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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f00c984 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69835 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69835) diff --git a/old/69835-0.txt b/old/69835-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f124f73..0000000 --- a/old/69835-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1952 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Negro and the nation, by Hubert H. -Harrison - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Negro and the nation - -Author: Hubert H. Harrison - -Release Date: January 19, 2023 [eBook #69835] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Neal Caren. This file was derived from images generously - made available by the Library of Congress through the - HathiTrust. - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEGRO AND THE -NATION *** - - - - - - THE NEGRO - AND - THE NATION - - BY - HUBERT H. HARRISON - - Cosmo-Advocate Publishing Co. - 2305 Seventh Avenue - New York - - - - - PREFACE - -This little book is made up of articles contributed several years ago -to radical newspapers and magazines like The Call, The Truth-Seeker, -Zukunft, and The International Socialist Review. They are re-published -in this form, partly to preserve a portion of the author's early work, -but mainly because they help to throw into strong relief the present -situation of the Negro in present day America, and to show how that -situation re-acts upon the mind of the Negro. That is the great need -of the Negro at this time. - -Some time in the near future I hope to write a little book on the New -Negro which will set forth the aims and ideals of the new Manhood -Movement among American Negroes rich has grown out of the -international crusade "for democracy—for the right of those who submit -to authority to have A VOICE in their own government"— as President -Wilson so sincerely puts it. - -Because I wish this little book to have as large a circulation as -possible among Negroes and white people, I have preferred publication -at a popular price to the doubtful advantage of having a prominent -publisher's name at the foot of the title-page. The present edition -consists of five thousand copies. When it is sold off a second edition -will be issued. - -HUBERT H. HARRISON New York, August, 1917. - - - - - THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN - -NOTE: This article and the next were contributed to the International -Socialist Review in 1912 while the author was a member of the -Socialist Party. He has since left it (but has joined no other party) -partly because, holding as he does by the American doctrine of "Race -First," he wished to put himself in a position to wont among his -people along lines of his own choosing. - - -Providence, according to Mr. Kipling, has been pleased to place upon -the white man's shoulders the tremendous burden of regulating the -affairs of men of all other colors, who, for the purpose of his -argument, are backward and undeveloped—"half devil and half child." -When one considers that of the sixteen hundred million people living -upon this earth, more than twelve hundred million are colored, this -seems a truly staggering burden. - -But it does not seem to have occurred to the proponents of this -pleasant doctrine that the shoe may be upon the other foot so far as -the other twelve hundred million are concerned. It is easy to maintain -an =ex parte= argument, and as long as we do not ask the other side to -state their case our own arguments will appear not only convincing but -conclusive. But in the court of common sense this method is not -generally allowed, and a case is not considered closed until =both= -parties have been heard from. - -I have no doubt but that the colored peoples of the world will have a -word or two to say in their own defense. In this article I propose to -put the case of the black man in America, not by any elaborate -arguments, but by the presentation of certain facts which will -probably speak for themselves. - -I am not speaking here of the evidences of Negro advancement, nor even -making a plea for justice. I wish merely to draw attention to certain -pitiful facts. This is all that is necessary—at present. For I believe -that those facts will furnish such a damning indictment of the Negro's -American over-lord as must open the eyes of the world. The sum total -of these facts and of what they suggest constitute a portion of the -black man's burden in America. Not all of it, to be sure, but quite -enough to make one understand what the Negro problem is. For the sake -of clarity I shall arrange them in four groups: political, economic, -educational and social. - - -I—Political. - -In a republic all the adult male natives are citizens. If in a given -community some are citizens and others subjects, then your community -is not a republic. It may call itself so. But that is another matter. -Now, the essence of citizenship is the exercise of political rights; -the right to a voice in government, to say what shall be done with -your taxes, and the right to express your own needs. If you are denied -these rights you are not a citizen. Well, in sixteen southern states -there are over eight million Negroes in this anomalous position. Of -course, many good people contend that they may be unfit to exercise -the right of suffrage. If that is so, then who is fit to exercise it -for them? This argument covers a fundamental fallacy in our prevailing -conception of the function of the ballot. We think that it is a -privilege to be conferred for "fitness." But it isn't. It is an -instrument by which the people of a community express their will, -their wants and their needs. And all those are entitled to use it who -have wants, needs and desires that are worth consideration by society. -If they are not worth considering, then be brutally frank about it; -say so, and establish a protectorate over them. But have done with the -silly cant of "fitness." People vote to express their wants. Of -course, they will make mistakes. They are not gods. But they have a -right to make their own mistakes—the Negroes. All other Americans -have. That is why they had Ruef in San Francisco, and still have -Murphy in New York. - -But the American republic says, in effect, that eight million -Americans shall be political serfs. Now, this might be effected with -decency by putting it into the national constitution. But it isn't -there. The national constitution has two provisions expressly -penalizing this very thing. Yet the government—the President, -Congress, the Supreme Court—wink at it. This is not what we call -political decency. But, just the same, it is done. How is it done? By -fraud and force. Tillman of South Carolina has told in the United -States Senate how the ballot was taken from Negroes by shooting -them—that is, by murder. But murder is not necessary now. In certain -southern states in order to vote a man must have had a grandfather who -voted before Negroes were freed. In others, he must be able to -interpret and understand any clause in the Constitution, and a white -registration official decides whether he does understand. And the -colored men of states like Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, -Mississippi and Louisiana who meet such tests as those states provide -are disfranchised by the "white primary" system. According to this -system only those who vote at the primaries can vote at the general -elections. But the South Carolina law provides that: "At this election -only white voters … and such Negroes as voted the Democratic ticket in -1876 and have voted the Democratic ticket continuously since … may -vote." Of course, they know that none of them voted that ticket in -1876 or have done so continuously since. In Georgia the law says that: -"All white electors who have duly registered … irrespective of past -political affiliations are hereby declared qualified and are invited -to participate in said primary election." - -Under the new suffrage law of Mr. Booker T. Washington's state of -Alabama. Montgomery county, which has 53,000 Negroes, disfranchises -all but one hundred of them. In 1908 the Democrats of West Virginia -declared in their platform that the United States Constitution should -be so amended so as to disfranchise all the Negroes of the country. In -December, 1910, the lower house of the Texas legislature, by a vote of -51 to 34, instructed its federal Senators and Congressmen to work for -the repeal of the two amendments to the national constitution which -confer the right of suffrage upon Negroes. But the funniest proposal -in that direction came from Georgia, where J. J. Slade proposed an -amendment to the state constitution to the effect that colored men -should be allowed to vote only if two =chaste= white women would swear -that they would trust them in the dark. But, however it has been -effected, whether by force or fraud, by methods wise or otherwise, the -great bulk of the Negroes of America are political pariahs to-day. -When it is remembered that they once had the right of suffrage, that -it was given them, not upon any principle of abstract right, but as a -means of protection from the organized ill-will of their white -neighbors, that that ill-will is now more effectively organized and in -possession of all the powers of the state,—it can be seen at a glance -that this spells subjection certain and complete. - - -II—Economic - -Political rights are the only sure protection and guarantee of -economic rights. Every fool knows this. And yet, here in America -to-day we have people who tell Negroes that they ought not to agitate -for the ballot so long as they still have a chance to get work in the -south. And Negro leaders, hired by white capitalists who want cheap -labor-power, still continue to mislead both their own and other -people. The following facts will demonstrate the economic insecurity -of the Negro in the South. - -Up to a few years ago systematic peonage was wide-spread in the South. -Now, peonage is slavery unsanctioned by law. In its essence it is more -degrading than mere chattel slavery. Any one who doubts this may look -to modern Mexico for proofs. This peonage in the South had reduced -many black men to slavery. And it isn't stamped out yet. It was on -January 3, 1911, that the Supreme Court, in the case of Alonzo Bailey, -declared unconstitutional the Alabama peonage law, which had been -upheld by the state Supreme Bench. About the same time W. S. Harlan, a -nephew of the late Justice Harlan of the United States Supreme Court, -and manager of a great lumber and turpentine trust, doing business in -Florida and Alabama, was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment -and fined $5,000 for peonage. He has since been pardoned and had his -fine remitted by President Taft. - -One of the forms of this second slavery is the proprietary system, -according to which the Negro laborer or tenant farmer must get his -supply at the proprietor's store—and he gets it on credit. The -accounts are cooked so that the Negro is always in debt to the modern -slave-holder. Some of them spend a life-time working out an original -debt of five or ten dollars. - -But peonage isn't all. The professional southerner is always declaring -that whatever else the south may not do for the Negro it supplies him -with work. It does—when he works for some one else. When he works for -himself it is very often different. For instance, there was the -Georgia Railroad strike of May, 1909. The Negro firemen were getting -from fifty cents to a dollar a day less than the white firemen, they -had to do menial work, and could not be promoted to be engineers. They -could be promoted, however, to the best runs by the rule of seniority. -But the white firemen, who had fixed the economic status of the black -firemen, objected to even this. They went on strike and published a -ukase to the people of the state in which they said: "The white people -of this state refuse to accept social equality." - -On the eighth of March, 1911, the firemen of the Cincinnati, New -Orleans & Texas Pacific Railroad did the same thing. In the attacks -made on the trains by them and their sympathizers many Negro firemen -were killed. Occurrences of this sort are increasing in frequency and -they have a certain tragic significance. It means that the Negro, -stripped of the ballot's protection, holds the right to earn his bread -at the mere sufferance of the whites. It means that no black man shall -hold a job that any white man wants. And that, not in the South alone. -There is the case of the Pavers' Union of New York City. The colored -pavers, during the panic of 1907, got behind in their dues. The usual -period granted expired on Friday. On Monday they sent in their dues in -full to the national organization. The treasurer refused to receive -the dues and at once got out an injunction against them. This -injunction estopped them from appealing to the National Executive -Committee or to the national convention. They are still fighting the -case. - -In January 1911 the several walking delegates of the Painters' -Plumbers', Masons,' Carpenters', Steam Fitters', Plasterers' and -Tinsmiths' Unions compelled the Thompson & Starrett Construction Co., -the second largest firm of contractors in New York, to get rid of the -colored cold painters who were engaged on the annex to Stearns' -department store. They would not admit them to membership in the -union; they merely declared that colored men would not be allowed to -do this work. And these are the same men who denounce Negro -strike-breakers. They want them out of the unions and also want them -to fight for the unions. Presumably they would have them eating -air-balls in the meanwhile. - -In February 1911 the New York Cab Company was dropping its Negro cab -drivers, because, it said, its patrons demanded it. In November 1911 -the white chauffeurs of New York were trying to terrorize the colored -chauffeurs by a system of sabotage in the garage, because they, too, -believed that these jobs were white men's jobs. - -It is but a short step from the denial of the right to work to the -denial of the right to own. In fact, the two are often linked -together, as in the next ease. In the latter part of 1910, land -speculators in Hominy Okla., sold some land for cotton farms to -Negroes. The Negroes paid for this land, took possession, and were -getting along splendidly when—"the local whites protested." -"Night-riders (i. e., Ku Klux) around Hominy, several days before, -served notice that all Negroes must leave the town at once, and to -emphasize the warning they exploded dynamite in the neighborhood of -Negro houses." So the Negroes fled, fearing for their lives. At -Baxterville, Miss., the same thing happened in March 1912. In November -1910, a colored man named Matthew Anderson in Kansas City was having a -fine $5,000 house built. But the jealousy of the white neighbors -prevented its completion. It was blown up by dynamite when it had been -almost finished. In Warrenton, Ga., notice was sent to three colored -men and one widow, who had prospered greatly in business, to the -effect that they must leave immediately because the white people of -Warrenton "were not a-goin' to stand for rich niggers." One of them -has been forced to sell out his business at a loss. Another never -answers a knock and never leaves his house by the front door. All -through these things Mr. Washington told his race that if it would -work hard, get property and be useful to a community it would not need -to strive for a share in the government! - - -III—Educational. - -EDUCATION is the name which we give to that process of equipment and -training which, in our day, society gives the individual to prepare -him for fighting the battle of life. We do not confer it as a -privilege, but it is given on behalf of society for society's own -protection from the perils of ignorance and incompetence. It is a -privilege to which ever member of society is entitled. For without -some equipment of this sort the individual is but half a man, -handicapped in the endeavor to make a living. Here in America, we -subscribe to the dangerous doctrine that twelve million of the people -should receive the minimum of education. And in order to reconcile -ourselves to this doctrine, we deck it in the garments of wisdom. -Because of the serf idea in American life, we say that the Negro shall -have a serf's equipment and no more. It is the same idea that the -aristocracy of Europe evolved when the workers demanded that their -children should be trained better than they themselves had been. -"Why", said the masters, "if we give your children schooling they will -be educated out of their station in life. What should the son of a -carpenter need to know of Euclid or Virgil? He should learn his -father's vocation that he may be well equipped to serve in that -station of life into which it has pleased God to call him. We need -more plowmen than priests, more servants than savants." - -In our own land, when Negroes demand education, we say, "Why, surely, -give them industrial education. Your race has a great opportunity—to -make itself useful. It needs trained craftsmen and workers and, -perhaps, a few parsons. Teach your sons and daughters to work. That is -enough." And we dexterously select leaders for them who will -administer the soothing syrup of this old idea with deftness and -dispatch. The General Education Board which disburses millions of -dollars annually in the South for education has, so far, given to -forty-one Negro schools the sum of $464,015. Only in two instances has -any money been given to a real college. Practically all of it went to -the labor-caste schools. Why? Because the dark degradation of the -Negro must be lightened by no ray of learning. That would never do. We -need them as "hewers of wood and drawers of water." And in the -meanwhile, this is what the richest country on earth offers to -ruthlessly exploited people as a training for life: - -Before the Twelfth Annual Conference for Education in the South (1910) -Mr. Charles L. Coon, superintendent of schools in North Carolina, read -a paper on Negro Education in the South. His investigation extended -over eleven states: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, -Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and -Tennessee. In these states the Negroes make up 40.1 per cent of the -population, but receive only 14.8 per cent of the school fund. He -showed that even if the school fund as disbursed were apportioned to -each race according to taxes paid the colored people of Virginia -should receive $507,305 instead of the $482,228 which they now -receive; in North Carolina they should get $429,127 instead of -$402,658, and in Georgia $647,852 instead of $506,170. So that these -three states expend for Negro education $93,278 less than what the -Negroes themselves pay for—and that sum is contributed by Negroes to -the white children of the state! - -But, as a matter of fact, in no modern country is education made to -depend upon the tax-paying power of the parents. If that were so, the -children of 40,000,000 American proletarians would live and die -without schooling. So that the case is really much worse than it -seems. - -South Carolina spent in 1910 $10.34 for the education of each white -child and $1.70 for the =education= of each colored child. In Lawrence -county the state gave to each colored child 97 cents worth of -education that year; in Lexington county, 90 cents; in Bamberg, 89 -cents; in Saluda, 68 cents, and in Calhoun, 58 cents worth. The -smallest sum spent on a white child for education that year was $4.03. -In Georgia it was quite as bad. One county of this state owned 19 of -the 27 school houses for Negroes. The valuation of the entire 19 was -$2,500; that is, $131.58 for each school house for Negroes! =The -annual cost of the education of a Negro child in six counties of this -civilized state was 39 cents.= Meanwhile the whites of Baltimore were -protesting against the building of a new Negro school! In Louisiana -the report of the Department of Education shows that the average -monthly salary of white male teachers is $75.29, while that of colored -male teachers is $34.25. The average monthly salary of white female -teachers is $50.80 and that of the colored female teachers is $28.67. -The average length of the annual school term for white children is -eight months and a quarter; for colored children, four months and a -half. - -In Wilcox County, Alabama, where there are 2,000 white children and -10,758 colored children, $32,660.48 is devoted to education. Of this -amount the 10,758 colored children receive one-fourth—$6,532.09, or -sixty cents each per annum—while the 2,000 white children receive the -remaining four-fifths—$26,128.13, or about $13 each per annum. -Mr. Booker Washington, who lives in this state sends his own children -to the best colleges and to Europe while advising the rest of his -people to "make your condition known to the white people of the -state." Now, if education—of any sort—is a training for life, is it -not evident here that black children are being robbed of their chance -in life? Why? Is it to be supposed that their fathers are so stupid as -to allow this if they could vote their own needs? Yet Mr. Washington -decries the agitation for the ballot as unwise and never loses an -opportunity of sneering at these who see something of value in it. But -to continue The number of white children of school age in Alabama is -364,266; the number of colored children of school age is 311,552. But -the teachers of the white children receive in salaries $2,404,062.54, -while the teachers of the colored children receive $202,251.13. The -value of all schoolhouses, sites and furniture for white children is -$6,503,019.57; for colored children, $273,147.50. - -In South Carolina there are 316,007 Negro children of school age and -201,868 white children; but the state spends on its Negro children -$368,802, and on its white children $1,684,976. Thus does America keep -knowledge from Negroes. She is afraid of the educated black man. Of -such are the people who taunt Negroes with ignorance. - - -IV—Social. - -When a group has been reduced to serfdom, political and economic, its -social status become fixed by that fact. And so we find that in "the -home of the free and the land of the brave" Negroes must not ride in -the same cars in a train as white people. On street-cars, certain -sections are set apart for them. They may not eat in public places -where white people eat nor drink at the same bar. They may not go to -the same church (although they are foolish enough to worship the same -god) as white people; they may not die in the same hospital nor be -buried in the same grave-yard. So far as we know, the segregation ends -here. - -But why is segregation necessary? Because white Americans are afraid -that their inherent superiority may not, after all, be so very evident -either to the Negro or to other people. They, therefore, find it -necessary to enact it into law. So we had the first Ghetto legislation -in an American nation last year, in Baltimore. Hard on the heels of -this followed legislative proposals along the same line in Richmond -Va., Kansas City, Mo., St. Louis, Mo., and Birmingham, Ala. In -Memphis, Tenn., Negroes pay taxes for public parks which they are not -allowed to enter. A year ago they petitioned for a Negro park and were -about to get it when 500 white citizens protested against it. That -settled it with the park. - -But discrimination goes even further and declares that Negroes shall -not possess even their lives if any white persons should want them. -And so we have the institution called the lynching-bee. The -professional southerner seems to love a lie dearly and continues to -assert that Negroes are lynched for rape committed upon white women. -Why not? It is perfectly American. If you want to kill a dog, call it -mad; if you want to silence a man, call him an Anarchist, and if you -want to kill a black man, call him a rapist. But let us see what the -facts actually are. - -In the two decades from 1884 to 1904 there were 2,875 lynchings in the -United States. Of these 87 per cent, or 2,499 occurred in the South. -The national total was grouped as follows: - - 1. For alleged and attempted criminal assault, i. e., rape... 564 - 2. For assault and murder and for complicity................. 138 - 3. For murder............................................... 1,277 - 4. For theft, burglary and robbery.......................... 326 - 5. For arson................................................. 106 - 6. For race-prejudice (?).................................... 94 - 7. For unknown reasons....................................... 134 - 8. For simple assault........................................ 18 - 9. For insulting whites...................................... 18 - 10. For making threats......................................... 16 - -The causes for the remainder were: slander, miscegenation, informing, -drunkenness, fraud, voodooism, violation of contract, resisting -arrest, elopement, train wrecking, poisoning stock, refusing to give -evidence, testifying against whites, political animosity, disobedience -of quarantine regulations, passing counterfeit money, introducing -smallpox, concealing criminals, cutting levees, kidnapping, gambling, -riots, seduction, incest, and forcing a child to steal. - -Yes, there are courts in the South; but not for black people—not when -the mob chooses to relieve civilization of the onus of law and order. -At Honeapath, S. C, a Negro was lynched in November 1911, charged, of -course, with "the usual crime." The charge had not been proven, or -investigated; but the man was lynched. The howling mob which did him -to death was composed of "prominent citizens" who had made up -automobile parties to ride to the affair. Among those present was the -=dis=-honorable Joshua Ashley, a member of the state legislature. He -and his friends cut off the man's fingers as souvenirs and were proud -of their work. Why shouldn't they? You see, it helps to keep "niggers" -in their place. And then, besides, isn't this a white man's country? -Gov. Blease of South Carolina was also proud of the event and said -that instead of stopping the horrible work of the mob he would have -resigned his office to lead it. In Okemeah, Oklahoma, last June, a band -of white beasts raped a Negro woman and then lynched her and her -fourteen-year-old son Nothing has been done to them. And it is not -that the facts are unknown. At Durant, Okla., and elsewhere, the -savages have posed around their victim to have their pictures taken. -One man, from Alabama sent to the Rev. John Haynes Holmes, of -Brooklyn, N.Y., a post-card (by =mail=) bearing a photograph of such a -group. "This is the way we treat them down here," he writes, and, -after promising to put Mr. Holmes' name on his mailing list declares -that they will have one, at least, each month. - -In Washington, Ga., Charles S. Holinshead, a wealthy white planter, -raped the wife of T.B. Walker, a decent, respectable Negro. As his -wife returned to him dishevelled and bleeding from the outrage -perpetrated on her, Walker went to Holinshead's store and shot him -dead. For this he was tried and condemned and, while the judge was -pronouncing sentence, Holinshead's brother shot Walker in the -court-room. They held his head up while the judge finished the -sentence, Then he was taken out and lynched—not executed Nothing was -done to the other Holinshead. - -The New York =Evening Post=, on October 23rd said in an editorial that -"there has hardly been a single authenticated case in a decade of the -Negroes rising against the whites, despite the growing feeling, among -them that there should be some retaliation since no tribunal will -punish lynchers or enforce the law." I am glad that the =Post= noticed -this. I had begun to notice it myself. When President Roosevelt -discussed lynching some years ago, he severely reprobated =the Negro= -for their tendency to shield their "criminals" and ordered them to go -out and help hunt them down. So was insult added to injury. - -But, putting my own opinion aside, here are the facts as I have seen -them. In the face of these facts, the phrase, "the white man's -burden," sounds like a horrid mockery. - - - - - SOCIALISM AND THE NEGRO - - -1. Economic Status Of The Negro - -The ten million Negroes of America form a group that is more -essentially proletarian than any other American group. In the first -place the ancestors of this group were brought here with the very -definite understanding that they were to be ruthlessly exploited. And -they were not allowed any choice in the matter. Since they were -brought here as chattels their social status was fixed by that fact. -In every case that we know of where a group has lived by exploiting -another group, it has despised that group which it has put under -subjection. And the degree of contempt has always been in direct -proportion to the degree of exploitation. - -Inasmuch then, as the Negro was at one period the most thoroughly -exploited of the American proletariat, he was the most thoroughly -despised. That group which exploited and despised him, being the most -powerful section of the ruling class, was able to diffuse its own -necessary contempt of the Negro first among the other sections of the -ruling class, and afterwards among all other classes of Americans. For -the ruling class has always determined what the social ideals and -moral ideas of society should be; and this explains how race prejudice -was disseminated until all Americans are supposed to be saturated with -it. Race prejudice, then, is the fruit of economic subjection and a -fixed inferior economic status. It is the reflex of a social caste -system. That caste system in America today is what we roughly refer to -as the Race Problem, and it is thus seen that the Negro problem is -essentially an economic problem with its roots in slavery past and -present. - -Notwithstanding the fact that it is usually kept out of public -discussion, the bread-and-butter side of this problem is easily the -most important. The Negro worker gets less for his work—thanks to -exclusion from the craft unions—than any other worker; he works longer -hours as a rule and under worse conditions than any other worker, and -his rent in any large city is much higher than that which the white -worker pays for the same tenement. In short, the exploitation of the -Negro worker is keener than that of any group of white workers in -America. Now, the mission of the Socialist Party is to free the -working class from exploitation, and since the Negro is the most -ruthlessly exploited working class group in America, the duty of the -party to champion his cause is as clear as day. This is the crucial -test of Socialism's sincerity and therein lies the value of this point -of view—Socialism and the Negro. - - -2. The Need of Socialist Propaganda. - -So far, no particular effort has been made to carry the message of -Socialism to these people. All the rest of the poor have had the -gospel preached to them, for the party has carried on special -propaganda work among the Poles, Slovaks, Finns, Hungarians and -Lithuanians. Here are ten million Americans, all proletarians, hanging -on the ragged edge of the impending class conflict. Left to themselves -they may become as great a menace to our advancing army as is the army -of the unemployed, and for precisely the same reason: they can be used -against us, as the craft unions have begun to find out. Surely we -should make some effort to enlist them under our banner that they may -swell our ranks and help to make us invincible. And we must do this -for the same reason that is impelling organized labor to adopt an -all-inclusive policy; because the other policy results in the -artificial breeding of scabs. On grounds of common sense and -enlightened self-interest it would be well for the Socialist party to -begin to organize the Negroes of America in reference to the class -struggle. The capitalists of America are not waiting. Already they -have subsidized Negro leaders, Negro editors, preachers and -politicians to build up in the breasts of the black people those -sentiments which will make them subservient to their will. For they -recognize the value (to them) of cheap labor power and they know that -if they can succeed in keeping one section of the working class down -they can use that section to keep other sections down too. - - -3. The Negro's Attitude Toward Socialism. - -If the Socialist propaganda among Negroes is to be effectively carried -on, the members and leaders of the party must first understand the -Negro's attitude toward Socialism. That attitude finds its first -expression in ignorance. The mass of the Negro people in America are -ignorant of what Socialism means. For this they are not much to blame. -Behind the veil of the color line none of the great world-movements -for social betterment have been able to penetrate. Since it is not -yet the easiest task to get the white American worker—with all his -superior intellect—to see Socialism, it is but natural to expect that -these darker workers to whom America denies knowledge should still be -in ignorance as to its aims and objects. - -Besides, the Negroes of America—those of them who think—are suspicious -of Socialism as of everything that comes from the white people of -America. They have seen that every movement offer the extension of -democracy here has broken down as soon as it reached the color line. -Political democracy declared that "all men are created equal," meant -only all white men. The Christian church found that the brotherhood of -man did not include God's bastard children. The public school system -proclaimed that the school house was the backbone of democracy—"for -white people only," and the civil service says that Negroes must keep -their place—at the bottom. So that they can hardly be blamed for -looking askance at any new gospel of freedom. Freedom to them has been -like one of - - "those juggling fiends. - That palter with us in a double sense; - That keep the word of promise to our ear, - And break it to our hope." - -In this connection, some explanation of the former political -solidarity of those Negroes who were voters may be of service. Up to -six years ago the one great obstacle to the political progress of the -colored people was their sheep-like allegiance to the Republican -party. They were taught to believe that God had raised up a peculiar -race of men called Republicans who had loved the slaves so tenderly -that they had taken guns in their hands and rushed on the ranks of the -southern slaveholders to free the slaves; that this race of men was -still in existence, marching under the banner of the Republican party -and showing their great love for Negroes by appointing from six to -sixteen near-Negroes to soft political snaps. Today that great -political superstition is falling to pieces before the advance of -intelligence among Negroes. They begin to realize that they were sold -out by the Republican party in 1876; that in the last twenty-five -years lynchings have increased, disfranchisement has spread all over -the south and "jim-crow" cars run even into the national capital—with -the continuing consent of a Republican congress, a Republican Supreme -Court and Republican presidents. - -Ever since the Brownsville affair, but more clearly since Taft -declared and put in force the policy of pushing out the few near-Negro -officeholders, the rank and file have come to see that the Republican -party is a great big sham. Many went over to the Democratic party -because, as the =Amsterdam News= puts it, "they had nowhere else to -go." Twenty years ago the colored men who joined that party were -ostracized as scalawags and crooks—which they probably were. But -today, the defection to the Democrats of such men as Bishop Waiters, -Wood, Carr and Langston—whose uncle was a colored Republican -congressman from Virginia—has made the colored democracy respectable -and given quite a tone to political heterodoxy. All this loosens the -bonds of their allegiance and breaks the bigotry of the last forty -years. But of this change in their political view-point the white -world knows nothing. The two leading Negro newspapers are subsidized -by the same political pirates who hold the title-deeds to the handful -of hirelings holding office in the name of the Negro race. One of -these papers is an organ of Mr. Washington, the other pretends to be -independent—that is, it must be "bought" on the installment plan, and -both of them are in New York. - -Despite this "conspiracy of silence" the Negroes are waking up; are -beginning to think for themselves; to look with more favor on "new -doctrines." And herein lies the open opportunity of the Socialist -party. If the work of spreading Socialist propaganda is taken to them -now, their ignorance of it can be enlightened and their suspicions -removed. - - -The Duty of The Socialist Party. - -I think that we might embrace the opportunity of taking the matter up -at the coming national convention. The time is ripe for taking a stand -against the extensive disfranchisement of the Negro in violation of -the plain provisions of the national constitution. In view of the fact -that the last three amendments to the constitution contain the clause, -"Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate -legislation," the party will not be guilty of proposing anything worse -than asking the government to enforce its own "law and order." If the -Negroes, or any other section of the working class in America, is to -be deprived of the ballot, how can they participate with us in the -class struggle? How can we pretend to be a political party if we fail -to see the significance of this fact? - -Besides, the recent dirty diatribes against the Negro in a Texas -paper, which is still on our national list of Socialist papers; the -experiences of Mrs. Theresa Malkiel in Tennessee where she was -prevented by certain people from addressing a meeting of Negroes on -the subject of Socialism, and certain other exhibitions of the thing -called southernism, constitute the challenge of caste. Can we ignore -this challenge? I think not. We could hardly afford to have the taint -of "trimming" on the garments of the Socialist party. It is -dangerous—doubly dangerous now, when the temper of the times is -against such "trimming." Besides it would be futile. If it is not met -now it must be met later when it shall have grown stronger. Now, when -we can cope with it, we have the issue squarely presented: Southernism -or Socialism—which? Is it to be the white half of the working class -against the black half, or all the working class? Can we hope to -triumph over capitalism with one-half of the working class against us? -Let us settle these questions now—for settled they must be. - - -The Negro and Political Socialism. - -The power of the voting proletariat can be made to express itself -through the ballot. To do this they must have a political organization -of their own to give form to their will. The direct object of such an -organization is to help them to secure control of the powers of -government by electing members of the working class to office and so -secure legislation in the interests of the working class until such -time as the workers may, by being in overwhelming control of the -government, be able "to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new -government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing -its power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect -their safety and happiness"—in short, to work for the abolition of -capitalism, by legislation—if that be permitted. And in all this, the -Negro, who feels most fiercely the deep damnation of the capitalist -system, can help. - - -The Negro and Industrial Socialism. - -But even the voteless proletarian can in a measure help toward the -final abolition of the capitalist system. For they too have labor -power—which they can be taught to withhold. They can do this by -organizing themselves at the point of production. By means of such -organization they can work to shorten the hours of labor, to raise -wages, to secure an ever-increasing share of the product of their -toil. They can enact and enforce laws for the protection of labor and -they can do this at the point of production, as was done by the -Western Federation of Miners in the matter of the eight-hour law, -which they established without the aid of the legislatures or the -courts. All this involves a progressive control of the tools of -production and a progressive expropriation of the capitalist class. -And in all this the Negro can help. So far, they are unorganized on -the industrial field, but industrial unionism beckons to them as to -others, and the consequent program of the Socialist party for the -Negro in the south can be based upon this fact. - - - - - THE REAL NEGRO PROBLEM - -The African slave-trade was born of the desire of certain Europeans to -acquire wealth without working. It was to fill the need for a cheap -labor supply in developing new territory that Negro slaves were first -brought to the western world by the Spanish, Dutch, and English during -the 16th and 17th centuries. Contact of white with black was thus -established on the basis of the economic subjection of the one to the -other. This subjection extended to every sphere of life, physical, -mental and social. Out of this contact there arose certain definite -relations and consequent problems of adjustment. It is the sum of -these relations which we (rightly or wrongly) describe as the Negro -Problem. - -Unfortunately, the spell of mere words is still very strong, and when -people speak of the Negro Problem they carry over into the discussion -a certain mental attitude derived from the original meaning of the -word, Problem. In arithmetic, a sum to be worked out; in chemistry, to -find by experiment a certain re-agent; in geography, to chart a -puzzling current—all these are problems in the primary sense, and all -these involve the idea of solution by him who approaches them. That is -to say, they can be solved =by thinking=. And those who think loosely -call up this idea of solution by thinking whenever they see the word -"problem". So we have been pestered with this, that, and the other -"solution" of the Negro problem. Therefore, it is well to bear in mind -that a race problem is always the sum of the relations between two or -more races in a state of friction. - -Because when we understand this we are in a fair way to find that -these relations are not to be explained on the basis of the thinking -or feeling of either party. They must be interpreted in terms of human -relations and in the order in which human relations are established: -(1) economic, (2) social, (3) political and (4) civic. So understood, -a knowledge of the historical conditions under which these relations -developed is seen to be of the greatest value in understanding the -problem. For this is all that our intellects can do in the case of a -racial problem—to help us to understand. The actual work of adjustment -must be fought out or worked out; becomes, that is to say, a struggle -to be settled by the contending races with forces more complex than -the purely intellectual ones of argument and proof. Let us first -consider, then, the conditions under which the relations between the -black and white races were established in America. - -During the period of colonization the land of America was granted by -European kings to certain gentlemen who had no intention of working -with the hands. Nevertheless working with the hands was the only -method of extracting that wealth which was the object of their -ownership, it was necessary, then, to obtain a supply of those persons -who could do this work for them; and to insure this, it was imperative -that these persons should not own land themselves: they must be a -permanently landless class; since it was unthinkable then as now that -one should work the land of others for a part of the fruits if he -could work his own land for all of the fruits. So there was begun in -America the process of establishing such a class. Confining ourselves -to the territory which became the United States, we may say that the -first attempt was made to enslave the Indians, and when this failed to -work, white people were imported from Europe as chattel slaves. All -through the colonial period this importation continued with its -consequent effects on the social and political life of the colonies. -Most people will be surprised to learn that the first Fugitive Slave -Law was framed, not in the south, but in the north, and was made not -for black but for white laborers. This was the Massachusetts act of -1630 "Respecting Masters, Servants and Laborers". A reading of this -one act would destroy all those pretty illusions about "our fathers -and Freedom" which we get from the official fairy tales—I mean the -school histories. - -Side by side with the economic subjection of white men there grew up -the economic subjection of black men, and for the same reason. These -were of alien blood—and cheaper. Therefore, the African slave trade -outgrew the European slave trade, although the latter continued, in a -lessening degree, down to the third or fourth decade of the 19th -century. Negroes were brought here to work, to be exploited; and they -were allowed no illusions as to the reason for their being here. Those -white men who owned the land brought them here to extract the wealth -which was in the land. The white aristocrat did not buy black slaves -because he had a special hatred or contempt for anything black, nor -because he believed that Negroes were inferior to white people. On the -contrary he bought them precisely because, as working cattle, they -were superior to whites. - -Being of alien blood, these black people were =outside= of the social -and political system to which they were introduced and, quite -naturally, beyond the range of such sympathies as helped to soften the -hard brutalities of the system. They were, from the beginning, more -ruthlessly exploited than the white workers. Thus they had their place -made for them—at the bottom. - -Now it is a social law—not yet proclaimed by our college -sociologists—that whenever a certain social arrangement is beneficial -to any class in a society, that class soon develops the psychology of -its own advantage and creates insensibly the ethics which will justify -that social arrangement. Men to whom the vicarious labor of slaves -meant culture and refinement, wealth, leisure and education, naturally -came—without any self-deception, to see that slavery was =right=. As -Professor Loria points out, there is an economic basis to moral -transformations in any society which is built on vicarious production. - -We turn now to the resulting conditions of the slaves. They were at -the bottom, the most brutally exploited and, therefore, the most -despised section of the laboring class. For it is a consequent of the -law stated above that those who are exploited must needs be despised -by those who exploit them. This mental attitude of the superior class -(which makes the laws of that society in which it is dominant) will -naturally find its expression in those actions by which they establish -their relations to the inferior class. And whenever anyone is to be -kicked it is usually the man farthest down who gets it, because he is -most contiguous to the foot. So the Negro having been given a place at -the bottom in the economic life of the nation, came to occupy -naturally the place at the bottom in the nation's thinking. I say, the -nation's advisedly; because the dominant ideas of any society which is -already divided into classes are as a rule the ideas preservative of -the existing arrangements. But since those arrangements include a -class on top, the dominant ideas will generally coincide with the -interest of that class. The ethics of its own advantage, then, will be -diffused by that class throughout that society—will be, if need arise -imposed upon the other classes, since every ruling class has always -controlled the public instruments for the diffusion of ideas. - -In this way the slave-holding section of the dominant class in America -first diffused its own necessary contempt for the Negro among the -other sections of the ruling class, and the ideas of this class as a -whole became through the agency of press, pulpit and platform, the -ideas of "the American People" on the Negro. - -In further application of the materialistic method to this subject, it -is curious and interesting to note how the southern attitude toward -the Negro changed with the changing industrial system. When the -wasteful agricultural methods of chattel slavery had exhausted the -soil of the south and no new land loomed up on the horizon of the -system, slavery began to decay. The planters of that section settled -down into the patriarchal type of family relations with their slaves, -who were then simply a means of keeping the master's hands free from -the contamination of work and not a means of ever-increasing profits. -Slavery was then in a fair way to die of its own weight. But with the -invention of Whitney's cotton-gin, which enabled one man to do the -work of three hundred, cotton came to the front as the chief -agricultural staple in America. The black slave became a source of -increasing revenue as a fertilizer of capital. The idyllic relations -of the preceding forty years came to a sudden end. Increased profits -demanded increased exploitation and the ethics of advantage dictated -the despising of the Negro. - -De Bow's Review, the great organ of southern opinion, appeared, and in -serious scientific articles maintained the proposition that the Negro -was not a man but a beast. About that time (and conformably to that -opinion) the practice was begun of spelling the word, Negro, with a -small "n"—a practice still current in America, even in the socialist -press. - -In the meanwhile, the system of industrial production known as the -machine system developed in the north. The factory proletariat whose -condition determined that of the other northern workers could -fertilize capital more rapidly and cheaply than the slaves. This form -of production (and its products) came into competition with the slave -system and the tremendous conflict reflected itself upon the political -field as a struggle for the restriction of slavery within its original -bounds. The Louisiana Purchase, the annexation of Texas, the Missouri -Compromise, the Dred Scot Decision, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,—all -these were political episodes in the competition between the two main -sections of the dominant class; and in the conflict each used the -army, the navy, the executive, the courts and the legislature to -strengthen its own position. - -When the business interests of the north had definitely captured the -powers of government in the general election of 1860, the southerners -seceded because they knew too well what governmental power was -generally used for. They wanted a government which would be the -political reflex of their own economic dominance. One can see now why -the northern statesmen like Lincoln insisted that the preservation of -the Union was the paramount issue and not the freedom of slaves. -Indeed, Lincoln punished those officers of the army who in the early -days of the war dared to act upon that assumption. And not all the -arguments of Greeley, Conway and Governor Andrews could make any -change in his attitude. Not until he saw that it was expedient "as a -war measure" did he issue the "Emancipation Proclamation" which -brought 187,000 Negro soldiers into the northern army. - -Emancipation gave to the Negroes a new economic status—the status of -free wage-laborers, competing with other wage-laborers for work. They -who had worked to create wealth for others were now turned loose -without wealth or land to shift for themselves in a world already -hostile to them. The mental attitude of the white south had been -shaped by three centuries of slavery and was hard to get rid of. It -was difficult for them to think of black labor under any form but that -of slavery and they naturally turned to compulsion as the proper mode -of obtaining work from their former slaves. This attitude was well -expressed in the Black Codes of the southern states during the fall -and winter of 1865–66. As soon as the end of the hostilities gave them -a free hand at home they began to give legislative expression to the -new conditions. They framed new constitutions and new laws. "But it -was seen that the Negro had no privilege of voting in the first -instance, and it was not to be expected that the right would be -accorded him under the new state constitutions; no guarantee that -justice should be done him was exacted. These new constitutions were -formed, the legislatures met, laws were made, senators and -representatives to Congress were chosen; but the Negro was not only -not admitted to any participation in the government, but the new -legislatures shocked the northern sense of justice by the cruel and -revengeful laws which they enacted. The barbarity of the most odious -slave-code was, under various disguises, applied to the Negro in his -new condition of freedom". Even before the resentment of the national -legislature had taken form, the Ku-Klux Klan, the Knights of the White -Camelias, the Society of the Pale Faces, and other bands of organized -representatives of culture had begun to do their bloody work of -terrorizing Negroes into economic and social subjection. And all this -before any steps had been taken to extend the suffrage to Negroes. - -When the northerners investigated these conditions they met with such -fierce and unreasoning hostility on the part of the south that they -found it necessary to arm the Negro with the ballot in his own -defense. And yet, professional southerners like Tom Dixon, Tom Watson, -Ben Tillman Vardaman and Blease pretend to their ignorant or forgetful -countrymen that the present attitude of the south was caused in the -first instance by a reaction against "Negro domination", social and -political which the north had forced upon it. - -The subsequent developments can not be explained by those amiable -enthusiasts who see in the "freedom" of Negroes an act of genuine -humanitarianism on the part of the north. For, after northern -business-men had secured the government—and their thousands of miles -of railroad-grants—they promptly dropped the mask of humanitarian -hypocrisy, and left the Negroes to shift for themselves. During the -disputed count of the votes in the Hayes-Tilden electoral contest in -1877 a deal was arranged by which the northerners agreed to withdraw -the army which protected the Negroes, newly-granted franchise in the -south, on condition that the southerners should concede the election -to Hayes. The new industrial order wanted above all things to retain -control of the government which it had captured during the war, and -upon the altar of this necessity it sacrificed the Negro in the south, -just as Lincoln had done in the early days of the war. From that time -the suppression of the Negro vote, the growth of "Jim Crow" -legislation, lynching and segregation have continued with the -continuing consent of Republican congressman, presidents and supreme -courts. And through it all, Negro "leaders" like Mr. Washington have -found it very much worth their while to administer anodynes both to -the Negro and the Nation, to reconcile the one to a bastard democracy -and the other to a mutilated manhood. - -It would be well to trace here the nature of the economic changes -which have given certain new and malignant features to the relations -between black and white in America. The effect upon the free laborers -of the sudden influx of black competitors in the labor-market; the -consequent attitude of the labor-unions; the political and social -reflex of all this, with the vestiges of the old, re-developing under -the new conditions—all these are parts of the problem. But space will -not permit, and these considerations will be taken up in a second -paper. Yet I may indicate here the gist of my conclusions by quoting -the words of a well-known Southerner, the Rev. Quincy Ewing. "The race -problem—is not that the Negro is what he is in relation to the white -man—the white man's inferior—but this, rather: How to keep him what he -is in relation to the white man; how to prevent his ever achieving or -becoming that which would justify the belief on his part, or on the -part of other people, that he and the white man stand on common human -ground." - -The economic necessities of a system of vicarious production led to -the creation of a racial labor-caste; the social adjustment consequent -upon this and upon its development created a social sentiment inimical -to this class, and its continuance requires a continuance of this -sentiment in our society; this is the pivotal fact. And the -unavoidable conclusion is, that when this system of vicarious -production disappears, the problem which is its consequence will -disappear also—and not till then, in spite of all the culture, -individual or collective, which that class may achieve. - - - - - ON A CERTAIN CONSERVATISM IN NEGROES - -It would be a difficult task to name one line of intellectual endeavor -among white men in America, in which the American Negro has not taken -his part. Yet it is a striking fact that the racial attitude has been -dominantly conservative. Radicalism does not yet register to any -noticeable extent the contributions of our race in this country. In -theological criticism, religious dissent, social and political -heresies such as Single Tax, Socialism, Anarchism—in most of the -movements arising from the reconstruction made necessary by the great -body of that new knowledge which the last two centuries gave us—the -Negro in America has taken no part. And today our sociologists and -economists still restrict themselves to the compilation of tables of -statistics in proof of Negro progress. Our scholars are still -expressing the intellectual viewpoints of the eighteenth century. The -glimmer of a change is perceptible only in some of the younger men -like Locke of Howard University and James C. Waters. - -It is easy to account for this. Christian America created the color -line; and all the great currents of critical opinion, from the -eighteenth century to our time, have found the great barrier -impassible and well-nigh impervious. Behind the color line one has to -think perpetually of the color line, and most of those who grow up -behind it can think of nothing else. Even when one essays to think of -other things, that thinking is tinged with the shades of the -surrounding atmosphere. - -Besides, when we consider what Negro education is to-day when we -remember that in certain southern counties the munificent sum of 58 -cents is spent for the annual education of a Negro child; that the -"great leader" of his race decries "higher" education for them; that -Negro boys who get as far as "college" must first surmount tremendous -special obstacles—we will cease to wonder at the dearth of thinkers -who are radical on other than racial matters. - -Yet, it should seem that Negroes, of all Americans, would be found in -the Freethought fold, since they have suffered more than any other -class of Americans from the dubious blessings of Christianity. It has -been well said that the two great instruments for the propagation of -race prejudice in America are the Associated Press and the Christian -Church. This is quite true. Historically, it was the name of religion -that cloaked the beginnings of slavery on the soil of America, and -buttressed its continuance. The church saw to it that the religion -taught to slaves should stress the servile virtues of subservience and -content, and these things have bitten deeply into the souls of black -folk. True, the treasured music of these darker millions preserves, -here and there, the note of stifled rebellion; but this was in spite -of religion—not because of it. Besides, such of their "sorrow-songs" -as have this note in them were brutally banned by their masters, and -driven to the purlieus of the plantation, there to be sung in secret, -And all through the dark days of slavery, it was the Bible that -constituted the divine sanction of this "peculiar institution." -"Cursed be Canaan," "Servants obey your masters" and similar texts -were the best that the slaveholders' Bible could give of consolation -to the brothers in black, while, for the rest, teaching them to read -was made a crime so that whatever of social dynamite there might be in -certain parts of the book, might not come near their minds. - -Lowell, in his "Biglow Papers," has given a caustic but correct -summary of the Christian slave-holders' theology in regard to the -slavery of black working-people: - - "All things wuz gin to man for's use, his sarvice an' demean - delight? - An' don't the Greek an' Hebrew words that mean a man mean white? - Ain't it belittlin' the good book in all its proudes' features - To think ‘t wuz wrote for black an' brown an' 'lasses-colored - creatures, - Thet couldn' read it ef they would—nor ain't by lor allowed to, - But ought to take wut we think suits their naturs, an' be proud - to? - * * * * - Where'd their soles go ter, I'd like to know, ef we should let 'em - ketch - Freeknowledgism an' Fourierism an' Speritoolism an' sech?" - -When the fight for the abolition of slavery was on, the Christian -church, not content with quoting scripture, gagged the mouths of such -of their adherents as dared to protest against the accursed thing, -penalized their open advocacy of abolition, and opposed all the men -like Garrison, Lovejoy, Phillips and John Brown, who fought on behalf -of the Negro slave. The detailed instances and proofs are given in the -last chapter of "A Short History of the Inquisition," wherein the work -shows the relation of the church and slavery. - -Yet the church among the Negroes today exerts a more powerful -influence than anything else in the sphere of ideas. Nietzsche's -contention that the ethics of Christianity are the slave's ethics -would seem to be justified in this instance. Show me a population that -is deeply religious, and I will show you a servile population, content -with whips and chains, contumely and the gibbet, content to eat the -bread of sorrow and drink the waters of affliction. - -The present condition of the Negroes of America is a touching bit of -testimony to the truth of this assertion. Here in America the spirit -of the Negro has been transformed by three centuries of subjection, -physical and mental, so that they have even glorified the fact of -subjection and subservience. How many Negro speakers have I not heard -vaunting the fact that when in the dark days of the South the Northern -armies had the Southern aristocracy by the throat, there was no Negro -uprising to make their masters pay for the systematic raping of Negro -women and the inhuman cruelties perpetrated on Negro men. And yet the -sole reason for this "forbearance" is to be found in the fact that -their spirits had been completely crushed by the system of slavery. -And to accomplish this, Christianity—the Christianity of their -masters—was the most effective instrument. - -A recent writer, Mr. E. B. Putnam-Weale, in his book, "The Conflict of -Color," has quite naively disclosed the fact that white people are -well aware of this aspect of Christianity and use it for their own -ends. Mr. Putnam-Weale makes no pretense of believing in the Christian -myth himself, but he wants it taught to the Negroes; and comparing it -with Islam, he finds it a more efficient instrument of racial -subjugation. The Mohammedan, he finds, preaches the equality of all -true believers—and lives up to it. The white Christian preaches the -brotherhood of man, but wants "niggers" to sit in the rear pews, to -ride in "Jim Crow" cars, and generally to "keep in their place." He -presents this aspect of the case under the caption of "The Black -Samson and the White Delilah," and, with less fear than an angel, -frankly advises the white Lords of Empire not so much to civilize as -to christianize Africa, so that Deliah's work may be well done. - -Here in America her work has been well done; and I fear that many -years must pass before the leaders of thought among my people in this -country contribute many representatives to the cause of Freethought. -Just now, there are a few Negro Agnostics in New York and Boston, but -these are generally found to be West Indians from the French, Spanish, -and English islands. The Cuban and Porto Rican cigar-makers are -notorious Infidels, due to their acquaintance with the bigotry, -ignorance and immorality of the Catholic priesthood in their native -islands. Here and there one finds a Negro-American who is reputed to -have Agnostic tendencies; but these are seldom, if ever, openly -avowed. I can hardly find it in my heart to blame them, for I know the -tremendous weight of the social proscription which it is possible to -bring to bear upon those who dare defy the idols of our tribe. For -those who live by the people must needs be careful of the people's -gods; and - - "An up-to-date statesmen has to be on his guard, - If he must have beliefs not to b'lieve 'em too hard." - -Myself, I am inclined to believe that freedom of thought must come -from freedom of circumstance; and so long as our "leaders" are -dependent on the favor of our masses for their livelihood, just so -long will they express the thought of the masses, which of itself may -be a good thing or a bad according to the circumstances of the -particular case Still there is a terrible truth in Kipling's modern -version of Job's sarcastic bit of criticism: - - "No doubt but ye are the people—your throne is above the King's, - Whoso speaks in your presence must say acceptable things; - Bowing the head in worship, bending the knee in fear— - Bringing the word well-smoothen—such as a King should hear." - -And until this rising generation of Negroes can shake off the trammels -of such time-serving leaders as Mr. Washington, and attain the level -of that "higher education" against which he solidly sets his "face; -until they, too, shall have entered into the intellectual heritage of -the last two hundred years, there can be little hope of a change in -this respect. - - - - - WHAT SOCIALISM MEANS TO US - -In the good old days "when cotton was king", chattel-slavery was a -flourishing institution. Not only the people who profited by the -system, but most others—even those who were the sufferers—thought that -this was really a "law of nature", that it couldn't be otherwise. -Nevertheless, chattel slavery has gone. But while it lasted this was -its essence: Certain human beings were compelled to labor and the -wealth which their labor produced went, not to them, but to certain -other human beings who did not labor at all but lolled in luxury on -the labor of their slaves. - -To-day, fellow-sufferers, they tell us that we are free. But are we? -If you will think for a moment you will see that we are not free at -all. We have simply changed one form of slavery for another. Then it -was chattel-slavery, now it is wage-slavery. For that which was the -essence of chattel-slavery is the essence of wage slavery. It is only -a difference in form. The chattel-slave was compelled to work by -physical force; the wage-slave is compelled to work by starvation. The -product of the chattel-slave's labor was taken by his master; the -product of the wage-slave's labor is taken by the employer. - -The United States Government has made a study of the wealth producing -power of the wage-slaves, and has shown that the average worker -=produces= $2,451 a year. The government has also made a study of -wages in the U.S. which shows that the average worker gets $437 a -year. This means that the average employer takes away from the average -wage-slave $2,014 a year. In the good old days the master took away -the wealth produced by the slave in the simplest form; today he takes -it away in the form of profits. But in one respect the wage-slave is -worse off than the chattel slave. Under chattel slavery the master -owned the man and the land; he had to feed and clothe the man. Under -wage-slavery the man feeds and clothes himself. Under chattel slavery -it was to the interest of the owner to give the slave work and to keep -him from starving to death. Under wage-slavery, if the man goes out of -work the employer doesn't care; that is no loss to him; and if the man -dies there are millions of others eager to take his place, because, as -I said before, they must either work for him or starve. There is one -very striking parallel between the two cases. To-day there are many -people who say that this system is divinely appointed—is a law of -nature—just as they said the same thing of chattel slavery. Well, -there are millions of workers who say that it is wrong. - -Under chattel-slavery black workers were robbed; under wage-slavery -all the workers are robbed. The Socialist Party says that this robbing -shall cease; that no worker black or white shall be exploited for -profit. And it says, further, that there is one sure and certain way -of putting an end to the system and that is by working for the success -of Socialism. - -But, before I tell you just how Socialism proposes to do this, let me -say a word about the Civil War which put an end to chattel-slavery. -Now, I know that certain people have taught you to believe that the -Civil War was fought to free the slaves. But it isn't true, at all, -and only very ignorant people hold that opinion nowadays. If you will -read the Emancipation Proclamation carefully you will see that it -wasn't for love of the slave that the slaves were freed. You will see -that this was done, "as a fit and necessary war-measure for -suppressing said rebellion." If you will read Lincoln's letter to -Horrace Greeley (August 22nd 1862) you will find this sentence: "My -paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not -either to save or destroy slavery." Now I will tell you briefly how -"this struggle" came about. I know that my explanation is not the one -which you have been taught. But, no matter; it happens to be true. -This was the way of it: In the South there had grown up one system of -exploiting the laborer. That was chattel-slavery. The money-Kings of -that section whom we will call capitalists, for short, were naturally -fond of their own system. In the North the capitalists had another -system of which they were equally., fond. That was wage-slavery. The -Southern capitalists found that it was necessary to extend their -system; so we had the Mexican War, and they got Texas. Then, as fast -as new territory was opened they would rush to occupy it with their -system and so shut out the Northern system. Of course, the Northern -capitalists would try to get their system into the new territory also; -so we had the long struggle over Kansas and Nebraska. These two -systems were then in open competition and it came to be seen that one -or the her had to give in; that both of them couldn't exist in the -same country; that "a house divided against itself cannot stand"; that -"this nation cannot exist half-slave and half-free." Then people began -to talk of "the impending crisis"; of "the irrepressible conflict." -Then, when Lincoln was elected in 1859, the southern capitalists saw -that their system was doomed. They wished to preserve it; so they -seceded and tried to make of themselves a separate nation in which -their system of robbing the worker should be the only one. But the -Northern capitalists said, "Nix! Our system shall be the only system." -So they went to war "to save the Union"—for their system of robbing -the workers. And that's the gist of the whole story. - -"But", you will say, "didn't they go to war on account of John Brown -and Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner?" -Not on your life, they didn't. If you will read the newspapers of that -time you will see that they tried to lynch Garrison in Boston; they -ostracized Wendell Phillips; they sneered at Sumner and damned John -Brown. Why, nice, good, Christian people told them they were -crazy—just as some of them tell Socialists now—and the anti-slavery -orators couldn't get the use of a church in New York either for love -or for money. No, indeed. These men were grand old heroes—but no war -was fought on their account. The older system of chattel-slavery -simply broke down to make way for the present system of wage-slavery, -which pays better. Pays the capitalist, I mean. - -Under the old system the capitalist owned the man; today he own the -tools with which the man must work. These tools are the factories, the -mines, and the machines. The system that owns them owns you and me and -all the rest of us, black, white, brown, red, and yellow. We can't -live unless we have access to these tools, and our masters, the -capitalists, see to it that we are separated from what we make by -using these things, except so much as is necessary to keep us alive -that we may be able to make more—for them. This little bit is called -wages. They wouldn't give us even that if they thought that we could -live without it. In the good old days the chattel-slave would be -fastened with a chain if they thought that he might escape. Today no -chain is necessary to bind us to the tools. We are as free as air. Of -course. We are free to starve. And that chain of -the-fear-of-starvation binds us to the tools owned by the capitalist -as firmly as any iron chain ever did. And this system doesn't care -whether the slaves who are bound in this new way are white or black. -To the capitalist system all workers are equal—in so far as they have -a stomach. - -Now the one great fact for the Negro in America today is Race -Prejudice. The great labor problem with which all working-people are -faced is made harder for black working-people by the addition of a -race problem. I want to show you how one grows out of the other and -how, at bottom, they are both the same thing. In other words, I want -you to see the economic reason for race-prejudice. - -In the first place, do you know that the most rabid, Negro-hating, -southern aristocrat has not the slightest objection to sleeping in the -same house with a Negro—if that Negro sleeps there as his servant? He -doesn't care if his food is prepared by a Negro cook and handled by a -Negro waiter before it gets to him; he will eat it. But if a Negro -comes into the same public restaurant to buy and eat food, then, Oh -my!, he gets all het up about it. But why? What's the difference? I -will tell you. The aristocrat wants the black man to feel that he is -on a lower level. When he is on that level he is "in his place". When -he is "in his place" he is liked. But he must not be allowed to do -anything to make him forget that he is on this lower level; he must be -kept "in his place", which means the place which the aristocrat wants -him to keep. You see, the black man carries the memory of slavery with -him. Everybody knows that the slaves were the exploited working-class -of the South. That put them in a class by themselves, down at the -bottom, downtrodden, despised, "inferior." - -Do you begin to see now that Race Prejudice is only another name for -Caste Prejudice? If our people had never been slaves; had never been -exploited workers, and so, at the bottom of the ladder, there would be -no prejudice against them now. In every case where there has been a -downtrodden class of workers at the bottom, that class has been -despised by the class that lived by their labor. Do you doubt it? Then -look at the facts. If you had picked up a daily paper in New York in -1848 you would have found at the end of many an advertisement for -butler, coachman, lady's maid, clerk or book-keeper these words: "No -Irish need apply." There was a race-prejudice against the Irish then, -because most of the manual unskilled laborers were Irish. They were at -the bottom, exploited and despised. But they have changed things -since. Beginning in the seventies when Jewish laborers began to come -here from Russia, Austria and Germany, and lasting even to our own -day, there has been race-prejudice against the Jews. And today when -the Italian has taken the place which the Irish laborer vacated—at the -bottom —he, too, comes in for his share of this prejudice. In every -one of these cases it was the condition of the people—at the bottom as -despised, exploited, wage-slaves—that was responsible for the -race-prejudice. And it is just so in the black man's case, with this -difference: that his color marks what he once was, and even though he -should wear a dress suit every evening and own an automobile or a farm -he can always be picked out and reminded. - -Now, under the present system, exploiting the wage-slave is -respectable. I have already shown you that wherever the worker is -exploited he is despised. So you will see that despising the -wage-slave is quite fashionable. You may recall the name of the great -capitalist who said, "the public be damned." He was only a little more -outspoken than the rest of his class. As long as the present system -continues, the workers will be despised; as long as the workers are -despised, the black men will be despised, robbed and murdered, because -they are least able to defend themselves. Now ask yourself whether you -haven't a very special interest in changing the present system. - -Of course, you will ask: "But haven't white working people -race-prejudice too?" Sure, they have. Do you know why? - -It pays the capitalist to keep the workers divided. So he creates and -keeps alive these prejudices. He gets them to believe that their -interests are different. Then he uses one half of them to club the -other half with. In Russia when the workingmen demand reform the -capitalists sic them on the Jews. In America they sic them on the -Negroes. That makes them forget their own condition: as long as they -can be made to look down upon another class. "But, then", you will -say, the average wage-slave must be a chump." Sure, he is. That's what -the capitalist counts on. And Socialism is working to educate the -workers to see this and to unite them in doing away with the present -system. - -Socialism stands for the emancipation of the wage-slaves. Are you a -wage-slave? Do you want to be emancipated? Then join hands with the -Socialists. Hear what they have to say. Read some of their literature. -Get a Socialist leaflet, a pamphlet, or, better still, a book. You -will be convinced of two things: that Socialism is right, and that it -is inevitable. It is right because any order of things in which those -who work have least while those who work them have most, is wrong. It -is inevitable because a system under which the wealth produced by the -labor of human hands amounts to more than two hundred and twenty -billions a year while many millions live on the verge of starvation, -is bound to break down. Therefore, if you wish to join with the other -class—conscious, intelligent wage-earners—in putting an end to such a -system; if you want to better living conditions for black men as well -as for white men; to make this woful world of ours a little better for -your children and your children's children, study Socialism—and think -and work your way out. - -Twelve years ago Mark Hanna, the Big Boss of the Republican Party, -made a statement which you would do well to consider. After he had -made McKinley president, he noticed something that you may not have -noticed yourself. He saw that there was no essential difference -between the Republican party and the Democratic party. He knew that -the same big Wall Street companies supplied the campaign funds for -each of them. He knew that the same money power was buying out the men -whom you elected, whether you elected Republicans or Democrats. He saw -that very soon you and I and the rest of us, black as well as white, -would come to see it too. And he opened his mouth and spake these -words: "The next great political battle in this country will be -fought, not between the Republican and the Democratic parties, but -between the Republican party and Socialism." I will tell you later -what that implies. But just now, what I should like you to see is -this: that Senator Hanna realized that Socialism was a serious issue. -He couldn't afford to pooh-pooh it. Neither can any sensible person. -The Socialist party is the third in point of numbers. It is important. -What do you know of this party? Have you ever read its platform? Read -it once, just for the sake of fair play—just to show that you are not -afraid to give it a hearing—and you will realize why Mark Hanna paid -it such a tribute of respect. Don't be a baby any longer and listen to -the stale lies which other people tell you about Socialism. Read the -Socialist platform and you will understand why some politicians have -to tell lies about it just the same as they have to tell lies about -you. They lie about it because they don't want you to know what it -really is, just as they lie about you because they don't want people -to know what you really are. Every year they feed you with the same -soft mush around election time to help them to ride into power on your -votes; then after election they give you Brownsville and lynching -bees. Do you wonder that General Clarkson, a grandson of the great -abolitionist, when he gave up his job as collector of the Port of New -York, said that he was sick of the way in which the Republican party -was selling you out? The Republican party is always engaged in selling -you out—or in selling out the working people of this country. Do you -doubt it? Then ask yourselves why is it that a Republican Congress has -never said a word or done anything about the disfranchisement of -nearly three million Negro voters in the South? Read the Fourteenth -and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution and you will see -that the Republican party has always had the power to stop it. But -just now I want to get you interested in the one party that strikes at -the very root of your trouble and that of every workingman in the -country—white and black alike. I want you to see what is the attitude -of the Socialist Party toward the American Negro. And for that reason -I am introducing to you the following declarations of the attitude -made by Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist candidate for President, and by -other members of the party. Compare its straight-forward, -uncompromising utterances with what the other two parties have said -and done; then look yourself in the face and say whether it is worth -you while to sell your birthright and your future freedom—yes, and -that of your children and your children's children—for a mess of -political pottage. - - - - - THE NEGRO AND THE NEWSPAPERS - -It is not an easy task to plead in the courts of the oppressor against -oppression and wrong. It is not easy to get the judgement of the white -men of the world against the white man's injustice to the black. But -nevertheless the attempt must be made and made again until the seared -conscience of the civilized world's hall throbs with righteous -indignation at such outrage. "To sin by silence when we should protest -makes cowards out of men. The human race has climbed on protest. Had -no voice been raised against injustice, ignorance and lust, the -Inquisition yet would serve the law and guillotines decide our least -disputes. The few who dare must speak and speak again to right the -wrongs of many." - -The urgent need of speaking out is shown by the following -communication from Mr. J. Ellis Barker of London in an interview given -to a correspondent of =The New York Age= and published in that paper -on December 29th 1910. - -"We people in Europe," says Mr. Barker, "do not understand the race -problem, and we do not know the colored people, for the simple reason -that there are not any colored people in Europe. In London, where I -live, there are only a few hundred colored students whom one does not -meet. Before I came to the United States my prejudice against the -colored people was as great as that of any Southern planter. My -prejudice against your race, as I believe the prejudice of most white -people, was due rather to ignorance than to ill-will. I had been told -in the books and papers published in Europe that the colored people -were a race of barbarians and savages. I had been told that the -colored people were a worthless set of people, dressed in rags, -working a day or two during the week, and loafing during the rest of -the time. I was told that the colored people were idle, diseased and -vicious. So I imagined that all of them lived in slums and alleys and -that the aristocracy of the race consisted of the waiters and railway -porters. - -I had been told that the colored people only played at science; that -their doctors and lawyers were charlatans. I had been told that the -people of a mixed race were even worse than pure Negroes; that the -mulattoes had lost the primitive virtues of the Negroes and had -acquired all of the vices of the whites. A chance encounter with a -cultured man of color induced me to look into the race problem and I -was perfectly amazed when I discovered how greatly the colored people -have been libelled and traduced. I have spent a considerable amount of -time with colored people and have met many who are highly cultivated. -I have found that among your race you have excellent lawyers, and some -of the foremost physicians and surgeons. I have been over a large -number of your elementary and higher grade schools and colleges and -over Howard University, and I have admired the earnest and resolute -determination with which your children try to improve their minds and -to raise themselves. In your night schools I have found old men and -women, former slaves, who are anxious to learn writing and reading. I -have been to the homes of many colored people and I have found them -cosy, comfortable, elegant, and peopled by happy and harmonious -families. I have come to the conclusion that the race is oppressed and -persecuted and very largely because it is not known." - -But it is not in Europe alone that these baneful effects of calumny -appear. Here in America, and even in the south where the bulk of the -Negroes live in the midst of a people who resentfully declare that -they should be left to deal with the Negro because they alone know -him—even there the notion of the Negro, fostered by the press and -other agencies of public opinion is as wide of the truth as it can be. -To illustrate: - -In the March number of Van Norden's Magazine in 1907 there appeared a -symposium on The Negro Question. It was composed of expressions of -opinion from twelve intelligent southerners, and was followed by an -article by Mr. Booker T. Washington. The humor of the think lay in -this, that these men were Southern college presidents and heads of -banks, had lived all their lives among Negroes, and were, by their own -words, proved to be either woefully or willfully ignorant of what the -Negro had done and was doing. The mordant irony of fate decreed that -Mr. Washington should be the one to present the facts that changed -their seeming sapience to Falstaffian farce. The president of -Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Va. set forth that the Negro will not -work regularly, that he needs but three dollars a week and, therefore, -works but three days to get it and "quits work to spend it." The -president of Howard College, Alabama declared that, "My deliberate -opinion is that the days of the Negro as a fair, honest laborer are -numbered, and are few at that. He is becoming daily more shiftless, -more unreliable, more restless, less inclined to work steadily." The -president of the University of South Carolina and the president of the -North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts re-echoed the -same doleful dictum while the president of the First National Bank of -Birmingham, Ala. and the president of the Bank of Lexington, N.C. -declared that it was a mistake to grant the rights of citizenship to -the Negro and that education was a curse to him. The president of -Guilford College repeated the "lazy, shiftless" argument while the -president of Randolph-Macon College, Va. said, "Reduce their wages so -that they shall have to work all the time to make a living and they -will become better workmen or disappear in the struggle for -existence," repeating in substance, the argument of his -brother-president of the Woman's college. - -Mr. Washington's article did not show any sign that it had been -written as a reply of any sort. But it did show among other things, -that the census of 1900 proved that the Negro people =owned= in the -very states of these college presidents, "23,383 square miles of -territory, an area nearly as large as that of Holland and Belgium -combined"; that this represented only a quarter of the farms worked by -them; that, "after a searching investigation, I have not been able to -find that a single graduate of Tuskegee, Hampton or any of the Negro -colleges can now be found in the prisons of the South;" that in a -single county of Virginia-Gloucester Co.—Negroes were paying taxes on -land valued at 88 million dollars and on buildings assessed at 80 -millions, and all this on the soil where they had been slaves forty -years before. - -Is not this eloquent of the value of American opinion on the American -Negro as given in the American press? And the question suggested is, -whether such statements are published in ignorance or ill-will? In -either case it is equally damnatory. - -In December 1907 Professor R. R. Wright, Jr., an eminent Negro -sociologist, published in McGirt's Magazine an article on "The -Newspapers and the Negro", showing how the Negro is being "done" by -headlines and other newspaper devices. The Horizon, at that time the -most brilliant Negro periodical, dealt with the subject in its issue -for April 1908. Under the caption, "The Color Line in the Press -Dispatches", it quoted approvingly these words of a Socialist -paper—The Appeal to Reason—"The hand that fakes the Associated Press -is the hand that rules the world." European readers who are acquainted -with the occasional diversions of Reuter's Hong Kong and Shanghai -correspondents will appreciate the point. - -The Horizon was constrained to refer to the matter again in its August -issue. In both instances specific cases were cited and proof given. -Since that time the need of some formal protest has been growing in -the minds of all those thinking Negroes who are not compelled to -"crook the pregnant hinges of the Knee"; and it has grown largely -because the practices complained of have grown to alarming -proportions. - -The newspapers of this country have many crimes to answer for. They -feature our criminals in bold head lines: our substantial men when -noticed at all are relegated to the agate type division. Their -methods, whether they obtain through set purpose or through -carelessness, constantly appeal to the putrid passion of race hatred. -They cause rapine to break loose by nurturing rancor. They help create -untold sorrow. They are week-kneed and apologizing when the hour is -bloody. - -But how can such a protest be effectively put? Though Truth come hot -on the heels of Falsehood it could not quite undo its devil's work. -And the detractors of the weak and helpless are well aware of this. - -But Truth in the Negro's case is not even unleashed. Truth, in fact, -is chained up and well guarded, and it is this terrible task of -setting Truth free that the Negro must essay in the very teeth of the -American press. It is not an easy task to voice an adequate protest, -for it needs the widest publicity. And since prejudice will oppose, it -needs prestige also. Any such effort must feel itself feeble, and yet -it must be made. - - - - - Transcriber's Note: Apparent typographical errors have been - changed. 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- } - h2 { - text-align: center; - } - h3 { - text-align: center; - } - .note { - font-style: italic; - } - - .titlepage { - text-align: center; - } - .correction { - text-decoration: none; /* replace default underline, if present ... */ - border-bottom: thin dotted gray; /* ... with delicate gray line */ - } - - .poetry .stanza { - margin: 1em auto; - } - .poetry .verse { - text-indent: -3em; - padding-left: 5em; - } - .poetry .indent2 { - padding-left: 5em; - } - .poetry .indent4 { - text-indent: 7em; - } - .poetry .leadingquote { - padding-left: 4.5em; - } - .poetry .center { - display: flex; - text-align: center; - } - - .poetry .spacearoundcontainer { - display: flex; - text-align: center; - } - - .x-ebookmaker .poetry .spacearoundcontainer { - text-align: justify; - display: block; - padding-left: 3em; - padding-right: 3em; - } - - - </style> - -</head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Negro and the nation, by Hubert H. Harrison</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Negro and the nation</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Hubert H. Harrison</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 19, 2023 [eBook #69835]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Neal Caren. This file was derived from images generously made available by the Library of Congress through the HathiTrust.</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEGRO AND THE NATION ***</div> - -<div class="chapter titlepage"> -<h1> -<span class="title"> THE NEGRO</span><br> <span -class="subtitle">AND</span><br> <span class="title">THE NATION</span> -</h1> -<p><span class="subtitle">BY</span><br> <span class="title">HUBERT H. -HARRISON</span><br></p> -<p>Cosmo-Advocate Publishing Co.<br> 2305 Seventh Avenue<br> New -York</p> -</div> -<div class="chapter"> -<h2> -PREFACE -</h2> -<hr> -<p>This little book is made up of articles contributed several years ago -to radical newspapers and magazines like The Call, The Truth-Seeker, -Zukunft, and The International Socialist Review. They are re-published -in this form, partly to preserve a portion of the author’s early work, -but mainly because they help to throw into strong relief the present -situation of the Negro in present day America, and to show how that -situation re-acts upon the mind of the Negro. That is the great need of -the Negro at this time.</p> -<p>Some time in the near future I hope to write a little book on the New -Negro which will set forth the aims and ideals of the new Manhood -Movement among American Negroes rich has grown out of the international -crusade “for democracy—for the right of those who submit to authority to -have A VOICE in their own government”— as President Wilson so sincerely -puts it.</p> -<p>Because I wish this little book to have as large a circulation as -possible among Negroes and white people, I have preferred publication at -a popular price to the doubtful advantage of having a prominent -publisher’s name at the foot of the title-page. The present edition -consists of five thousand copies. When it is sold off a second edition -will be issued.</p> -<p>HUBERT H. HARRISON New York, August, 1917.</p> -</div> -<div class="chapter"> -<span id="Page_3" class="pagenum">[3]</span> -<h2> -THE BLACK MAN’S BURDEN -</h2> -<hr> -<p class="note"> -NOTE: This article and the next were contributed to the International -Socialist Review in 1912 while the author was a member of the Socialist -Party. He has since left it (but has joined no other party) partly -because, holding as he does by the American doctrine of “Race First,” he -wished to put himself in a position to wont among his people along lines -of his own choosing. -</p> -<p>Providence, according to Mr. Kipling, has been pleased to place upon -the white man’s shoulders the tremendous burden of regulating the -affairs of men of all other colors, who, for the purpose of his -argument, are backward and undeveloped—“half devil and half child.” When -one considers that of the sixteen hundred million people living upon -this earth, more than twelve hundred million are colored, this seems a -truly staggering burden.</p> -<p>But it does not seem to have <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "ocurred" in original.">occurred</span> -to the proponents of this pleasant doctrine that the shoe may be upon -the other foot so far as the other twelve hundred million are concerned. -It is easy to maintain an <b>ex parte</b> argument, and as long as we do -not ask the other side to state their case our own arguments will appear -not only convincing but conclusive. But in the court of common sense -this method is not generally allowed, and a case is not considered -closed until <b>both</b> parties have been heard from.</p> -<p>I have no doubt but that the colored peoples of <span id="Page_4" -class="pagenum">[4]</span> the world will have a word or two to say in -their own defense. In this article I propose to put the case of the -black man in America, not by any elaborate arguments, but by the -presentation of certain facts which will probably speak for -themselves.</p> -<p>I am not speaking here of the evidences of Negro advancement, nor -even making a plea for justice. I wish merely to draw attention to -certain pitiful facts. This is all that is necessary—at present. For I -believe that those facts will furnish such a damning indictment of the -Negro’s American over-lord as must open the eyes of the world. The sum -total of these facts and of what they suggest constitute a portion of -the black man’s burden in America. Not all of it, to be sure, but quite -enough to make one understand what the Negro problem is. For the sake of -clarity I shall arrange them in four groups: political, economic, -educational and social.</p> -<h3> -I—Political. -</h3> -<p>In a republic all the adult male natives are citizens. If in a given -community some are citizens and others subjects, then your community is -not a republic. It may call itself so. But that is another matter. Now, -the essence of citizenship is the exercise of political rights; the -right to a voice in government, to say what shall be done with your -taxes, and the right to express your own needs. If you are denied these -rights you are not a citizen. Well, in sixteen southern states there are -over eight million Negroes in this anomalous position. <span id="Page_5" -class="pagenum">[5]</span> Of course, many good people contend that they -may be unfit to exercise the right of suffrage. If that is so, then who -is fit to exercise it for them? This argument covers a fundamental -fallacy in our prevailing conception of the function of the ballot. We -think that it is a privilege to be conferred for “fitness.” But it -isn’t. It is an instrument by which the people of a community express -their will, their wants and their needs. And all those are entitled to -use it who have wants, needs and desires that are worth consideration by -society. If they are not worth considering, then be brutally frank about -it; say so, and establish a protectorate over them. But have done with -the silly cant of “fitness.” People vote to express their wants. Of -course, they will make mistakes. They are not gods. But they have a -right to make their own mistakes—the Negroes. All other Americans have. -That is why they had Ruef in San Francisco, and still have Murphy in New -York.</p> -<p>But the American republic says, in effect, that eight million -Americans shall be political serfs. Now, this might be effected with -decency by putting it into the national constitution. But it isn’t -there. The national constitution has two provisions expressly penalizing -this very thing. Yet the government—the President, Congress, the Supreme -Court—wink at it. This is not what we call political decency. But, just -the same, it is done. How is it done? By fraud and force. Tillman of -South Carolina has told in the United States <span id="Page_6" -class="pagenum">[6]</span> Senate how the ballot was taken from Negroes -by shooting them—that is, by murder. But murder is not necessary now. In -certain southern states in order to vote a man must have had a -grandfather who voted before Negroes were freed. In others, he must be -able to interpret and understand any clause in the Constitution, and a -white registration official decides whether he does understand. And the -colored men of states like Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, -<span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "Mississsippi" in original.">Mississippi</span> -and Louisiana who meet such tests as those states provide are -disfranchised by the “white primary” system. According to this system -only those who vote at the primaries can vote at the general elections. -But the South Carolina law provides that: “At this election only white -voters … and such Negroes as voted the Democratic ticket in 1876 and -have voted the Democratic ticket continuously since … may vote.” Of -course, they know that none of them voted that ticket in 1876 or have -done so continuously since. In Georgia the law says that: “All white -electors who have duly registered … irrespective of past political -affiliations are hereby declared qualified and are invited to -participate in said primary election.<span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: Missing closing quotation mark in original.">”</span></p> -<p>Under the new suffrage law of Mr. Booker T. Washington’s state of -Alabama. Montgomery county, which has 53,000 Negroes, disfranchises all -but one hundred of them. In 1908 the Democrats of West Virginia declared -in their platform that the United States Constitution should be so -amended so as to disfranchise all the <span id="Page_7" -class="pagenum">[7]</span> Negroes of the country. In December, 1910, -the lower house of the Texas legislature, by a vote of 51 to 34, -instructed its federal Senators and Congressmen to work for the repeal -of the two amendments to the national constitution which confer the -right of suffrage upon Negroes. But the funniest proposal in that -direction came from Georgia, where J. J. Slade proposed an amendment to -the state <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "consituation" in original.">constitution</span> -to the effect that colored men should be allowed to vote only if two -<b>chaste</b> white women would swear that they would trust them in the -dark. But, however it has been effected, whether by force or fraud, by -methods wise or otherwise, the great bulk of the Negroes of America are -political pariahs to-day. When it is remembered that they once had the -right of suffrage, that it was given them, not upon any principle of -abstract right, but as a means of protection from the organized ill-will -of their white neighbors, that that ill-will is now more effectively -organized and in possession of all the powers of the state,—it can be -seen at a glance that this spells subjection certain and complete.</p> -<h3> -II—Economic -</h3> -<p>Political rights are the only sure protection and guarantee of -economic rights. Every fool knows this. And yet, here in America to-day -we have people who tell Negroes that they ought not to agitate for the -ballot so long as they still have a chance to get work in the south. And -Negro leaders, hired by white capitalists who want cheap labor-power, -<span id="Page_8" class="pagenum">[8]</span> still continue to mislead -both their own and other people. The following facts will demonstrate -the economic insecurity of the Negro in the South.</p> -<p>Up to a few years ago systematic peonage was wide-spread in the -South. Now, peonage is slavery unsanctioned by law. In its essence it is -more degrading than mere chattel slavery. Any one who doubts this may -look to modern Mexico for proofs. This peonage in the South had reduced -many black men to slavery. And it isn’t stamped out yet. It was on -January 3, 1911, that the Supreme Court, in the case of Alonzo Bailey, -declared unconstitutional the Alabama peonage law, which had been upheld -by the state Supreme Bench. About the same time W. S. Harlan, a nephew -of the late Justice Harlan of the United States Supreme Court, and -manager of a great lumber and turpentine trust, doing business in -Florida and Alabama, was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment and -fined $5,000 for peonage. He has since been pardoned and had his fine -remitted by President Taft.</p> -<p>One of the forms of this second slavery is the proprietary system, -according to which the Negro laborer or tenant farmer must get his -supply at the proprietor’s store—and he gets it on credit. The accounts -are cooked so that the Negro is always in debt to the modern -slave-holder. Some of them spend a life-time working out an original -debt of five or ten dollars.</p> -<p>But peonage isn’t all. The professional southerner <span id="Page_9" -class="pagenum">[9]</span> is always declaring that whatever else the -south may not do for the Negro it supplies him with work. It does—when -he works for some one else. When he works for himself it is very often -different. For instance, there was the Georgia Railroad strike of May, -1909. The Negro firemen were getting from fifty cents to a dollar a day -less than the white firemen, they had to do menial work, and could not -be promoted to be engineers. They could be promoted, however, to the -best runs by the rule of seniority. But the white firemen, who had fixed -the economic status of the black firemen, objected to even this. They -went on strike and published a ukase to the people of the state in which -they said: “The white people of this state refuse to accept social -equality.”</p> -<p>On the eighth of March, 1911, the firemen of the Cincinnati, New -Orleans & Texas Pacific Railroad did the same thing. In the attacks -made on the trains by them and their sympathizers many Negro firemen -were killed. <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "Occurences" in original.">Occurrences</span> -of this sort are increasing in frequency and they have a certain tragic -significance. It means that the Negro, stripped of the ballot’s -protection, holds the right to earn his bread at the mere sufferance of -the whites. It means that no black man shall hold a job that any white -man wants. And that, not in the South alone. There is the case of the -Pavers’ Union of New York City. The colored pavers, during the panic of -1907, got behind in their dues. The usual period granted expired on -Friday. On Monday <span id="Page_10" class="pagenum">[10]</span> they -sent in their dues in full to the national organization. The treasurer -refused to receive the dues and at once got out an injunction against -them. This injunction estopped them from appealing to the National -Executive Committee or to the national convention. They are still -fighting the case.</p> -<p>In January 1911 the several walking delegates of the Painters’ -Plumbers’, Masons,’ Carpenters’, Steam Fitters’, Plasterers’ and -Tinsmiths’ Unions compelled the Thompson & Starrett Construction -Co., the second largest firm of contractors in New York, to get rid of -the colored cold painters who were engaged on the annex to Stearns’ -department store. They would not admit them to membership in the union; -they merely declared that colored men would not be allowed to do this -work. And these are the same men who denounce Negro <span -class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "strik" in original.">strike</span>-breakers. -They want them out of the unions and also want them to fight for the -unions. Presumably they would have them eating air-balls in the -meanwhile.</p> -<p>In February 1911 the New York Cab Company was dropping its Negro cab -drivers, because, it said, its patrons demanded it. In November 1911 the -white chauffeurs of New York were trying to terrorize the colored -chauffeurs by a system of sabotage in the garage, because they, too, -believed that these jobs were white men’s jobs.</p> -<p>It is but a short step from the denial of the right to work to the -denial of the right to own. In <span id="Page_11" -class="pagenum">[11]</span> fact, the two are often linked together, as -in the next ease. In the latter part of 1910, land speculators in Hominy -Okla., sold some land for cotton farms to Negroes. The Negroes paid for -this land, took possession, and were getting along splendidly when—“the -local whites protested.” “Night-riders (i. e., Ku Klux) around Hominy, -several days before, served notice that all Negroes must leave the town -at once, and to emphasize the warning they exploded dynamite in the -neighborhood of Negro houses.” So the Negroes fled, fearing for their -lives. At Baxterville, Miss., the same thing happened in March 1912. In -November 1910, a colored man named Matthew Anderson in Kansas City was -having a fine $5,000 house built. But the jealousy of the white -neighbors prevented its completion. It was blown up by dynamite when it -had been almost finished. In Warrenton, Ga., notice was sent to three -colored men and one widow, who had prospered greatly in business, to the -effect that they must leave immediately because the white people of -Warrenton “were not a-goin’ to stand for rich niggers.” One of them has -been forced to sell out his business at a loss. Another never answers a -knock and never leaves his house by the front door. All through these -things Mr. Washington told his race that if it would work hard, get -property and be useful to a community it would not need to strive for a -share in the government!</p> -<h3> -III—Educational. -</h3> -<p>EDUCATION is the name which we give to <span id="Page_12" -class="pagenum">[12]</span> that process of equipment and training -which, in our day, society gives the individual to prepare him for -fighting the battle of life. We do not confer it as a privilege, but it -is given on behalf of society for society’s own protection from the -perils of ignorance and incompetence. It is a privilege to which ever -member of society is entitled. For without some equipment of this sort -the individual is but half a man, handicapped in the endeavor to make a -living. Here in America, we subscribe to the dangerous doctrine that -twelve million of the people should receive the minimum of education. -And in order to reconcile ourselves to this doctrine, we deck it in the -garments of wisdom. Because of the serf idea in American life, we say -that the Negro shall have a serf’s equipment and no more. It is the same -idea that the aristocracy of Europe evolved when the workers demanded -that their children should be trained better than they themselves had -been. “Why”, said the masters, “if we give your children schooling they -will be educated out of their station in life. What should the son of a -carpenter need to know of Euclid or Virgil? He should learn his father’s -vocation that he may be well equipped to serve in that station of life -into which it has pleased God to call him. We need more plowmen than -priests, more servants than savants.”</p> -<p>In our own land, when Negroes demand education, we say, “Why, surely, -give them industrial education. Your race has a great opportunity—<span -id="Page_13" class="pagenum">[13]</span>to make itself useful. It needs -trained craftsmen and workers and, perhaps, a few parsons. Teach your -sons and daughters to work. That is enough.” And we dexterously select -leaders for them who will administer the soothing syrup of this old idea -with deftness and dispatch. The General Education Board which disburses -millions of dollars annually in the South for education has, so far, -given to forty-one Negro schools the sum of $464,015. Only in two -instances has any money been given to a real college. Practically all of -it went to the labor-caste schools. Why? Because the dark degradation of -the Negro must be lightened by no ray of learning. That would never do. -We need them as “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” And in the -meanwhile, this is what the richest country on earth offers to -ruthlessly exploited people as a training for life:</p> -<p>Before the Twelfth Annual Conference for Education in the South -(1910) Mr. Charles L. Coon, superintendent of schools in North Carolina, -read a paper on Negro Education in the South. His investigation extended -over eleven states: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, -Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee. -In these states the Negroes make up 40.1 per cent of the population, but -receive only 14.8 per cent of the school fund. He showed that even if -the school fund as disbursed were apportioned to each race according to -taxes paid the colored people of Virginia should receive $507,305 -in<span id="Page_14" class="pagenum">[14]</span>stead of the $482,228 -which they now receive; in North Carolina they should get $429,127 -instead of $402,658, and in Georgia $647,852 instead of $506,170. So -that these three states expend for Negro education $93,278 less than -what the Negroes themselves pay for—and that sum is contributed by -Negroes to the white children of the state!</p> -<p>But, as a matter of fact, in no modern country is education made to -depend upon the tax-paying power of the parents. If that were so, the -children of 40,000,000 American proletarians would live and die without -schooling. So that the case is really much worse than it seems.</p> -<p>South Carolina spent in 1910 $10.34 for the education of each white -child and $1.70 for the <b>education</b> of each colored child. In -Lawrence county the state gave to each colored child 97 cents worth of -education that year; in Lexington county, 90 cents; in Bamberg, 89 -cents; in Saluda, 68 cents, and in Calhoun, 58 cents worth. The smallest -sum spent on a white child for education that year was $4.03. In Georgia -it was quite as bad. One county of this state owned 19 of the 27 school -houses for Negroes. The valuation of the entire 19 was $2,500; that is, -$131.58 for each school house for Negroes! <b>The annual cost of the -education of a Negro child in six counties of this civilized state was -39 cents.</b> Meanwhile the whites of Baltimore were protesting against -the building of a new Negro school! In Louisiana the report of the -Department of Education shows that the average monthly <span -id="Page_15" class="pagenum">[15]</span> salary of white male teachers -is <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "$" missing in original.">$</span>75.29, -while that of colored male teachers is $34.25. The average monthly -salary of white female teachers is $50.80 and that of the colored female -teachers is $28.67. The average length of the annual school term for -white children is eight months and a quarter; for colored children, four -months and a half.</p> -<p>In Wilcox County, Alabama, where there are 2,000 white children and -10,758 colored children, $32,660.48 is devoted to education. Of this -amount the 10,758 colored children receive one-fourth—$6,532.09, or -sixty cents each per annum—while the 2,000 white children receive the -remaining four-fifths—$26,128.13, or about $13 each per annum. -Mr. Booker Washington, who lives in this state sends his own children to -the best colleges and to Europe while advising the rest of his people to -“make your condition known to the white people of the state.” Now, if -education—of any sort—is a training for life, is it not evident here -that black children are being robbed of their chance in life? Why? Is it -to be supposed that their fathers are so stupid as to allow this if they -could vote their own needs? Yet Mr. Washington decries the agitation for -the ballot as unwise and never loses an opportunity of sneering at these -who see something of value in it. But to continue The number of white -children of school age in Alabama is 364,266; the number of colored -children of school age is 311,552. But the teachers of the white -children receive in sala<span id="Page_16" -class="pagenum">[16]</span>ries $2,404,062.54, while the teachers of the -colored children receive $202,251.13. The value of all schoolhouses, -sites and furniture for white children is $6,503,019.57; for colored -children, $273,147.50.</p> -<p>In South Carolina there are 316,007 Negro <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "childen" in original.">children</span> -of school age and 201,868 white children; but the state spends on its -Negro children $368,802, and on its white children $1,684,976. Thus does -America keep knowledge from Negroes. She is afraid of the educated black -man. Of such are the people who taunt Negroes with ignorance.</p> -<h3> -IV—Social. -</h3> -<p>When a group has been reduced to serfdom, political and economic, its -social status become fixed by that fact. And so we find that in “the -home of the free and the land of the brave” Negroes must not ride in the -same cars in a train as white people. On street-cars, certain sections -are set apart for them. They may not eat in public places where white -people eat nor drink at the same bar. They may not go to the same church -(although they are foolish enough to worship the same god) as white -people; they may not die in the same hospital nor be buried in the same -grave-yard. So far as we know, the segregation ends here.</p> -<p>But why is segregation necessary? Because white Americans are afraid -that their inherent superiority may not, after all, be so very evident -either to the Negro or to other people. They, therefore, find it -necessary to enact it into law. So we had the first Ghetto legislation -in an American <span id="Page_17" class="pagenum">[17]</span> nation -last year, in Baltimore. Hard on the heels of this followed legislative -proposals along the same line in Richmond Va., Kansas City, Mo., St. -Louis, Mo., and Birmingham, Ala. In Memphis, Tenn., Negroes pay taxes -for public parks which they are not allowed to enter. A year ago they -petitioned for a Negro park and were about to get it when 500 white -citizens protested against it. That settled it with the park.</p> -<p>But discrimination goes even further and declares that Negroes shall -not possess even their lives if any white <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "perons" in original.">persons</span> -should want them. And so we have the institution called the -lynching-bee. The professional southerner seems to love a lie dearly and -continues to assert that Negroes are lynched for rape committed upon -white women. Why not? It is perfectly American. If you want to kill a -dog, call it mad; if you want to silence a man, call him an Anarchist, -and if you want to kill a black man, call him a rapist. But let us see -what the facts actually are.</p> -<p>In the two decades from 1884 to 1904 there were 2,875 lynchings in -the United States. Of these 87 per cent, or 2,499 occurred in the South. -The national total was grouped as follows:</p> -<table> -<tbody> -<tr> -<td> -1. -</td> -<td> -For alleged and attempted criminal assault, i. e., rape -</td> -<td> -564 -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -2. -</td> -<td> -For assault and murder and for complicity -</td> -<td> -138 -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -3. -</td> -<td> -For murder -</td> -<td> -1,277 -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -4. -</td> -<td> -For theft, burglary and robbery -</td> -<td> -326 -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -5. -</td> -<td> -For arson -</td> -<td> -106 -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -6. -</td> -<td> -For race-prejudice (?) -</td> -<td> -94 -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -7. -</td> -<td> -For unknown reasons -</td> -<td> -134 -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -8. -</td> -<td> -For simple assault -</td> -<td> -18 -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -9. -</td> -<td> -For insulting whites -</td> -<td> -18 -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -10. -</td> -<td> -For making threats -</td> -<td> -16 -</td> -</tr> -</tbody> -</table> -<p><span id="Page_18" class="pagenum">[18]</span></p> -<p>The causes for the remainder were: slander, miscegenation, informing, -drunkenness, fraud, voodooism, violation of contract, resisting arrest, -elopement, train wrecking, poisoning stock, refusing to give evidence, -testifying against whites, political animosity, disobedience of -quarantine regulations, passing counterfeit money, introducing smallpox, -concealing criminals, cutting levees, kidnapping, gambling, riots, -seduction, incest, and forcing a child to steal.</p> -<p>Yes, there are courts in the South; but not for black people—not when -the mob chooses to relieve civilization of the onus of law and order. At -Honeapath, S. C, a Negro was lynched in November 1911, charged, of -course, with “the usual crime.” The charge had not been proven, or <span -class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "invetsigated" in original.">investigated</span>; -but the man was lynched. The howling mob which did him to death was -composed of “prominent citizens” who had made up automobile parties to -ride to the affair. Among those present was the <b>dis</b>-honorable -Joshua Ashley, a member of the state legislature. He and his friends cut -off the man’s fingers as souvenirs and were proud of their work. Why -shouldn’t they? You see, it helps to keep “niggers” in their place. And -then, besides, isn’t this a white man’s country? <span id="Page_19" -class="pagenum">[19]</span> Gov. Blease of South Carolina was also proud -of the event and said that instead of stopping the horrible work of the -mob he would have resigned his office to lead it. In Okemeah, Oklahoma, -last June, a band of white beasts raped a Negro woman and then lynched -her and her fourteen-year-old son Nothing has been done to them. And it -is not that the facts are unknown. At Durant, Okla., and elsewhere, the -savages have posed around their victim to have their pictures taken. One -man, from Alabama sent to the Rev. John Haynes Holmes, of Brooklyn, -N.Y., a post-card (by <b>mail</b>) bearing a photograph of such a group. -“This is the way we treat them down here,” he writes, and, after -promising to put Mr. Holmes’ name on his mailing list declares that they -will have one, at least, each month.</p> -<p>In Washington, Ga., Charles S. Holinshead, a wealthy white planter, -raped the wife of T.B. Walker, a decent, respectable Negro. As his wife -returned to him dishevelled and bleeding from the outrage perpetrated on -her, Walker went to Holinshead’s store and shot him dead. For this he -was tried and condemned and, while the judge was pronouncing sentence, -Holinshead’s brother shot Walker in the court-room. They held his head -up while the judge finished the sentence, Then he was taken out and -lynched—not executed Nothing was done to the other Holinshead.</p> -<p>The New York <b>Evening Post</b>, on <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "Octoer" in original.">October</span> -23rd said in an editorial that “there has hardly been a <span -id="Page_20" class="pagenum">[20]</span> single authenticated case in a -decade of the Negroes rising against the whites, despite the growing -feeling, among them that there should be some retaliation since no -tribunal will punish lynchers or enforce the law.” I am glad that the -<b>Post</b> noticed this. I had begun to notice it myself. When -President Roosevelt discussed lynching some years ago, he severely -reprobated <b>the Negro</b> for their tendency to shield their -“criminals” and ordered them to go out and help hunt them down. So was -insult added to injury.</p> -<p>But, putting my own opinion aside, here are the facts as I have seen -them. In the face of these facts, the phrase, “the white man’s burden,” -sounds like a horrid mockery.</p> -</div> -<div class="chapter"> -<span id="Page_21" class="pagenum">[21]</span> -<h2> -SOCIALISM AND THE NEGRO -</h2> -<hr> -<h3> -1. Economic Status Of The Negro -</h3> -<p>The ten million Negroes of America form a group that is more -essentially proletarian than any other American group. In the first -place the ancestors of this group were brought here with the very -definite understanding that they were to be ruthlessly exploited. And -they were not allowed any choice in the matter. Since they were brought -here as chattels their social status was fixed by that fact. In every -case that we know of where a group has lived by exploiting another -group, it has despised that group which it has put under subjection. And -the degree of contempt has always been in direct proportion to the -degree of exploitation.</p> -<p>Inasmuch then, as the Negro was at one period the most thoroughly -exploited of the American proletariat, he was the most thoroughly -despised. That group which exploited and despised him, being the most -powerful section of the ruling class, was able to diffuse its own -necessary contempt of the Negro first among the other sections of the -ruling class, and afterwards among all other classes of Americans. For -the ruling class has always determined what the social ideals and moral -ideas of society should be; and this explains how race prejudice was -disseminated until all Americans are supposed to be saturated with it. -Race prejudice, <span id="Page_22" class="pagenum">[22]</span> then, is -the fruit of economic subjection and a fixed inferior economic status. -It is the reflex of a social caste system. That caste system in America -today is what we roughly refer to as the Race Problem, and it is thus -seen that the Negro problem is <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "essentiallly" in original.">essentially</span> -an economic problem with its roots in slavery past and present.</p> -<p>Notwithstanding the fact that it is usually kept out of public -discussion, the bread-and-butter side of this problem is easily the most -important. The Negro worker gets less for his work—thanks to exclusion -from the craft unions—than any other worker; he works longer hours as a -rule and under worse conditions than any other worker, and his rent in -any large city is much higher than that which the white worker pays for -the same tenement. In short, the exploitation of the Negro worker is -keener than that of any group of white workers in America. Now, the -mission of the Socialist Party is to free the working class from -exploitation, and since the Negro is the most ruthlessly exploited -working class group in America, the duty of the party to champion his -cause is as clear as day. This is the crucial test of Socialism’s -sincerity and therein lies the value of this point of view—Socialism and -the Negro.</p> -<h3> -2. The Need of Socialist Propaganda. -</h3> -<p>So far, no particular effort has been made to carry the message of -Socialism to these people. All the rest of the poor have had the gospel -preached to them, for the party has carried on special <span -id="Page_23" class="pagenum">[23]</span> propaganda work among the -Poles, Slovaks, Finns, Hungarians and Lithuanians. Here are ten million -Americans, all proletarians, hanging on the ragged edge of the impending -class conflict. Left to themselves they may become as great a menace to -our advancing army as is the army of the unemployed, and for precisely -the same reason: they can be used against us, as the craft unions have -begun to find out. Surely we should make some effort to enlist them -under our banner that they may swell our ranks and help to make us -invincible. And we must do this for the same reason that is impelling -organized labor to adopt an all-inclusive policy; because the other -policy results in the artificial breeding of scabs. On grounds of common -sense and enlightened self-interest it would be well for the Socialist -party to begin to organize the Negroes of America in reference to the -class struggle. The capitalists of America are not waiting. Already they -have subsidized Negro leaders, Negro editors, preachers and politicians -to build up in the breasts of the black people those sentiments which -will make them subservient to their will. For they recognize the value -(to them) of cheap labor power and they know that if they can succeed in -keeping one section of the working class down they can use that section -to keep other sections down too.</p> -<h3> -3. The Negro’s Attitude Toward Socialism. -</h3> -<p>If the Socialist propaganda among Negroes is <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: Word missing in original.">to</span> be -effectively carried on, the members and leaders <span id="Page_24" -class="pagenum">[24]</span> of the party must first understand the -Negro’s attitude toward Socialism. That attitude finds its first -expression in ignorance. The mass of the Negro people in America are -ignorant of what Socialism means. For this they are not much to blame. -Behind the veil of the color line none of the great world-movements for -social betterment have been able to penetrate. Sine j it is not yet the -easiest task to get the white American worker—with all his superior -intellect—to see Socialism, it is but natural to expect that these -darker workers to whom America denies knowledge should still be in -ignorance as to its aims and objects.</p> -<p>Besides, the Negroes of America—those of them who think—are -suspicious of Socialism as of everything that comes from the white -people of America. They have seen that every movement offer the -extension of democracy here has broken down as soon as it reached the -color line. Political democracy declared that “all men are created -equal,” meant only all white men. The Christian church found that the -brotherhood of man did not include God’s bastard children. The public -school system proclaimed that the school house was the backbone of -democracy—“for white people only,” and the civil service says that -Negroes must keep their place—at the bottom. So that they can hardly be -blamed for looking askance at any new gospel of freedom. Freedom to them -has been like one of</p> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse leadingquote"> -“those juggling fiends. -</div> -<span id="Page_25" class="pagenum">[25]</span> -<div class="verse"> -That palter with us in a double sense; -</div> -<div class="verse"> -That keep the word of promise to our ear, -</div> -<div class="verse"> -And break it to our hope.” -</div> -</div> -</div> -<p>In this connection, some explanation of the former political -solidarity of those Negroes who were voters may be of service. Up to six -years ago the one great obstacle to the political progress of the -colored people was their sheep-like allegiance to the Republican party. -They were taught to believe that God had raised up a peculiar race of -men called Republicans who had loved the slaves so tenderly that they -had taken guns in their hands and rushed on the ranks of the southern -slaveholders to free the slaves; that this race of men was still in -existence, marching under the banner of the Republican party and showing -their great love for Negroes by appointing from six to sixteen -near-Negroes to soft political snaps. Today that great political -superstition is falling to pieces before the advance of intelligence -among Negroes. They begin to realize that they were sold out by the -Republican party in 1876; that in the last twenty-five years lynchings -have increased, disfranchisement has spread all over the south and -“jim-crow” cars run even into the national capital—with the continuing -consent of a Republican congress, a Republican Supreme Court and -Republican presidents.</p> -<p>Ever since the Brownsville affair, but more clearly since Taft -declared and put in force the policy of pushing out the few near-Negro -officeholders, <span id="Page_26" class="pagenum">[26]</span> the rank -and file have come to see that the Republican party is a great big sham. -Many went over to the Democratic party because, as the <b>Amsterdam -News</b> puts it, “they had nowhere else to go.” Twenty years ago the -colored men who joined that party were ostracized as scalawags and -crooks—which they probably were. But today, the defection to the -Democrats of such men as Bishop Waiters, Wood, Carr and Langston—whose -uncle was a colored Republican congressman from Virginia—has made the -colored democracy respectable and given quite a tone to political -heterodoxy. All this loosens the bonds of their allegiance and breaks -the bigotry of the last forty years. But of this change in their -political view-point the white world knows nothing. The two leading -Negro newspapers are subsidized by the same political pirates who hold -the title-deeds to the handful of hirelings holding office in the name -of the Negro race. One of these papers is an organ of Mr. Washington, -the other pretends to be independent—that is, it must be “bought” on the -installment plan, and both of them are in New York.</p> -<p>Despite this “conspiracy of silence” the Negroes are waking up; are -beginning to think for themselves; to look with more favor on “new -doctrines.” And herein lies the open opportunity of the Socialist party. -If the work of spreading Socialist propaganda is taken to them now, -their ignorance of it can be enlightened and their suspicions removed. -<span id="Page_27" class="pagenum">[27]</span></p> -<h3> -The Duty of The Socialist Party. -</h3> -<p>I think that we might embrace the opportunity of taking the matter up -at the coming national convention. The time is ripe for taking a stand -against the extensive disfranchisement of the Negro in violation of the -plain provisions of the national constitution. In view of the fact that -the last three amendments to the constitution contain the clause, -“Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate -legislation,” the party will not be guilty of proposing anything worse -than asking the government to enforce its own “law and order.” If the -Negroes, or any other section of the working class in America, is to be -deprived of the ballot, how can they participate with us in the class -struggle? How can we pretend to be a political party if we fail to see -the significance of this fact?</p> -<p>Besides, the recent dirty diatribes against the Negro in a Texas -paper, which is still on our national list of Socialist papers; the -experiences of Mrs. Theresa Malkiel in Tennessee where she was prevented -by certain people from addressing a meeting of Negroes on the subject of -Socialism, and certain other exhibitions of the thing called -southernism, constitute the challenge of caste. Can we ignore this -challenge? I think not. We could hardly afford to have the taint of -“trimming” on the garments of the Socialist party. It is -dangerous—doubly dangerous now, when the temper of the times is against -such “trimming.” Besides it <span id="Page_28" -class="pagenum">[28]</span> would be futile. If it is not met now it -must be met later when it shall have grown stronger. Now, when we can -cope with it, we have the issue <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "squarly" in original.">squarely</span> -presented: Southernism or Socialism—which? Is it to be the white half of -the working class against the black half, or all the working class? Can -we hope to triumph over capitalism with one-half of the working class -against us? Let us settle these questions now—for settled they must -be.</p> -<h3> -The Negro and Political Socialism. -</h3> -<p>The power of the voting proletariat can be made to express itself -through the ballot. To do this they must have a political organization -of their own to give form to their will. The direct object of such an -organization is to help them to secure control of the powers of -government by electing members of the working class to office and so -secure legislation in the interests of the working class until such time -as the workers may, by being in overwhelming control of the government, -be able “to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, -laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its power in -such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and -happiness”—in short, to work for the abolition of capitalism, by -legislation—if that be permitted. And in all this, the Negro, who feels -most fiercely the deep damnation of the capitalist system, can help.</p> -<h3> -The Negro and Industrial Socialism. -</h3> -<p>But even the voteless proletarian can in a <span id="Page_29" -class="pagenum">[29]</span> measure help toward the final abolition of -the capitalist system. For they too have labor power—which they can be -taught to withhold. They can do this by organizing themselves at the -point of production. By means of such organization they can work to -shorten the hours of labor, to raise wages, to secure an ever-increasing -share of the product of their toil. They can enact and enforce laws for -the protection of labor and they can do this at the point of production, -as was done by the Western Federation of Miners in the matter of the -eight-hour law, which they established without the aid of the -legislatures or the courts. All this involves a progressive control of -the tools of production and a progressive expropriation of the -capitalist class. And in all this the Negro can help. So far, they are -unorganized on the industrial field, but industrial unionism beckons to -them as to others, and the consequent program of the Socialist party for -the Negro in the south can be based upon this fact.</p> -</div> -<div class="chapter"> -<span id="Page_30" class="pagenum">[30]</span> -<h2> -THE REAL NEGRO PROBLEM -</h2> -<p>The African slave-trade was born of the desire of certain Europeans -to acquire wealth without working. It was to fill the need for a cheap -labor supply in developing new territory that Negro slaves were first -brought to the western world by the Spanish, Dutch, and English during -the 16th and 17th centuries. Contact of white with black was thus -established on the basis of the economic subjection of the one to the -other. This subjection extended to every sphere of life, physical, -mental and social. Out of this contact there arose certain definite -relations and consequent problems of adjustment. It is the sum of these -relations which we (rightly or wrongly) describe as the Negro -Problem.</p> -<p>Unfortunately, the spell of mere words is still very strong, and when -people speak of the Negro Problem they carry over into the discussion a -certain mental attitude derived from the original meaning of the word, -Problem. In arithmetic, a sum to be worked out; in chemistry, to find by -experiment a certain re-agent; in geography, to chart a puzzling -current—all these are problems in the primary sense, and all these -involve the idea of solution by him who approaches them. That is to say, -they can be solved <b>by thinking</b>. And those who think loosely call -up this idea of solution by thinking whenever they see the word -“problem”. So we have been pestered with this, that, and the <span -id="Page_31" class="pagenum">[31]</span> other “solution” of the Negro -problem. Therefore, it is well to bear in mind that a race problem is -always the sum of the relations between two or more races in a state of -friction.</p> -<p>Because when we understand this we are in a fair way to find that -these relations are not to be explained on the basis of the thinking or -feeling of either party. They must be interpreted in terms of human -relations and in the order in which human relations are established: (1) -economic, (2) social, (3) political and (4) civic. So understood, a -knowledge of the historical conditions under which these relations -developed is seen to be of the greatest value in understanding the -problem. For this is all that our intellects can do in the case of a -racial problem—to help us to understand. The actual work of adjustment -must be fought out or worked out; becomes, that is to say, a struggle to -be settled by the contending races with forces more complex than the -purely intellectual ones of argument and proof. Let us first consider, -then, the conditions under which the relations between the black and -white races were established in America.</p> -<p>During the period of colonization the land of America was granted by -European kings to certain gentlemen who had no intention of working with -the hands. Nevertheless working with the hands was the only method of -extracting that wealth which was the object of their ownership, it was -necessary, then, to obtain a supply of those persons who could do this -work for them; and to <span id="Page_32" class="pagenum">[32]</span> -insure this, it was imperative that these persons should not own land -themselves: they must be a permanently landless class; since it was -unthinkable then as now that one should work the land of others for a -part of the fruits if he could work his own land for all of the fruits. -So there was begun in America the process of establishing such a class. -Confining ourselves to the territory which became the United States, we -may say that the first attempt was made to enslave the Indians, and when -this failed to work, white people were imported from Europe as chattel -slaves. All through the colonial period this importation continued with -its consequent effects on the social and political life of the colonies. -Most people will be surprised to learn that the first Fugitive Slave Law -was framed, not in the south, but in the north, and was made not for -black but for white laborers. This was the Massachusetts act of 1630 -“Respecting Masters, Servants and Laborers”. A reading of this one act -would destroy all those pretty illusions about “our fathers and Freedom” -which we get from the official fairy tales—I mean the school -histories.</p> -<p>Side by side with the economic subjection of white men there grew up -the economic subjection of black men, and for the same reason. These -were of alien blood—and cheaper. Therefore, the African slave trade -outgrew the European slave trade, although the latter continued, in a -lessening degree, down to the third or fourth decade of the <span -id="Page_33" class="pagenum">[33]</span> 19th century. Negroes were -brought here to work, to be exploited; and they were allowed no -illusions as to the reason for their being here. Those white men who -owned the land brought them here to extract the wealth which was in the -land. The white aristocrat did not buy black slaves because he had a -special hatred or contempt for anything black, nor because he believed -that Negroes were inferior to white people. On the contrary he bought -them precisely because, as working cattle, they were superior to -whites.</p> -<p>Being of alien blood, these black people were <b>outside</b> of the -social and political system to which they were introduced and, quite -naturally, beyond the range of such sympathies as helped to soften the -hard brutalities of the system. They were, from the beginning, more -ruthlessly exploited than the white workers. Thus they had their place -made for them—at the bottom.</p> -<p>Now it is a social law—not yet proclaimed by our college -sociologists—that whenever a certain social arrangement is beneficial to -any class in a society, that class soon develops the <span -class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "pyschology" in original.">psychology</span> -of its own advantage and creates insensibly the ethics which will -justify that social arrangement. Men to whom the vicarious labor of -slaves meant culture and refinement, wealth, leisure and education, -naturally came—without any self-deception, to see that slavery was -<b>right</b>. As Professor Loria points out, there is an economic basis -to moral transformations in any society which is built on vicarious -<span id="Page_34" class="pagenum">[34]</span> production.</p> -<p>We turn now to the resulting conditions of the slaves. They were at -the bottom, the most brutally exploited and, therefore, the most -despised section of the laboring class. For it is a consequent of the -law stated above that those who are exploited must needs be despised by -those who exploit them. This mental attitude of the superior class -(which makes the laws of that society in which it is dominant) will -naturally find its expression in those actions by which they <span -class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "esablish" in original.">establish</span> -their relations to the inferior class. And whenever anyone is to be -kicked it is usually the man farthest down who gets it, because he is -most contiguous to the foot. So the Negro having been given a place at -the bottom in the economic life of the nation, came to occupy naturally -the place at the bottom in the nation’s thinking. I say, the nation’s -advisedly; because the dominant ideas of any society which is already -divided into classes are as a rule the ideas preservative of the -existing arrangements. But since those arrangements include a class on -top, the dominant ideas will generally coincide with the interest of -that class. The ethics of its own advantage, then, will be diffused by -that class throughout that society—will be, if need arise imposed upon -the other classes, since every ruling class has always controlled the -public instruments for the diffusion of ideas.</p> -<p>In this way the slave-holding section of the dominant class in -America first diffused its own <span id="Page_35" -class="pagenum">[35]</span> necessary contempt for the Negro among the -other sections of the ruling class, and the ideas of this class as a -whole became through the agency of press, pulpit and platform, the ideas -of “the American People” on the Negro.</p> -<p>In further application of the materialistic <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "methed" in original.">method</span> -to this subject, it is curious and interesting to note how the southern -attitude toward the Negro changed with the changing industrial system. -When the wasteful agricultural methods of chattel slavery had exhausted -the soil of the south and no new land loomed up on the horizon of the -system, slavery began to decay. The planters of that section settled -down into the patriarchal type of family relations with their slaves, -who were then simply a means of keeping the master’s hands free from the -contamination of work and not a means of ever-increasing profits. -Slavery was then in a fair way to die of its own weight. But with the -invention of Whitney’s cotton-gin, which enabled one man to do the work -of three hundred, cotton came to the front as the chief agricultural -staple in America. The black slave became a source of increasing revenue -as a fertilizer of capital. The idyllic relations of the preceding forty -years came to a sudden end. Increased profits demanded increased -exploitation and the ethics of advantage dictated the despising of the -Negro.</p> -<p>De Bow’s Review, the great organ of southern opinion, appeared, and -in serious scientific articles maintained the proposition that the Negro -was not <span id="Page_36" class="pagenum">[36]</span> a man but a -beast. About that time (and conformably to that opinion) the practice -was begun of spelling the word, Negro, with a small “n”—a practice still -current in America, even in the socialist press.</p> -<p>In the meanwhile, the system of industrial production known as the -machine system developed in the north. The factory proletariat whose -condition determined that of the other northern workers could fertilize -capital more rapidly and cheaply than the slaves. This form of -production (and its products) came into competition with the slave -system and the tremendous conflict reflected itself upon the political -field as a struggle for the restriction of slavery within its original -bounds. The Louisiana Purchase, the annexation of Texas, the Missouri -Compromise, the Dred Scot Decision, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,—all these -were political episodes in the competition between the two main sections -of the dominant class; and in the conflict each used the army, the navy, -the executive, the courts and the legislature to strengthen its own -position.</p> -<p>When the business interests of the north had definitely captured the -powers of government in the general election of 1860, the southerners -<span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "seceeded" in original.">seceded</span> -because they knew too well what governmental power was generally used -for. They wanted a government which would be the political reflex of -their own economic dominance. One can <span id="Page_37" -class="pagenum">[37]</span> see now why the northern statesmen like -Lincoln insisted that the preservation of the Union was the paramount -issue and not the freedom of slaves. Indeed, Lincoln punished those -officers of the army who in the early days of the war dared to act upon -that assumption. And not all the arguments of Greeley, Conway and -Governor Andrews could make any change in his attitude. Not until he saw -that it was expedient “as a war measure” did he issue the “Emancipation -Proclamation” which brought 187,000 Negro soldiers into the northern -army.</p> -<p>Emancipation gave to the Negroes a new economic status—the status of -free wage-laborers, competing with other wage-laborers for work. They -who had worked to create wealth for others were now turned loose without -wealth or land to shift for <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "themeselves" in original.">themselves</span> -in a world already hostile to them. The mental attitude of the white -south had been shaped by three centuries of slavery and was hard to get -rid of. It was difficult for them to think of black labor under any form -but that of slavery and they naturally turned to compulsion as the -proper mode of obtaining work from their former slaves. This attitude -was well expressed in the Black Codes of the southern states during the -fall and winter of 1865–66. As soon as the end of the hostilities gave -them a free hand at home they began to give legislative expression to -the new conditions. They framed new constitutions and new laws. “But it -was seen that the Negro had no <span id="Page_38" -class="pagenum">[38]</span> privilege of voting in the first instance, -and it was not to be expected that the right would be accorded him under -the new state constitutions; no guarantee that justice should be done -him was exacted. These new constitutions were formed, the legislatures -met, laws were made, senators and representatives to Congress were -chosen; but the Negro was not only not admitted to any participation in -the government, but the new legislatures shocked the northern <span -class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "sence" in original.">sense</span> -of justice by the cruel and revengeful laws which they enacted. The -barbarity of the most odious slave-code was, under various disguises, -applied to the Negro in his new condition of freedom”. Even before the -resentment of the national legislature had taken form, the Ku-Klux Klan, -the Knights of the White Camelias, the Society of the Pale Faces, and -other bands of organized representatives of culture had begun to do -their bloody work of terrorizing Negroes into economic and social -subjection. And all this before any steps had been taken to extend the -suffrage to Negroes.</p> -<p>When the northerners investigated these conditions they met with such -fierce and unreasoning hostility on the part of the south that they -found it necessary to arm the Negro with the ballot in his own defense. -And yet, professional southerners like Tom Dixon, Tom Watson, Ben -Tillman Vardaman and Blease pretend to their ignorant or forgetful -countrymen that the present attitude of the south was caused in the -first instance by a reaction against “Negro domination”, social and -political <span id="Page_39" class="pagenum">[39]</span> which the north -had forced upon it.</p> -<p>The subsequent developments can not be explained by those amiable -enthusiasts who see in the “freedom” of Negroes an act of genuine -humanitarianism on the part of the north. For, after northern -business-men had secured the government—and their thousands of miles of -railroad-grants—they promptly dropped the mask of humanitarian -hypocrisy, and left the Negroes to shift for themselves. During the -disputed count of the votes in the Hayes-Tilden electoral contest in -1877 a deal was arranged by which the northerners agreed to withdraw the -army which protected the Negroes, newly-granted franchise in the south, -on condition that the southerners should concede the election to Hayes. -The new industrial order wanted above all things to retain control of -the government which it had captured during the war, and upon the altar -of this necessity it sacrificed the Negro in the south, just as Lincoln -had done in the early days of the war. From that time the suppression of -the Negro vote, the growth of “Jim Crow” legislation, lynching and -segregation have continued with the continuing consent of Republican -congressman, presidents and supreme courts. And through it all, Negro -“leaders” like Mr. Washington have found it very much worth their while -to administer anodynes both to the Negro and the Nation, to reconcile -the one to a bastard democracy and the other to a mutilated manhood.</p> -<p>It would be well to trace here the nature of <span id="Page_40" -class="pagenum">[40]</span> the economic changes which have given -certain new and malignant features to the relations between black and -white in <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "Amercia" in original.">America</span>. -The effect upon the free laborers of the sudden influx of black -competitors in the labor-market; the consequent attitude of the -labor-unions; the political and social reflex of all this, with the -vestiges of the old, re-developing under the new conditions—all these -are parts of the problem. But space will not permit, and these -considerations will be taken up in a second paper. Yet I may indicate -here the gist of my conclusions by quoting the words of a well-known -Southerner, the Rev. Quincy Ewing. “The race problem—is not that the -Negro is what he is in relation to the white man—the white man’s -inferior—but this, rather: How to keep him what he is in relation to the -white man; how to prevent his ever achieving or becoming that which -would justify the belief on his part, or on the part of other people, -that he and the white man stand on common human ground.”</p> -<p>The economic necessities of a system of vicarious production led to -the creation of a racial labor-caste; the social adjustment consequent -upon this and upon its development created a social sentiment inimical -to this class, and its continuance requires a continuance of this -sentiment in our society; this is the pivotal fact. And the unavoidable -conclusion is, that when this system of vicarious production disappears, -the problem which is its consequence will disappear also—and not till -then, in spite of all the culture, individual or collective, which that -class may achieve.</p> -</div> -<div class="chapter"> -<span id="Page_41" class="pagenum">[41]</span> -<h2> -ON A CERTAIN CONSERVATISM IN NEGROES -</h2> -<p>It would be a difficult task to name one line of intellectual -endeavor among white men in America, in which the American Negro has not -taken his part. Yet it is a striking fact that the racial attitude has -been dominantly conservative. Radicalism does not yet register to any -noticeable extent the contributions of our race in this country. In -theological criticism, religious dissent, social and political heresies -such as Single Tax, Socialism, Anarchism—in most of the movements -arising from the reconstruction made necessary by the great body of that -new knowledge which the last two centuries gave us—the Negro in America -has taken no part. And today our sociologists and economists still -restrict themselves to the compilation of tables of statistics in proof -of Negro progress. Our scholars are still expressing the intellectual -viewpoints of the eighteenth century. The glimmer of a change is -perceptible only in some of the younger men like Locke of Howard -University and James C. Waters.</p> -<p>It is easy to account for this. Christian America created the color -line; and all the great currents of critical opinion, from the -eighteenth century to our time, have found the great barrier impassible -and well-nigh impervious. Behind the color line one has to think -perpetually of the color line, and most of those who grow up behind it -can think of nothing else. Even when one essays to think of other -things, that thinking is tinged with the shades of the surrounding -atmosphere.</p> -<p><span id="Page_42" class="pagenum">[42]</span> Besides, when we -consider what Negro education is to-day when we remember that in certain -southern counties the munificent sum of 58 cents is spent for the annual -education of a Negro child; that the “great leader” of his race decries -“higher” education for them; that Negro boys who get as far as “college” -must first surmount tremendous special obstacles—we will cease to wonder -at the dearth of thinkers who are radical on other than racial -matters.</p> -<p>Yet, it should seem that Negroes, of all Americans, would be found in -the Freethought fold, since they have suffered more than any other class -of Americans from the dubious blessings of Christianity. It has been -well said that the two great instruments for the propagation of race -prejudice in America are the Associated Press and the Christian Church. -This is quite true. Historically, it was the name of religion that -cloaked the beginnings of slavery on the soil of America, and buttressed -its continuance. The church saw to it that the religion taught to slaves -should stress the servile virtues of subservience and content, and these -things have bitten deeply into the souls of black folk. True, the -treasured music of these darker millions preserves, here and there, the -note of stifled rebellion; but this was in spite of religion—not because -of it. Besides, such of their “sorrow-songs” as have this note in them -were brutally banned by their masters, and driven to the purlieus of the -plantation, there to be sung in secret, <span id="Page_43" -class="pagenum">[43]</span> And all through the dark days of slavery, it -was the Bible that constituted the divine sanction of this “peculiar -institution.” “Cursed be Canaan,” “Servants obey your masters” and -similar texts were the best that the slaveholders’ Bible could give of -consolation to the brothers in black, while, for the rest, teaching them -to read was made a crime so that whatever of social dynamite there might -be in certain parts of the book, might not come near their minds.</p> -Lowell, in his “Biglow Papers,” has given a caustic but correct summary -of the Christian slave-holders’ theology in regard to the slavery of -black working-people: -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse leadingquote"> -“All things wuz gin to man for’s use, his sarvice an’ demean delight? -</div> -<div class="verse"> -An’ don’t the Greek an’ Hebrew words that mean a man mean white? -</div> -<div class="verse"> -Ain’t it belittlin’ the good book in all its proudes’ features -</div> -<div class="verse"> -To think ‘t wuz wrote for black an’ brown an’ ’lasses-colored creatures, -</div> -<div class="verse"> -Thet couldn’ read it ef they would—nor ain’t by lor allowed to, -</div> -<div class="verse"> -But ought to take wut we think suits their naturs, an’ be proud to? -</div> -<div class="evenspace"> -<span>*</span><span>*</span><span>*</span><span>*</span> -</div> -<div class="verse"> -Where’d their soles go ter, I’d like to know, ef we should let ’em ketch -</div> -<div class="verse"> -Freeknowledgism an’ Fourierism an’ Speritoolism an’ sech?“ -</div> -</div> -</div> -<p>When the fight for the abolition of slavery was on, the Christian -church, not content with quoting scripture, gagged the mouths of such of -their adherents as dared to protest against the accursed <span -id="Page_44" class="pagenum">[44]</span> thing, penalized their open -advocacy of abolition, and opposed all the men like Garrison, Lovejoy, -Phillips and John Brown, who fought on behalf of the Negro slave. The -detailed instances and proofs are given in the last chapter of “A Short -History of the Inquisition,” wherein the work shows the relation of the -church and slavery.</p> -<p>Yet the church among the Negroes today exerts a more powerful -influence than anything else in the sphere of ideas. Nietzsche’s -contention that the ethics of Christianity are the slave’s ethics would -seem to be justified in this instance. Show me a population that is -deeply religious, and I will show you a servile population, content with -whips and chains, contumely and the gibbet, content to eat the bread of -sorrow and drink the waters of affliction.</p> -<p>The present condition of the Negroes of America is a touching bit of -testimony to the truth of this assertion. Here in America the spirit of -the Negro has been transformed by three centuries of subjection, -physical and mental, so that they have even glorified the fact of -subjection and subservience. How many Negro speakers have I not heard -vaunting the fact that when in the dark days of the South the Northern -armies had the Southern aristocracy by the throat, there was no Negro -uprising to make their masters pay for the systematic raping of Negro -women and the inhuman cruelties perpetrated on Negro men. And yet the -sole reason for this “forbearance” is to be <span id="Page_45" -class="pagenum">[45]</span> found in the fact that their spirits had -been completely crushed by the system of slavery. And to accomplish -this, Christianity—the Christianity of their masters—was the most -effective instrument.</p> -<p>A recent writer, Mr. E. B. Putnam-Weale, in his book, “The Conflict -of Color,” has quite naively disclosed the fact that white people are -well aware of this aspect of Christianity and use it for their own ends. -Mr. Putnam-Weale makes no pretense of believing in the Christian myth -himself, but he wants it taught to the Negroes; and comparing it with -Islam, he finds it a more efficient instrument of racial subjugation. -The Mohammedan, he finds, preaches the equality of all true -believers—and lives up to it. The white Christian preaches the -brotherhood of man, but wants “niggers” to sit in the rear pews, to ride -in “Jim Crow” cars, and generally to “keep in their place.” He presents -this aspect of the case under the caption of “The Black Samson and the -White Delilah,” and, with less fear than an angel, frankly advises the -white Lords of Empire not so much to civilize as to christianize Africa, -so that Deliah’s work may be well done.</p> -<p>Here in America her work has been well done; and I fear that many -years must pass before the leaders of thought among my people in this -country contribute many representatives to the cause of Freethought. -Just now, there are a few Negro Agnostics in New York and Boston, but -these are generally found to be West Indians from the <span id="Page_46" -class="pagenum">[46]</span> French, Spanish, and English islands. The -Cuban and Porto Rican cigar-makers are notorious Infidels, due to their -acquaintance with the bigotry, ignorance and immorality of the Catholic -priesthood in their native islands. Here and there one finds a -Negro-American who is reputed to have Agnostic tendencies; but these are -seldom, if ever, openly avowed. I can hardly find it in my heart to -blame them, for I know the tremendous weight of the social proscription -which it is possible to bring to bear upon those who dare defy the idols -of our tribe. For those who live by the people must needs be careful of -the people’s gods; and</p> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse leadingquote"> -“An up-to-date statesmen has to be on his guard, -</div> -<div class="verse"> -If he must have beliefs not to b’lieve ’em too hard.” -</div> -</div> -</div> -<p>Myself, I am inclined to believe that freedom of thought must come -from freedom of circumstance; and so long as our “leaders” are dependent -on the favor of our masses for their livelihood, just so long will they -express the thought of the masses, which of itself may be a good thing -or a bad according to the circumstances of the particular case Still -there is a terrible truth in Kipling’s modern version of Job’s sarcastic -bit of criticism:</p> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse leadingquote"> -“No doubt but ye are the people—your throne is above the King’s, -</div> -<div class="verse"> -Whoso speaks in your presence must say acceptable things; -</div> -<div class="verse"> -Bowing the head in worship, bending the knee in fear— -</div> -<div class="verse"> -Bringing the word well-smoothen—such as a King should hear.” -</div> -</div> -</div> -<p>And until this rising generation of Negroes can shake off the -trammels of such time-serving lead<span id="Page_47" -class="pagenum">[47]</span>ers as Mr. Washington, and attain the level -of that “higher education” against which he solidly sets his “face; -until they, too, shall have entered into the intellectual heritage of -the last two hundred years, there can be little hope of a change in this -respect.</p> -</div> -<div class="chapter"> -<span id="Page_48" class="pagenum">[48]</span> -<h2> -WHAT SOCIALISM MEANS TO US -</h2> -<p>In the good old days “when cotton was king”, chattel-slavery was a -flourishing institution. Not only the people who profited by the system, -but most others—even those who were the sufferers—thought that this was -really a “law of nature”, that it couldn’t be otherwise. Nevertheless, -chattel slavery has gone. But while it lasted this was its essence: -Certain human beings were compelled to labor and the wealth which their -labor produced went, not to them, but to certain other human beings who -did not labor at all but lolled in luxury on the labor of their -slaves.</p> -<p>To-day, fellow-sufferers, they tell us that we are free. But are we? -If you will think for a moment you will see that we are not free at all. -We have simply changed one form of slavery for another. Then it was -chattel-slavery, now it is wage-slavery. For that which was the essence -of chattel-slavery is the essence of wage slavery. It is only a -difference in form. The chattel-slave was compelled to work by physical -force; the wage-slave is compelled to work by starvation. The product of -the chattel-slave’s labor was taken by his master; the product of the -wage-slave’s labor is taken by the employer.</p> -<p>The United States Government has made a study of the wealth producing -power of the wage-slaves, and has shown that the average worker -<b>produces</b> $2,451 a year. The government has also made a study of -wages in the U.S. which shows that the average worker gets $437 a year. -This means that <span id="Page_49" class="pagenum">[49]</span> the -average employer takes away from the average wage-slave $2,014 a year. -In the good old days the master took away the wealth produced by the -slave in the simplest form; today he takes it away in the form of -profits. But in one respect the wage-slave is worse off than the chattel -slave. Under chattel slavery the master owned the man and the land; he -had to feed and clothe the man. Under wage-slavery the man feeds and -clothes himself. Under chattel slavery it was to the interest of the -owner to give the slave work and to keep him from starving to death. -Under wage-slavery, if the man goes out of work the employer doesn’t -care; that is no loss to him; and if the man dies there are millions of -others eager to take his place, because, as I said before, they must -either work for him or starve. There is one very striking parallel -between the two cases. To-day there are many people who say that this -system is divinely appointed—is a law of nature—just as they said the -same thing of chattel slavery. Well, there are millions of workers who -say that it is wrong.</p> -<p>Under <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "chattle" in original.">chattel</span>-slavery -black workers were robbed; under wage-slavery all the workers are -robbed. The Socialist Party says that this robbing shall cease; that no -worker black or white shall be exploited for profit. And it says, -further, that there is one sure and certain way of putting an end to the -system and that is by working for the success of Socialism.</p> -<p>But, before I tell you just how Socialism proposes to do this, let me -say a word about the Civil <span id="Page_50" -class="pagenum">[50]</span> War which put an end to chattel-slavery. -Now, I know that certain people have taught you to believe that the -Civil War was fought to free the slaves. But it isn’t true, at all, and -only very ignorant people hold that opinion nowadays. If you will read -the Emancipation Proclamation carefully you will see that it wasn’t for -love of the slave that the slaves were freed. You will see that this was -done, “as a fit and <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "neccesary" in original.">necessary</span> -war-measure for suppressing said rebellion.” If you will read Lincoln’s -letter to Horrace Greeley (August 22nd 1862) you will find this -sentence: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and -is not either to save or destroy slavery.” Now I will tell you briefly -how “this struggle” came about. I <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "konw" in original.">know</span> -that my explanation is not the one which you have been taught. But, no -matter; it happens to be true. This was the way of it: In the South -there had grown up one system of exploiting the laborer. That was -chattel-slavery. The money-Kings of that section whom we will call -capitalists, for short, were naturally fond of their own system. In the -North the capitalists had another system of which they were equally., -fond. That was wage-slavery. The Southern capitalists found that it was -necessary to extend their system; so we had the Mexican War, and they -got Texas. Then, as fast as new territory was opened they would rush to -occupy it with their system and so shut out the Northern system. Of -course, the Northern capitalists would try to get their system into the -new territory also; so we had the long struggle over Kansas and -Nebraska. <span id="Page_51" class="pagenum">[51]</span> These two -systems were then in open competition and it came to be seen that one or -the her had to give in; that both of them couldn’t exist in the same -country; that “a house divided against itself cannot stand”; that “this -nation cannot exist half-slave and half-free.” Then people began to talk -of “the impending crisis”; of “the irrepressible conflict.” Then, when -Lincoln was elected in 1859, the southern capitalists saw that their -system was doomed. They wished to preserve it; so they seceded and tried -to make of themselves a separate nation in which their system of robbing -the worker <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "shold" in original.">should</span> -be the only one. But the Northern capitalists said, “Nix! Our system -shall be the only system.” So they went to war “to save the Union”—for -their system of robbing the workers. And that’s the gist of the whole -story.</p> -<p>“But”, you will say, “didn’t they go to war on account of John Brown -and Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner?” Not -on your life, they didn’t. If you will read the newspapers of that time -you will see that they tried to lynch Garrison in Boston; they -ostracized Wendell Phillips; they sneered at Sumner and damned John -Brown. Why, nice, good, Christian people told them they were crazy—just -as some of them tell Socialists now—and the anti-slavery orators -couldn’t get the use of a church in New York either for love or for -money. No, indeed. These men were grand old heroes—but no war was fought -<span id="Page_52" class="pagenum">[52]</span> on their account. The -older system of <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "chattle" in original.">chattel</span>-slavery -simply broke down to make way for the present system of wage-slavery, -which pays better. Pays the capitalist, I mean.</p> -<p>Under the old system the capitalist owned the man; today he own the -tools with which the man must work. These tools are the factories, the -mines, and the machines. The system that owns them owns you and me and -all the rest of us, black, white, brown, red, and yellow. We can’t live -unless we have access to these tools, and our masters, the capitalists, -see to it that we are separated from what we make by using these things, -except so much as is necessary to keep us alive that we may be able to -make more—for them. This little bit is called wages. They wouldn’t give -us even that if they thought that we could live without it. In the good -old days the chattel-slave would be fastened with a chain if they <span -class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "thougt" in original.">thought</span> -that he might escape. Today no chain is <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "neccesary" in original.">necessary</span> -to bind us to the tools. We are as free as air. Of course. We are free -to starve. And that chain of the-fear-of-starvation binds us to the -tools owned by the capitalist as firmly as any iron chain ever did. And -this system doesn’t care whether the slaves who are bound in this new -way are white or black. To the capitalist system all workers are -equal—in so far as they have a stomach.</p> -<p>Now the one great fact for the Negro in America today is Race -Prejudice. The great labor problem with which all working-people are -faced is <span id="Page_53" class="pagenum">[53]</span> made harder for -black working-people by the addition of a race problem. I want to show -you how one grows out of the other and how, at bottom, they are both the -same thing. In other words, I want you to see the economic reason for -race-prejudice.</p> -<p>In the first place, do you know that the most rabid, Negro-hating, -southern aristocrat has not the slightest objection to sleeping in the -same house with a Negro—if that Negro sleeps there as his servant? He -doesn’t care if his food is prepared by a Negro cook and handled by a -Negro waiter before it gets to him; he will eat it. But if a Negro comes -into the same public restaurant to buy and eat food, then, Oh my!, he -gets all het up about it. But why? What’s the difference? I will tell -you. The aristocrat wants the black man to feel that he is on a lower -level. When he is on that level he is “in his place”. When he is “in his -place” he is liked. But he must not be allowed to do anything to make -him forget that he is on this lower level; he must be kept “in his -place”, which means the place which the aristocrat wants him to keep. -You see, the black man carries the memory of slavery with him. Everybody -knows that the slaves were the exploited working-class of the South. -That put them in a class by themselves, down at the bottom, downtrodden, -despised, “inferior.”</p> -<p>Do you begin to see now that Race Prejudice is only another name for -Caste Prejudice? <span id="Page_54" class="pagenum">[54]</span> If our -people had never been slaves; had never been exploited <span -class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "workrs" in original.">workers</span>, -and so, at the bottom of the ladder, there would be no prejudice against -them now. In every case where there has been a downtrodden class of -workers at the bottom, that class has been despised by the class that -lived by their labor. Do you doubt it? Then look at the facts. If you -had picked up a daily paper in New York in 1848 you would have found at -the end of many an advertisement for butler, coachman, lady’s maid, -clerk or book-keeper these words: “No Irish need apply.” There was a -race-prejudice <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "aginst" in original.">against</span> -the Irish then, because most of the manual unskilled laborers were -Irish. They were at the bottom, exploited and despised. But they have -changed things since. Beginning in the seventies when Jewish laborers -began to come here from Russia, Austria and Germany, and lasting even to -our own day, there has been race-prejudice against the Jews. And today -when the Italian has taken the place which the Irish laborer vacated—at -the <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "bottoh" in original.">bottom</span> -—he, too, comes in for his share of this prejudice. In every one of -these cases it was the condition of the people—at the bottom as -despised, exploited, wage-slaves—that was responsible for the -race-prejudice. And it is just so in the black man’s case, with this -difference: that his color marks what he once was, and even though he -should wear a dress suit every evening and own an automobile or a farm -he can always be picked out and reminded.</p> -<p>Now, under the present system, exploiting the wage-slave is -respectable. I have already shown <span id="Page_55" -class="pagenum">[55]</span> you that wherever the worker is exploited he -is despised. So you will see that despising the wage-slave is quite -fashionable. You may recall the name of the great capitalist who said, -“the public be damned.” He was only a little more outspoken than the -rest of his class. As long as the present system continues, the workers -will be despised; as long as the workers are despised, the black men -will be despised, robbed and murdered, because they are least able to -defend themselves. Now ask yourself whether you haven’t a very special -interest in changing the present system.</p> -<p>Of course, you will ask: “But haven’t white working people -race-prejudice too?” Sure, they have. Do you <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "konw" in original.">know</span> -why?</p> -<p>It pays the capitalist to keep the workers divided. So he creates and -keeps alive these prejudices. He gets them to believe that their -interests are different. Then he uses one half of them to club the other -half with. In Russia when the workingmen demand reform the capitalists -sic them on the Jews. In America they sic them on the Negroes. That -makes them forget their own condition: as long as they can be made to -look down upon another class. “But, then”, you will say, the average -wage-slave must be a chump.” Sure, he is. That’s what the capitalist -counts on. And Socialism is working to educate the workers to see this -and to unite them in doing away with the present system.</p> -<p>Socialism stands for the emancipation of the wage-slaves. Are you a -wage-slave? Do you want <span id="Page_56" class="pagenum">[56]</span> -to be emancipated? Then join hands with the Socialists. Hear what they -have to say. Read some of their literature. Get a Socialist leaflet, a -pamphlet, or, better still, a book. You will be convinced of two things: -that Socialism is right, and that it is inevitable. It is right because -any order of things in which those who work have least while those who -work them have most, is wrong. It is inevitable because a system under -which the wealth produced by the labor of human hands amounts to more -than two hundred and twenty billions a year while many millions live on -the verge of starvation, is bound to break down. Therefore, if you wish -to join with the other class—conscious, intelligent wage-earners—in -putting an end to such a system; if you want to better living conditions -for black men as well as for white men; to make this woful world of ours -a little better for your children and your children’s children, study -Socialism—and think and work your way out.</p> -<p>Twelve years ago Mark Hanna, the Big Boss of the Republican Party, -made a statement which you would do well to consider. After he had made -McKinley president, he noticed something that you may not have noticed -yourself. He saw that there was no essential difference between the -Republican party and the Democratic party. He knew that the same big -Wall Street companies supplied the campaign funds for each of them. He -knew that the same money power was buying out the men whom you elected, -whether you elected <span id="Page_57" class="pagenum">[57]</span> -Republicans or Democrats. He saw that very soon you and I and the rest -of us, black as well as white, would come to see it too. And he opened -his mouth and spake these words: “The next great political battle in -this country will be fought, not between the Republican and the -Democratic parties, but between the Republican party and Socialism.” I -will tell you later what that implies. But just now, what I should like -you to see is this: that Senator Hanna realized that Socialism was a -serious issue. He couldn’t afford to pooh-pooh it. Neither can any -sensible person. The Socialist party is the third in point of numbers. -It is important. What do you know of this party? Have you ever read its -platform? Read it once, just for the sake of fair play—just to show that -you are not afraid to give it a hearing—and you will realize why Mark -Hanna paid it such a tribute of respect. Don’t be a baby any longer and -listen to the stale lies which other people tell you about Socialism. -Read the Socialist platform and you will understand why some politicians -have to tell lies about it just the same as they have to tell lies about -you. They lie about it because they don’t want you to know what it -really is, just as they lie about you because they don’t want people to -know what you really are. Every year they feed you with the same soft -mush around election time to help them to ride into power on your votes; -then after election they give you Brownsville and lynching bees. Do you -wonder that General Clarkson, a grandson of the <span id="Page_58" -class="pagenum">[58]</span> great abolitionist, when he gave up his job -as collector of the Port of New York, said that he was sick of the way -in which the Republican party was selling you out? The Republican party -is always engaged in selling you out—or in selling out the working -people of this country. Do you doubt it? Then ask yourselves why is it -that a Republican Congress has never said a word or done anything about -the disfranchisement of nearly three million Negro voters in the South? -Read the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution -and you will see that the Republican party has always had the power to -stop it. But just now I want to get you interested in the one party that -strikes at the very root of your trouble and that of every workingman in -the country—white and black alike. I want you to see what is the -attitude of the Socialist Party toward the American Negro. And for that -reason I am introducing to you the following declarations of the -attitude made by Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist candidate for President, -and by other members of the party. Compare its straight-forward, -uncompromising utterances with what the other two parties have said and -done; then look yourself in the face and say whether it is worth you -while to sell your birthright and your future freedom—yes, and that of -your children and your children’s children—for a mess of political -pottage.</p> -</div> -<div class="chapter"> -<span id="Page_59" class="pagenum">[59]</span> -<h2> -THE NEGRO AND THE NEWSPAPERS -</h2> -<p>It is not an easy task to plead in the courts of the oppressor -against oppression and wrong. It is not easy to get the judgement of the -white men of the world against the white man’s injustice to the black. -But nevertheless the attempt must be made and made again until the -seared conscience of the civilized world’s hall throbs with righteous -indignation at such outrage. “To sin by silence when we should protest -makes cowards out of men. The human race has climbed on protest. Had no -voice been raised against injustice, ignorance and lust, the Inquisition -yet would serve the law and guillotines decide our least disputes. The -few who dare must speak and speak again to right the wrongs of -many.”</p> -<p>The urgent need of speaking out is shown by the following -communication from Mr. J. Ellis Barker of London in an interview given -to a correspondent of <b>The New York Age</b> and published in that -paper on December 29th 1910.</p> -<p>“We people in Europe,” says Mr. Barker, “do not understand the race -problem, and we do not know the colored people, for the simple reason -that there are not any colored people in Europe. In London, where I -live, there are only a few hundred colored students whom one does not -meet. Before I came to the United States my prejudice against the -colored people was as great as that of any Southern planter. My -prejudice against your race, as I believe the prejudice of most white -people, was due rather to ignorance than to ill-will. I had been told in -the books and papers published in Europe that the colored people were a -race of barbarians <span id="Page_60" class="pagenum">[60]</span> and -savages. I had been told that the colored people were a worthless set of -people, dressed in rags, working a day or two during the week, and -loafing during the rest of the time. I was told that the colored people -were idle, diseased and vicious. So I imagined that all of them lived in -slums and alleys and that the aristocracy of the race consisted of the -waiters and railway porters.</p> -<p>I had been told that the colored people only played at science; that -their doctors and lawyers were <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "charlatems" in original.">charlatans</span>. -I had been told that the people of a mixed race were even worse than -pure Negroes; that the mulattoes had lost the primitive virtues of the -Negroes and had acquired all of the vices of the whites. A chance -encounter with a cultured man of color induced me to look into the race -problem and I was perfectly amazed when I discovered how greatly the -colored people have been libelled and traduced. I have spent a -considerable amount of time with colored people and have met many who -are highly cultivated. I have found that among your race you have -excellent lawyers, and some of the foremost physicians and surgeons. I -have been over a large number of your elementary and higher grade -schools and colleges and over Howard University, and I have admired the -earnest and resolute determination with which your children try to -improve their minds and to raise themselves. In your night schools I -have found old men and women, former slaves, who are anxious to learn -writing and reading. I have been to the homes of many colored people and -I have <span id="Page_61" class="pagenum">[61]</span> found them cosy, -comfortable, elegant, and peopled by happy and harmonious families. I -have come to the conclusion that the race is oppressed and persecuted -and very largely because it is not known.”</p> -<p>But it is not in Europe alone that these baneful effects of calumny -appear. Here in America, and even in the south where the bulk of the -Negroes live in the midst of a people who resentfully declare that they -should be left to deal with the Negro because they alone know him—even -there the notion of the Negro, fostered by the press and other agencies -of public opinion is as wide of the truth as it can be. To -illustrate:</p> -<p>In the March number of Van Norden’s Magazine in 1907 there appeared a -symposium on The Negro Question. It was composed of expressions of -opinion from twelve intelligent southerners, and was followed by an -article by Mr. Booker T. Washington. The humor of the think lay in this, -that these men were Southern college presidents and heads of banks, had -lived all their lives among Negroes, and were, by their own words, -proved to be either woefully or willfully ignorant of what the Negro had -done and was doing. The mordant irony of fate decreed that -Mr. Washington should be the one to present the facts that changed their -seeming sapience to Falstaffian farce. The president of Randolph-Macon -Woman’s College, Va. set forth that the Negro will not work regularly, -that he needs but three dollars a week and, therefore, works but three -days to get it and “quits work to <span id="Page_62" -class="pagenum">[62]</span> spend it.” The president of Howard College, -Alabama declared that, “My deliberate opinion is that the days of the -Negro as a fair, honest laborer are numbered, and are few at that. He is -becoming daily more shiftless, more unreliable, more restless, less -inclined to work steadily.” The president of the University of South -Carolina and the president of the North Carolina College of Agriculture -and Mechanic Arts re-echoed the same doleful dictum while the president -of the First National Bank of Birmingham, Ala. and the president of the -Bank of Lexington, N.C. declared that it was a mistake to grant the -rights of citizenship to the Negro and that education was a curse to -him. The president of Guilford College repeated the “lazy, shiftless” -argument while the president of Randolph-Macon College, Va. said, -“Reduce their wages so that they shall have to work all the time to make -a living and they will become better workmen or disappear in the -struggle for existence,” repeating in substance, the argument of his -brother-president of the Woman’s college.</p> -<p>Mr. Washington’s article did not show any sign that it had been -written as a reply of any sort. But it did show among other things, that -the census of 1900 proved that the Negro people <b>owned</b> in the very -states of these college presidents, “23,383 square miles of territory, -an area nearly as large as that of Holland and Belgium combined”; that -this represented only a quarter of the farms worked by them; that, -“after a searching investigation, I have not been able to find that a -single graduate of Tuskegee, Hampton or any of the Negro <span -id="Page_63" class="pagenum">[63]</span> colleges can now be found in -the prisons of the South;” that in a single county of -Virginia-Gloucester Co.—Negroes were paying taxes on land valued at 88 -million dollars and on buildings assessed at 80 millions, and all this -on the soil where they had been slaves forty years before.</p> -<p>Is not this eloquent of the value of American opinion on the American -Negro as given in the American press? And the question suggested is, -whether such statements are published in ignorance or ill-will? In -either case it is equally damnatory.</p> -<p>In December 1907 Professor R. R. Wright, Jr., an eminent Negro -sociologist, published in McGirt’s Magazine an article on “The -Newspapers and the Negro”, showing how the Negro is being “done” by -headlines and other newspaper devices. The Horizon, at that time the -most brilliant Negro <span class="correction" -title="Transcriber's Note: "prodical" in original.">periodical</span>, -dealt with the subject in its issue for April 1908. Under the caption, -“The Color Line in the Press Dispatches”, it quoted approvingly these -words of a Socialist paper—The Appeal to Reason—“The hand that fakes the -Associated Press is the hand that rules the world.” European readers who -are acquainted with the occasional diversions of Reuter’s Hong Kong and -Shanghai correspondents will appreciate the point.</p> -<p>The Horizon was constrained to refer to the matter again in its -August issue. In both instances specific cases were cited and proof -given. Since that time the need of some formal protest has been growing -in the minds of all those thinking Negroes who are not compelled to -“crook the preg<span id="Page_64" class="pagenum">[64]</span>nant hinges -of the Knee”; and it has grown largely because the practices complained -of have grown to alarming proportions.</p> -<p>The newspapers of this country have many crimes to answer for. They -feature our criminals in bold head lines: our substantial men when -noticed at all are relegated to the agate type division. Their methods, -whether they obtain through set purpose or through carelessness, -constantly appeal to the putrid passion of race hatred. They cause -rapine to break loose by nurturing rancor. They help create untold -sorrow. They are week-kneed and apologizing when the hour is bloody.</p> -<p>But how can such a protest be effectively put? Though Truth come hot -on the heels of Falsehood it could not quite undo its devil’s work. And -the detractors of the weak and helpless are well aware of this.</p> -<p>But Truth in the Negro’s case is not even unleashed. Truth, in fact, -is chained up and well guarded, and it is this terrible task of setting -Truth free that the Negro must essay in the very teeth of the American -press. It is not an easy task to voice an adequate protest, for it needs -the widest publicity. And since prejudice will oppose, it needs prestige -also. Any such effort must feel itself feeble, and yet it must be -made.</p> -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEGRO AND THE NATION ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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