documented _ad infinitum_ that the social and biological sciences in
Anglo-American countries, for the past half century or so, especially
since the twenties, have strenuously and studiously avoided any
research that could have thrown light on genetic differences between
races and ethnic groups. That this avoidance and suppression, this
discouragement of graduate students who might have been curious and
interested in such research, was done in the name of the egalitarian
ideology, in full knowledge that it was unscholarly conduct, has been
admitted, in print, among themselves, by some of our most prominent
social scientists.”
[7] In fairness to the memory of the late Clyde Kluckhohn, I should
note here that in a review in _The American Anthropologist_ in December
1959 (Vol. 61, No. 6) of a book by Walter Goldschmidt, Kluckhohn
reversed himself and stated that racial equality in intellect could
no longer be assumed. Professor Kluckhohn’s words were: “In the light
of accumulating information as to significantly varying incidence
of mapped genes among different peoples, it seems unwise to assume
flatly that ‘man’s innate capacity does not vary from one population
to another’.... On the premise that specific capacities are influenced
by the properties of each gene pool, it seems very likely indeed
that populations differ quantitatively in their potentialities for
particular kinds of achievement.”
[8] The layman will find a useful introduction to the anthropological
aspects of the integration controversy in Nathaniel Weyl’s _The
Negro in American Civilization_, (1960), Chapters 11 through 15,
together with the footnotes and references contained therein. While
I am in sharp disagreement with some of the political and social
conclusions which Mr. Weyl projects from his scientific material, the
anthropological data are well presented.
To those wishing to go still further into the subject, I recommend,
in addition to the works cited by Mr. Weyl, Garrett Hardin’s “The
Competitive Exclusion Principle,” (_Science_, Vol. 131, No. 3409, April
1960); G. Lefrou’s _Le Noir D’Afrique_ (Payot, 106 Boul. St. Germain,
Paris, 1943); Georges A. Heuse’s _Biologie du Noir_ (Les Editions
Problemes d’Afrique Centrale, 34 Rue de Stassart, Brussels, 1957); and
J. Millot’s _Biologie des Races Humaines_, (Librairie Armand Colin,
103 Boul. Saint-Michel, Paris, 1952). The latter books are by European
experts of impeccable standing and are considered authoritative by
our leading American physical anthropologists. They thoroughly unmask
the equalitarian environmentalist doctrine of race. Professor Millot,
one of France’s two leading anthropologists, warns against racism in
the Nazi sense, as well he may, and he makes the same point about the
superiority of occasional individuals that I make in answering the
question on page 42. He is also at pains to emphasize those faculties
of sensory perception, imagination and rhythm in which the Negro
surpasses the white man. He makes clear that ... “The deficiency of
the Black appears principally in logical reasoning, in judgment or
the capacity to define and analyze with precision, in adaptation to
new situations and in the capacity for abstraction. This inferiority
seems to result in large part from a precocious arresting of cerebral
development.”
Dr. Lefrou’s book carries an introduction by Professor H. V. Vallois,
France’s leading anthropologist and head of the Museum of Man. In this
introduction Vallois remarks that Lefrou’s work “rests on a solid
documentation supported by a sure critique,” which gives special
interest to Lefrou’s quotation from Cureau: “There are two quite
distinct stages in the intellectual life of the Negro. As a child he
is amiable, gentle, gracious, spontaneous and docile. He appears very
precocious, more precocious by all odds than the great majority of
European children. He understands and easily assimilates many things.
At the date of puberty a radical metamorphosis takes place. A sharp
arresting of development occurs and even a slight regression. The
intellectual progress of the Negro is rapid during the first ten or
twelve years, next it slows down, becomes stationary, then proceeds
slowly, diminishing during some fifteen years. Finally a rapid
enfeeblement occurs.”
A caution in regard to Nathaniel Weyl’s book is advisable here. It
will be noted that on page 246 he belittles the evils of race-mixing,
but the cases which he cites are not mixtures of whites and Negroes.
On page 244, having suggested that the mulatto is not inferior to the
Negro, he uses this as a defense of miscegenation, disregarding its
effect upon the white side of the equation. On page 245 he examines
and minimizes the effect of the lowering of the I.Q. of the nation as
a whole should all Negroes be absorbed, disregarding the fact that the
large majority of Negroes are concentrated in the South. It would seem
self-evident that Mr. Weyl is reluctant, for certain of the reasons I
have already mentioned, to draw the inevitable political conclusions
from his own research. His courage in stating the scientific
conclusions is commendable.
[9] Adherents of the “isolation” defense for the Negro may be
interested in Kroeber’s comment in a later section of his book: “All in
all, Negro Africa lies open enough to the main Eurasian centers to have
presumably experienced a slow cultural ‘bombardment’ that constantly
mingled new traits with old, foreign with acclimated, and acclimated
elements with those indigenously evolved. Through the centuries and
millennia, everything got worked over until it took on the native local
color.”
[10] For an analysis of the derivation of the “equality” phrase in the
Declaration of Independence, see R. Carter Pittman, “Equality Versus
Liberty,” _American Bar Association Journal_, Vol. 46, No. 8, August
1960.
[11] Stuart Cloete, the noted writer on African affairs, has this
to say about conditions in the Congo: “I have yet to meet more than
a handful of Africans who wanted to work. There are a few, but so
few that they can be considered non-existent.... There is no desire
to succeed here--only an unearned claim for equality with nations
that have spent millennia climbing out of barbarism. The African is
still in an infantile stage of violence. He cannot think, argue or
rationalize. His answer to any problem is the spear, the club or the
witch doctor.... Like a delinquent, the Congo out of control will have
to be institutionalized.... It is we who are going to foot the bill
for rehabilitation. The flood of dollars has already begun. It will be
interesting to see into whose pockets it flows since most of the money
spent by the United Nations will come from us. It is we who will pay
the piper and yet not call the tune.”
In regard to other Negro states, Mr. Cloete writes: “Without white
direction and control he [the Negro] can do nothing. There are no
African achievements. Ghana is believed to be running on an even keel,
but if the white man left Ghana it, too, would collapse. Liberia is
supported by Firestone and the Bona Hills iron mines. Haiti is always
in distress; Abyssinia, dependent on white enterprise.”
[12] This term is subject to many interpretations. I use it in the
broadest sense of that morality and those principles which are based
upon the Christian religion as it has been interpreted by the vast
majority of the English-speaking peoples. Individualism, thrift,
earning and deserving--these are a few of the concepts I would include
under the term, but these are not to be extended to cover their
caricatures in greed, parsimony and selfishness.
[13] For a provocative study of the effect of cultural mixing
throughout history, and the initial deterioration that can be expected
from it, see J. M. Radzinski “The American Melting Pot: Its Meaning to
Us,” _American Journal of Psychiatry_, Vol. 115, No. 10, April 1959.
Dr. Radzinski says in part: “The immigration of many millions of people
into the U.S.A., _particularly during the past 80 years_, [Emphasis
mine: this was the period of immigration of non-English speaking
peoples in the sense this term is used in my answer on page 47] has
brought together here the greatest assortment of ethnic stocks in the
world and probably in history. If the lessons of European experience
have any meaning, such a conglomeration of racial and ethnic elements
renders a serious cultural decline inevitable. Symptoms of the decline
are already apparent in the deteriorating state of some aspects of our
culture, in the irresoluteness and confusion of our national leaders
and in the virulence of frank antisocial behavior among our people
far in excess of that encountered in west European countries, Canada
and Australia.... Today, in excessive homicide, treason, juvenile
delinquency and other crimes with their tremendous cost in suffering
and treasure, we are paying the price for our reckless generosity to
peoples of other lands.”
[14] Somewhat the same situation occurred in the South, although to a
lesser degree because in the South discerning youth had always before
it the reality of the Negro.
[15] Consider also the experience of Mr. Robert as cited by Albert
Schweitzer in my answer on page 76: “With his abandonment of the social
interval between white and black he lost all his influence.”
[16] Blood group studies made during World War II reveal that the
composite American Negro, if such a person could be put together from
an average taken of gene make-up in the country as a whole, would be
28% white. This does not mean, as some people suppose, that 28% of the
Negro population are mixed-bloods. It means that if all American Negro
blood could be put into a common pool it would contain 28% white, 72%
Negro, genes. Tests by specific areas have not been made. Observation,
however, indicates a substantially higher white ratio in the North, and
a correspondingly lower ratio in the South.
[17] I by no means intend to suggest that all college professors or all
churchmen are consciously either equalitarians or communists. I believe
many, not all, are equalitarian without realizing the implications of
their teaching; very few are conscious communists.
[18] I wish again to emphasize here what I said in the last two
paragraphs of the answer ending on page 48.
[19] It seems to be a favorite technique of equalitarian cartoonists to
depict the hillbilly Southerner as the last run of shad in stupidity
and depravity. I suggest to these cartoonists that they take one ride
in a New York subway.
+Chapter IV+
CONCLUSION
With these answers, as of the end of 1960, I was prepared to rest my
case. Reviewing the letters and the replies, there seemed little left
to say. In fact, current events, in both the domestic and foreign
field, were daily confirming the principles involved.
Unquestionably a major common denominator of fallacy in the many-sided
equalitarian ideology was the suppression of the truth concerning the
genetic foundation of life. We saw this truth around us every day, in
the color of our children’s eyes, in the structure of their bones, in
the cast of their countenances, in the qualities of mind and heart that
paralleled these elements, yet trance-like we clung to the belief that
it did not exist. We had every reason to understand that equalitarian
scientists would attempt to suppress it, that the equalitarian virus
must strike here, if nowhere else, to bring its victims down. Yet in
the vogue of the times, the left-wing drift at home, the growth of
socialism in Europe, the success of communism in the East, we dropped
our guard, lost our discernment, and succumbed.
The fallacy was serious enough in the private world of the individual.
It was doubly serious in the world of race. Here blindness moved to
the final follies in Little Rock and Leopoldville. Genetic racial
limitations should have been as clear as crystal. All history taught
it. All free science confirmed it. Few but a patently self-serving
minority of trained investigators contested it. Yet the leading nation
of the free world embraced the fallacy, used its influence in foreign
affairs in support of it, and corrupted its own people in its name.
Tragic as this was, there was a related tragedy that disturbed me fully
as much. I had observed the slow erosion by the equalitarian ideology
of the minds of otherwise sensible men and women until, while still
conceding the fallacy to be a fallacy, they sought escape for their
consciences in compromise and appeasement. The cry of “it’s-too-late”
re-echoed from these defeatists like a knell. I asked myself how far
this might be due to a deterioration of the native spirit which founded
the nation, and I could only conclude that the explanation lay rather
on the borders of the hypnosis. These people were not fully “under”;
they were in a half-stupor on the edge. They were sound at heart but
slipping into the sleep. I could only say to such victims, “Remember
the words of Jesus: ‘You will know the truth and the truth will make
you free.’ Neither you, nor the Negro, nor the nation, nor the world
will find freedom or peace or security in fallacies.”
Or upon hearing the alternate cry, “But what can we do?” I could
only remind the wringers of hands that the answer to that question
comes solely to men who have set their faces toward the truth. There
are certain journeys on which one is not given, at the start, to see
the end. One asks “Which is the path?” and as one walks, the way is
revealed. I could give to these a more recent text than the Bible. I
could quote the first President of the United States: “Let us erect a
standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The event is in the
hands of God.”
However, a rightful emphasis upon genetic foundations could never
preclude an equally rightful emphasis upon environment, and I wondered
as I completed my answers whether I had made my position on this
point plain. No tendency in human nature is more unfortunate than
the tendency to swing from one extreme to another. With the decline
of feudal society and the onset of the industrial revolution, men of
good will had found themselves first hopeful, then doubtful, then
despairing. One form of bondage seemed only to yield to another. Man’s
exploitation of man continued in new forms. In Europe the new protest
took shape in the extremes of Marxism and communism; in America,
ameliorated temporarily by the frontier, in the lesser evils of a
society increasingly government oriented. Controls that were initiated
to curb license were extended to curb liberty. Equality of opportunity,
a most precious and characteristically American ideal, was extended
to embrace social, cultural and genetic equality. Error had used the
door of pity to enter both our minds and hearts. Environment had been
counted upon to accomplish everything, and in the process the general
environment had, perforce, declined.
Must I then urge, or seem to urge, a swing toward an exclusively
genetic emphasis? Must I be held to condone inferior schools, slums,
unnecessary segregation in non-social situations, and humiliating
attitudes toward the Negro? Prayerfully not. For every ounce of
emphasis on heredity, I favored precisely an ounce of emphasis on
environment, provided it were an environment, for white and black
alike, which contained inducements to self-reliance rather than to
government dependence, and to the earning of status rather than to a
presumption of title. Only the raw material was genetic. It determined
the limits. What was built within those limits depended on the
environment. Good raw material, with nothing built, yielded nothing.
Limited raw material with careful building might yield much. There was
no denying that the vital force in the soul of a man needed challenge.
The distinction that had to be drawn was between the challenge and the
millstone.
The environment had indeed declined in its inspirational values,
conformity had replaced initiative, security had eclipsed enterprise.
It was impossible forever to glorify the underdog without in the end
glorifying too much of what the underdog stood for, just as one could
not incessantly disparage distinction without in the end destroying
excellence. But a vast task remained in creating an inspirational
environment for those willing and able to benefit from it. Social
justice in such an environment was harder to achieve than social
security.
In the case of the Negro it was imperative to remember, in the words of
the great French anthropologist Millot, that the limitation was “one
of degree and not of nature”. The essential humanity in the Negro must
never be forgotten. Cooperation, the bonds of loyalty and affection,
in their appropriate spheres, were wholly natural and desirable. It
was worth recalling the words of Booker T. Washington, “In all things
purely social we can be separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in
all things essential to mutual progress”. The ideal of racial integrity
did not preclude the ideal of a common humanity. Men of good will, both
North and South, both black and white, had always known this. Save
for the intrusion of alien influences, they would have continued the
progress that had already exceeded any made before.
The Negro in his heart was fully aware of his debt. Since he did not
wish to return to Africa, he had the duty to remember, as did all
those who were enjoying the blessing of American life, that it had
flowered from the blood, the intelligence and the character of men long
schooled and experienced in the responsibilities of freedom. If the
Negro wished to share in its benefits, let him not undertake to destroy
their source, nor to be made a tool by white men of alien background
and design.
The man with the heaviest burden to carry, the man who could do the
most harm and also the most good--the man who must choose between
avenging or redeeming a past beyond his control--was the mixed-blood.
To him, every white man of good will owed a particular obligation.
No class of our citizens were entitled to higher respect than those
mulattoes who chose to redeem the past, just as none were to be more
shunned than those who chose to avenge it. In the North there were
untold numbers who had the alternative. There were many in the South.
Wherever they were and in whatever degree their ability and character
deserved, let white men open the door of opportunity to them with a
special sympathy. Even for them, the white man could not, if he were
wise, deny the genetic truth. But he could lighten the burden.
The mulatto who was bent on making the nation mulatto was the real
danger. His alliance with the white equalitarian often combined men
who had nothing in common save a belief that they had a grudge against
society. They regarded every Southerner who sensed the genetic truth
as a bigot and used every tactic of deceit and every balance-of-power
position to teach and vote a genetic fallacy. Here were the men who
needed to be reminded of the debt the Negro owed to white civilization.
If Africans were to be brought to America to observe and learn, let
such mulattoes be taken to the Congo to observe and learn.
Even here, however, I could not urge a spirit of hostility.
Steadfastness against false teachings, but understanding of how such
teachings were motivated, was imperative. A little imagination sufficed
to recognize the difficulties and temptations, even of the avengers.
Firmness was not incompatible with compassion.
As I shuffled the last of these pages on my desk, an October afternoon
was ending and, at the country place where I live, the fall air
was scented with the smoke of burning leaves. There is always in
our American autumn, it seems to me, a quality of appraisal and
rededication, and on this afternoon I felt how much we needed an
inventory of the values that had made us great. Minority groups, coming
to us for asylum out of centuries of failure in the struggle for
freedom, clamored to dilute those values, but their voices only made
the more necessary our own recommitment. I could only repeat: To alter
the foundations on which a house is built is a doubtful way to preserve
it. Let us continue building, let us extend the foundations, but let us
not change rock to sand.
INDEX
A
Abyssinia, 81n
Africa, climate of, 24-5, 45;
Negro in, 7, 24-5, 30, 36, 42-5, 47, 51n, 53-4, 75-7, 79-81, 90-1,
98, 117
Ahlgren, Frank, 5
Algonquins, 46
_Alice in Wonderland_, 59
Allier, Raoul, 44
Alps, 24
Amendment. _See_ Fourteenth Amendment; Prohibition.
_American Anthropologist_, 51n
_American Bar Association Journal_, 60n
American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born, 18n
_American Commonwealth_, 7, 98
_American Dilemma_, 22-3, 62, 72, 74, 108, 111
_American Journal of Psychiatry_, 85n
“American Melting Pot, The”, 85n
American Peace Crusade, 18n
American revolution, 76, 79
Anderson, S.C., _Herald_, 89
Anthropologists, 21-4, 34, 49-52, 54
Anthropology, 15-16, 18, 22, 25, 35, 40, 47, 49-52, 71, 108
Appeasement of evil, 23, 83, 103, 106
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 43
Arabs, 25, 43
Arrogance, 6, 82
Arthur, King, 45
Athletics and intelligence, 7, 59
Attorney General Rogers, 11, 17-19, 21, 29, 30;
letter to, 21
Authority, 76, 82, 106
Average, term distinguished from “frequency”, 36n
Aztecs, 14
B
Baldwin, William W., 44n
Barbarians, white, 24, 43-4
Belafonte, Harry, 92
Beowulf, 43
Beria, 75
Bible, 8, 115
Bigman, Stanley, 91
Bigots, 95-6
_Biologie du Noir_, 51n
_Biologie des Races Humaines_, 51n
Birds of a feather, 70
Birmingham _Post Herald_, 11
Blackmail, 9
Blood group studies, 92n
Blood transfusions, 50
Boas, Franz, 18, 20, 23-7, 47-50, 70, 108, 109
Bombings, 113
Boutwell, Albert, 12
Brain, human, 23, 41, 53-4
_Brain and Intelligence_, 41
British civilization, 41, 44-6
Brotherhood, 70
_Brown vs. Board of Education_, 26, 108
Bryce, James, 7, 15, 98-9
Buffalo _News_, 14
Bunche, Ralph, 92
C
Cain, 27
Canary, 59
Cannibalism, 44
Cantor, Eddie, 38
Carburetor, social, 84
Carnegie Foundation, 74, 111
Carothers, J. C., 53
Carver, G. W., 92, 95
Caucasoid, _See_ Whites.
Change, 4, 77, 96-7, 108, 109
Character and Intelligence, 7, 23, 30, 58-9
Charity, 16.
_See also_ Kindness.
Charleston _News and Courier_, 29
Chatham, Ontario, Canada, 25
Children, most defenseless element in community, 90-1;
willing to integrate, 66
Chinese, 26, 45, 81, 103
Christ, 67-8, 70, 83, 102, 113
Christian country, U.S. founded as, 104
Christian religion, 8, 15, 17, 67-70, 85n, 102-3
Christophe, Emperor, 45
Citizens, second class, 94
Civilization, Algonquin, 46;
British, 41, 44-6;
development of, 24, 27, 41, 44-5;
Mayan, 46;
Roman, 24, 27, 45;
of South, 27, 37, 85, 107;
white capacity for, 7, 27, 41, 44-5, 78-9, 93, 105;
white, at worst, 42-3, 56.
_See also_ Negro.
Civil War, 36, 85, 97, 98
Clay, Henry, 62
Climate, 24-5, 27, 45, 46
Clock, turning back, 97
Cloete, Stuart, 80n
Colonialism, 76, 80
Columbia University, 18, 23
Communism, 15-16, 70, 73-5, 83, 88
Compassion, 67, 103, 117.
_See also_ Kindness.
“_Competitive Exclusion Principle, The_,” 51n
Congo, 7, 24, 80
Connolly, Cornelius, J., 41
Constitution, U.S., attacked by Myrdal, 22;
change of, intended to be difficult, 109;
our national charter, 61, 100
Constitutions, world wide, and equality clause, 61
Contagious diseases, segregated, 65
_Contemporary Review_, 68
Convention, Constitutional, of 1787, 22, 60
Court, white girl not presented at, 63
Crossings, in breeding, 59
Crucifixions, Negro, 88
Cultural mixing, 85, 97, 106-7
Culture, related to race, 27
Customs, local, 6, 21
D
Dabney, Virginius, 4-5, 9-10, 12, 30
Dahomey, 44
_Daily Worker_, 18n
Davidson, Basil, 43-4
Declaration of Independence, 60-1
De la Mare, Walter, 69
Delinquency, juvenile, 82-3, 85n, 106
Democracy, abroad, 75, 78;
American, 15, 60, 81, 104.
_See also_ Freedom; Liberty.
Desegregation, distinguished from integration, 93-4;
and equality of opportunity, 62;
in social and non-social situations, 99;
Supreme Court decision on, 1, 4, 16, 21-22, 29, 62, 99-100, 106,
108-110, 112.
_See also_ Integration; Segregation.
Deserve. _See_ Earn-deserve concept.
Deterioration, and cultural mixing, 85n, 107;
spreads rapidly, 71
Dickens, Charles, 26, 70
Dignity, human, 94