_Race Orthodoxy in the South and other Aspects of the Negro Problem_. By
Thomas Pearce Bailey, Ph.D. The Neale Publishing Company, New York, 1914.
The author of this volume has a long intellectual pedigree. Pedigrees are
important in authors who write on the race problem. This is particularly
true when they attempt to tell us what the orthodox opinion of the South is
regarding the Negro. Much that passes for Southern opinion on the Negro is
too violent to be taken at its face value. Other interpretations of the
South have too frequently been the individual views of eminent men of
Southern origin who no longer hold orthodox views.
The author discusses some of these interpretations and criticises them.
There are four principal types. There is the philosophical view,
represented by Edgar Gardiner Murphy's "_The Basis of Ascendancy_." Mr.
Murphy "is one of the choicest specimens of noble character that the South
has produced," but he came under Northern influences and his book
represents a struggle between Northern and Southern points of view. "The
first part of his book seems to be, in the main, pro-Southern and defensive
of the South, while the latter part becomes largely Northern and critical
of the South." He does not succeed, in the opinion of the author, in
synthesizing these two divergent views.
The second type is sociological, represented by "_The Southerner_," a novel
written in the form of an autobiography or, perhaps, rather an
autobiography written in the form of a novel. The author is supposed to be
Walter Hines Page, at present American ambassador to Great Britain. Of
this book Mr. Bailey says: "The author is not a Southerner of the spirit,
whatever he may be of the flesh. There is something of North Carolina and
something of Massachusetts in his attitude, but none of the all-inclusive
Americanism that alone is able to write about the South with sympathy of
the heart yet with balanced discrimination."
To understand the South one must have lived in South Carolina, and
understand the "apparent violence" of Ben Tilman, or in Mississippi, the
home of Senator Vardaman. The South, the orthodox South, is today as it was
before the war, the "far South"; but the sentiments which dominate it are
not now, as in slavery days, the sentiments of the "master class" but
rather those of the "poor white man."
The third type of interpretation is represented here by "Uncle Tom's
Cabin." The criticsm of this book is so subtle that it is difficult to
indicate the outlines of it in a single paragraph. The difficulty with Mrs.
Stowe's interpretation of the South and the Negro is that she, just as
certain Southern humanitarians of the present day, is inclined to treat the
Negroes as a class. She does not regard them as a race, a different breed,
whose blood is a contamination. "No one," says the writer, "has come within
shouting distance of the real Negro problem who does not appreciate this
distinction. Indeed, almost everything critical that can be alleged against
'Uncle Tom's Cabin' springs from the failure of its humanitarian author to
sympathize with race consciousness as such."
Finally there is the scientific interpretation of Southern sentiment, and
the "race instinct" which is back of most Southern opinion in regard to the
Negro. This scientific interpretation is represented by Boas, "The Mind of
Primitive Man." "Ultimately," according to Professor Boas, "this phenomenon
(race instinct) is a repetition of the old instinct and fear of the
connubium of the patricians and the plebeians, of the European nobility and
the common people, or of the castes of India. The emotions and reasoning
are the same in every respect."
To this scientific exposition of the Southern attitude Mr. Bailey replies:
"Even if it could be scientifically proved that an infusion of Negro blood
would help the white race, the prejudice against a really great branch of
the white race like the Jews is sufficient warning to us not to confine our
discussion of race problems to the question of equality or inequality of
physical and mental endowment."
What then is race orthodoxy? Where shall we look for a true statement of
the attitude of the South on the subject of the Negro since none of these
attempts at interpretation have done justice to it? The racial creed has
been expressed at different times in a number of pithy expressions current
in the Southern states. Here they are in order as the author gives them:
"Blood will tell"; The white race must dominate; The Teutonic peoples stand
for race purity. The Negro is inferior and will remain so. "This is a white
man's country." Let there be no social equality; no political equality. In
matters of civil rights and legal adjustments give the white man as opposed
to the colored man the benefit of the doubt. In educational policy let the
Negro have the crumbs that fall from the white man's table. Let there be
such industrial education of the Negro as will fit him to serve the white
man. Only Southerners understand the Negro question. Let the South settle
the Negro question. The status of peasantry is all the Negro may hope for,
if the races are to live together in peace. Let the lowest white man count
for more than the highest Negro. The above statements indicate the leadings
of Providence.
This statement of the Southern creed is practically the common opinion of
the South. It is not the only opinion. It is not, perhaps, the "best"
opinion. But is it right opinion? Mr. Bailey thinks it is, in its
underlying meaning at any rate, but not in its "present shape." His book
may be said, on the whole, to be an interpretation and a justification of
this "underlying meaning."
Race orthodoxy in the South is, take it all in all, the most candid
statement of the race problem; the most searching, suggestive and revealing
interpretation of the attitude of the Southern white man that has ever been
written. The book is, however, merely a statement of the problem and not a
solution. Rather it is intended, as the author suggests again and again, to
provoke and stimulate--not discussion, heaven forbid,--but inquiry,
investigation. In spite of the fact that the author professes his personal
loyalty to the dogma upon which race orthodoxy is founded, still, by
stating it in the clear and candid way in which he has, in pointing out
with unflinching directness the moral cul-de-sac into which it has forced
the Southern people, he has at once enabled and compelled them to put their
faith on rational grounds. His is the higher criticism in race creeds, and
it is hard to tell where criticism once started will lead.