University of Virginia Library

FRICTION BETWEEN THE RACES
CAUSES AND CURE
By Sutton E. Griggs

America Acts Nobly

The people of the United States abolished slavery at a stupendous cost in money, property and lives; bestowed upon the freed men the privileges of citizenship; undertook the great task of their education; freed Cuba from the rule of Spain; fed starving Belgium during the World War; asked not a dollar as a reward for decisive action in that, greatest of all human struggles, and tried nobly to drive alcohol from the borders of the nation.

Negro Worth

The Negroes of the United States were industrious and peaceable as slaves; loyal to the white women and children of the South while the men fought for a victory which would have caused their further enslavement; courageous in battle; faithful to their emancipators; seekers for light, and makers of a record for progress said to be unsurpassed in human history.

Signs of Friction

In the South the lines of separation between the races are everywhere apparent. In the North the feeling of separation is very intense though manifesting itself in different ways. For example, in the South separate schools for the two races are created by law, while in the North it is done by the moving of white people from districts into which the colored people have moved. For example, there are but a very few white students in Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago.

It is said that white parents living in districts with large number of Negroes make a practice of sending their children to schools which are not attended by many Negro children. The desire of white people in the North to be separated from the colored people can be judged by the fact that they have sacrificed millions of dollars ingested in residences in fleeing from neighborhoods because of the influx of colored people.

Prof. Kelly Miller, of Howard University, says, "The evil genius of race prejudice is nation wide and race deep." The Philadelphia Tribune which for nearly a half century has been the mouthpiece of the colored people of the "city of brotherly love," had this to say editorially in commenting upon Decoration Day: "The customs which are contrary to human brotherhood and equality; which permit human beings to be burned alive; which send black Gold Star Mothers on separate ships; which cause a large group of citizens to doubt the existence of God; which breed hatred which make the Stars and Stripes a symbol of white supremacy, make the real spirit of Decoration Day a hollow mockery,"

There is ample evidence that race prejudice is fast spreading. Mr. J. A. Rogers in the American Mercury says: "Recently in London at the home of a friend I consorted a scrap book with clippings from the English press on the Negro. They read like extracts from the Ku Klux Klan publications, or the pronouncements of Southern Congressmen. Talk with an English Negro long enough and he will tell you that if it were not for some Englishwomen he would not be able to stay in England. Here are the exact words of one of them said to me which I give because it is typical of the feelings of many: "If it were not for white women we'd die. That is the absolute truth. The men would massacre us though the Negro is a terrible fighter.

The Topeka Daily Capital says: "Ex-Governor Hoch, after traveling from one side of the country to the other, filling Chautauqua engagements and observing conditions as he travels, gives it as his opinion that the prejudice against the colored race is increasing all over the North. No matter how well educated or well behaved a colored man may be, he is apt to be denied admittance to public gatherings where whites are congregated. He is practically barred from the white churches. Hardly a hotel in the country will afford him entertainment. Labor unions shut their doors against him and his children, and to the ordinary observer his case seems to be growing more hopeless every day."

Prof. E. B. Renter, of the University of Iowa, says: "The problem takes an added importance because it is one of the relatively permanent facts of American life. There is no present evidence to indicate that the problem will pass or become of less importance in the near future. On the contrary, there is every indication that it will become a more acute and more important one."

Prof. Wm. McDougall, of Harvard University, calls the American race problem the nation's 'most distressing problem; one that if not boldly dealt with, may prove a lasting and increasing danger to the health and even to the very life of the nation."

The Fundamental Causes

Let us now consider the cause of race prejudice. It is an unvarying law of nature to adapt things and beings to their environments. Races living under different environments have developed different characteristics. Prof. Chas. A. Elwood says, "The various races of mankind have had therefore, a common origin, but having developed in different geographical areas they each present

certain peculiar racial traits adapting each to the environment in which it developed. The perfection of the electric light came about as a result of Edison's acceptance of the law of adaptation. He found a plant that nearly suited his purpose. Knowing that nature had made changes in this plant to meet conditions he sent an investigator to search for the plant modified to an extent to suit his need; and the investigator found it.

The two races having existed under different environments for thousands of years met on the American continent and each began to hammer away unconsciously to change the other, and each has succeeded to some extent. Mr. Smuts, ex-premier of the Union of South Africa says the American Negro is wholly different from his South African brother. Prof. Carl G. Jung, the Swiss psychologist says, "I am convinced that some American peculiarities can be traced to the Negro directly, while others result from compensatory defenses against his laxity." Segregation and obstacles in the way of voting are among the "compensatory defenses." The ostracism of the colored people is an effort to keep from being made over.

Prof. Jung further says, "To our sub-conscious minds contact with the primitives recalls not only our childhood, but also our pre-history; and with the German races this means a harking back of only about twelve hundred years. The barbarous man in us is still wonderfully strong and he easily yields to the lure of his youthful memories. Therefore he needs very definite defenses. The Latin peoples, being older don't need to be so much on their guard; hence their attitude is different from that of the Nordics *** Since the Negro lives within your cities and even your houses, he also lives within your skin subconsciously."

Prof. E. B. Renter, of the University of Iowa, says, "To the extent that the Negro people differ fundamentally from the white people in their temperamental characteristics, the differences will express themselves in a modification of the cultural characteristics of the society to the extent that the members of the temperamentally divergent group are permitted to participate freely in the group life . . . They oppose such participation on the ground that it would inevitably mean an Africanization of American culture."

How the Colored People Can Affect the Situation

Let us now take note of the serious manner in which the colored people of the United States have exacted a telling influence upon American life even though in the minority. The world has gone forward through the breaking of precedents regarded as sacred. The removal of the authority of the King of England from America and the substitution of a presidency constituted the breaking of a precedent. In 1912 the white people of the United States seemed to be about ready to break a precedent to give a third term in the presidency to that great character, the late Theodore Roosevelt. There were approximately 7,609,942 members of the Republican" party. Of this number a majority of 643,309 deduct that Colonel Roosevelt be given a third term as President of the United States, as shown by the election ret turns. A minority of the white members of this party desired for Wm. H. Taft to have the nomination. In the convention that did the nominating this white minority joined hands with a majority of the Negro delegates to the convention and nominated Taft. The white majority did not respect this action, disrupted the party and brought about the overwhelming defeat of Taft. William Jennings Bryan lacked but about six percent

of being elected to the presidency of the United States. The colored people constitute about ten per cent of the nation's population, and they were almost solidly against Bryan's election. It may be, then, that the majority sense of the white people favored Bryan for the presidency.

Again, the white children of the South in their most impressionable period have had to press up through Negro social heredity. In view of the manner in which the lives of the two races were entwined in the South during slavery it is no surprise that two hundred and fifty years of such contact gave the white people of the South the divisive attitude which resulted in the Civil War, predominately an effort at division.

We now cite a possibility. Texas is the largest state in the world's greatest nation. Something wonderful can come out of this great aggregation if it maintains unity. It is possible for it to divide and become five different states. When Texas was admitted to the Union it was granted that power. The unity of the State, therefore, depends solely upon the spirit of unity of the people. The Negro Baptists of the State some years ago had one state convention. It later broke into five fragments. If allowed free expression in the life of the State, would the Negro Baptists of Texas tend to split it?

Every night the American people have an example of the possibilities growing out of contact with Negro attitudes. In a sketch of Amos and Andy we have this statement, "Freeman F. Gosden comes direct from the South and has a natural Southern accent." He was reared with a Negro lad who was taken into his home. This lad, Snowball, succeeded in injecting some of his traits into his white companion. Mr. Gosden's biographer says of him, "We even find Snowball's traits in

Amos himself." Mr. Gosden, who is Amos, is not only acting the part of a Negro, but has had the traits of his Negro companion imbedded in his nature, which in this case has proven to be a fine and profitable thing.

Voluntary Cooperation

1. We are now to note some differences between attitudes prevailing in the two races and to point out things which are feared by the conscious or the sub-conscious minds of the American people. No enduring society, whether of insects, animals, or of human beings, can be found in the absence of the seconding tendency, the innate tendency of one being to go voluntarily to the aid of another seen to be engaged with a task of common interest too great for his individual strength. We do not refer merely to the fact of the working together of two individuals. Two horses work together, it is true, but they must be hitched together. They will come together when trained but will perform no service whatever with a fellow horse except that which they are trained to perform. It is wholly different with the ant. It goes voluntarily and unfailingly to the aid of its fellow. A society is prosperous to the extent that its members possess this trait.

The two races have been compared intellectually, physically and otherwise. We are now to compare them with respect to voluntary cooperation. Prof. Jung says of the American white people, "When you find a good man, you generally support him and push him on until at last he is liable to collapse from sheer exhaustion, success, and triumph. It is done in every family, where ambitious mothers lead boys on with the idea that they must be heroes of some sort. You find it in the factory, where the whole system is designed to get the best man into the best place. And again in the school, where every child is trained to be brave, courageous, efficient, and a "good sport"—in short, a hero."

Contrast this with the usual experience of Negroes. Practically every Negro who has won unusual distinction in America is one who has been discovered by some white people or persons and put conspicuously before the world. This was true of Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Roland Hayes, William Pickens and so forth. As the white people touch only the fringe of Negro life it is no doubt a fact that there are numbers of undiscovered Negroes who are left to drown, so to speak, in the sea of obscurity.

At Geneva, Illinois, there is a home for delinquent, dependent girls. The girls of all races are sent to this home and all go to school together, but they live in cottages set apart for different groups. Irish, German, Jewish, and Negro girls, for example, live separately in racial groups. A person who visited this home says that Jewish girls and those of the Catholic faith have better equipped homes than the other girls. This is due in a measure to a superior seconding spirit possessed by some of the groups, which provide more attractive homes.

We give here an editorial from the Memphis Commercial Appeal, a leading newspaper in the South, showing the widespread presence of the seconding attitude in white Americans and an article in the Pittsburgh Courier, a leading Negro newspaper of the North, complaining about the almost total absence of the seconding spirit among the Negroes of the North:

Problems of a Miss

Crowned the beauty queen of the universe, Miss Dorothy Dell Goff, of New Orleans, finds that her exquisitely chiseled head lies a bit uneasily. She is torn between conflicting emotions as she looks over the offers from stage and movie magnificoes to exploit her pulchritude.

This is the penalty for beauty and celebrity in a land that loves to do homage to its heroes and heroines.

Miss Goff is only beginning to have her worries. She has yet to contend with the face cream people who crave testimonials and the chewing gum agents who crave photographs and slogans.

In most cases the worries are forgotten by the canny celebrity. Either he takes the line of least resistance and gets rich quick or he scorns the world and writes a book.

Band Greets Dorothy—Home Town The Out to Welcome Miss Universe

New Orleans, Aug. 9. (AP)—The music of tile local American Legion Post's drum and bugle corps, the screeching of police sirens and the sustained cheers of a throng of people tonight greeted Miss Dorothy Dell Goff as she returned home from the international pageant of pulchritude at Galveston, where she was crowned "Miss Universe."

A delegation headed by Mayor Semmes Walmsey welcomed the 17-year-old high school girl.—Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Compare the foregoing editorial and news item with the following article appearing in a leading Negro news paper.

Declare Negroes Not Loyal to Their Actors

New York, Aug. 7—Producers who make shows with Negro performers, however large or small in numbers, believing that Negroes will patronize it chiefly because of its Negroid make-up—are learning some new points on Negro loyalty. They see that Negroes are conspicuous by their absence. They have many empty seats even in the $1.00 section of expensive shows. There arise no loud huzzas for the star in the cast—nor the fancy

dress and drilled ensemble, "What's wrong?" they ask. We-ve even given hundreds of dollars worth of advertising to the Negro papers—yet the people stay away.

Managers Ask Questions

Your people don't seem to like this show Chappy— I wonder what's wrong—the papers and the whole world claim that our show is the best of the century—and we have nothing but Negro actors of the best—yet your people stay away. Just look around and you don't see three of your race here. These were the words of Mr. Robbey, publicity staff representative of Green Pastures. A search by one revealed one Negro besides myself in a crowded theater. The same line of talk was handed me by the Biltmore Theater owner in his office when "Make Me Know It" opened. The play closed after a week, when the producers who fought to keep it opened, believed they had a fighting chance if given 100 per cent support by the New York Negro public. It was Brock Pemberton's publicity director who almost tearfully exclaimed—why don't your people come to see "Goin' Home?" We have Tom Mosely doing an important lead in a great drama.

But the Negroes stayed away. Then there was "Great Day," "Porgy," "Harlem" and "Appearances." All except the lad named employing many Negroes and paying salaries that no single or group of Negro business or professional had seen fit to offer even as an inducement for the propagation of art. Money given for ads in Negro weeklies is called thrown away, as it is claimed by New York managers to be a non-drawing element. I am told that some theatrical managers give Negro papers an ad in the city out of fairness to the employed actors— knowing that the Negroes won't come anyway.—Pittsburgh Courier.

Effects of the Non-Seconding Attitudes

1. It relegates the more modest person to the rear, there being no seconder to bring him to the front.

2. It stifles reform movements in that men hesitate to move out, fearing that they will not be seconded.

3. It makes general leadership difficult as it is effective only when there is a tendency to second readily.

4. It causes a group of non-seconders to suffer in comparison with other groups.

5. He who goes to the front without assistance and over opposition feels no debt of gratitude.

Self-Renunciation

2. The female beetle is the lowliest of the earth's creatures to practice self-renunciation and is the lowliest to have an enduring social structure. Starting thus, nature no where permits an enduring society in the absence of an attitude of self-renunciation. Benjamin Kidd in the Science of Power shows very forcibly the part which self-renunciation has played in social evolution. It has long been one of the marvels of mankind why the Negroes have not developed greater and more enduring social structures. Strange to say abnormal human beings throw a clear light on this subject. We now show how this can be done.

Dr. G. V. Hamilton says, "Forenoons spent with nervous patients and afternoons with healthy monkeys can teach you surprising truths about human nature. For about nine years I spent mornings listening to nervous patients in my consulting room, and my afternoons watching a tribe of monkeys which I kept in my forty acres of live oaks near Santa Barbara . . . Throughout these years my purpose was, of course, to try to add to our understanding of human nature."

In the book, Understanding Human Nature, by Dr. Alfred Adler, the author says, "Our examination of nervous diseases prove that the psychic anomalies, complexes, mistakes, which are found in nervous diseases are fundamentally not different in structure from the activity of normal individuals. The same elements, the same premises, the same movements, are under consideration. The sole difference is that in the nervous patient they appear more marked, and are more easily recognized. The advantage of this discovery is that we can learn from the abnormal cases, and sharpen our eye for the discovery of related movements and characteristics in the normal psychic life. It is solely a question of that training, ardor, and patience which are required of any profession."

Suicides are abnormal beings. In them self-renunciation is over-developed. The fact that the white people have a far greater number of suicides proportionately than colored people suggests the presence among them of the attitude of self-renunciation which expressing itself in a higher way than suicide has made their social structure strong, progressive, and enduring. The self-renunciation of George Washington and Ex-President Calvin Coolidge shown in declining to aspire for the third term in the presidency of the nation illustrates the part played by the attitude in the stabilization of society. Revolutions to displace men clinging to authority for too long a period take place where self-renunciation is weak. Where this attitude is weak, one generation does not make the sacrifices needed to advance properly the interests of the next generation.

The Civic Sense

3. The civic life of the Negro race does not give sufficient evidence of the widespread presence of a keen sense of personal responsibility for the general welfare.

Whether one approves or disapproves of the principles of the N.A.A.C.P., it must be conceded that it has been very vigorous in pushing the claims of the Negro race. After twenty years of such service contributions from Negroes for its maintenance do not average one cent per capita according to the following statement by Mr. Eust Gay: And for the year ended 1929, December 3l, the Association got from membership barely $40,000, ten times the minimum it should have received. Just one cent per capita. Evidently we cannot value the Association's program very much. Evidently we hold our liberty and the securing of justice in this country very cheaply. Now here is an angle of this situation which should cause colored people to hang their heads in shame."

There is nothing more fatal to a democracy than an attitude of apathy. It is the mother of corruption and machine politics. Autocracies and oligarchies thrive where the masses of the people are apathetic. The seriousness of this matter may be seen from the following statement by Dr. Alfred Adler in the book Understanding Human Nature: "When the social feeling has been insufficiently developed, one acquires sufficient interest for his fellows only with great difficulty, even under threat of punishment; whereas in the presence of a well-developed community consciousness, this interest is self-evident. * * *

"It really does not matter what you think of yourself, or what other people think of you. The important thing is the general attitude towards human society, since this determines every wish and every interest, and every activity of each individual."

Habit of Inquiry

4. There is in some minds a native thirst that leads to investigation along all lines. While there are some

investigative minds in the Negro race the number is far too small. There is great need of the universal possession of the attitude of curiosity which leads to inquiry. The inquisitive mind cannot be on perfectly good terms with the stationary mind.

The late Nathaniel S. Shaler said that the Negro on the whole, is lacking in the degree of curiosity which leads to inquiry. The lack of a proper degree of the spirit of inquiry leads to the prevalence of rumors which have no foundation in fact, causes a lack of proper support for authorship, causes some newspapers to resort to fantastic methods to increase circulation, and causes the lot of the advanced thinker to be peculiarly hard. As to whether a race is to be progressive or stationary depends in large measure upon the extent of the habit of inquiry.

Spirit of Division

5. There is in nature a divisive spirit. It is this spirit in nature which leads to her uniform tendency toward variability. But some races have far more divisive tendencies than others. At present the Negroes are characterized by a divisive spirit. The white people of the United States have 261 members for each church, and the colored people have 122 for each church. Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn says: "The Anglo Saxon branch. of the Nordic race is again showing itself to be that upon which the nation must chiefly depend for leadership, for courage, for loyalty, for unity and harmony of action, for leadership, for self-sacrifice and devotion to an ideal."

The Baptist denomination occupies about the same relative position among the white and the colored people of the South. The minds of nine thousand colored people of Greenville, Mississippi, call for some twenty-two or twenty-three Baptist Churches in which to express

themselves. The minds of six thousand white people call for one Baptist Church. In Texarkana, Texas and Arkansas, there are fourteen Negro Baptist Churches and five white Baptist churches, with the Negro population of the two cities about one-fourth. of that of the white people. In Hot Springs, Arkansas, there are five white Baptist churches for the twenty-one thousand white population, and five Negro Baptist churches for a Negro population of four thousand. Throughout the South there is one Methodist denomination among the white people and three strong Methodist denominations among the colored people.

Is there anything in the climate of Africa which imparts the impulse to divide? The African ant is destructive, eating the wood of tree. Mr. Wm. T. Hornaday, in the book, The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals, says: "Our present ( 1921 ) male African elephant, Kartoum, is not so hostile toward people, but his insatiable desire is to break and to smash all of his environment that can be bent or broken. His ingenuity in finding ways to damage doors and gates, and to bend or to break steel beams, is amazing. His greatest feat consisted in breaking squarely in two, by pushing with his head, a 90 pound steel railroad iron used as the top bar of his fence. He knows the mechanism of the latch of the ponderous steel door between his two box stalls, and nothing but a small pin that only human fingers can manipulate suffices to thwart his efforts to control the latch. Kartoum has gone over every inch of surface of his two apartments, his doors, gates and fences, to find something that he can break or damage. The steel linings of his apartment walls, originally five feet high, we have been compelled to extend upward to a height

of nine feet, to save the brick walls from being battered and disfigured. He has searched his steel fences throughout, in order to find their weakest points, and concentrate his attacks upon them. If the sharp pointed iron spikes three inches long that are set all over his doors are perfectly solid, he respects them, but if one is the least bit loose in its socket, he works at it until he finally breaks it off."

Regardless as to whether Africa does or does not impart the impulse of division we have ample evidence that-this is an attitude which the colored people of the United States should watch with the utmost care.

IMMEDIACY

6. Prof. Carl G. Jung refers to what he calls the immediacy of the Negro race. The Encyclopedia Britannica calls the Negro of Africa essentially the child of the moment. Prof. Kelly Miller calls attention to the shortness of the lives of Negro institutions, organizations and enterprises. The halictus bee has an attitude that calls for the rebuilding of her colony twice a year, the Wasp once a year, while the society of the apis bee lasts from three to ten years and that of the ant as long as forty years. If the Negro race on the whole is characterized by a short range vision and the rest of the American people by long range vision it can be seen that there will be a conflict of spirits.

This childlike immediacy to which Prof. Jung refers plays a large part in the splitting of Negro organizations. Negroes, like all other human beings, are imperfect, and these imperfections manifest themselves in their organizations. Some of them are very glaring and annoying and call loudly for reformation. Reformers appear and are able to show very clearly that there are evils which should be removed. Often this cannot be done at once. Reformers, characterized by "childlike

immediacy" insist upon immediate correction, and when this does not take place, they proceed to try to cure the evils by pulling away from them.

Those who withdraw from what they consider evil conditions are themselves imperfect human beings, and it is not long before evils appear in the new organizations. These evils most likely will be of a different nature but they will be evils just the same. Other reformers will appear, and again "childlike immediacy" will assert itself. The organization which came as a result of a split itself now suffers a split. This process goes on and on, and will go on indefinitely until the "childlike immediacy" is cured.

Co-Ordination

7. The power of coordination has been acquired by only two sets of living creatures—social insects and human beings. The rarity of the attainment is further shown in that only one family of insects is fully social in every species, and only one race of human beings manifests collective efficiency throughout its ranks.

The human beings who do not coordinate their activities are far behind in this respect the social insects, concerning which Nathaniel S. Shaler says: "It is evident that in the intelligence of the articulated animals there is a latent capacity for combining the work of a host of individuals, so that from the association is developed something of the nature of public opinion, we lack a better term for it,—which enables and requires all the co-operators to act in unison."

The late Justice Gaynor, of New York, once remarked that whenever one race has contempt for another that contempt is likely to overflow in some way. In order to avoid this overflow of contempt from whatever source it may chance to come every race and group

should act in such a way as to engage the respect rather than the contempt of others.

It is impossible for one group to have a full respect for another group in the absence of collective efficiency. When a group fails to meet its joint tasks, although seeing the need and possessing the power to do so, the respect of on-looking groups is lowered. This is tending in the direction of contempt, which, as stated, has the tendency to overflow in some unpleasant way. Every group and every race owes it to itself and to the rest of humanity to manifest collective efficiency, to take care of its joint tasks.

The Declaration of Independence was wise in recognizing the fact that there are some things which should be done out of "a decent regard to the opinion of mankind." It is utterly unwise for even the strongest nation to ignore the thoughts of others regarding it. We know not when nor how the ill opinion of others may affect us.

There is an opinion of mankind that the Negro race does not function up to capacity. Mr. H. L. Mencken, editor of the American Mercury, says, "For all their progress, economic, political and cultural, they have yet failed to accomplish two things that are of the first importance—indeed more important than any other. The first is the organization of their people into a coherent and reasonably steadfast bloc, capable of acting, when the common interest is at stake, as a unit."

As a race we should make a record that will prevent men from holding such views. Mr. Will Alexander, of Atlanta, Ga., a winner of the Harmon Award given annually to the person who has done most during the year to promote good will between the races, says, "It is of the highest importance that the nation should

realize that the Negroes can do in a first class way any work which other men can do." In view of this fact it is quite important for the Negro race in the United States to know how to make the nation realize that it is thoroughly capable as a race.

Tasks Not Being Adequately Met

We call attention to some joint tasks which could be met if approached with collective efficiency. The Negro race in the United States, with all its marvelous progress, is threatened with death as a race. Health records show that it began life under freedom with sounder bodies and better health than the white people of this country. They were freer from consumption than the whites. At the present time Negro policy-holders in insurance companies, (the most healthy type of the race), have twice the death rate of the whites for consumption. Negro boys between the ages 10 and 14 have a death rate eleven times that of white boys of similar ages. Negro girls of these ages have a death rate eight times that of white girls of the same age.

In addition to the ravages of disease germs, Negroes are being mowed down by deadly weapons in their hands. Negroes in one Southern city killed eleven more of their own race in one year than were lynched by the more than thirty millions of white people of the South during the past three years. The Negroes kill each other at about ten times the rate at which white people kill each other. The disposition of the colored people to kill each other has lifted ten southern cities to the pinnacle of being the greatest murder centers of the world, a shameful eminence that stings to the quick. The three cities of the North which lead all their sister cities of that section in the rate of homicides are cities to which colored people have gone in large numbers in

recent yearn and a public official in one of those cities says that eighty per cent of the crimes of brutality have been comitted by persons that have been there less than a year. The colored people in one southern city have boosted the murder rate until in 1928 it was four times that of Chicago, six times the average rate of American cities, thirty-five and one-half times that of Canada. and one hundred and twenty times that of England and Wales.

The Rating of Races

There is a rooster that develops a tail forty feet long, but this long tail will not give him the highest rating. Likewise a race can be great along lines which do not bring the highest esteem. The ability of the Negro race to produce talented individuals is no longer questioned but is cheerfully conceded. But individual excellence does not bring the highest rating. Races are rated according to the capacity manifested for sustained collective action of the highest order.

The late Gen. Foch who commanded the greatest army of men ever assembled under one leadership thus commended the American people for their efficiency: "A prodigious effort on the part of your entire nation's intelligence, will power and energy. A prodigious effort which has filled your associates with admiration and gratitude, and confounded your enemy."

Mr. A. Wendell Malliett, in one of a series of articles appearing in the Pittsburgh Courier, says, "To my mind the black man of America is the most individualistic human being in existence."

Mrs. M. E. Tracy says: "Haiti symbolizes a universal problem. What our attitude should be toward Latin-American countries is submerged in the greater question of what the attitude of all civilized governments should be towards the semi-civilized world. Call

it tyranny, imperialism or exploitation, as you prefer, but those people who know how to do things, who want to do them and who need material with which to do them will make others behave while they work. That is the basic law of progress."

Proposed Cures

Let us now glance at some proposed cures. Great stress is being placed on education and rightly so, but the mistake must not be made of thinking intellectual training will solve the problem. Benjamin Kidd holds that intellectual training in the absence of certain social traits lowers rather than raises racial efficiency.

Prof. Floyd H. Allport discounts intellectual training as a solvent of the inter-racial situation. He says, "This discrepancy in mental ability is not great enough to account for the problem that centers about the American Negro, or to explain fully the ostracism to which he is subjected * * * The heart of the Negro question is not to be in the sphere of intelligence. * * *"

William Dean Howells was of the opinion that race prejudice would disappear in the face of Negro art. He regarded the poems of Paul Lawrence Dunbar as establishing the essential unity of the human family. He said, "I permitted myself the imaginative prophecy that the hostilities and the prejudices which had so long constrained his race were destined to vanish in the arts; that they were to be final proof that God had made of one blood all nations of men." Howell's theory of the conquest of race prejudice through the development of art was subjected to a test recently in the city of Philadelphia. A Miss Hunter, director of the Art Alliance of Philadelphia, in refusing a bronze figure of a Negro as an art exhibit, is reported as saying, "The color problem seems to be unusually great in Philadelphia."

Industrial education, thrift and economic progress

so ably stressed by the late Booker T. Washington has not bright the nation any nearer to the solution of the problem, although the policy was a wise one and has done an untold amount of good. The economic success of the Negro is what enabled the race to invade the fine residential sections of their northern emancipators precipitating the flight of the latter.

The fear has been expressed that adjustment will be of a temporary nature, hence the enduring character of the problem. Prof. Wm. Dougall, of Harvard University, says, "The circumstances and environment may modify or even check for a time, the effects of the inherited racial characteristics; but these will always come out again and make themselves felt, and being thus the most persistent element in man's mental makeup, they will appear as the dominant influence in the development of the character and point of view of the group."

It has been suggested that the American continent may one day pass to the Negro. Count Herman Keyserling says in the Atlantic Monthly, "The problem is a very serious one, for if the white American continues on his present line of development, then America may end by becoming the black continent of modern days. We know today that from Paleolithic days onward there has been at least three great civilizations in Africa the original representation of which were not black. But the ruling races eventually lost their vitality. They lived too much aloof from Mother Earth."

Three Alternatives

There are three alternatives before the American people, white and colored:

1. The psychology of the white people must be changed to fit institutions suited to the Negro mentality, or

2. The psychology of the Negro must be altered to suit American life, or

3. There must be increasing friction, the psychology of the white people becoming more and more desperate with the increasing power of a psychology different from their own.

A lack of psychological adjustment between the races endangers all adjustments. Until there is such adjustment the more powerful the colored people become the more certain and the more drastic will be the restraints imposed to prevent the Negro mentality from making over the institutional life to suit itself. The psychological adjustment is therefore the most important of all adjustments.

A Vital Question

A very vital question for all mankind is, Can attitudes be changed? According to the findings of science, they can be. Miss Julia Wade Abbott, director of kindergartens in Philadelphia and chairman of the Kindergarten committee for President Hoover's council says, "Experiments with kindergarten children show that no racial hatred exists until implanted by grown people." If so strong an attitude as racial hatred can be bred from without, other attitudes can be created. Prof. Emory S. Bogardus, of the University of Southern California, says, "Personal and social progress is a matter of changing attitudes. If we can find out how to change attitudes we shall have the key to progress. "He also says, "Since race prejudice is a sentiment, it is an acquired trait and since it is an acquired trait, it may be controlled and prevented to a surprising degree."

The social sciences demonstrate that within certain limitations human nature may be changed. The paramount duty before the Negro race is that of finding out

what changes are needed in the prevailing Negro mentality to cause it to fit more harmoniously into American civilization, and or addressing itself to the task of making the needed changes. The transformed groups of mankind, the English, the German and the Japanese beckon to the America Negro to join them in their great achievement of psychological transformation.

There are colored people in the United States, many of them, who meet all the requirements herein set forth and all other tests of good citizenship. Out of this fact we get the satisfaction that the troubles are not biological or beyond the reach of efforts. Through the banding together of this element the entire race may be redeemed.