whom the Chinese did not and could not compete. They were then, as now, chiefly employed as agriculturalists, and in the performance of work which no American would voluntarily do—that is, menial drudgery. The class which declared itself injured by Chinese labour were not Americans, but European aliens, accustomed to nearly, if not quite, as low and degraded social conditions as the Chinese; yet no sooner had they landed in America than they joined in the clamour for excluding these exceedingly useful and industrious immigrants from the country. It is highly probable that much of the immigration which has come to America from Asia is superior to that which has come from Europe. It is morally certain that China has not sent thither paupers, criminals, or lunatics.1

America, by her exclusion law, has certainly largely divorced herself from a nation from which she might derive much more commercial benefit than she does at present, or is likely to do in the near future.

1 At present there are single States of America with over 10,000 feebleminded persons. According to the last census there are over 100,000 idiots and lunatics publicly known in America, which is supposed to be 25,000 below the real number.

CHAPTER XIII

THE NEGRO PROBLEM

It is gravely maintained that there are times when reason and law do not and cannot govern in America, where the sentiment of the whole or a part of the people is stronger than the law.

A contemplation of such a dangerous contingency involves us in the meshes of the relationship between the only two races which do not assimilate in America' -the black and the white: in other words, the negro problem.

Prior to the Civil War the negro was fostered and protected by the institution of slavery, and for a portion of the nineteenth century the ranks of the blacks were reinforced by fresh importations. Under these influences the negro population increased between 1790 and 1860 from 757,208 to 4,441,830-that is to say, sextupled itself in seventy years.

Since the war which freed the negroes, these four and a half millions have expanded to nearly nine

1 I should like it here to be understood that I use the term "assimilation " in its political and social sense. We cannot shut our eyes to facts; and I would further make it clear that the statistics of the black population comprehends the varying degrees of colour.

millions,1 which means that it has doubled itself in four decades. The increase in the last ten years (1,370,749) is alone equal to the population of Connecticut and Rhode Island. In view of this, what becomes of the comfortable theory of the negroes' extinction by reason of "enfeebled vital capacity"? It is true that the negro constitutes a slowly dwindling minority of the total population, owing to the enormous influx of alien whites, to the number since 1860 of 14,000,000. But if the two races, white and "black," should continue to grow at the same rate as during the past decade, it would require at least 110 years to reduce the negro element to one-tenth of the total population. Ten per cent. is, then, the practically irreducible minimum; and as long as the negroes form one-tenth of the nation, the race problem is a serious one for Americans in their present state of mind to face.

2

In the South one constantly hears the phrase, "The negro is all right in his place." Now, what is the negro's place? In the opinion of one eminent black cleric, he has no place at all in America. Neither the North nor the South gives him a "place," and his sole chance of happiness and prosperity would seem to be in exodus to the land of his origin, Africa.

Let us see if the negro has a social sphere guaranteeing him freedom, comfort, and justice in any part of America.

There is no blinking the growing severity of the

1 According to the census of 1900, the "black" population throughout the entire country has increased in practically the same ratio as the white population, there being 8,840,789 as against 7,488,788 in the year 1890. The growth is thus a trifle over 18 per cent.

2 Bishop Turner.

national attitude towards the negroes. No longer is it confined to the South. The North has become suddenly acquiescent, leaving the South to deal with the problem in its own way. In every Southern State the negroes have been disfranchised by more or less devious methods, until the nullification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution is all but complete. Only the other day a Southern Senator openly defended and applauded lynching.

A Bill was lately introduced into the Legislature of Louisiana-a State notorious for the frequency and brutality of its lynchings-authorizing the Governor to transfer negro prisoners and order a change of venue in cases where a lynching was threatened. Respect for law and order, one would have thought, would have ensured the passage of this measure. The Louisiana law-makers, however, with full knowledge that thereby they were practically licensing lynching, contemptuously threw it out. A few days later an Alabama judge released a white man who was convicted of having helped to burn a negro alive, the victim being afterwards proved innocent of the crime laid to his charge; while in Missouri, in the "black-belt region," there is an almost chronic state of civil war between the blacks and the whites.

Again, the movement towards giving legal effect to the social segregation of the two races, which has always been the custom of the South, is growing rapidly. The "Jim Crow" cars on the railway are now required by law. In Louisiana, marriages between white and coloured persons, no matter how little the admixture of negro blood may be, have been declared illegal; and a Bill

N

has just been passed requiring separate tram-cars for whites and negroes in the cities throughout the State.

An Englishman, knowing of the prejudices of the South, would suppose that the blacks would fly to the more congenial atmosphere of the Northern States. But the negro knows that, on the whole, he is better off where he is. There are not as many negroes in all New England as there are in two counties of the State of Mississippi.

In the thirty-one Northern and Western States and Territories they are not so numerous as in the State of Alabama.

The black suffers an industrial exclusion north of the Mason and Dixon's line in return for his political suppression in the South.

Race prejudice is not wholly confined to the South. The recent race riots in New York, the lynchings in Ohio and Indiana, and burnings at the stake in Kansas and Colorado, betray something more than acquiescent apathy.

In New York, negroes, no matter how well-dressed and well-behaved, are excluded from theatres, hotels, places of popular resort, and even from churches. If a black man has the temerity to enter a white man's church, which is not often, he is shown to the gallery, and a pretty wide space made for him by the other occupants. Mr. Daniel Frohman, of the Lyceum Theatre, one of the best known of American managers, told me that, some years ago, a coloured man and his wife were upon one occasion forcibly debarred from entering his theatre. The man naturally protested, calling the manager's attention to a law which imposes a fine of $500 for such race discrimination.