been signal failures, and I see no ground for hoping that Cox's scheme or any other will ever succeed. I think the time is coming, however, when our country, like the old countries of Europe, will have an overflowing population, causing the Negro to feel more sharply than now the pressure of competition with the whites and then, not unlikely, the states having a large Negro population may offer transportation to Negro citizens who may wish to migrate to some other country.

CHAPTER 60

RACE SEGREGATION AS A SOLUTION

Natural Tendency of Races to Keep Apart-Negro Segregation in AmericaOpposition of the Negroes to Enforced Segregation-Advantages and Disadvantages of Segregation-Views of James Bryce on the Subject

N discussing the question of Negro and Caucasian segregation in the United States, we would do well to recall the fact that there is a general tendency among the races of the world to segregate; and that this is especially true of races which differ in color. The black, brown, yellow, and white races have gradually and spontaneously segregated themselves, and now occupy well defined geographical areas, except where conquest has disturbed the isolating process.

B. L. Putnam Weale, in his book, The Conflict of Color, argues that racial ties are much stronger than national ones, and that the future boundary lines of nations must conform to those of the races. According to his classification, there are four great races of the world: the white, the black, the yellow, and the brown. Each of these races, he tells us, has its natural habitat to which it is adapted; and each would resist the encroachment of any other race. He regards as especially dangerous to the future of the white race a continuance of its aggressions upon the territory of other races. The black, yellow, and brown races vastly outnumber the whites, and the time is not distant when they may be expected to acquire a military efficiency equal to that of the whites, and when they may probably make formidable alliances, and turn against their former white tutors. It behooves the white race, therefore, as speedily as possible to withdraw from the territory of other races.

Since the World War the idea of racial segregation, advanced by Weale, seems to have seized the minds of the foremost statesmen of every great nation, and has found expression in the League of Nations, whose chief aim, it seems, is to bring about world peace by conforming political boundaries to those of the race.

This trend toward the international segregation of the races of the world should suggest to the people of the United States that we

lend a helping hand to the black, yellow, and brown races, but keep our hands off of their territory, and preserve our territory for our own

race.

"Every consideration," says Conklin, "should lead those who believe in the superiority of the white race to strive to preserve its purity and to establish and maintain the segregation of the races, for the longer this is maintained the greater the preponderance of the white race will be."

"1

Wherever races differing widely in physical characteristics come together in the same territory, through conquest or immigration, the tendency is for each race to form segregated groups; i. e., they occupy different areas or stratify into castes and classes. Instances of territorial segregation of races in the same country are the Japanese and Ainu of Japan, the Malays and Negritos of the Philippine Islands, the Europeans and the aborigines of South Africa, the Yankees and Sandwich Islanders in Hawaii, and the Americans and Amerindians of Porto Rico. The most striking instance of race stratification is in India.

From the beginning of Negro slavery in America, it has been the natural tendency of the whites and blacks to live apart, except in so far as the economic conditions necessitated contact. Neither the whites nor the blacks have had any idea of intermingling their blood, and down to the present time both races have been in favor of social separation wherever they have existed together in considerable masses.

The policy of segregating the Negro in the United States has not come about through any consideration of expediency, or mutual advantage, but has resulted from the natural dispositions of the races. In the Southern states the general policy of segregation is preferred. by both races, but differences of opinion exist as to the place and manner of drawing the line of separation.

In all of the Southern towns the Negroes tend to live together in one or more sections, generally designated as Africa, Haiti, Snow Hill, etc. In a number of settlements and incorporated towns all, or nearly all, of the inhabitants are Negroes. There are fifty of such towns listed in the Negro Year Book, published at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama. Of these, thirteen are in Oklahoma, six in Georgia, five in Alabama, five in Texas, four in California, four in Ohio, and from one to three in Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan, Nebraska, Tennessee, Kansas and 'The Direction of Human Evolution, p. 53.

Florida. Also there are many towns in the South and West where Negroes are not permitted to reside. These anti-Negro towns are found mostly in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, and Indiana, and in the smaller towns in the Appalachian region of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, also in some small towns along the Atlantic Coast in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.

Even in agricultural regions of the South there is a tendency toward segregation. "A natural segregation of the races," says Baker, "is apparently taking place. I saw it everywhere I went in the black belt. The white people are gravitating towards the towns, or into white neighborhoods, and leaving the land, even though still owned by white men, more and more to the exclusive occupation of the Negroes. Many black counties are growing blacker while a few white. counties are growing whiter." 2

In the cities the Negroes have their distinctive residence quarters, their own banks, clothing and dry-goods stores, grocery stores, drug stores, and barber shops; their professional class of dentists, physicians, and preachers; and their social groups, lodges, picture shows, churches, and Young Men's Christian Associations and Young Women's Christian Associations.

Says the mulatto Thomas, "in many sections, light-hued negroes associate together, and hold themselves as much aloof from contact with the blacks as do the most exclusive whites." 3

In some Western states it has seemed necessary to regulate segregation in order to prevent race friction, leading to crime, riots, and other disturbances of the peace. For example, in Kansas City, where the Negroes constitute only about three and one-half percent of the population, they made such a showing of numbers in the city schools in some districts as to give rise to perpetual animosity, and frequent clashes between the white and Negro children. At length the antagonism led to an outbreak, and the killing of a white boy. This tragedy aroused public sentiment, which brought pressure to bear upon the state legislature and resulted in the establishment of special schools for blacks.

Everywhere in the North and West where the Negroes are found, they are more or less segregated from the whites geograpically, and also in churches, theaters, hotels, and retail stores, not by law, but by custom, and the good sense of both races.

In the Southern states, where the two races are thrown together in great masses, there would be perpetual clashes, and outbreaks of violence in schools, churches, hotels, and in places of amusement if there were not some local regulation of racial contact. Legalized separation of the races in the South pertains to schools, hotels, restaurants, theaters, street cars, and railway cars.

Recently there has been some agitation among the whites in favor of laws requiring the Negroes to occupy specified blocks in cities and specified areas of farm land. In 1912 the legislature of Louisiana authorized the segregation of whites and black in the cities, and the same year a similar law was passed in Virginia. Ordinances compelling residential segregation of the Negro have been enacted in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Baltimore, and St. Louis.

No state, however, has yet enacted a law requiring the segregation of Negroes in agricultural districts. But such laws exist in South Africa. Commenting upon the policy of territorial segregation of the Negroes in South Africa, Evans says that: "the separation of the races is held by a majority of the Europeans to be the true policy, and the principle has been accepted by the Legislature. In 1913 a Land Bill providing for territorial separation was passed through Parliament, and a Commission was appointed under the Act. It is now engaged in provisionally demarcating the areas which it is intended should eventually be white and black respectively, and meanwhile the leasing and sale of land between the races is prohibited.” ♦

The proposition to segregate the Negro in rural districts of the South has been championed by Clarence Poe, and other Southern leaders of high standing. One of the chief arguments in support of it is that it would free white women of the fear of attack, and encourage white immigration. But up to the present time sentiment in favor of it does not seem to be strong or gaining ground. D. W. Weatherford, field secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association, objects that a rural segregation law would tend to drive the Negroes into towns where they are already too numerous for their good, or the good of the white people. He shares the opinion of most white people that it is best that the Negroes stay in the country and become landowners."

The Southern Negroes themselves oppose this form of segregation, and generally oppose any compulsory segregation, but they heartily

4

Black and White in the Southern States, p. 258.

"Race Segregation in the Rural South," Survey, Jan. 2, 1915.