"There are certain problems," he says, "which from their very nature do not admit of a categorical solution. They are as perennial as human existence itself. The real meaning of life is found in frankly acknowledging them and in bravely facing the duties to which this acknowledgment gives rise. It is only the dogmatic philosopher or the orthodox theologian who presents us with final solutions and then contentedly takes an intellectual and moral holiday. For the masses of men life is largely a compromise with insuperable difficulties, a persistent and courageous struggle for a modus vivendi." • Professor Mecklin's book discusses in separate chapters, the "Basis of Social Solidarity," "Race Traits," the "Negro and His Social Heritage," "Race Prejudice," "The Philosophy of the Color Line," "Creating a Conscience," "The Negro and the Supreme Court," and "Equality before the Law." In his chapter on "Race Prejudice," he makes the following comment: "In an enlightened and self-conscious community there is a very important sense in which the group mind is consciously reflected in the choices individuals express in the marriage relation. The group mind of the primitive man was only vaguely aware of the intent to conserve the group type, and with it the basis of the group culture, in its insistence upon the observance of custom and taboo in regard to marriage. In modern society, where there is a much clearer apprehension of the interests involved, the powerful influence of public sentiment, expressed indeed in conventions and social habits and yet distinctly aware of its purpose, is everywhere in evidence controlling the choices of the contracting parties. Society recognises that the interests and inclinations of the parties immediately concerned should be subordinated to the larger interests of the group. It is distinctly aware of the fundamental importance, for the welfare and continued existence of the group's life, of conserving the hereditary racial basis which is the bearer of the group culture. The social condemnation of the union of whites and negroes is a manifestation of this demand that group integrity be preserved. Such an intermingling of blood implies a vast deal more than the union of the two persons concerned. It would inevitably bring in time a profound modification of the cultural ideals of the white through the resulting transformation of the ethnic background of those ideals. The loss of this 'self-conscious ethnic personality,' this self-poised psychophysical entity, which makes a civilisation possible, would be a serious disaster. Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction: A Study in Social Ethics, p. vii, "Hence prejudice against colour may in its lasi analysis be prompted by laudable instincts of group self-preservation. Race-friction may be due to an inevitable conflict between group values as they find concrete embodiment in two diverse races. Where races differ so greatly that the result of amalgamation is neither the one type nor the other, but a confusion of the two, the race that has the most at stake resists it as meaning ultimately the dissipation of its cultural identity and the cheapening of all that makes its future worth living for. It is no accident of history that mongrel peoples are almost always characterized by instability of political institutions and a general inchoateness of civilisation. "It is certain, then, that there is much inarticulate wisdom in the race antipathy which the uncritical humanitarian would class with the fear of mice and rats. To be sure, it often seems stubbornly irrational and even flagrantly undemocratic. A young white woman, a graduate of a great university of the far North, where negroes are seldom seen, resented it most indignantly when she was threatened with social ostracism in a city farther South with a large negro population because she insisted upon receiving on terms of social equality a negro man who was her classmate. The logic of the social mind in this case was something as follows: When society permits the free social intercourse of two young persons of similar training and interests, it tactitly gives its consent to the possible legitimate results of such relations, namely, marriage. But marriage is not a matter that concerns the contracting parties alone; it is social in its origin and from society come its sanctions. It is society's legitimised method for the perpetuation of the race in the larger and inclusive sense of a continuous racial type which shall be the bearer of a continuous and progressive civilisation. There are, however, within the community two racial groups of such widely divergent physical and psychic characteristics that the blending of the two destroys the purity of the type of both and introduces confusionthe result of the blend is a mongrel. The preservation of the unbroken, self-conscious existence of the white or dominant ethnic group is synonymous with the preservation of all that has meaning and inspiration in its past and hope for its future. It forbids by law, therefore, or by the equally effective social taboo, anything that would tend to contaminate the purity of its stock or jeopardize the integrity of its social heritage. "The presence of a large element with more or less mixed blood cannot be taken as proof that the basis of this race antipathy is essentially superficial, for this intermingling has taken place in direct opposition to the social sanctions of both groups. The impulses that have brought about this fusion are not essentially different from those exhibited in the mating of animals of different breeds. They cannot be cited against a legitimate race antipathy and in favour of race amalgamation, unless, of course, we are prepared to place the sanctions of human society on the same level with that of the brutes. It is one of the curious illustrations of the mental distortion aroused by the discussion of this vexed race-question that writers often seem inclined to find in these evidences of the triumph of the animal in both races a rational justification for race fusion. The ultimate issue at stake is not altered by the fact that in this clandestine fashion white blood has found its way into the veins of a few illustrious individuals, classed as negroes, but in reality belonging to neither ethnic group. "The fundamental incompatibilities of racial temperament and tradition which operate to make the great majority of actual unions between the two groups unhappy and the fact that many of those who do enter upon these unions belong to the criminal or anti-social element of both groups would seem to indicate that the condemnation of such unions by the better elements of both races has a substantial basis." Dr. Thomas J. Woofter, member of the Commission on Inter-racial Coöperation, is the author of The Basis of Racial Adjustment, which is designed for use as a text in classes for the study of race problems. The book aims to lead the student to view the problems from the standpoint of the best sources, and not to impose the author's bias. At the end of each chapter sources are cited from both Negro and white authorities. 'Mecklin, op. cit., pp. 145-9. CHAPTER 39 NEGRO POETS Paul Laurence Dunbar-Claude McKay-James Weldon Johnson-Means, Hawkins, Corrothers, and Fenton Johnson-Recent Tendencies in Negro PoetryThe Tragedy of the Mulattoes Revealed in Poetry AMONG the Negro writers of poetry the name of Paul Laurence Dunbar stands out as preeminent. He was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1872. After receiving a high school education he began to earn his living as an elevator boy at a salary of $4 a week. In 1893 he was appointed by Fred Douglass as assistant in the care of the exhibit from Haiti at the World's Fair. Dunbar began to write verses when he was in high school, and by the time he had entered upon his duties at the World's Fair he had written a number of clever poems and had attracted some attention as a reader of them. In 1893 a collection of his poems was published under the title of Oak and Ivy, and in 1895 a second collection appeared under the title of Majors and Minors. These poems caught the eye of William Dean Howells, who wrote a favorable review of them for Harper's Weekly. Thereafter Dunbar was well known to students of current literature, and his suceeding publications found a wide and appreciative circle of readers. Among his later publications were Lyrics of Lowly Life, Lyrics of the Hearthstone, Poems of Cabin and Field, etcetera. His merit as a poet consisted in his faithful delineation of the life of the Negro in its humble and picturesque setting, with a fine touch of humor and pathos, and an artful use of dialect. His reputation was enhanced by his visit to England in 1897, on which he won recognition in literary circles. Upon his return to America, at the age of twenty-six, he was able to devote himself entirely to his literary compositions and to public readings. But, just as he was entering into the flowering period of his career, his health began to fail. Inability to carry on his literary work was necessarily followed by financial embarrassment. Through the influence of Robert G. Ingersoll, he was appointed to a position in the Library of Congress, but was obliged to give up this work after a few months owing to the bad effect of the confinement upon his health. After a vain search for health in Colorado, he returned to his home at Dayton, where he died February 9, 1906. Dunbar's achievement as a poet was, indeed, remarkable for a man whose span of life covered only thirty-four years. But he was richly endowed by nature-a real poetic genius. He had the poet's imagination and delicacy of feeling and these found expression through the medium of a refined literary taste and felicity of language. One of his most beautiful poems is "The Deserted Plantation" in which he shows his ability to see and interpret the finer aspects of the antebellum South: "Oh, de grubbin'-hoe's a-rustin' in de co'nah, An' de plow's a-tumblin' down in de fiel', "In de furrers whah de co'n was allus wavin', Now de weeds is growin' green an' rank an' tall; "An' de banjo's voice is silent in de qua'ters, D' ain't a hymn ner co'n-song ringin' in de air; "Whah's de da'kies, dem dat used to be a-dancin' Whah's de chillun, dem dat used to be a-prancin' "Whah's ole Uncle Mordecai an' Uncle Aaron? Whah's Aunt Doshy, Sam, an' Kit, an' all de res'? "Gone! not one o' dem is lef' to tell de story; Dey have lef' de deah ole place to fall away. |