I have endeavored in two former letters to set out the reasons why it
seems likely that the future American ethnic type will be formed by a
fusion of all the various races now peopling this continent, and to show
that this process has been under way, slowly but surely, like all
evolutionary movements, for several hundred years. I wish now to consider
some of the conditions which will retard this fusion, as well as certain
other facts which tend to promote it.
The Indian phase of the problem, so far at least as the United States is
concerned, has been practically disposed of in what has already been
said. The absorption of the Indians will be delayed so long as the
tribal relations continue, and so long as the Indians are treated as
wards of the Government, instead of being given their rights once for
all, and placed upon the footing of other citizens. It is presumed that
this will come about as the wilder Indians are educated and by the
development of the country brought into closer contact with
civilization, which must happen before a very great while. As has been
stated, there is no very strong prejudice against the Indian blood; a
well-stocked farm or a comfortable fortune will secure a white husband
for a comely Indian girl any day, with some latitude, and there is no
evidence of any such strong race instinct or organization as will make
the Indians of the future wish to perpetuate themselves as a small and
insignificant class in a great population, thus emphasizing distinctions
which would be overlooked in the case of the individual.
The Indian will fade into the white population as soon as he chooses,
and in the United States proper the slender Indian strain will ere long
leave no trace discoverable by anyone but the anthropological expert. In
New Mexico and Central America, on the contrary, the chances seem to be
that the Indian will first absorb the non-indigenous elements, unless,
which is not unlikely, European immigration shall increase the white
contingent.
The Negro element remains, then, the only one which seems likely to
present any difficulty of assimilation. The main obstacle that retards
the absorption of the Negro into the general population is the
apparently intense prejudice against color which prevails in the United
States. This prejudice loses much of its importance, however, when it is
borne in mind that it is almost purely local and does not exist in quite
the same form anywhere else in the world, except among the Boers of
South Africa, where it prevails in an even more aggravated form; and, as
I shall endeavor to show, this prejudice in the United States is more
apparent than real, and is a caste prejudice which is merely accentuated
by differences of race. At present, however, I wish to consider it
merely as a deterrent to amalgamation.
This prejudice finds forcible expression in the laws which prevail in
all the Southern States, without exception, forbidding the intermarriage
of white persons and persons of color--these last being generally
defined within certain degrees. While it is evident that such laws alone
will not prevent the intermingling of races, which goes merrily on in
spite of them, it is equally apparent that this placing of mixed
marriages beyond the pale of the law is a powerful deterrent to any
honest or dignified amalgamation. Add to this legal restriction, which
is enforced by severe penalties, the social odium accruing to the white
party to such a union, and it may safely be predicted that so long as
present conditions prevail in the South, there will be little marrying
or giving in marriage between persons of different race. So ferocious
is this sentiment against intermarriage, that in a recent Missouri case,
where a colored man ran away with and married a young white woman, the
man was pursued by a "posse"--a word which is rapidly being debased from
its proper meaning by its use in the attempt to dignify the character of
lawless Southern mobs--and shot to death; the woman was tried and
convicted of the "crime" of "miscegenation"--another honest word which
the South degrades along with the Negro.
Another obstacle to race fusion lies in the drastic and increasing
proscriptive legislation by which the South attempts to keep the white
and colored races apart in every place where their joint presence might
be taken to imply equality; or, to put it more directly, the persistent
effort to degrade the Negro to a distinctly and permanently inferior
caste. This is undertaken by means of separate schools, separate
railroad and street cars, political disfranchisement, debasing and
abhorrent prison systems, and an unflagging campaign of calumny, by
which the vices and shortcomings of the Negroes are grossly magnified
and their virtues practically lost sight of. The popular argument that
the Negro ought to develop his own civilization, and has no right to
share in that of the white race, unless by favor, comes with poor grace
from those who are forcing their civilization upon others at the
cannon's mouth; it is, moreover, uncandid and unfair. The white people
of the present generation did not make their civilization; they
inherited it ready-made, and much of the wealth which is so strong a
factor in their power was created by the unpaid labor of the colored
people. The present generation has, however, brought to a high state of
development one distinctively American institution, for which it is
entitled to such credit as it may wish to claim; I refer to the custom
of lynching, with its attendant horrors.
The principal deterrent to race admixture, however, is the low
industrial and social efficiency of the colored race. If it be conceded
that these are the result of environment, then their cause is not far to
seek, and the cure is also in sight. Their poverty, their ignorance and
their servile estate render them as yet largely ineligible for social
fusion with a race whose pride is fed not only by the record of its
achievements but by a constant comparison with a less developed and
less fortunate race, which it has held so long in subjection.
The forces that tend to the future absorption of the black race are,
however, vastly stronger than those arrayed against it. As experience
has demonstrated, slavery was favorable to the mixing of races. The
growth, under healthy civil conditions, of a large and self-respecting
colored citizenship would doubtless tend to lessen the clandestine
association of the two races; but the effort to degrade the Negro may
result, if successful, in a partial restoration of the old status. But,
assuming that the present anti-Negro legislation is but a temporary
reaction, then the steady progress of the colored race in wealth and
culture and social efficiency will, in the course of time, materially
soften the asperities of racial prejudice and permit them to approach
the whites more closely, until, in time, the prejudice against
intermarriage shall have been overcome by other considerations.
It is safe to say that the possession of a million dollars, with the
ability to use it to the best advantage, would throw such a golden glow
over a dark complexion as to override anything but a very obdurate
prejudice. Mr. Spahr, in his well-studied and impartial book on
_America's Working People_, states as his conclusion, after a careful
study of conditions in the South, that the most advanced third of the
Negroes of that section has already, in one generation of limited
opportunity, passed in the race of life the least advanced third of the
whites. To pass the next third will prove a more difficult task, no
doubt, but the Negroes will have the impetus of their forward movement
to push them ahead.
The outbreaks of race prejudice in recent years are the surest evidence
of the Negro's progress. No effort is required to keep down a race which
manifests no desire nor ability to rise; but with each new forward
movement of the colored race it is brought into contact with the whites
at some fresh point, which evokes a new manifestation of prejudice until
custom has adjusted things to the new condition. When all Negroes were
poor and ignorant they could be denied their rights with impunity. As
they grow in knowledge and in wealth they become more self-assertive,
and make it correspondingly troublesome for those who would ignore their
claims. It is much easier, by a supreme effort, as recently attempted
with temporary success in North Carolina, to knock the race down and rob
it of its rights once for all, than to repeat the process from day to
day and with each individual; it saves wear and tear on the conscience,
and makes it easy to maintain a superiority which it might in the course
of a short time require some little effort to keep up.
This very proscription, however, political and civil at the South,
social all over the country, varying somewhat in degree, will, unless
very soon relaxed, prove a powerful factor in the mixture of the races.
If it is only by becoming white that colored people and their children
are to enjoy the rights and dignities of citizenship, they will have
every incentive to "lighten the breed," to use a current phrase, that
they may claim the white man's privileges as soon as possible. That this
motive is already at work may be seen in the enormous extent to which
certain "face bleachers" and "hair straighteners" are advertised in the
newspapers printed for circulation among the colored people. The most
powerful factor in achieving any result is the wish to bring it about.
The only thing that ever succeeded in keeping two races separated when
living on the same soil--the only true ground of caste--is religion, and
as has been alluded to in the case of the Jews, this is only
superficially successful. The colored people are the same as the whites
in religion; they have the same standards and mediums of culture, the
same ideals, and the presence of the successful white race as a constant
incentive to their ambition. The ultimate result is not difficult to
foresee. The races will be quite as effectively amalgamated by
lightening the Negroes as they would be by darkening the whites. It is
only a social fiction, indeed, which makes of a person seven-eighths
white a Negro; he is really much more a white man.
The hope of the Negro, so far as the field of moral sympathy and support
in his aspirations is concerned, lies, as always, chiefly in the North.
There the forces which tend to his elevation are, in the main, allowed
their natural operation. The exaggerated zeal with which the South is
rushing to degrade the Negro is likely to result, as in the case of
slavery, in making more friends for him at the North; and if the North
shall not see fit to interfere forcibly with Southern legislation, it
may at least feel disposed to emphasize, by its own liberality, its
disapproval of Southern injustice and barbarity.
An interesting instance of the difference between the North and the
South in regard to colored people, may be found in two cases which
only last year came up for trial in two adjoining border States. A
colored man living in Maryland went over to Washington and married a
white woman. The marriage was legal in Washington. When they returned
to their Maryland home they were arrested for the crime of
"miscegenation"--perhaps it is only a misdemeanor in Maryland--and
sentenced to fine and imprisonment, the penalty of extra-judicial death
not extending so far North. The same month a couple, one white and one
colored, were arrested in New Jersey for living in adultery. They were
found guilty by the court, but punishment was withheld upon a promise
that they would marry immediately; or, as some cynic would undoubtedly
say, the punishment was commuted from imprisonment to matrimony.
The adding to our territories of large areas populated by dark races,
some of them already liberally dowered with Negro blood, will enhance
the relative importance of the non-Caucasian elements of the population,
and largely increase the flow of dark blood toward the white race, until
the time shall come when distinctions of color shall lose their
importance, which will be but the prelude to a complete racial fusion.
The formation of this future American race is not a pressing problem.
Because of the conditions under which it must take place, it is likely
to be extremely slow--much slower, indeed, in our temperate climate and
highly organized society, than in the American tropics and sub-tropics,
where it is already well under way, if not a _fait accompli_. That
it must come in the United States, sooner or later, seems to be a foregone
conclusion, as the result of natural law--_lex dura, sed tamen lex_--a
hard pill, but one which must be swallowed. There can manifestly be no
such thing as a peaceful and progressive civilization in a nation
divided by two warring races, and homogeneity of type, at least in
externals, is a necessary condition of harmonious social progress.
If this, then, must come, the development and progress of all the
constituent elements of the future American race is of the utmost
importance as bearing upon the quality of the resultant type. The white
race is still susceptible of some improvement; and if, in time, the more
objectionable Negro traits are eliminated, and his better qualities
correspondingly developed, his part in the future American race may well
be an important and valuable one.
_Boston Evening Transcript_, September 1, 1900