DURING the last year the deepseated prejudice of the Whites of the Southern States of America toward the Negro has been more in evidence than at any time since the years immediately following the Civil War, when the Ku Klux held the former slave States in its grip and defied the power of the Federal Government. For a year past the crimes of the Whites against the Blacks have been unparalleled in their ferocity and wantonness. The South no longer pretends even to tolerate the Negro; its public men and its newspapers make no concealment of their feelings. General Butler, formerly United States Senator from South Carolina, has publicly asserted that the only solution of the race-problem is for the Negroes to be segregated from the Whites; in North Carolina an attempt is now being made to disfranchise the Negro voters; in Eastern Texas and South-western Louisiana the Negro, by the aid of the everpresent shot-gun, is being gradually driven out of the rural districts and forced to huddle in the cities. This wide-spread movement is so important in its consequences as affecting the relations between the two races that it has naturally attracted the most serious consideration from legislators as well as humanitarians.

The ques

tion leads to a discussion of so many interesting sociological, economic, and political problems that the consideration of the two races in the South, at the time when the United States is about still further to increase its coloured population by the acquisition

No. 486.-VOL. LXXXI.

of colonies where the coloured race predominates, may not be inoppor

tune.

In the Southern States,-in fact throughout the Union, though it is only in the Southern States that the coloured vote is a factor-the Negro, with few exceptions, is a Republican. He owes his freedom to the Republican party, his slavery was made possible by Democratic ascendancy; it is therefore natural that he should show his gratitude by voting for the Republicans. Hence the Republican party in the South has come to be known as the Black Man's party, the party of the Negro. The Democratic party of the South is the White Man's party, the party of respectability, of culture, of traditions; it is l'ancienne noblesse which remembers the time when Black Men were chattels and might be treated according to the whim of the moment. has never reconciled itself to the new order of things, to the revolution which made a Black Man the equal of the White in the eyes of the law, which permitted him to make laws for the White, often his former owner or the son of the man who bought or sold him. In the North it has been possible, it has often happened, for men to forget party to defend or sustain a principle; in the South this has been impossible. The line of cleavage has been sharply drawn. The Whites allied themselves against the Blacks; the fear of Negro domination has been the Democratic jehad which when preached has always been successful. This fear, real or assumed, solidified the South and

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It

made it regarded as invulnerable to Republican assault.

The White Man of the South asserts that the Negro is a menace to the home and the honour of women; that is his palliation for the lynching of the Negro. The highest duty of man, he contends, is to protect women, and when the Negro transgresses he invites his death; but to make the death more horrible, to serve as a warning to his race, it must be summary vengeance; it must be death with all its terrors, death usually at the scene of the crime and before the criminal has time for repentance. The law is too slow, too cumbersome, too doubtful to be trusted; only Judge Lynch can be relied upon, and Judge Lynch is always a hanging judge and would make Bloody Jeffreys blush for very shame. Another argument used by the Southerner in extenuation of his conduct is that manhood-suffrage having made the vicious and ignorant Negro the political equal of the virtuous and highly civilised White, it is repulsive that the Black Man shall rule and govern and make laws for the Whites. It was asserted by the Democratic speakers and newspapers during the last campaign in North Carolina that the States were being Negroised and in danger of being dominated by the Blacks; this was the only excuse the Whites gave for their determination not to permit the Negroes to vote, the same excuse which the South has always offered when it condescends to defend a Negro massacre. But it is inconceivable that a minority can dominate a majority; it is still more inconceivable that an uneducated, timorous, poor, and leaderless minority is a menace to a majority claiming to possess education and courage, with money sufficient to carry out its plans, and in control of troops, police, and

other governmental agencies. A few figures from the last census answers the repeated assertion that the Whites of the South are in danger of being swamped by the Blacks.

At the last census (1890) the population of the United States was 62,622,250, of which 54,983,890, or 87.80 per cent. were white, and 7,470,040, or 11.93 per cent. were coloured. The difference in the total (27 per cent.) consists of Japanese, Chinese and Indians, generically grouped as coloured but not entering into present calculations. For census purposes the Union was divided into five great divisions. In the South Atlantic division were the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia; in the South Central division the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Practically the entire coloured population was in these two divisions. The population of the South Atlantic division was 8,857,920, of which 5,592,149, or 63.13 per cent. were white and 3,265,771, or 36.83 per cent. black. In the South Central division were 10,972,893 souls, 7,487,576 white and 3,485,317 black, the percentage being 68.24 and 3171. These figures are interesting when compared with those of the previous census. In 1880 the Whites were 86.54 per cent. of the entire population as against 87.80 per cent. ten years later; the Blacks were 13 12 per cent. in 1880 and only 11.93 per cent. in 1890. Numerically the Blacks had increased from 6,580,793 in 1880 to 7,470,040 in 1890, but their fecundity was smaller in proportion to that of the Whites. In the last hundred years the Whites have increased from 80.73 per cent. to 87.80 per cent. ; the coloured have decreased from 19.27 per cent. to 11.93 per cent. "The proportion of

the coloured element," the superintendent of the census said, "is to-day less than two thirds what it was at the beginning of the century." From 1880 to 1890 the Whites in the South Atlantic division increased 20.16 per cent., the Blacks 10.93 per cent.; in the South Central division the former increased 26.88 per cent., the latter 15:49 per cent. In the South Atlantic division the white males of voting age were 1,338,368, against 677,210 black; in the South Central division 1,773,347 white white against 739,357 black. In three States, -South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi -the Blacks exceed the Whites. The population of North Carolina is 1,617,947, of which 1,055,382 are white and 562,565 coloured.

These figures ought to be convincing. They show that not only is the White Man numerically superior, but that while he increases about twentyfive per cent. in ten years the increase of the black race is only about one half of that figure. Governor Russell of North Carolina is the authority for the statement that in a legislature composed of one hundred and seventy members only eleven were coloured; for every seventy white voters there are thirty coloured.

A short explanation of the way in which an electoral campaign is conducted in a Southern State will show how the Whites maintain their supremacy and make a farce of a free ballot. In 1896, the year of the débâcle in American politics, North Carolina elected a Republican governor, for the first time in nearly thirty years, and simultaneously a legislature which returned a Republican to the United States Senate. A Republican governor and a Republican legislature, being politicians, did what politicians are always expected to do in the United States,-they rewarded

their political followers by appointing them to office. Negroes were given places in the gift of the State administration; President McKinley appointed Negroes to Federal offices. The Democrats raised a cry of Negro domination, and at a mass meeting held a few days before the election presented this indictment:

In many of the counties, cities, and towns the local governments have been turned over wholly or in part to the Negro. In these counties, cities, and towns Negroes may be found holding the offices of Register of Deeds, Deputythe Sheriffs, Constables, Justices of Peace, school-committeemen, and the like. In several other counties many of these offices are filled by Negroes, and many of the post-offices are filled by them. There are now in office in counties and towns in Eastern North Carolina nearly one thousand Negroes, there being nearly three hundred Negro magistrates alone. As a consequence of turning these local offices over to the Negroes, bad government has followed, homes have been invaded, and the sanctity of women endangered. Conditions have become so intolerable in these communities that they can no longer be tolerated or endured.

We have contemplated no violence, but we are determined to use all proper means to free ourselves of this Negro domination, which is paralysing our business and which hangs like a dark cloud over our homes. We declare it is not our purpose to do the Negro any harm. It is better for him, as well as for us, that the White Man shall govern, but while we propose to protect and encourage him in all his rights and duties of citizenship, we affirm that North Carolina shall not be Negroised.

Very concisely the Whites had stated the issue: North Carolina shall not be Negroised. This was the only issue in the campaign. The foreign policy of the Government, the tariff, the currency were all lost sight of; Whites might divide on these questions, but on the question of white domination there could be no division. This was not the first time the

Whites had announced their decision to end Negro domination, and the Negroes knew what it portended. It was an open challenge to any Negro to vote for the Republican party at his peril, to take his life in his hands if he attempted to exercise the right of suffrage granted him by the constitution.

The Democratic threat that the

coloured men should not be permitted to vote was made good. In Wilmington, a prosperous town of about twenty-five thousand inhabitants, the most extraordinary measures were adopted. The city was divided by the Whites into districts, each in command of a lieutenant, a captain being in command of six lieutenants. Each district had its armed force, each district had its place of refuge to which the women and children were to fly when the expected (and carefully planned) race-war broke out; two thousand Winchester rifles, it was said on good authority, were distributed among private residences; in the armoury of the local militia was a new Gatling gun. All these ominous preparations pointed to the determination of the Whites to supthe Negro In Negro vote. press the language of a newspaper writer not unfriendly to the Whites, to say the least: "If the Negroes vote on election day they will do SO at the peril of their lives.

The outlook is that they [the Negroes] will stay at home on election-day, and the White Man's ticket will be triumphant. Not because the White Men are in the majority, but because none but White Men will be allowed to vote." With passions aroused and public sentiment inflamed the Whites were getting ready to use the Winchester rifles and Gatling guns. A few newspaper extracts written

during the week before the election show better than anything else the lengths to which the Whites were prepared to go.

The newspapers [writes the correspondent of a Northern paper] collect and print in large black type every case of attempted outrage by Negro men upon white women, and then appeal to the White Men of the State to rise in their might and vote against every candidate who consorts with a Negro. Affidavits from Northern Republicans who have become Democrats through disgust with the Negro fill many columns. Letters are printed from farmers' wives, who pray white voters to save them from ruin, and items connecting Negroes with all manner of crimes are given daily prominence. The utterances of Republican campaigners which tend to intensify the feelings are published in double column, with display-type headings. In one particular instance the stump speaker is credited with having told the Negroes that they were the best race of people on earth, and advised them to throw their arms around white girls. Accord ing to the printed account, the orator was met by three hundred of "our most determined citizens," compelled to stand up in his buggy and retract, and then driven out of town with short shrift.

In the meantime, the excitement is kept at fever heat by the newspapers, which print little or nothing that does not relate to the race-war. Especial prominence is given to items of which the following headlines are fair examples: Estimable Lady Grossly Insulted by a Black Negro; An Imper. tinent Negro puts in his Lip and Narrowly escapes being Roughly Handled; Black Scoundrel Assaults a White Man; Negro Youths Assault and Rob a Venerable and HighlyEsteemed Citizen on a Principal Street; Insolent Negroes Parade, Arm Them selves, and March through the Streets of Wilmington. Every one of these headlines is taken from a single issue of a daily paper in Raleigh.

In the same issue is a dispatch which tells how a young Negro ran off with a white woman. He was caught by a mob and disappeared before he reached the next town. 66 Although his fate is shrouded in mystery," writes the laconic

correspondent, with almost sardonic humour, "it is believed that he has been lynched."

the

Dozens of similar extracts might be given, but enough has been printed to show that the Democratic leaders, men of wealth and standing, supposed to be respectable and moral, were working night and day to inflame the passions of their followers, preaching murder and willing to become murderers to prevent the Negroes from voting. Contrary to expectation the election passed off quietly and resulted in a Democratic victory. On following day the expected race-war broke out; a dozen or more Negroes were murdered, twice as many badly wounded; not a single White Man was killed. Wilmington was given over to anarchy. The mayor, the chief of police, the Negro aldermen, in fact, all the Republican officials, were forced to resign their offices and white Democrats assumed them. White supremacy had triumphed.

So much for the past; what of the future of the two races? Before proceeding to an examination of that question it may be necessary to consider the causes which lead the Whites to believe they are justified in keeping the Blacks in a state of subjection. It has already been said that the former maintain that it is an inversion of natural laws for a superior and highly civilised race to become subject to an inferior race still wearing the shackles of slavery. The Negro, according to his white accuser, is lazy, thriftless, unfit to govern himself and therefore totally unfit to govern others, undisciplined, brutal; a beast with all the unrestrained passions of a beast, whose very presence is a menace to his white neighbour, especially to white women. It has been shown that, inasmuch as the Whites are numerically in the majority, the fear of Negro domina

tion is a phantom only. Of the other accusations brought against the Negro, accusations affecting his character morally, intellectually, and industrially, it may be conceded that they are true, although exaggerated. The Negro is not all bad, and for much of his badness he may thank his associations. As a slave the Negro learned nothing from his Southern master except the lesson of unrestrained passion, of cruelty, of depravity, of the triumph of material over moral forces. As a freeman he has learned to despise and fear his former master because he is both despised and feared by him; he has learned that he is of an inferior race whose rights the superior race will ignore and violate on every occasion; neither by precept nor example has he profited. Little as the Negro has to thank the Southerner, still less has the Southern White to feel any gratitude to the Negro. The real curse of slavery is only now at this late day being understood, and, as usual, the third and fourth generations are paying for the sins of the first. The South is morally and intellectually inferior to the North, and this inferiority, I believe, is directly attributable to the fact that the South from the time of the Confederation until the Civil War was denied what has been the sal

vation of every other race, the strengthening of the upper classes by intermarriage with the peasantry. Races die at the top and need to be fed from the bottom, from men and women who actually spring from the soil.

The human race can no more live without contact with Mother Earth than can trees or flowers. What perhaps more than anything else has made the Englishman and the American of the Northern States the virile, energetic, hardy man he is, is the constant mingling of the blood