demands that the amount expended for educational purposes in negro schools should be only in proportion to the taxes paid by that race. He ignores the fact that the negro is largely the wealth producer of the section, and adopts the outworn theory that the taxpayer is he who carries the money, product of labor, to the tax-gatherer's office. The large landowner of the South-generally land poor-would prefer to lease his otherwise unproductive fields to an ignorant, thriftless negro, whom he can cajole or coerce into paying an extortionate rent, than to deal with a more intelligent and self-respecting white tenant who would be likely to demand a greater proportionate share of the annual product.

Results of the Solu

South.

The results of this practical acceptance of the Southerner's solution are beginning to attract the attention of the nation. They are just such results as might be expected to flow from the measures adopted. As has been tion of the stated in a former chapter, from Pennsylvania to Mexico the vote of the negro has been substantially suppressed. The gravity of this phase of the situation will form the subject of a subsequent chapter, where the deplorable results certain to follow from this cause will be demonstrated.

The social condition of the black race has been fixed as dramatically and inexorably as the tragic laws of caste are established upon the plain of the Ganges, and at the least effort upon his part to surmount the social barriers erected against him, the spirit of racial animosity asserts itself in bitter antagonism. In many sections of the South the system of peonage is fairly well established, and it is due only to the repressive sentiment of the North that the virtual reintroduction of slavery has not taken place. Can any thoughtful person acquainted with the facts entertain a doubt that were the South a separate nation, as forty-seven years

ago it aspired to make itself, the institution of slavery would gradually be re-established within its territory?

We cannot feel that the best thought of the South is satisfied with this solution, and we must believe that it is accepted as the best possible adjustment under the circumstances rather than as a final remedy for the evils arising from the presence of this alien people. Upon what mysterious consideration, then, do the people of that section so desire to retain with them the negro, whose inveterate depravity and absolute incapacity for improvement they so emphatically assert? Why do they not take measures to eliminate this disturbing factor from their social and industrial life?

The answer is simple. So conservative are the business habits and methods of thought of the section, so dependent have the various interests become upon this unreliable race, that the very mention of a negro exodus evokes a protest of indignant alarm. The vocation of an agent sent to the Southern States to induce negroes to emigrate is not esteemed particularly safe or profitable. In Georgia an annual tax of $500 is imposed upon this occupation, and in other states drastic measures to prevent the negroes from leaving the community are employed whenever deemed necessary.

This, then, is the solution of the South. Enforced to its legitimate conclusion, its effect will be to reduce the negro to a condition of perpetual serfdom, and thus to blight the future prosperity of the section; to continue the geographical estrangement of the North and South, and to keep suspended over the nation the ever present danger of sectional conflict.

Moreover, as has been pointed out, this vicious solution is now in practical operation. We have seen in our survey of the present condition of the negro to what an alarming degree he has been eliminated as a factor in the citizenship of the communities south of Pennsylvania.

Should it, then, be a matter of wonderment if, deprived

of religious, educational, political, and social equality, excluded from the polls and the jury box, holding his life, liberty, and property at the mercy of the dominant race, the thinking negro is slow in his advancement, sullen and resentful in his conduct? Is it not to be expected that race riots will increase in number and violence, when, in strenuous opposition to the enforcement of this method of solution, leaders of the race such as Professor DuBois and Professor Kelly Miller issue pamphlets denouncing the injustice of the negro's treatment, and calling upon him boldly to assert the rights secured to him by the Federal Constitution?

The solution of the South is impossible. Could a line be drawn between North and South across which the black man must not go to the North, and across which Impossibility of this the white dollar and the white schoolbook must Solution. not go to the South, the solution might suffice for temporary purposes. But so long as the little schoolhouse of the South affords the negro a glimpse of the advantages of education; so long as Howard University, Atlanta University, and Tuskegee Institute summon the aspiring colored youth to scholarship, culture, and refining associations; so long as the examples of the scores, yes, hundreds of negro men prominent in science, teaching, business, law, and literature continue to incite the more ambitious members of the race along the path of endeavor, so long will the failure of this solution be inevitable.

The fallacy of this proposed solution of the South is to be found in the assumption that in this country you can give to the negro educational opportunity, enable him to accumu late wealth and to acquire the ownership of land, while permanently depriving him of political power. To what degree is he to be allowed education under this new theory of permanent vassalage? Are the Bible and the classics to be placed in his hands? Is he to be permitted to study the

history of Greece, to interpret the record of the inspiring struggles of Switzerland, Holland, and England for civil freedom? Shall he be allowed to acquaint himself with the wondrous story of the Hebrew people, emerging prophetled from the house of bondage, rising through the discipline of suffering and captivity by the sword of the Maccabees and the intellect of its merchants and scholars from the degradation of the Ghetto to the cabinets of presidents and the council chambers of kings, mounting from the penury of the Orient to the control of great financial institutions of Europe and America? Is he even to be allowed to know the history of his own race in its contributions to the cause of human rights and its conduct on the battle-fields of the wars of the nation? Are the aspiring negro youth of the South to be allowed to declaim unchecked. the speech of Spartacus, the orations of Chatham, and the fiery outbursts of Patrick Henry; to read Milton on Liberty, the Declaration of Independence, and Lincoln's Gettysburg address, and then to be expected submissively to endure such deprivations and humiliations as the whites may see fit to impose upon them? The whole experience of history gives the negative answer to these questions.

The slaveholding oligarchy of the South was wise in its day and generation when with stringent penalties it interdicted the giving of even elementary instruction to the slave. Unless the present South is prepared to deny to the negro not only political privilege, industrial opportunity, and social recognition, but also to deprive him of his growing educational advantages, its solution of the problem is foredoomed to failure.

12

CHAPTER II

LYNCHING AS AN ELEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

If my own city of Atlanta had offered it to-day the choice between 500 negro college graduates-forceful, busy, ambitious men of property and self-respect,—and 500 black cringing vagrants and criminals, the popular vote in favor of the criminals would be simply overwhelming. Why? Because they want negro crime? No, not that they fear negro crime less, but that they fear negro ambition and success more.

They can deal with crime by chain gang and lynch law, or at least they think they can, but the South can conceive neither machinery nor place for the educated, self-reliant, self-assertive black man.—PROFESSOR W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS, Lecture before Philadelphia Divinity School, 1907.

ITHOUT a reference to the brutalizing practice of

WITH

lynching so well established in one section of the country, any discussion of the negro problem would be necessarily incomplete. It is to be regretted that this repulsive blemish upon our national fame must be continually projected into observation in any discussion of the relation of the negro, past or future, to the white man in our republic. The writer would gladly be spared the unpleasant task of placing before his readers the facts contained in this chapter, but to make such an omission would be purposely to leave the consideration of the subject incomplete by disregarding what is beyond question one of the most painfully significant aspects of the problem. The absolute necessity of presenting the following facts in order that no essential element of the situation may be overlooked, is the justifi