been due to the appalling loss of the best manhood of the West in two
blood-baths in one generation. It is hard to find leadership, hard to
find superiority, where the best have been slaughtered by the millions
in so short a span. Nevertheless, the deficiency must somehow be made
up. The new generations must be brought back to the great principles,
the leaders must be found.
The principles, at least, are still before us. I believe most
Americans, however short they may fall of the ideal, still hold to
the old-fashioned notion that, for every individual, life should be
a pilgrimage of self-improvement in mind and character, that today
should find a man superior to yesterday and inferior to tomorrow,
hence that superiority and inferiority are of the very essence of life
and of truth. Every man should scorn equality in the pilgrim stages
of himself, and he should scorn it as a social objective. I fail to
find any other notion that holds out hope for the progress of either
the individual or of society. Equalitarianism spells stagnation and
mediocrity for both. I repeat, it is of the very essence of this
ideology to build the inferior up by pulling the superior down, and the
result is invariably the same. The inferior, in gaining what has not
been earned, has lost the spur, and the superior, in losing what was
well deserved, has lost the crown.
* * * * *
_Isn’t the United States supposed to be the great racial melting pot,
calling the oppressed of all countries to its shores, and isn’t the
Statue of Liberty their assurance of welcome?_
It is one thing to offer guests a welcome; quite another to have them
take over one’s house, lock, stock and barrel. This is especially true
when the guests have entirely different ideas about housekeeping. The
thought back of the original invitation was that the new races would
become “Americanized”--not that America would be made over in the image
of the new races.
To begin with, the United States was a Christian country. Its language,
its literature, its laws and its moral concepts were English. I do not
favor its becoming a non-Christian country with a different language,
a different jurisprudence and different moral concepts. I oppose
this because to change the foundation on which a house is built is a
doubtful way to preserve it.
I oppose it also because our English heritage is unique and too
precious to be frittered away. Indeed, I am certain that the native
English-speaking stocks in the United States, North as well as South,
long suffering and gullible as these have been, are at last becoming
restive. They are growing tired of watching their public leaders
pander to minority groups, playing the majority against itself, and
molding policy to suit the minorities. They are sick of seeing words
like “freedom” and “democracy” kidnapped and perverted to please every
irresponsible element in the community. They are weary of having the
ideals of their forefathers derided by the college professors who
teach their children. They are surfeited with churchmen who front for
communism.[17] They are increasingly suspicious of one-sided newspapers
and one-sided publishing houses either controlled by, or pandering to,
minority groups. They have had enough of equalitarian propaganda in
theater, television and moving pictures.
The greatest danger may well be that when these stocks fully realize
the extent to which they have been put upon and betrayed, their
resentment may turn to anger harder to control than the depredations of
the Marxists.
* * * * *
_Could you give me a few points to stress in my effort to make
Northerners realize the situation we face in the South?_
I have found it useful to ask nine simple questions. Here they are:
1. Can you name one case in all history in which whites and Negroes in
large numbers have lived together without segregation and have failed
to intermarry?
2. Can you name one case in all history in which a white civilization
failed to deteriorate after intermarrying with Negroes?
3. Can you name one case in all history of a stable, free civilization
that was predominantly, or even substantially, Negro?
4. Can you name a better example, anywhere on earth, of a Negro society
left on its own resources--after previous local contact with one white
civilization and while still under the protection and influence of
another such civilization--than the Republic of Haiti, and do you find
anything in the Voodoo religion, or the government of Haiti, or its
laws, or its public education, or its finances, or its literature, that
suggests equality with our white culture?
5. You say the Negro “hasn’t had a chance”. Going back to the beginning
of history, what chances has the white man had that he didn’t make for
himself, and what chances has the Negro lacked that he couldn’t have
made for himself, had he had the capacity?
6. You speak of human rights. What human right is greater than the
right of a civilization to defend itself against destruction?
7. Did Abraham Lincoln, or Thomas Jefferson, or John Marshall, or
Andrew Jackson, or Daniel Webster, or any other great statesman of our
past, or any Supreme Court in our history prior to Earl Warren’s, favor
forcing social integration on the South or consider that its customs
in this respect were a denial of equal opportunity or contrary to any
other American ideals?
8. Leaving the integration decision aside and considering only general
judicial qualifications and capacity, has any Supreme Court in our
history ever stood lower in the opinion of the rest of the bench or of
the bar than our present Supreme Court?
9. With reference to international appeasement, which is more in the
interests of world progress: that an advanced civilization should
remodel itself to suit the wishes of backward peoples, or that the
advanced civilization should maintain those policies which have
distinguished it from backward peoples?
The whole matter can really be put in a nutshell: a gullible, trusting
nation has been misled by various minority groups[18] with their own
self-interest at stake into believing that Negroes have an inborn
capacity for Western civilization equal to the white race. This has
caused the North and the Supreme Court to feel morally justified in
forcing the South to risk what amounts to social integration with the
Negro. The facts are that the Negro does not have the aforesaid inborn
capacity and that social integration with him invariably produces
deterioration in any white civilization that tries it. Thus it is
not the South which is committing a moral crime against the Negro in
maintaining segregation, but the North which is committing a moral
crime against the South in forcing integration.
Let me also put the broader problem in a nutshell if I can: The
minority groups in question have sown their seed in soil made fertile
by the left-wing overdrift of our times. This overdrift has other
manifestations. We see it in declining moral standards, in disrespect
for distinction and authority, in juvenile delinquency, in the sordid
content of literature and the drama, in the appeal of public leaders
for votes instead of principles, in the ascendancy everywhere of
quantity over quality, in a rising crime rate, in excessive government
partiality to labor unions, in the careless workmanship and lack of
discipline of the labor force, in the disappearance of the servant
class and the resultant waste of higher energies upon domestic duties,
in punitive taxation, in the appeasement of evil and lawlessness among
men and nations, and in many other aspects of life.
It is an overdrift which sources in one colossal error of fact. There
is no such thing as equality in nature.
As is plainly evident, there is no such thing as equality among men.
(I acknowledge many men as superior to me, and I mean _superior_, not
simply _different_.) To contradict this obvious fact is to set in
motion a hornet’s nest of evils and to corrupt humanity as a whole. In
the United States both the effect of the overdrift and the influence
of minorities have been accentuated by the cultural mixing which has
taken place since the 1880’s, particularly in the urban Northeast and
North, which are centers of cultural dissemination for the rest of the
country, and in which the mass media have their roots.
Against these things, because of the relative purity of its stocks
and traditions, the South is a bulwark.[19] To save the South from
integration is to begin the saving of the United States from all the
manifestations of equalitarianism and cultural deterioration I have
mentioned.
* * * * *
_What is the solution to the Negro problem as it shows itself in
spheres other than integration?_
It should be left to the sovereign states to solve in accordance with
the way the issue is presented in each separate area. The whole point
in having state governments is to keep questions which have aspects
varying with locality in the hands of the people most concerned. States
with only a few Negroes have a completely different problem from those
with many.
Of course the equalitarian wishes to concentrate matters in Washington,
for he can then use the ignorance of large Northern populations to
overwhelm the knowledge and experience of the South. But this is not
the procedure our Founding Fathers contemplated.
I would point out to you how, throughout the world, men remote from the
problem are telling men living with the problem what to do. Doesn’t
this strike you as rather an inverted state of affairs? Doesn’t it
strike you as meaningful that the people who are living with the
problem always disagree with the people who are not?
Granted it is usually possible, where large populations are involved,
for the remote equalitarian to find someone on the local scene to
carry his torch for him under the title of “moderate” and wearing the
halo of a humanitarian, while the men who are fighting to preserve the
integrity of their civilization are variously described as racists,
supremacists, rabble or mobs, and pictured as waging a losing battle
against the tide of progress. Rest assured, however, that all the
evidence of history points to retrogression where white and black
integrate, and that the “progress” offered in this field by the remote
Marxist or the local Quisling is a sham. Be not deceived by the efforts
of these people to wrap integration up and sell it in the same package
with progress in general. Wherever else social revolution may be
identified with progress, it cannot be so identified here.
* * * * *
_What is the solution to the integration controversy in particular?_
There are several possible solutions. In my opinion the Supreme Court
has been badly advised, both by the Attorney General and by counsel for
the South. The Boas equalitarian anthropology has never been properly
examined, the rotten core of this rosy apple, which is the apple upon
which integration feeds, has never been laid bare to the judicial eye.
I cannot tell, but I would hope that a new case in which this subject
was explored might result in a reversal of _Brown vs. The Board of
Education_.
It must be admitted that the court handled this aspect of the case in
a somewhat unusual fashion. It is customary for judges to base their
decision upon the record of the proceedings. They may take judicial
notice of what is common knowledge, such as the fact that the sun rises
in the east, but everything else bearing upon the decision must be
part of the record so that all parties may have had a chance to argue
concerning it.
In the _Brown_ case, however, the use of Myrdal’s _Dilemma_, and the
Boas anthropology on which it is based, was apparently entirely apart
from the record and without notice to the parties. In my letter to the
Attorney General I said “I assume there must have been some indication,
in argument or elsewhere, that these authorities were to be used.” I
have since been informed that there was no such indication. It may
be, therefore, that instead of saying that the court has been badly
advised, I should say that the court has not yet given the parties an
opportunity to advise it on this important point.
There is also the possibility of a constitutional amendment, but
since this requires a vote of three-fourths of the states, the road
is long, difficult and doubtful. It is the road the court should have
required the integrationist to travel, because, under the Constitution,
it is the _change_ from established and well-proved ways that was
intended to be made hard. It seems certain that an amendment forcing
integration upon the South would not have succeeded. Since the
court betrayed us all by choosing the wide, easy gate that leads to
destruction, it can best lead us back and let the integrationist try
the narrow gate.
Basic to either a reversal of the court’s decision or to an amendment
is the enlightenment of the American people on the real issue. Strong
political leadership could accomplish this. A Presidential challenge
to the court would be far from unprecedented, and in my judgment could
succeed were it supported by a forceful presentation of the facts, and
an informed public opinion. The politician who betrays his country as
a whole by pandering to a minority group because it appears to hold
the balance of power is of all creatures the most pitiful. Leaders
in public life seem to have forgotten that if there is one thing the
American people love, even sometimes beyond the merits of an issue, it
is courage in a public man, and articulate fighting leadership. In this
case, fighting leadership would have the merits on its side.
As a practical matter, I think that education of our public men
themselves in the essentials discussed here is long overdue. A leader
cannot lead when he does not know what the fight is about. Not only
must the people of the North be informed, and the brainwashing of
thirty years corrected, but our public men must be reached with the
facts and persuaded to study them. Once this is accomplished, I am
confident the rest will follow rather rapidly. We are actually dealing
in this situation with a sort of mass hypnosis in which the bellwethers
are fully as hypnotized as the flock.
Far too many Southerners fail to realize that the grounds on which
they are basing their resistance, such as states’ rights and the
Negro’s momentary deficiencies, do not go to the heart of the question,
however valid in other respects these grounds may be. For example, a
Northerner, or a court, can always confuse the point about the Negro’s
momentary deficiencies with the argument that these can be corrected in
the current or next generation and that we must take prompt measures to
ensure that they are. When the Southerner pushes the argument beyond
this, and questions the momentary nature of the deficiencies, he is
met with Boas, and there the debate ends with the North and the court
understandably feeling themselves to be the intellectual victors. One
cannot win a battle in what Gladstone called “the world of thought” in
such a fashion.
Again in the matter of states’ rights, while in total agreement with
the South on the constitutional question, I believe it a mistake to
give it emphasis above, and often to the exclusion of, the issue of
limited racial adaptability. If the North and the court feel that a
burning wrong is being committed in the name of the Constitution, they
will stretch a long way in their interpretation of that document to
correct the wrong. Arguments about states’ rights fall on unwilling
ears, as do references to history and precedent, since the equalitarian
replies that the latest scientific discoveries invalidate history and
precedent.
Let me suggest an analogy. You are looking out of your door and you
see a man on the street corner who appears to be committing murder.
You protest, but he replies that he is within his constitutional
rights. How much of an impression does he make on you? But now suppose,
instead, he answers that he is not committing murder at all, that he is
only defending himself against a homicidal attack, is not this the more
convincing reply?
The South must win the battle for the mind of the North on moral, not
on legal, grounds. It must convince the North that integration is
morally wrong because it is destructive of the white civilization of
the South. If it fails to do this, then the moral issue immediately
moves to the Northern side, and injustice to the Negro becomes the
dominant question.
Some fighters in the cause of the South, like David Lawrence, have
taken the position that the 14th Amendment is itself illegal. I would
not dispute this. But I would point out that the average citizen,
reading the simple words of Sec. 1 of this Amendment, would scarcely
now find sufficient fault with them, after so much reliance has been
placed upon them in so many other situations for so long, to feel that
the Amendment should be declared void. In my opinion, the trouble is
not with the Amendment but with the new interpretation the court has
placed upon it. I would even go so far as to say that if there had
been no 14th Amendment the court would have found some other way of
accomplishing its purpose.
I am greatly concerned at this unwillingness of the South, and
Northern friends of the South, to meet the racial issue. I think
ignorance of the scientific validity of their case partly explains the
unwillingness, although innate kindness is also involved, as I have
said in my answer to the first question.
I would, therefore, like to see the start of a campaign for the
enlightenment of leaders, both North and South, and I would enlarge
the word “leader” to include not only public men in the sense of
politicians, judges, and other office holders, but all molders of
public opinion in the fields of education, religion, journalism and
entertainment. It is a strange thing that with the development of
modern means of communication those who influence public opinion most
are no longer responsible to the electorate. The day when the statesman
dominated the public eye and ear has passed. True, the statesman has
access to radio and television, as well as to the columns of the
press, but this access is small and transient in comparison with the
influence exercised by the owners of chains of newspapers and radio and
television stations, or national magazines, moving picture companies,
and book publishing houses. Such men are responsible to no electorate
and can keep on slanting news and warping the public mind long after
the statesman in a similar position would have been retired.
While many of these leaders are members of the very minority groups
who are seeking to alter the foundations of our society, and from
whom consequently nothing can be expected, many are not. The latter,
being without instruction, have simply fallen victim to the constant
propaganda of the former. The technique of the big lie, endlessly
repeated, is a familiar and dangerous one. But it can be counteracted.
These men must be reached and informed. Most of them are sufficiently
intelligent so that even one attentive reading of Boas, Herskovits,
Myrdal or Kluckhohn should be enough.
In addition to a campaign for the enlightenment of leaders, I would
recommend the creation of a Foundation for the informing of public
opinion as a whole. If millions can be poured into the Carnegie
Foundation, and if this Foundation can publish Myrdal’s _Dilemma_
with its open threat to the pillars of the American way of life, then
perhaps some money can be raised to shore those pillars up, something
can be spared in defense of the country our forefathers bequeathed us.
The functions of such a Foundation are too obvious to be detailed
here. Its general object should be to re-educate the American people in
the principles upon which our republic was based and through which it
grew to greatness. Neither equality nor integration were among them.
In sum, my personal view is that nothing can be accomplished without
changing the climate of public opinion in the North, Mid-West, and
West, but that this climate can be quickly changed once the core of the
issue is made clear, because even without instruction the opinion polls
in these areas show a close balance of instinctive judgment on the side
of the truth. Thereafter, reversal or amendment is only a question
of time. It took experience to produce the repeal of the Prohibition
Amendment. In the case of the integration decision we are getting the
experience and need only an understanding of the facts.
I have sometimes been told, by those seeking an easier solution, that
some sort of compromise must be found, that amendment or reversal
“won’t do,” to which I can only reply: If a patient with a seriously
infected appendix goes to a doctor and is advised by the doctor that
an operation is imperative, that there is no easier solution, does the
patient answer that an operation “won’t do”?
Failing a reversal or an amendment, failing an awakened fighting
national leadership, there remains only a battle by the South at the
local level, a desperate rear guard action which the South will fight
perhaps even in some cases to the permanent abandonment of its public
schools. But I call upon the North for its own sake to think again
before it drives the South any further toward despair or robs its
children of their education. In the words of one Southern Senator:
“The Southern whites are in the minority when it comes to determining
the policy of the Federal Government; the Negro problem increases
yearly; and there are centuries ahead of us. The South needs help, and
for the sake of generations yet unborn the South pleads for that help
before it is too late. Alone and unaided, Southerners may maintain a
white South for many decades yet, and we shall do so in spite of all
outside attacks, even those coming from members of our own race whose
battles we are also fighting. But the South can hope for no permanent
victory over the Negro problem without the aid of the North, East and
West.... This is a problem which the Nation created and which only the
Nation as a whole can adequately and permanently solve.”
If, being a Northerner, I may dare to speak one last word to the South,
in the utmost sympathy and understanding, I would say, curb your anger
as best you can. I am convinced the majority of Northerners are sincere
humanitarians who are being unconsciously victimized by a hoax. Work
to enlighten them, but do not play into the hands of your enemies,
and theirs, by violence. Lynchings and bombings do not destroy these
enemies; they destroy you.
Above all, in the face of great provocation, protect the Negro from
himself. Continue and improve your stewardship. Give no grounds for the
title supremacist. Deserve, as indeed in the past you so often have,
the title leader and minister. In the Christian family the Negro is
still your younger brother, the figure of the Galilean still stands in
judgment over you both.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] While scientists dislike the concept suggested by the word
“average”, preferring the concept of “frequency”, I have used “average”
throughout this book as more understandable to the layman and equally
acceptable in the context in which I employ it. For example, where a
scientist would say the _frequency_ with which emotionalism occurs in
Negroes is greater than the _frequency_ with which it occurs in whites,
I would say the _average_ Negro is more emotional than the _average_
white.
[3] A review in the English publication _The Eugenics Review_
for October 1960 calls Dr. Shuey’s book, _The Testing of Negro
Intelligence_ (1958), “as impartial a study as any that have been made
in the racial field.”
[4] I spare the reader further details on this point. For those with
strong stomachs who seek documentation I may mention _The Seething
African Pot_ (1936) by Daniel Thwaite; _The Mind of the Savage_ (1929)
by Raoul Allier; and _Mau Mau Man-Hunt_ (1957) by William W. Baldwin.
An informative short article by Joseph E. Evans may be found in the
_Wall Street Journal_ for August 23, 1960.
[5] I do not consider here the good done by whites in Africa. See pages
77 and 80.