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BOOK I

The Problem

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

CALIFORN

CHAPTER I

THE CHARACTER OF THE PROBLEM

The longer I live and the more I study the question, the more I am convinced that it is not so much a problem as to what the white man will do with the negro as what the negro will do with the white man and his civilization.-BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.

THE

HE purpose of this work is to present to the people of the United States a plan for the solution of the negro problem, upon the lines proposed forty-six years ago by Abraham Lincoln. The intention is to restrict the discussion as far as possible to the questions of the present condition of the problem and the means of effecting its solution, and to refrain from dwelling upon its origin, history, and the unfortunate episodes connected with it in the past, except in so far as consideration of these subjects may serve to light our footsteps along the path of the main inquiry.

Numerous volumes, enough in themselves to constitute an extensive literature, have been devoted to the history, character, humor, and pathos of the negro race in the United States, and to the discussion of the social, political, scientific, and moral aspects of the problem created by its presence. These works illuminate the present with the story of the past, and compel our absorbing interest in the record of the struggle to secure freedom for a downtrodden people; but as the sole motive of the present writer is to place before the thoughtful men and women of the country a practi

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