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THE SOUTHERN SOUTH
by
ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D.
Professor of History, Harvard University
New York and London
D. Appleton and Company
1910
Copyright, 1910, by
D. Appleton and Company
Published April, 1910
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
I.--MATERIALS 7
II.--THE SOUTHLAND 20
III.--THE POOR WHITE 30
IV.--IMMIGRATION 48
V.--SOUTHERN LEADERSHIP 59
VI.--SOUTHERN TEMPERAMENT 66
VII.--ATTITUDE TOWARD HISTORY 80
VIII.--NEGRO CHARACTER 91
IX.--NEGRO LIFE 106
X.--THE NEGRO AT WORK 120
XI.--IS THE NEGRO RISING? 132
XII.--RACE ASSOCIATION 149
XIII.--RACE SEPARATION 166
XIV.--CRIME AND ITS PENALTIES 181
XV.--LYNCHING 205
XVI.--ACTUAL WEALTH 218
XVII.--COMPARATIVE WEALTH 231
XVIII.--MAKING COTTON 250
XIX.--COTTON HANDS 261
XX.--PEONAGE 278
XXI.--WHITE EDUCATION 288
XXII.--NEGRO EDUCATION 308
XXIII.--OBJECTIONS TO EDUCATION 323
XXIV.--POSTULATES OF THE PROBLEM 338
XXV.--THE WRONG WAY OUT 347
XXVI.--MATERIAL AND POLITICAL REMEDIES 367
XXVII.--MORAL REMEDIES 378
MAP AND TABLES 395
INDEX 419
THE SOUTHERN SOUTH
INTRODUCTION
The keynote to which intelligent spirits respond most quickly in the
United States is Americanism; no nation is more conscious of its own
existence and its importance in the universe, more interested in the
greatness, the strength, the pride, the influence, and the future of the
common country. Nevertheless, any observer passing through all the parts
of the United States would discover that the Union is made up not only of
many states but of several sections--an East, a Middle West, a Far West,
and a South. Of these four regions the three which adhere most strongly to
each other and have least consciousness of rivalry among themselves are
often classed together as "The North," and they are set in rivalry against
"The South," because of a tradition of opposing interests, commercial and
political, which culminated in the Civil War of 1861, and is still felt on
both sides of the line.
That the South is now an integral and inseparable part of the Union is
proved by a sense of a common blood, a common heritage, and a common
purpose, which is as lively in the Southern as in the Northern part of the
Union. The dominant English race stock is the same in both sections: in
religion, in laws, in traditions, in expectation of the future, all
sections of the United States are closer together than, for instance, the
three components of the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Whatever
the divergence between Southerners and Northerners at home, once outside
the limits of their common country they are alike; the Frenchman may see
more difference between a Bavarian and a Prussian than between a Georgian
and a Vermonter.
It is not to the purpose of this book to describe those numerous common
traits which belong to people in all sections of the United States, but to
bring into relief some of the characteristics of the South which are not
shared by the North. For it is certain that the physical and climatic
conditions of the South are different from those of the North; and equally
sure that as a community the South has certain temperamental peculiarities
which affect its views of the world in general and also of its own
problems. Slavery, which had little permanent effect on the society or
institutions of those parts of the North in which it existed up to the
Revolution, was for two centuries a large factor in Southern life, and has
left many marks upon both white and negro races. The existence of a
formerly servile race now ten millions strong still influences the whole
development of the South.
Unlike the North, which ever since the Civil War has felt disposed to
consider itself the characteristic United States, the South looks upon
itself, and is looked upon by its neighbors, as a unit within a larger
unit; as set apart by its traditions, its history, and its commercial
interests. The ex-president of the Southern Confederacy a few years ago at
a public meeting declared that he appeared "In a defense of our
Southland." A Southland there is, in the sense of a body of states which,
while now yielding to none in loyalty to the Union and in participation in
its great career, adhere together with such a sense of peculiar life and
standards as is not to be found in any group of Northern communities
except perhaps New England.
The Northerner who addresses himself to these special conditions of the
South must expect to be asked what claim he has to form or express a
judgment upon his neighbors. The son of an Ohio abolitionist, accustomed
from childhood to hear questions of slavery and of nationality discussed,
I have for many years sought and accepted opportunities to learn something
of these great problems at first hand. As a teacher I have come into
contact with some of the brightest spirits of the South, and among former
students count at least two of the foremost writers upon the subject--one
a White and the other a Negro. For some years I have carried on an active
correspondence with Southern people of every variety of sentiment. I have
diligently read Southern newspapers and have been honored by their
critical and sometimes unflattering attention. In the last twenty-five
years I have made a dozen or more visits to various parts of the South
ranging in length from a few days to four months, and therein have gained
some personal acquaintance with the conditions of all the former
slave-holding states except Missouri and Florida. In the winter of 1907-8
I took a journey of about a thousand miles through rural parts of the belt
of states from Texas to North Carolina, with the special purpose of coming
into closer personal touch with some phases of the problem upon which
information was lacking.
There need be no illusions as to the extent of the knowledge thus
acquired. These various journeys and points of contact with Southern
people have shown how large is the Southern problem, and how hard it is to
discover all the factors which make the problem difficult. Every year
opens out some new unexplored field which must be taken into account if
one is to hope for anything like a comprehensive view of the subject. How
shall any Northerner coming into a slave-holding region set his
impressions alongside the experience of men who have lived all their lives
in that environment? What is seven months' residence by a visitor, a fly
on the wheel, against seventy years' residence by men who are a part of
the problem?
There are two sides to this question of the value of the observations of
an outsider. Sometimes he is the only one who thinks investigation worth
while; and too much caution in hazarding an opinion would put a stop to
all criticism by anybody except the people criticised. The observer over
the walls may see more than the dweller within. A Southerner coming up to
make a study of the government in Massachusetts would probably discover
queer things about the Street Department of Boston that escape the
attention of those who breathe the city's dust; he might learn more about
the conditions of mill towns like Fall River than the citizen of Boston
has ever acquired; he might attend a town meeting in villages like
Barnstable, into the like of which the Fall River man never so much as
sets his foot; he may find out more about the county commissioners of
Bristol County than was ever dreamed by the taxpayers of Barnstable; he
may inform the dairyman on Cape Cod of the conditions of the tobacco farms
on the Connecticut; and hear complaints from the factory hands of New
Bedford which never reach their employers. It is just so in the South,
where many people know intimately some one phase of the race problem,
while few have thought out its details, or followed it from state to
state. A professor in the University of Louisiana might tell more about
the race and labor conditions of his State than the writer shall ever
learn; but perhaps he could not contribute to knowledge of the Sea Islands
of South Carolina or the Texas truck farms or the mountains of North
Carolina. The privilege of the outside visitor to the South is to range
far afield, to compare conditions in various states, and to make
generalizations, subject to the criticism of better qualified
investigators who may go over the same area of printed book and open
country, but which have a basis of personal acquaintance with the region.
If this book make any contribution toward the knowledge and appreciation
of Southern conditions, it must be by observing throughout two principles.
The first is that no statement of fact be made without a basis in printed
material, written memoranda, or personal memory of the testimony of people
believed to speak the truth. The second is that in the discussion there be
no animus against the South as a section or a people. I have found many
friends there. I believe that the points of view of the reflective
Northerner and the reflective Southerner are not so far apart as both have
supposed; as a Union soldier's son I feel a personal warmth of admiration
for the heroism of the rival army, and for the South as a whole; and I
recognize the material growth, the intellectual uplift, and the moral
fervor of the Southern people. In one sense I am a citizen of the
Southland. When a few years ago at a Phi Beta Kappa dinner in Cambridge,
the president of the University of North Carolina said: "I love North
Carolina, I ought to love that State, because it is my native country!"
President Eliot replied, when his turn came: "President Winston says that
North Carolina is his native country; gentlemen, it's _our_ native
country."
For this reason has been chosen as the title of this book, "The Southern
South." Leaving out of account those parts of the South, such as the
peninsula of Florida, which are really transplanted portions of the North;
setting aside also the manifold national characteristics shared by both
sections, I shall attempt to consider those conditions and problems which
are in a measure peculiar to the South. The aim of the work is not to
cavil but to describe, with full realization that many of the things upon
which comment is passed are criticised in the South, and have a
counterpart in the North.
Properly to acknowledge the information and impressions gained from
friends, and sometimes from persons not so friendly, would require mention
of scores of names; but I cannot forbear to recognize the candor and
courtesy which, with few exceptions, have met my inquiries even from those
who had little sympathy with what they presumed to be my views. The ground
covered by the book was traversed in somewhat different analysis and
briefer form in a course of lectures which I delivered before the Lowell
Institute in Boston during February and March, 1908. Parts of the subject
have also been summarized in a series of letters to the _Boston
Transcript_, and an article in the _North American Review_, published in
July, 1908. While a year's reflection and restatement in the light of
additional evidence have not changed the essential conclusions, I have
found myself continually infused with a stronger sense that the best will
and effort of the best elements in the South are hampered and limited by
the immense difficulties of those race relations which most contribute to
keep alive a Southern South.
CHAPTER I
MATERIALS
For an understanding of the Southern South the materials are abundant but
little systematized. In addition to the sources of direct information
there is a literature of the Southern question beginning as far back as
Samuel Sewall's pamphlet "Joseph Sold by His Brethren," published in 1700.
Down to the Civil War the greater part of this literature was a
controversy over slavery, which has little application to present
problems, except as showing the temper of the times and as furnishing
evidence to test the validity of certain traditions of the slavery epoch.
The publications which are most helpful have appeared since 1880, and by
far the greater number since 1900. Besides the formal books there is a
shower of pamphlets and fugitive pieces; and newspapers and periodicals
have lately given much space to the discussion of these topics.
So multifarious is this literature that clues have become necessary, and
there are three or four serviceable bibliographies, some on the negro
problem and some on the Southern question as a whole. The earliest of
these works is "Bibliography of the Negroes in America" (published in the
"Reports" of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1894, vol. i).
More searching, and embracing the whole field of the Negro's life in
America, are two bibliographies by W. E. Burghardt DuBois, the first being
"A Select Bibliography of the American Negro" ("Atlanta University
Publications," 1901), and "A Select Bibliography of the Negro American"
("Atlanta University Publications," No. 10, 1905). A. P. C. Griffin has
also published through the library of Congress "Select List of References
on the Negro Question" (2d ed., 1906) and "List of Discussions of the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments" (1906). One of the most useful select
bibliographies is that of Walter L. Fleming in his "Reconstruction of the
Seceded States, 1865-76" (1905). The author of this book, in his volume on
"Slavery and Abolition" ("The American Nation," vol. xvi, 1908), has
printed a bibliographical chapter upon the general question of negro
servitude in America. The study of the Southern question would be much
lightened were there a systematic general bibliography, with a critical
discussion of the various works that may be listed.
A part of the problem is the spirit of those who write formal books, and a
group of works may be enumerated which take an extreme anti-Negro view and
seek to throw upon the African race the responsibility for whatever is
wrong in the South. Dr. R. W. Shufeldt (late of the United States army)
has published "The Negro a Menace to American Civilization" (1907), of
which the theme is sufficiently set forth by the wearisome use of the term
"hybrid" for mulatto; he illustrates his book, supposed to be a logical
argument on the inferiority of the Negro, with reproductions of
photographs showing the torture and death of a Negro in process of
lynching by a white mob; and he sums up his judgment of the negro race in
the phrase "The Negro in fact has no morals, and it is therefore out of
the question for him to be immoral."
The most misleading of all the Southern writers is Thomas Dixon, Jr., a
man who is spending his life in the attempt to persuade his neighbors that
the North is passionately hostile to the South; that the black is bent on
dishonoring the white race; and that the ultimate remedy is extermination.
In his three novels, "The Leopard's Spots" (1902), "The Clansman" (1905),
and "The Traitor" (1907), he paints a lurid picture of Reconstruction, in
which the high-toned Southern gentleman tells the white lady who wishes to
endow a college for Negroes that he would like--"to box you up in a glass
cage, such as are used for rattlesnakes, and ship you back to Boston." One
of these novels, "The Clansman," has been dramatized, and its production,
against the remonstrances of the respectable colored people in a Missouri
town, led directly to a lynching. No reasonable being would hold the whole
South responsible for such appeals to passion; but unfortunately many
well-meaning people accept that responsibility. In Charlotte, N. C., the
most refined and respectable white people went to see "The Clansman"
played and showed every sign of approval, as appears to have been the case
in Providence, R. I., in 1909. A recent writer, John C. Reed, in his
"Brothers' War," brackets Thomas Dixon, Jr., with John C. Calhoun as
exponents of Southern feeling and especially lauds Dixon as the "exalted
glorification" of the Ku Klux.
The volume from Dixon's pen which has had most influence is "The Leopard's
Spots," the accuracy of which is marked by such assertions as that
Congress made a law which gave "to India and Egypt the mastery of the
cotton markets of the world"; and that it cost $200,000,000 to pay the
United States troops in the South in the year 1867. The book has been
traversed with great skill by a negro writer. When Dixon asks: "Can you
change the color of the Negro's skin, the kink of his hair, the bulge of
his lip or the beat of his heart with a spelling-book or a machine?" Kelly
Miller replies: "You need not be so frantic about the superiority of your
race. Whatever superiority it may possess, inherent or acquired, will take
care of itself without such rabid support.... Your loud protestations,
backed up by such exclamatory outbursts of passion, make upon the
reflecting mind the impression that you entertain a sneaking suspicion of
their validity."
Many Southern writers are disposed to put their problems into the form of
novels, and there are half a dozen other stories nearly all having for
their stock in trade the statutes of Reconstruction, the negro politician
who wants to marry a white woman, and the vengeance inflicted on him by
the Ku Klux. In the latest of these novels the President of the United
States is pictured as dying of a broken heart because his daughter has
married a man who is discovered to be a Negro.
A book very widely read and quoted in the South is Frederick L. Hoffman,
"Race Traits and Tendencies" ("Am. Economic Association Publications," xi,
Nos. 1, 2, and 3, 1896). "Race Traits" is written by a man of foreign
extraction who therefore feels that he is outside the currents of
prejudice; it is well studied, scientifically arranged, and rests chiefly
on statistical summaries carefully compiled. The thesis of the book is
that the Africans in America are a dying race, but many of the
generalizations are based upon statistics of too narrow a range to permit
safe deductions, or upon the confessedly imperfect data of the Federal
censuses.
Quite different in its tone is a book which is said to have been widely
sold throughout the South, and which seems to be written for no other
purpose but to arouse the hostility of the Whites against the Negroes. The
title page reads: "_The Negro a Beast or In the Image of God The Reasoner
of the Age, the Revelator of the Century! The Bible as it is! The Negro
and his Relation to the Human Family! The Negro a beast, but created with
articulate speech, and hands, that he may be of service to his master--the
White man. The Negro not the Son of Ham, Neither can it be proven by the
Bible, and the argument of the theologian who would claim such, melts to
mist before the thunderous and convincing arguments of this masterful
book._" This savage work quotes with approval an alleged statement of a
Northern man that inside the next thirty years the South will be obliged
to "Re-enslave, kill or export the bulk of its Negro population." It
insists that the Negro is an ape, notwithstanding the fact that he has not
four hands; he has no soul; the mulatto has no soul; the expression "The
human race" is a false term invented by Plato "in the atheistic school of
evolution." The serpent in the garden of Eden was a Negro. Cain was also
mixed up in the detestable business of miscegenation, for the Bible says,
"Sin lieth at thy door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt
rule over him." The writer has taken pains to point out that "The mere
fact that the inspired writer refers to it in the masculine gender is no
evidence that it was not a female." The mulatto being "doomed by Divine
edict to instant death ... neither the mulatto nor his ultimate offspring
can acquire the right to live. This being true, it follows that these
monstrosities have no rights social, financial, political or religious
that man need respect." Wherever you find the word beast in the Bible it
means the Negro!
If such passionate and rancorous books were all that sprang from the
South, the problem would end in a race war; but as will be seen throughout
this discussion, there are two camps of opinion and utterance among
Southern white people. On one side the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth
violence and the violent take it by force; on the other side there is a
body of white writers who go deeper into the subject, who recognize the
responsibility of the white race as the dominant element, and who preach
and expect peace and uplift. Such a writer is A. H. Shannon in his "Racial
Integrity and Other Features of the Negro Problem" (printed in Nashville
and Dallas, 1907). In good temper and at much length he argues that the
Negro owes to the white man a debt of gratitude for bringing his ancestors
out of African barbarism, though the principal evils of the negro question
are due to the inferior race.
A widely read book of the same type is Thomas Nelson Page's "The Negro:
the Southerner's Problem" (1904). Mr. Page accepts as a fact the existence
of various classes of Negroes self-respecting and worthy of the respect of
others; and he believes, on the whole, that the colored race deserve
commendation. "The Negro has not behaved unnaturally," he says; "he has,
indeed, in the main behaved well." The main difficulty with Mr. Page's
book is that it fails to go to the bottom of the causes which underlie the
trouble; and that while admitting the fact that a considerable fraction of
the negro race is improving, he sees no ultimate solution. He suggests but
three alternatives: removal, which he admits to be impossible;
amalgamation, which is equally unthinkable; and an absolute separation of
social and apparently of economic life, which could be accomplished only
by turning over definite regions for negro occupation. Starting out with
undoubted good will to the black race, the writer ends with little hope of
a distinct bettering of conditions.
Quite a different point of view is William Benjamin Smith's "The Color
Line--A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn" (1905), which is based on the
assertion that the Negro is no part of the human race and hence that
amalgamation is a crime against nature. The general trend of Professor
Smith's book is an argument, somewhat technical and not convincing, that
the black man is physically, mentally, and morally so different from the
white man that he may be set outside the community. This was of course the
argument for slavery, and if it be true, is still an argument for peonage
or some other recognized position of dependency. From this deduction,
however, Smith sheers off; he uses the inferiority of the Negro chiefly as
an argument against the mixture of the races, which he believes to be a
danger; and he makes an ingenious distinction between the present mixture
in which the fathers were Whites and a possible future amalgamation in
which the fathers might be Negroes.
The most suggestive recent study of the negro question is Edgar Gardner
Murphy's "Problems of the Present South" (1904). Mr. Murphy is an
Alabamian, very familiar with Southern conditions. While not
optimistic--nobody in the South is optimistic on the race question--he
recognizes the possibility of a much better race feeling than the present
one. It is interesting to see that this man who, as champion of the
movement against child labor in the South, has been so successful in
relieving children of a terrible burden, feels sure that the worst thing
that can be done for the community is to keep the Negro ignorant. He is
perfectly willing to face the issue that those who show the qualities of
manhood should have the reward of manhood, namely, the right to
participate in politics; and the acknowledgment of that right he says does
not imply race fusion. He gives up nothing of his Southern birthright, and
courageously asserts the ability of his section to work out its problem
for itself.
Genial in tone, full of the ripe thought of an accomplished writer is
William Garrott Brown, "The Lower South" (1902), which is not a discussion
of the race question so much as of the character and point of view of the
planter before the Civil War and the Southern gentleman since that time, a
plea for a sympathetic understanding of the real difficulties of the South
and its sense of responsibility.
These five books are proof not only that there is wide divergence of
views, but also that genuine Southern men, strongly loyal to their own
section, can set an example of moderation of speech, breadth of view, and
willingness to accept and to promote a settlement of the Southern question
through the elevation of the people, white and black, who have ultimate
power over that question.
In slavery days almost all the discussion of race questions came from the
Whites, Southern or Northern. Now, there is a school of negro
controversialists and observers, several of whom have had the highest
advantages of education and of a personal acquaintance with the problems
which they discuss, and thus possess some advantages over many white
writers. About twenty years ago George W. Williams published his "History
of the Negro Race in America" (1883), which, though to a large degree a
compilation, is a respectable and useful book. Another writer, William H.
Thomas, in his "The American Negro" (1901), has made admissions with
regard to the moral qualities of his fellow Negroes which have been widely
taken up and quoted by anti-Negro writers. Charles W. Chesnutt, in several
books of collected stories, of which "The Conjure Woman" (1899) is the
liveliest, and in two novels, "The House Behind the Cedars" (1900) and the
"Marrow of Tradition" (1901), has criticised the rigid separation of
races. No man feels more keenly the race distinctions than one like
Chesnutt, more Caucasian than African in his make-up. One of the best of
their writers is Kelly Miller, who has contributed nearly fifty articles
to various periodicals upon the race problems; and in humor, good temper,
and appreciation of the real issues, shows himself often superior to the
writers whom he criticises. The most systematic discussion of the race by
one of themselves is William A. Sinclair's "The Aftermath of Slavery"
(1905), which, though confused in arrangement and unscientific in form, is
an excellent summary of the arguments in favor of the negro race and the
Negroes' political privileges.
The most eminent man whom the African race in America has produced is
Booker T. Washington, the well-known president of Tuskegee. In addition to
his numerous addresses and his personal influence, he has contributed to
the discussion several volumes, partly autobiographic and partly didactic.
His "Up from Slavery" (1901) is a remarkable story of his own rise from
the deepest obscurity to a place of great influence. In three other
volumes, "Character Building" (1902), "Working with the Hands" (1904), and
"The Negro in Business" (1907), he has widened his moral influence upon
his race. "The Future of the American Negro" (1899) is the only volume in
which Washington discusses the race problem as a whole; and his advice
here, as in all his public utterances, is for the Negro to show himself so
thrifty and so useful that the community cannot get on without him.
Paul L. Dunbar, the late negro poet, contented himself with his
irresistible fun and his pathos without deep discussions of problems. The
most distinguished literary man of the race is W. E. Burghardt DuBois, an
A.B. and Ph.D. of Harvard, who studied several years in Germany, and as
Professor of Sociology in Atlanta University has had an unusual
opportunity to study his people. Besides many addresses and numerous
articles, he has contributed to the discussion his "Souls of Black Folk"
(1903), which, in a style that places him among the best writers of
English to-day in America, passionately speaks the suffering of the highly
endowed and highly educated mulatto who is shut out of the kingdom of
kindred spirits only by a shadow of color. Witness such phrases as these:
"To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is
the very bottom of hardships"; or this, "The sincere and passionate belief
that somewhere between men and cattle, God created a _tertium quid_, and
called it a Negro,--a clownish, simple creature, at times even lovable
within its limitation, but straitly fore ordained to walk within the
Veil."
The three groups just sketched, the violent Southerners, moderate
Southerners, and negro writers, each from its own point of view has aimed
to study the complicated subject, to classify and generalize. Nearly all
the writers are sources, in that they are conversant with the South and
have a personal acquaintance with its problems; but their books are
discussions rather than materials. What is now most needed for a solid
understanding of the question is monographic first-hand studies of limited
scope in selected areas. Unfortunately that material is still scanty.
Professor DuBois has made a series of investigations as to the conditions
of the Negro; first, his elaborate monograph, "The Philadelphia Negro"
(published by the University of Pennsylvania, 1899), then a series of
sociological studies in the "Atlanta University Publications," and several
"Bulletins" published by the United States Department of Labor, notably
"Census Bulletin No. 8: Negroes in the United States" (1904). He has thus
made himself a leading authority upon the actual conditions, particularly
of the negro farmer. At Atlanta University and also at Hampton, Va., are
held annual conferences, the proceedings of which are published every
year, including a large amount of first-hand material on present
conditions. One Northern white man, Carl Kelsey, has addressed himself to
this problem in his "The Negro Farmer" (1903), which is a careful study of
the conditions of the Negroes in tidewater, Virginia.
One practical Southern cotton planter has devoted much time and attention
to the scientific study of the conditions on his own plantation and
elsewhere as a contribution toward a judgment of the race problem. This is
Alfred H. Stone, of Greenville, Miss., who has published half a dozen
monographs, several of which are gathered into a volume, under the title
"Studies in the American Race Problem" (1908). He is now engaged, under
the auspices of the Carnegie Institution, on a study of the whole
question. He has visited several Southern states and the West Indies,
and brings to his inquiries the point of view of an employer of Negroes
who wishes them well and sees the interest of his country in the
improvement of negro labor. Perhaps his judgment is somewhat affected by
the special conditions of Mississippi and of his own neighborhood, in
which the Negroes are very numerous and perhaps more than usually
disturbing. The results of his latest investigations will appear under the
title "Race Relations in America"; and may be expected to be the most
thorough contribution to the subject made by any writer.
Among less formal publications are the negro periodicals, which are very
numerous and include _Alexander's Magazine_ and a few other well-written
and well-edited summaries of things of special interest to the race. The
whole question has become so interesting that several of the great
magazines have taken it up. The _World's Work_ devoted its number of June,
1907, almost wholly to the South; and the _American Magazine_ published in
1907-8 a series of articles by Ray Stannard Baker on the subject. In 1904
the _Outlook_ published a series of seven articles by Ernest H. Abbott
based upon personal study. An interesting contribution is the so-called
"Autobiography of a Southerner," by "Nicholas Worth," published in the
_Atlantic Monthly_ in 1906. Whoever Nicholas Worth may be, there can be no
doubt as to his Southern birth, training, and understanding, nor of his
excellent style, sense of humor, and power to make clear the growth of
race feeling in the South since the Civil War.
All these and many other printed materials are at the service of the
Northern as of the Southern investigator. Among their contradictory and
controversial testimony may be discerned various cross currents of
thought; and their statements of fact and the results of their
researches form a body of material which may be analyzed as a basis for
new deductions. But nobody can rely wholly on printed copy for knowledge
of such complicated questions. Books cannot be cross-examined nor
compelled to fill up gaps in their statements. The investigator of the
South must learn the region and the people so as to take in his own
impressions at first hand. Printed materials are the woof; but the warp of
the fabric is the geography of the South, the distribution of soil, the
character of the crops, the habits of the people, their thrift and
unthrift, their own ideas as to their difficulties.
Yet let no one deceive himself as to what may be learned, even by wide
acquaintance or long residence. It is not so long ago that a Southern lady
who had lived for ten years in the neighborhood of Boston was amazed to be
told that such Massachusetts officers as Robert G. Shaw, during the Civil
War, actually came from good families; she had always understood that
people of position would not take commissions in the hireling Federal
army. If such errors can be made as to the North, like misconceptions may
arise as to the South. All that has ever been written about the Southern
question must be read in the light of the environment, the habits of
thought, and the daily life of the Southern people, white and black.