the fact that in this country the color of the inferior race is associated with its former condition of degrading servitude, and fixes upon it with an indelible mark the status of subordination.

Scott pictures in Ivanhoe the wretched plight of the Saxon thrall during the years following the Norman conquest, when, forced to wear soldered fast around his neck a brass. ring, the symbol of his subjection to the conqueror, it appeared that his subjugation was a thing of permanent establishment. But in that case no radical difference of race existed, intermarriages followed, sympathetic relations were soon effected, the degrading collar was quickly removed, and complete assimilation followed between the conqueror and conquered. How different the situation of the negro. No removal of his pronounced physical dissimilarity can ever be made possible, and in this fact lies the impossibility of any progress towards assimilation.

Other countries have to some extent accepted intermixture of the negro with the white as a solution of the problem, but the results accomplished by this process in Cuba, Mexico, and South America are scarcely to be regarded as happy illustrations of the beneficial effect of the commingling of alien races. Without further argument, it is in like manner intended to proceed upon the theory that the basic and unalterable differences existing between the races will continue, and must constitute a perpetual element in the consideration of the problem.

Definition of the

Having thus in a measure considered the origin of the problem, we are called upon to state in what its main aspects consist at the present time. The negro problem is difficult of definition; so much depends upon Problem. the viewpoint of the individual. For the average Southerner there is no negro problem apart from the utilization of his services as a worker and the necessity of "keep

ing the nigger in his place." The average Northerner expresses slight interest in the matter, contenting himself with saying, "Let the South work it out." A few amiable philanthropists in our Northern cities appear to regard the problem as of simple character, involving merely the question of providing the means necessary to give the negro an education.

For the negro himself, with few exceptions, the problem, if difficult, is not complex, consisting merely in the ascertainment of some easy and effective method of asserting and maintaining his equality in all respects with the white man. The exceptions are the thinking men and women of the race, daily growing in numbers and influence, of whom Booker T. Washington, the universally respected President of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, is the ablest representative in clarity of thought and elevation of purpose. His definition follows:

The problem is how to make these millions of negroes self-supporting, intelligent, economical and valuable citizens, as well as to bring about the proper relations between them and the white citizens among whom they live.

With becoming deference to those who, perhaps better informed than the writer, have sought to frame a definition of this complicated problem, it is submitted that the ordinary presentation of the question is lacking in precision as well as in comprehensiveness, and the following is offered as being sufficiently accurate for the purpose:

By what means may the people of the United States, with the whites and negroes in effective co-operation, bring about the adoption of a definite policy for the permanent adjustment of the relations of the respective races towards each other, so that each may enjoy unrestricted opportunity for develop

ment; and upon the adoption of such a policy, what measures will be necessary to put it into practical operation?

The negro has never in a true sense formed a component part of the citizenship of this nation. He has always been in a greater or lesser degree in the position of a ward, requiring sympathy, guidance, and control. In strict accuracy, he has never been considered a fully qualified citizen of the country, having had the legal right to national citizenship only for the past forty years, and never having possessed the full exercise of influential citizenship in any part of the land. If individuals of the race have raised themselves above the level of their associates and commanded attention, their authority has been confined to their own people, and in respect to exercising any beneficial influence upon the intellectual or industrial development of the nation, the achievements of the negro have been inconsiderable. His undeveloped character has been the great bar to his progress to prominence and power. Comparatively deficient in intellectual qualifications, unstable in his business relations, notoriously lacking in moral training, uncultivated upon the ethical side of his nature, the negro has remained, in the mass, essentially a child, a subordinate, and to this day is scarcely appreciative of the uncertainty of his position and of his lack of substantial qualifications for citizenship.

Race

The reason the negro has failed to achieve a higher position is superficially considered to arise from the fact that there exists against him what is called "race prejudice" Antipathy. on the part of the white, which closes to him every avenue of opportunity. The employment of the word "prejudice" in this relation is singularly inaccurate. By derivation and established meaning, it signifies an opinion formed or decision made without due examination; a prejudgment of the matter involved. Such is not the attitude of the Caucasian towards the negro. In strict accuracy

we may say that in the United States there exists on the part of the white people a strong antipathy against the negro, not superficial or unreasonable but founded upon the instinct for racial purity dominating the superior race. It is useless to deny that this racial antipathy exists. In fact, it is so universal and overwhelming as to constitute an insuperable barrier to the negro's progress. This natural aversion to the African is something which the Creator has implanted so firmly in the breasts of the white men and women of the United States that no scheme of education, no process of religious training, no appeal to imagined higher traits of character, is effectual perceptibly to lessen its force. We may be taught in our churches to regard the negro as a brother under the great fatherhood of God, but the lesson of fraternity proves hopelessly insufficient when brought to the test of every day conditions of life.

This pronounced repulsion of the white toward the negro is a thing not to be ignored. It must be taken into account in every discussion of the prospect of the amelioration of the condition of the negro race. It is founded upon such fundamental, primitive instincts that its eradication is absolutely impossible. As a result of this overpowering race antipathy, the negro is unable even to secure an opportunity for his development.

Nor does this feeling of repulsion exist solely upon the part of the white race. In a measure it is quite as keen and active with the negro, displaying itself in a different aspect. Under the usual apparent submissiveness and deference of the negro, more especially in the mulatto individual, is to be found a sullen, malignant hatred of the superior race, easily inflamed and jealously quickening into life under slight provocation. This is but the natural result of centuries of scornful treatment, industrial oppression, and constant assertion of race superiority.

Is the negro forever to endure insult and outrage in the South, contempt and humiliation in the North? Cannot Atlanta shootings, Springfield hangings, Indiana banishments, Texas conflagrations, and New England scornful isolation stir his sluggish blood? May he not, at least, have the privilege of saying to the white man what the outraged Shylock says facing his Christian persecutors?—

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

The imminency of the negro problem lies in the clash of the democratic theory of government with the presence of an inferior and practically a subject race, and unless we are prepared to avoid a succession of Brownsville incidents by establishing a system of permanent caste, iron in its inflexibility and designed rigidly and forever to confine the negro to an inferior position, we must find some means to remedy the existing condition of racial discord.

The aspiration of the negro race is for equality, and in a land where the Declaration of Independence is yet held in The Negro's some reverence, and where elaborate constituDemand for tional provisions assure its members protection, Equality. the opportunity for equality cannot safely be denied the humblest member of the race.