* * * * *
_The New Negro._ By WILLIAM PICKENS, Dean of Morgan College,
Baltimore. Neale Publishing Company, New York, 1916. Pp. 239.
"The New Negro" is a collection of speeches and essays through which
this well known orator has endeavored to present his views on the race
problem in the United States. Primarily polemic and ex-parte, this
work will hardly attract the attention of the investigator. But when
an author like this one, a man of reputation and influence among his
people, writes on such subjects as the "renaissance" of the Negro, his
constitutional status, and discusses Alexander Hamilton, Frederick
Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, the serious reader might well pause to
give this work more than ordinary consideration.
The book does not bear the stamp of research; the aim of the work is
to defend the Negro and laud those who have championed his cause. The
bold claims which Negroes have been making from time immemorial are
set forth in brilliant and forceful style. In this respect the book is
a success. It goes over old ground, but it does its work well.
Although not historical, some valuable facts of Negro history are
given from page to page. It contains, however, a few statements which
are not essential to the establishment of the Negro's claim to great
achievement. It is very difficult to demonstrate to a thinking man the
advantage to the Negro of such a contention as the much mooted
connection of Alexander Hamilton and Robert Browning with the black
race when those men spent their lives and passed into history as white
men. Such argument has just about as much bearing on the present as
the efforts now being made by certain enthusiastic race leaders to
prove that Christ was a black man rather than a Jew. Fraught then with
opinions rather than with organized facts adequate to the development
of the subject constituting its title, the book must be classed as
controversial literature.
It may be well to note here, however, exactly what the author means by
the "new Negro." The "new Negro," says he, "is not really new; he is
the same Negro under new conditions. Those who regret the passing of
the 'old Negro' and picture the new as something very different must
remember that there is no sharp line of demarcation between the old
and the new in any growing organism like a germ, a plant or a race."
The "new Negro" then is simply the Negro differently circumstanced. He
is ignored by the white man and, therefore, misunderstood. The "new
Negro" is living under the handicap of isolation by white men who
differ from their former masters who lived in close contact with them.
The result is that the white man of today, choosing not to become
acquainted with the Negro, has constructed within his mind a person
entirely different from what the Negro actually is. The "new Negro" is
not treacherous, indolent and criminal as suspected. He "is a sober,
sensible creature, conscious of his environment, knowing that not all
is right, but trying hard to become adjusted to this civilization in
which he finds himself by no will or choice of his own. He is not the
shallow, vain, showy creature which he is sometimes advertised to be.
He still hopes that the unreasonable opposition to his forward and
upward progress will relent. But, at any rate, he is resolved to
fight, and live or die, on the side of God and the Eternal Verities."
* * * * *
_Cotton as a World Power._ By JAMES A. B. SCHERER, LL.D. Frederick A.
Stokes Company, New York, 1916. Pp. 452.
Here we see cotton again not as king but as a world power. It is the
new Golden Fleece. The Civil War brought home to the public mind that
this vegetable fleece is really golden "and that its golden values are
so interwoven with the solidarity of mankind as to depend to a
peculiar degree for their stability on the maintenance of an unbroken
network of international trade. Cotton is here considered peculiar in
that it is the only crop of importance, all of which is sold by those
who produce it. It, therefore, gives rise to an enormous commerce and
provides a medium of exchange that almost entirely takes the place of
gold in the settlement of interstate and international balances." By
it countries are bound together "in its globe engirdling web; so that
when a modern economist concerns himself with the interdependence of
nations he naturally looks to cotton for his most effective
illustration."
Showing its startling growth in the Orient and the Occident even from
the time of Alexander the Great, cotton is traced as a factor in the
development of ancient nations and in the rise of the modern. It
strikes one as being a little strange to read in this economic
treatise such captions as "The Vegetable Lamb" and "Cotton Mythology."
The author then gives in more detail the earliest history of the
industry, referring to Hindu skill, Alexander's trade routes, Egyptian
mummies, the microscope, the transit from Rome to Spain, cotton and
the Renaissance, Edward III as the weaver king, the entrance of cotton
into England and the transformation of the country.
Taking up the industrial revolution the author develops the subject
more scientifically. The work contains less of mere history and gives
a more economic view of the forces set to work by the culture of
cotton throughout the civilized world. The numerous inventions which
figured so conspicuously in the rise of the industry are discussed. In
this portion of the work, however, the author has hardly said anything
new. He has merely restated well-known facts so as to give them a
somewhat enlarged and original treatment. Here we read more about Kay,
Hargraves, Arkwright, Compton, Cartwright, Watt, Davy and Brindley,
whose inventive genius supplied the mechanical appliance upon which
this industrial progress was based. Mention is also made of the
captains of industry who set this machinery going and directed the
world-wide movement which resulted in multiplying the wealth of some
and bringing comfort and prosperity to many. The references to the
influence of cotton on such writers as Malthus and Darwin and upon
such explorers as Columbus and Cortes show the breadth with which the
author treats the subject.
A large part of this work, of course, is devoted to tracing the
connection of cotton with the early manufacturing in the United
States, its impetus to slavery, its influences upon States' rights,
its effects on manufacturing in New England and on protection, free
trade, secession, the reconstruction of the South and the social
problem. On the whole this is an excellent work and will be received
by students of economic history as a valuable contribution in its
field.