, and it would inevitably level all life into one undistinguished heap. Now, amalgamation of Black and White is only a special case of pammixia. The hope of the human lies in the superhuman; and the possibility of the superhuman is given in selection, in natural and rational selection, among the children that are to be, of the parents of the men to come. The notion of social racial equality is thus seen to be abhorrent alike to instinct and to reason; for it flies in the face of the process of the suns, it runs counter to the methods of the mind of God.

It is idle to talk of education and civilization and the like as corrective or compensative agencies. [2] All are weak and beggarly as over against the almightiness of heredity, the omniprepotence of the transmitted germ-plasma. Let this be amerced of its ancient rights, let it be shorn in some measure of its exceeding weight of ancestral glory, let it be soiled in its millennial purity and integrity, and nothing shall ever restore it; neither wealth, nor culture, nor science, nor art, nor morality, nor religion—not even Christianity itself. Here and there these may redeem some happy spontaneous variation, some lucky freak of nature; but nothing more—they can never redeem the race. If this be not true, then history and biology are alike false; then Darwin and Spencer, Hæckel and Weismann, Mendel and Pearson, have lived and laboured in vain.

Equally futile is the reply, so often made by our opponents, that miscegenation has already progressed far in the Southland, as witness millions of Mulattoes. Certainly; but do not such objectors know in their hearts that their reply is no answer, but is utterly irrelevant? We admit and deplore the fact that unchastity has poured a broad stream of white blood into black veins; but we deny, and perhaps no one will affirm, that it has poured even the slenderest appreciable rill of Negro blood into the veins of the Whites. We have no excuse whatever to make for these masculine incontinences; we abhor them as disgraceful and almost bestial. But, however degrading and even unnatural, they in nowise, not even in the slightest conceivable degree, defile the Southern Caucasian blood. That blood to-day is absolutely pure; and it is the inflexible resolution of the South to preserve that purity, no matter how dear the cost. We repeat, then, it is not a question of individual morality, nor even of self-respect. He who commerces with a negress debases himself and dishonours his body, the temple of the Spirit; but he does not impair, in anywise, the dignity or integrity of his race; he may sin against himself and others, and even against his God, but not against the germ-plasma of his kind.

Does some one reply that some Negroes are better than some Whites, physically, mentally, morally? We do not deny it; but this fact, again, is without pertinence. It may very well be that some dogs are superior to some men. It is absurd to suppose that only the elect of the Blacks would unite with only the non-elect of the Whites. Once started, the pammixia would spread through all classes of society and contaminate possibly or actually all. Even a little leaven may leaven the whole lump.

Far more than this, however, even if only very superior Negroes formed unions with non-superior Whites, the case would not be altered; for it is a grievous error to suppose that the child is born of its proximate parents only; it is born of all its ancestry; it is the child of its race. The eternal past lays hand upon it and upon all its descendants. However weak the White, behind him stands Europe; however strong the Black, behind him lies Africa.

Preposterous, indeed, is this doctrine that personal excellence is the true standard, and that only such Negroes as attain a certain grade of merit should or would be admitted to social equality. A favourite evasion! The Independent, The Nation, The Outlook, the whole North—all point admiringly to Mr. Washington, and exclaim: "But only see what a noble man he is—so much better than his would-be superiors!" So, too, a distinguished clergyman, when asked whether he would let his daughter marry a Negro, replied: "We wish our daughters to marry Christian gentlemen." Let, then, the major premise be, "All Christian gentlemen are to be admitted to social equality;" and add, if you will, any desired degree of refinement or education or intellectual prowess as a condition. Does not every one see that any such test would be wholly impracticable and nugatory? If Mr. Washington be the social equal of Roosevelt and Eliot and Hadley, how many others will be the social equals of the next circle, and the next, and the next, in the long descent from the White House and Harvard to the miner and the rag-picker? And shall we trust the hot, unreasoning blood of youth to lay virtues and qualities so evenly in the balance and decide just when some "olive-coloured suitor" is enough a "Christian gentleman" to claim the hand of some simple-hearted milk-maid or some school-ma'am "past her bloom"? The notion is too ridiculous for refutation. If the best Negro in the land is the social equal of the best Caucasian, then it will be hard to prove that the lowest White is higher than the lowest Black; the principle of division is lost, and complete social equality is established. We seem to have read somewhere that, when the two ends of one straight segment coincide with the two ends of another, the segments coincide throughout their whole extent.

But even suppose that only the lower strata of Whites mingle with the upper strata of Negroes, the result would be more slowly, but not the less surely, fatal. The interpenetration in our democratic society is too thorough. Here and there the Four Hundred may isolate themselves, but only for a time and imperfectly. Who knows when the scion of a millionaire may turn into a motorman, or the son of a peasant hew his way to the Capitol? Let the mongrel poison assail the humbler walks of life, and it will spread like a bubonic plague through the higher. The standing of the South would be lost irretrievably. Though her blood might still flow pure in myriad veins, yet who could prove it? The world would turn away from her, and point back the finger of suspicion, and whisper "Unclean!"

Just here we must insist that the South, in this tremendous battle for the race, is fighting not for herself only, but for her sister North as well. It is a great mistake to imagine that one can be smutched and the other remain immaculate. Up from the Gulf regions the foul contagion would let fly its germs beyond the lakes and mountains. The floods of life mingle their waters over all our land. Generations might pass before the darkening tinge could be seen distinctly above the Ohio, but it would be only a question of time. The South alone would suffer total eclipse, but the dread penumbra would deepen insensibly over all the continent.

Well, then, the determination and attitude of the South are just and holy and good, and we may now advance to another question. Granted the completest social separation in the South, where the danger is instant and fearful, is it also right or demanded in the North, where the danger is distant or wholly unreal? Why not social separation and the race standard in the South, but social equality and the standard of personal merit in the North? We apprehend that such will be the position of many fair-minded men at the North, and perhaps we may hope for no greater concession. Such a compromise, if carried out to the letter and its purpose and spirit everywhere boldly proclaimed and distinctly understood, might indeed be accepted as a modus vivendi. If the Northern Press and Pulpit should speak on this wise: "You Southerners mistake us entirely. We recoil with your own horror from the idea of a hybridized Dixie; God forbid that you should 'herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains'! We too eschew the notion of race equality. We do not practise, we do not preach it. We applaud your inflexible resolution to keep the Caucasian blood uncorrupt and consecrated to the highest ideals of humanity. Only, we would generously remember high achievements and reward exceptional merit with recognition, but always without will or desire to disturb your social order or to debase the coin of your White civilization. We hold out no false hopes, we encourage no vain ambitions, we flatter no absurd conceits, we sow no seeds of discontent or discord." If such notes rang out from the moulders and wielders of the Northern mind, the South would rejoice with joy unspeakable. She might then pass by unnoticed what now excites her protest. But alas! such notes are rarely, if ever, heard. Instead, it is constantly reiterated that the South is the victim of "unreasoning prejudice," that she is old-fogy, antiquated, ignorant, and without liberalizing experience of the larger world. Her plea for race integrity is thrust aside as not worth hearing or is answered at best with fine scorn and lofty contempt. From such Northern utterances it seems impossible to draw any conclusion but that very many would be quite willing to see perfect equality of the races established in the South, even with its inevitable corollary of mongrelization. [3] It is this painful consciousness, that the central dogma of her civilization finds apparently so little favour beyond the Potomac, that so alarms the South and makes her so supersensitive as to Northern practice. Examples, otherwise trifling, acquire deep interest when set to illustrate some vital principle.

To the North, so superior in all the tokens of development, the world looks for the pattern. Her conduct counts as the model. The Negroes themselves cannot be expected to distinguish between the Northerner North and the Northerner South, nor to reflect that the wise man howls with the wolves, and very naturally feel themselves the victims of gross injustice.

And herein lies the profound and disastrous significance of the Washington incident and its fellows. They are open proclamations from the housetops of society that the South is radically wrong, that no racial distinctions are valid in social life, that only personal qualities are to be regarded. The necessary inference is the perfect social equality of the races, as races, the abolition of the colour line in society, in the family, in the home. The unescapable result would be the mongrelization of the South and her reduction below the level of Mexico and Central America. [4]

Our opponents, however, are not yet left without rejoinder. They will and do affirm that all such incidents are only trivial, that the noisy protest of the South is a mere "tempest in a teapot." In a certain sense this is true. The precedent at the White House has found and will find no acceptance in the Southland. Not one door of equality will be loosened in its closure, but the bolts will be fastened firmer, the gates will be guarded more narrowly. However, it is equally true that the South could not overlook such an incident in such a quarter. The treasure she has to keep is beyond rubies; the watchmen on her towers must neither slumber nor sleep. She is safe, but only because of, and not in default of, unresting vigilance.

We congratulate our friends in the North that they can play with fire without fear of burns; that they can wine and dine amiable and interesting Negroes as rare birds of passage, with no thought of ulterior consequences—at least, to themselves. Their wealth, their power, their culture, their grandeur, but more than all else, their excessive preponderance in numbers, preclude the thought that in many generations their blood could be perceptibly tinged with tides from Africa. With us of the South, alas! the whole situation is quite another. They may safely smile at such an incident as an empty scabbard; but to us it is a drawn dagger.

But the question still remains: Why does the South, if she be right in this matter, find the virtue and intelligence of the world arrayed against her? We answer, the overmass of adverse authority is indeed immense, but it is weightless. The testimony of the North and of Europe is hardly more relevant than would be that of the Martians. For in neither has the race question yet presented itself as a serious practical matter; for them the Black Peril has no existence. Hence their treatment of the subject is merely academic and sentimental. They have generous ethical ideas, respectable but well-worn and overworked maxims, high humanitarian principles; and these they ride horseback. For them the Negro is a black swan, a curious and interesting specimen in natural history; and they have no hesitance in extending their sympathy, their hospitality, and their coöperation. They remember that God "hath made of one (blood) all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth," but forget that the author of this noble sentiment was not an ethnologist; they pity "the nation's ward" as the victim of centuries of oppression, and to the eyes of their faith the mount of his transfiguration gleams close at hand. But the practical problem never confronts them in its unrelieved difficulties and dangers. The possibility of blood contamination is not suggested to them, or at least it never comes home to them; and they yield freely to their philanthropic impulses, not thinking whither these would lead them, not seeing the end from the beginning. Southern hearts are not less benevolent than Northern, but Southern eyes are of necessity in this matter wide open, while most others are shut.

But once let Northern and European eyes catch a clear glimpse of the actual peril of the situation; once let the problem step forth before them in a definite concrete form and call for immediate solution; once let the sharp question pierce the national heart, "Shall I or shall I not blend my Caucasian, world-ruling, world-conquering blood with the servile strain of Africa?" and can there be any doubt of the answer? The race instinct is now slumbering in the North and Europe, and not strangely, for there is nothing to keep it awake; but it is not extinct, it exists and is ready to spring up on occasion into fierce and resistless activity. Of this fact our treatment of the Chinese has already furnished a striking illustration. We tolerated and even petted these industrious Orientals—certainly greatly the Negro's superior—so long as they were few in number and in no way embarrassing. But at the first suggestion that they might come in droves and derange our labour system or alter the type of our civilization, there burst forth all over the North a vehement protest, "in might as a flame of fire," that swept everything before it and hurled back the Chinaman into the ocean and barred our ports unyieldingly against him. The case against Chinese immigration was not one-hundredth so strong as against the social equality of the Negro; in fact, there was much to be said against our restrictive legislation, and much was said both ably and eloquently. But the strongest arguments could not make themselves heard; the race instinct, that instinct preservative of all instincts, was infinitely stronger, and easily triumphed. Let us not forget, either, the recent incidents at Northwestern University and elsewhere, which show clearly that the "prejudice," if you please so to call it, against the Negro is hardly less strong, when aroused, even now in Chicago than in New Orleans.

But some one may say, if all this be true, if the race instinct of the Anglo-Saxon is really so mighty and imperious, then there is no danger that it will not assert itself, if need be; and why all this pother about it? We answer, there is really no danger while the instinct is aroused, and therefore, but only therefore, the South is safe. What we deprecate is the systematic warfare that is waged in some quarters against this instinct as a mere unenlightened "prejudice" whereof we should be ashamed—the attempt to battle it down or else to drug it to sleep in the name of morality or religion or higher humanity. When our Northern brothers, by precept and by example, throw the whole weight of their immense authority in favour of a practice that would be ruinous to the South, are they walking according to love?

We do not deny that there may be cases that move our sympathy; that appeal strongly to our sense of fair play, of right between man and man. In and of itself, it may sound strange and unjust and even foolish to deny to Booker Washington a seat at the table of a white man, even should he be distinctly Mr. Washington's inferior. But the matter must not be decided in and of itself—no man either lives for himself or dies for himself. It must be judged in its larger bearings, by its universal interests, where it lays hold upon the ages, under the aspect of eternity. We refuse to let the case rest in the low and narrow category of Duty to the Individual; we range it where it belongs, in the higher and broader category of Obligation to the Race.

And this conducts us to a final remark. Even at the risk of a sus Minervam we venture to correct a great journal, The Outlook, in one of its statements. It assures its readers that the recent criticism does not represent the real South of intelligence, generosity, and true breeding, but is a survival in a few persons, who have not had opportunities of large contact with the world—of an antiquated and incomprehensible prejudice. Such words are doubtless well-meant; but they are ill-meaning, and if we understand them at all, they invert the facts of the case. We have some acquaintance with some of the best elements of the Southern society, some of the best representatives in nearly all the walks of Southern life. We believe the virtue and intelligence of "the real South" are eminently conservative, earnestly deprecate intemperance in language, and are sworn enemies to sectional animosity. Perhaps, in their zeal to cultivate the friendliest relations with their Northern brethren, they may guard their expressions too carefully and repress their true feelings. But he who supposes that the South will ever waver a hair's breadth from her position of uncompromising hostility to any and every form of social equality between the races, deceives himself only less than that other who mistakes her race instinct, the palladium of her future, for an ignorant prejudice and who fails to perceive that her resolution to maintain White racial supremacy within her borders is deepest-rooted and most immutable precisely where her civic virtue, her intelligence, and her refinement are at their highest and best.