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and black people should be in Sunday-school or in church on a plane of equality of privilege.'

Apart from all theory, in New York separation is the almost universal practice. Visits made by the writer to many of the most prominent churches in the city during the winter of 1906-7 revealed the fact that the presence of a negro in any congregation was exceptional. Not one was seen at the meeting of the Society for Ethical Culture at Carnegie Hall, at Dr. Parkhurst's Madison Avenue Temple, at Holy Trinity, or at the Central Congregational Church, in Brooklyn. At Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, on March 10, 1907, in a congregation of some 2500 people attracted by the fame and the preaching of a remarkable evangelist, seven negroes occupied inconspicuous seats in the rear of the church. This is the historic Beecher church, from the platform of which the sensational auction of the slave girl formed a dramatic incident of the anti-slavery conflict. Within fifteen minutes' walk of the church there live 10,000 negroes, easily 25,000 within a half-hour's ride. Under such circumstances the absence of negroes indicates with eloquent force the unbending strictness with which the color line is observed.

But why continue to discuss a self-evident proposition? The social isolation of the negro, North and South, is an established fact. At the church and in the armory, at the hotel, the theatre, the lodge, and the social gathering, wherever white men and women assemble on terms of social equality, the negro finds an insurmountable barrier of racial aversion forbidding his entrance. The higher the grade of refinement and the more cultivated the character of the whites, the more rigid is the social exclusion of the people of the disregarded race.

This incomplete survey serves to indicate with sufficient accuracy the actual condition of the negro race in the United

States, North and South. This dependent people stands as a thing apart, participating only in the slightest degree Summary of in the political and industrial life of the comResults. munity; possessing but little property, displaying but slight industrial advancement, and condemned by the white race to absolute social exclusion.

It may be that the facts set forth in this chapter are sufficiently familiar to many readers, but the purpose of their special introduction at this place is to emphasize the thought that so far as the solution of the negro problem upon the practical lines hereinafter proposed is concerned, there need be no misgivings upon the subject based upon the impression that the negro constitutes any integral part of this composite American nation. Alien in his beginning, alien in his present status, inferior by his present condition, inferior in his social and industrial standing, unassimilable in blood, unassimilable in thought, unassimilable in social station, he stands isolated, aloof, and despised, a disregarded victim of the spirit of caste, knocking in vain at the door of opportunity, unprovided with the magic word "sesame," the utterance of which causes it to spring open for all others.

CHAPTER V

ILLUSTRATIVE PHASES OF THE PROBLEM

By looking back into history, and considering the fate and revolutions of government, you will be able to draw a guess, and almost prophesy upon the future; for they will certainly be of the same nature, and cannot but be cast in the same mould. So that forty years of human life may serve for a sample of ten thousand. For what more will you see?-Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

THE

HE general plan to which the writer will endeavor to adhere in the presentation of his subject, is to state the broad facts relating to the character of the problem in an orderly manner, and to lay before the reader the principles underlying the plan proposed by Lincoln for its solution, without entering into minute details or special illustrations of any feature of the topic. In all sections of the country there appears to be a disposition evinced, in dealing with the negro question, to evade discussion of the fundamental principles involved in the problem, and to escape any final conclusion by digressing from the main subject into the discussion of some immaterial detail, or by the relating of some more or less pertinent incident falling under the observation of the writer or speaker.

Mr. H. G. Wells, the English traveller, keenly noted this strong disinclination to advance any definite statement in relation to the negro's future, and remarked that whenever he interrogated any of his American acquaintances as to the

ultimate outcome of the problem, the point was adroitly avoided by the introduction of some more or less irrelevant anecdote about some particular negro, or by the drifting away into a general discussion of the deficiencies of the race. President Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee Institute, studiously assumes the same attitude whenever called upon to state his conception as to the permanent adjustment of the relation between the races. With astonishing cleverness he finds refuge in some special incident which has just come under his observation as typifying the progress of the race. He diverts discussion from the serious issue by describing the achievements of some noted Kansas farmer of his race, whose production of potatoes surpasses in size and quality those of any other grower in the United States, or enlightens his audience with the information that several negro banks have recently been established in Alabama, and that a newly incorporated negro real-estate company in Cleveland is making remarkable progress in the acquisition of suburban property. While he states the present condition and prospects of his race with admirably optimistic effect, and forcibly appeals to the sympathy of his hearers, it is impossible to glean from his combination of anecdote, statistics, and declamation any indication of his genuine belief as to the future of his people.

But as illustrations lend force to argument, and at times impress more strongly upon the mind of the reader the importance of a special feature of the subject than any statement based upon general reasoning, this chapter will be devoted to the presentation of some illustrations of the character and gravity of the problem, tending to emphasize the seriousness of the present situation, and the impossibility of effecting any solution other than the one advocated by Lincoln.

1. "The villany you teach me," said old Shylock, “I will

The

execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction." The following account of a natural outbreak of Brownsville race animosity indicates that the negro, given Incident. the opportunity, can prove himself no unapt pupil in the school of violence and murderous outrage.

In order that the potency of race antipathy may be fully appreciated, and the natural result of placing the negro in a position of prominence and authority in a white community understood, a straightforward narration of the facts attending the riot at Brownsville, Texas, which occurred in the summer of 1906, will be found peculiarly instructive. The purpose of introducing at this point the consideration of this much discussed incident is to impress upon the mind of the reader the utter futility of attempting to ignore the existence of racial antipathy in any examination of the negro problem. There is deep significance in every aspect of this transaction.

On August 13, 1906, a battalion of three companies of the Twenty-fifth Infantry, composed of negroes, was stationed at Brownsville, Texas. The organization was one of long standing, being a part of one of the four negro regiments organized under an act of Congress shortly after the Civil War. The battalion was possessed of a good reputation for gallantry and soldierly conduct, although some serious complaints arising from race difficulties had theretofore been made of its misconduct, in other localities where it had been stationed. It had been assigned to duty at various points in the North and West, and was composed of a class of carefully selected negroes, who, by natural qualifications and acquired training, were much superior to the average members of the race.

Let us see what happened on this night in question. Lest it be considered that the facts relating to the affair might be too strongly presented by the writer, the description of

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