A VISIT TO PUBLIC BUILDINGS
The time had now arrived for our promised visit to some of the public
buildings of the city and we seated ourselves in an electric motor car
which the Doctor had summoned by touching a button. To my surprise,
it made the trip alone, by traversing a course made for this purpose,
somewhat on the order of the cash delivery systems formerly used in
our large stores, being elevated some twenty feet above the surface.
The coaches were arranged to come at a call from any number on certain
streets.
The Doctor suggested that we should first visit the “Administration
Building.” I was expecting to find Congress or some such body in
session, but to my surprise I was told by the Doctor that Congress had
been abolished, and that the country was run on what I had formerly
understood as the corporation plan; except that the salaries were not
so large. The business of the Government was entrusted to bureaus or
departments, and the officers in them were chosen for their fitness by
an improved system of civil service.
“Who is president now,” I inquired.
“President!” replied the Doctor, in surprise, “why we have none. I
never saw a president. We need none. We have an Executive Department
which fills his place.”
“What as to proposing new measures?” I asked. “Who writes the annual
messages suggesting them?”
“All this is left to a bureau chosen for that purpose, whose duties
are to keep the nation informed as to its needs, and to formulate new
plans, which are carried out along the idea of the _initiative_ and
_referendum_ system with which you are doubtless somewhat acquainted,
as I notice that it was discussed as early as 1890.”
I replied that I had a recollection of seeing the terms but I could not
give an intelligent definition of them. Whereupon the Doctor explained
the system.
“You see,” he said, “that the time wasted in Congressional debate
is saved and the chance to block needed legislation is reduced to a
minimum. There are no political offices to parcel out to henchmen,
and the ambitions of demagogues are not fostered at the expense of the
people. England, you will recollect, has had a king only in name for
four hundred years. The American people have found out there is no
necessity for either king, president, parliament or congress, and in
that respect we may be able sooner or later to teach the mother country
a lesson.”
“To say I am surprised at all this, Dr. Newell, is to express my
feelings but mildly,” said I, “but I can now see how the changes in
reference to the Negro have been brought about. Under our political
system, such as I knew it to be, these results could not have been
reached in a thousand years!”
“Yes, Mr. Twitchell,” replied the Doctor, “our new system, as it may be
called, has been a great help in settling, not only the Negro problem,
but many others; for instance the labor question, about which we have
already conversed,--and the end is not yet, the hey-day of our glory
is not reached and will not be until the principles of the Golden Rule
have become an actuality in this land.”
I here remarked that I always felt a misgiving as to our old system,
which left the Government and management of the people’s affairs
in the hands of politicians who had more personal interest than
statesmanship; but I could not conceive of any method of ridding the
country of this influence and power, and had about resolved to accept
the situation as a part of my common lot with humanity.
Doctor Newell stated that there was much opposition to the parcelling
out of land to Negro farmers. It was jeered at as “paternalism,” and
“socialistic,” and “creating a bad precedent.”
“But,” said he, “our Bureau of Public Utility carried out the idea with
the final endorsement of the people, who now appreciate the wisdom of
the experiment. The government could as well afford to spend public
money for the purpose of mitigating the results of race feeling as it
could to improve rivers and harbors. In both instances the public good
was served. If bad harbors were a curse so was public prejudice on the
race question. It was cheaper in the long run to remove the cause than
to patch up with palliatives. If the Negro was becoming vicious to a
large extent, and the cause of it was the intensity of race prejudice
in the land, which confined him to menial callings, and only a limited
number of those; and race prejudice could not be well prevented owing
to the misconception of things by those who fostered it; and if an
attempt at suppression would mean more bitterness toward the Negro and
danger to the country, then surely, looking at the question from the
distance at which we are to-day, the best solution was the one adopted
by our bureaus at the time. At least, we know the plan was successful,
and ‘nothing succeeds like success!’
“I am inclined to the opinion that the politicians, judging by the
magazine article I gave you,” said he, “were quite anxious to keep
the Negro question alive for the party advantage it brought. In the
North it served the purpose of solidifying the Negro vote for the
Republicans, and in the South the Democrats used it to their advantage;
neither party, therefore, was willing to remove the Negro issue by any
real substantial legislation. Enough legislation was generally proposed
_pro_ and _con_ to excite the voters desired to be reached, and there
the efforts ended.”
I could not but reflect that the triumph of reason over partisanship
and demagoguery had at last been reached, and that the American
people had resolved no longer to temporize with measures or men, but
were determined to have the government run according to the original
design of its founders, upon the principle of the greatest good to the
greatest number.
No President since Grant was ever more abused by a certain class of
newspapers and politicians than President Roosevelt, who adopted the
policy of appointing worthy men to office, regardless of color. He
said that fitness should be his rule and not color. In his efforts to
carry out this policy he met with the most stubborn resistance from
those politicians who hoped to make political capital out of the Negro
question. To his credit let it be said that he refused to bow the knee
to Baal but stood by his convictions to the end.
I found from the published reports of the Bureau of Statistics that the
Negro’s progress in one hundred years had been all that his friends
could have hoped for. I give below a comparative table showing the
difference:
A. D. 1900 A. D. 2004
Aggregate Negro Wealth $890,000,000 $2,670,000,000
Aggregate Negro population 8,840,789 21,907,079
Per cent. of illiteracy 45 per cent. 2 per cent.
Per cent. of crime 20 per cent. 1 per cent.
Ratio of home owners 1 in 100 1 in 30.
Ratio of insane 1 in 1000 1 in 500.
Death rate 20 per M. 5 per M.
Number of lawyers 250 5,282
Number of doctors 800 11,823
Number of pharmacists 150 2,111
Number of teachers 30,000 200,603
Number of preachers 75,000 250,804
Number of mechanics 80,000 240,922
I noticed that Negroes had gained standing in the country as citizens
and were no longer objects for such protection as the whites thought
a Negro deserved. They stood on the same footing legally as other
people. It was a pet phrase in my time for certain communities to say
to the Negro that they “would protect him in his rights,” but what
the Negro wanted was that he should not have to be protected at all!
He wanted public sentiment to protect him just as it did a white man.
This proffered help was all very good, since it was the best the times
afforded, but it made the Negro’s rights depend upon what his white
neighbors said of him,--if these neighbors did not like him his rights
were _nil_. His was an ephemeral existence dependent on the whims and
caprices of friends or foes. True citizenship must be deeper than that
and be measured by the law of the land--not by the opinion of one’s
neighbors.
But the voice of the politician who wished to contort civil into
social equality was now hushed. He no more disgraced the land, and a
Negro could have a business talk with a white man on the street of a
Southern city without either party becoming subjects of criticism for
practicing “social equality.”